The impacts of environmental noise on the academic achievements of secondary school students in Greater London

Previous studies on the detrimental impact of chronic external noise upon the academic performance of school children were normally based on sampled school sites, and the results were often limited to a specific range of areas. The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationships between environmental noise levels of secondary schools in Greater London and a set of academic achievement factors, and also, to determine the noise exposure of secondary schools. Four academic achievement indicators were considered and five noise indicators were obtained after processing noise map data. It has been shown that the environmental noise levels of secondary schools in Greater London have almost no significant relationships with those academic achievement indicators. As expected, the secondary schools in Inner London are noisier than those in Outer London. The average difference is calculated as 2 dBA.     

Investigation of Chinese word recognition scores of children in primary school classroom with different speech sound pressure levels

Chinese word recognition (CWR) test was conducted by grades 3 and 5 children under the different conditions of reverberation time (RT), background noise level (BNL) and speech sound pressure level (SSPL) in three primary-school classrooms. The CWR scores and signal to noise ratios (SNRs) have been obtained at listening positions. Results show that the CWR score for grades 3 and 5 children increases with increase of SSPL, decrease of RT or increase of age, but it decreases with increase of BNL under the same conditions. For a mixed noise of 56 dBA (speech-spectrum-like noise and ambient noise), the CWR scores in the classroom for grades 3 and 5 children reach a peak at SNR of 15–20 dBA under the same RT and age of children condition. For the natural ambient noise, the CWR score for grades 3 and 5 children gradually increases with increase of the SNR. The high SSPL could not guarantee good CWR for children in classroom, which also depends on RT and BNL in classroom. When the classroom has long RT or high BNL, the increase of SSPL would not be necessarily to achieve better CWR. The novelty of the present study is to further evaluate and confirm the results under environments of real classrooms (not simulated room in laboratory).     

交通噪声对中小学生课堂行为的影响

一些调查结果表明,城市中的中小学校受环境噪声的干扰严重,尤其是交通噪声。我们对不同噪声级(40至70dBA)下学生课堂行为作了一系列的心理学实验,和汉语清晰度测验。所得结果经单因子方差分析和t检验来考核(用高级统计软件RDAS)不同结果之间差异的显著性,从而可得出当噪声级L_eq超过50dBA,或是L₁₀>55dBA,L₅₀>50dBA时,学生课堂行为会出现显著性差异(P<0.05)。另外还利用RBAS软件进行了皮尔逊(简单)相关分析,了解到上述心理学实验各作业指标之间的相关性并不很大,说明大部分作业不能相互替代,选择这些作业是必要的。本研究结果表明,教室内最大容许噪声级定为L₁₀=55dBA,L₅₀=50dBA是合适的。     

城市居住环境噪声暴露的研究

1986年3月到8月,在北京的规划市区,用噪声自动测量仪器,按每1km²取一测点的原则,共对353个点的环境噪声进行了24小时的连续测量,得到了各测点每10分钟的L_eq值和L₅₀值.在测量的同时进行了社会调查,收集了与声环境有关的资料及其居民对噪声的反应.根据测量和调查所得数据,本文就环境噪声、影响环境噪声的主要因素及居民对噪声反应等问题进行讨论和分析。     

Experimental investigation of the effects of the acoustical conditions in a simulated classroom on speech recognition and learning in children

The potential effects of acoustical environment on speech understanding are especially important as children enter school where students' ability to hear and understand complex verbal information is critical to learning. However, this ability is compromised because of widely varied and unfavorable classroom acoustics. The extent to which unfavorable classroom acoustics affect children's performance on longer learning tasks is largely unknown as most research has focused on testing children using words, syllables, or sentences as stimuli. In the current study, a simulated classroom environment was used to measure comprehension performance of two classroom learning activities: a discussion and lecture. Comprehension performance was measured for groups of elementary-aged students in one of four environments with varied reverberation times and background noise levels. The reverberation time was either 0.6 or 1.5 s, and the signal-to-noise level was either +10 or +7 dB. Performance is compared to adult subjects as well as to sentence-recognition in the same condition. Significant differences were seen in comprehension scores as a function of age and condition; both increasing background noise and reverberation degraded performance in comprehension tasks compared to minimal differences in measures of sentence-recognition.     

The UK noise climate 1990-2001: population exposure and attitudes to environmental noise

During 1999-2001 the building research establishment (BRE) undertook a measurement based survey of environmental noise levels and a social survey of population attitudes to environmental noise in the UK. The surveys involved a total of 1160 24-h noise measurements at a sample of dwellings in the UK, and over 5500 in-depth interviews with a sample of the UK adult population. Both samples were of a clustered random design, and were representative of the UK population. The results of the surveys have been compared with those from similar surveys undertaken by BRE in 1990/1991 and are currently being used to help formulate a more strategic approach to the control of environmental noise both nationally and in London.     

房间出口位置及内部布局对疏散效率的影响研究

利用先前建立的元胞自动机人员疏散模型,考虑教室类房间内过道区域的影响因素,调整行人转移概率的计算规则,分析了教室不同出口位置、教室内不同布局情况下的疏散效率.结果表明,正对教室过道的出口对疏散是很有利的,教室正面边缘开口和侧面开口相比,宜在侧面开口,以减少行人运动过程中方向的变化,而教室正面中央开口虽然疏散效率最高,但这样的开口不现实;另外,当教室侧面开口时,紧靠出口墙壁侧的过道是必要的,当教室总容量不变时,应优先考虑过道分布的设计,过道的数目和单个过道宽度相比,过道数目对疏散效率的影响更显著,过道数量较多时,疏散效率较高.本文有望为教室内部布局和出口设置,以及影剧院、体育馆看台等类似建筑内座椅和过道的分布设计提供建议.     

The combined effects of reverberation and nonstationary noise on sentence intelligibility

Listening conditions in everyday life typically include a combination of reverberation and nonstationary background noise. It is well known that sentence intelligibility is adversely affected by these factors. To assess their combined effects, an approach is introduced which combines two methods of predicting speech intelligibility, the extended speech intelligibility index (ESII) and the speech transmission index. First, the effects of reverberation on nonstationary noise (i.e., reduction of masker modulations) and on speech modulations are evaluated separately. Subsequently, the ESII is applied to predict the speech reception threshold (SRT) in the masker with reduced modulations. To validate this approach, SRTs were measured for ten normal-hearing listeners, in various combinations of nonstationary noise and artificially created reverberation. After taking the characteristics of the speech corpus into account, results show that the approach accurately predicts SRTs in nonstationary noise and reverberation for normal-hearing listeners. Furthermore, it is shown that, when reverberation is present, the benefit from masker fluctuations may be substantially reduced.     

The effects of random noise on optically determined autocorrelation and chord functions

Global chord functions are good candidates for use in an autonomous shape recognition system because not only do they possess the valuable attributes of being practically invariant to scaling, translation and rotation but it is possible to determine them very rapidly, by the autocorrelation method, in a hybrid optical-digital system. A further aspect must however be examined before implementation in an operational system is considered; the robustness of the complete processing to random noise. In this paper the effects of additive uncorrelated noise in the input image on the autocorrelation and the resulting chord functions are addressed. It is shown that the whole process is quite robust. Most of the chord function structure is retained for signal to noise ratios of 2:1 and some is still present at 1:1.     

The impact of urban noise on primary schools. Perceptive evaluation and objective assessment

This paper aims to assess the impact of environmental noise in the vicinity of primary schools and to analyze its influence in the workplace and in student performance through perceptions and objective evaluation. The subjective evaluation consisted of the application of questionnaires to students and teachers, and the objective assessment consisted of measuring in situ noise levels. The survey covered nine classes located in three primary schools. Statistical Package for Social Sciences was used for data processing and to draw conclusions. Additionally, the relationship of the difference between environmental and background noise levels of each classroom and students with difficulties in hearing the teacher’s voice was examined. Noise levels in front of the school, the schoolyard, and the most noise-exposed classrooms (occupied and unoccupied) were measured. Indoor noise levels were much higher than World Health Organization (WHO) recommended values: L_Aeq,30min averaged 70.5 dB(A) in occupied classrooms, and 38.6 dB(A) in unoccupied ones. Measurements of indoor and outdoor noise suggest that noise from the outside (road, schoolyard) affects the background noise level in classrooms but in varying degrees. It was concluded that the façades most exposed to road traffic noise are subjected to values higher than 55.0 dB(A), and noise levels inside the classrooms are mainly due to the schoolyard, students, and the road traffic. The difference between background (L_A95,30min) and the equivalent noise levels (L_Aeq,30min) in occupied classrooms was 19.2 dB(A), which shows that students’ activities are a significant source of classroom noise.     

Evaluation and analysis of the environmental noise of Messina, Italy

In this paper, the results of a study on the environmental noise pollution of the city of Messina (Italy) are presented. The investigation has included a preliminary classification of the territory in six acoustically homogeneous areas according to Italian noise regulations. On the basis of the resultant acoustic zoning 35 sites were selected for an experimental survey. This last has been carried out by extensive measurements of the main indexes for noise pollution (L_eq, L₁, L₁₀, L₅₀, L₉₀, L₉₉) and of the traffic flow and composition. Results indicate that: (a) main roads of Messina are overloaded by traffic flow during day-time period and that in all the examined sites daily average sound levels due to road traffic exceed environmental standards by about 10 dBA; (b) environmental noise exhibits a certain degree of spatial variance resulting primarily from the peculiar geo-morphological structure of the town and from the transport infrastructure and (c) more than 25% of residents should be highly disturbed by road traffic noise.     

Influence of the environmental noise on determining the period of a torsion pendulum

The environmental noise can restrict the accuracy of period estimation since the torsion pendulum is sensitive to weak forces. Two typical models for the environmental noise are proposed to make an evaluation. Generally, the stationary environmental noise is modeled as a white noise, and contributes to the period uncertainty as a function of the initial amplitude, the quality factor, the variance of noise and the time length. As to a sudden sharp disturbance acting on the pendulum, a narrow impulse model is constructed. It results in a sharp jump in the phase difference, which can be excluded with the 3σ criterion for a correction. An experimental data analysis for the measurement of the gravitational constant G with the time-of-swing method shows that the period uncertainty due to the environmental noise is about one and a half times the fundamental thermal noise limit. Though this result is dependent on the ambient environment, the analysis is instructive to improve the measurement accuracy of experiments.     

用平均有效信息量评价环境噪声的尝试

本文认为噪声是一种声信息，因此，运用信息理论建立起了一种新的环境噪声评价量模式－平均有效信息量，通过实际应用，表明其能较地反映了环境噪声水平。     

Temporal sampling techniques for the measurement of environmental noise

The published information on the use of sampling techniques for the measurement of environmental noise is critically reviewed. Four applications of sampling techniques are discussed and used to illustrate how the further development of such techniques could aid future research and noise control initiatives.     

The variation of environmental noise outside six dwellings between three seasons

Measurements of environmental noise have been made at six sites for one-week periods in three seasons. The noise levels, expressed in six different indices, were shown to be highly correlated with each other. The ways in which the noise levels varied from day-to-day and season-to-season are discussed and at some sites the seasonal changes are shown to be significantly greater than the day-to-day changes. It is also shown that noise levels at quiet sites are more variable than at noisy sites. The implications of variability in noise levels on survey work are discussed, and it is concluded that the variability may be large enough to significantly affect the residual variance unless sites are successfully selected.     

External noise effects on the fluctuation line width

We calculate stationary state correlation functions of the anharmonic overdamped oscillator driven by multiplicative (white Gaussian) noise of strengthQ together with additive noise of relative strengthq. (i) We donot observe a particular slowing down at the so-called noise induced transition. But there is a region of the oscillator's stiffness parametera neara0 in which the decay time is typically enhanced. (ii) If the phase transition point is defined by the minimum of the decay rate, it lies within the ordered phasea>0 forq1 and shifts down toa=0 forq0. In our approximation it is even in the disordered regiona<0 for very smallq. (iii) As a function of the multiplicative noiseQ the decay ratedecreases with increasingQ if the system is well above or well below threshold. There seem to be experimental indications of this behavior. But within the proper threshold regime of smalla increasing noiseQ increases the decay rate. The valuesa _c where the cross-over occurs depend on the fluctuating variable and onq.