ASA Press Conferences Livestreamed from Chicago, May 9 #ASA184

Media invited to in-person and virtual presentations about communicating with artificial intelligence, listening to the world’s largest tree, achieving linguistic justice for African American English, making music from ocean data, and other topics.

CHICAGO, April 27, 2023 – The 184th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America will include three press conferences on Tuesday, May 9, in the Lakeville room of the Chicago Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile Hotel. The in-person presentations will also be livestreamed and recorded.

Topics will focus on a wide range of newsworthy sessions from the upcoming meeting, which runs May 8-12. This includes 3D-printing head simulators, tracking immune cells with ultrasound, investigating the impact of skin color on breast cancer diagnosis, mimicking insects to create miniature microphones, and locating leaks in water networks.

To register for in-person attendance, email media@aip.org. To watch the livestream virtually, please visit our registration page. Video recordings of the press conference sessions will be available upon request.

ASA Press Conference Schedule – Tuesday, May 9 (topics/times subject to change)

10:30 a.m. ET / 9:30 a.m. CT

Fighting Racial Bias in Next-Gen Breast Cancer Screening – Seonyeong Park, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Session 2pPA11 – Virtual imaging trials to investigate impact of skin color on three-dimensional optoacoustic tomography of the breast, Tuesday, May 9 at 5:15 p.m. CT

Fire Hydrant Hydrophones Find Water Leaks – Pranav Agrawal, University of California, Los Angeles
Session 4aSP10 – Maximum likelihood estimation for leak localization in water distribution networks using in-pipe acoustic sensing, Thursday, May 11 at 11:25 a.m. CT

Achieving Linguistic Justice for African American English – Yolanda F. Holt, East Carolina University
Session 3aSC7 – Kids talk too: Linguistic justice and child African American English, Wednesday, May 10 at 9:50 a.m. CT

A Cocktail Party of 3D-Printed Robot Heads – Manan Mittal, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Session 1aEA9– 3D-printed acoustic head simulators that talk and move, Monday, May 8 at 11:15 a.m. CT

1:30 p.m. ET / 12:30 p.m. CT

These Sounds Are Out of This World! – Timothy G. Leighton, University of Southampton, and Andi Petculescu, University of Louisiana at Lafayette
Session 4aPAa9 – What might we hear on other worlds? A free demonstration programme for planetaria, Thursday, May 11 at 11:00 a.m. CT

Small but Mighty: Insect-Inspired Microphones – Andrew Reid, University of Strathclyde
Session 3aEA1 – Unnatural hearing—3D printing functional polymers as a path to bio-inspired microphone design, Wednesday, May 10 at 9:05 a.m. CT

Microbubble Macrophages Track Tumors – Ashley Alva, Georgia Institute of Technology
Session 1aBAb11 – Tracking macrophages with ultrasound, Monday, May 8 at 11:15 a.m. CT

4:30 p.m. ET / 3:30 p.m. CT

Hey Siri, Can You Hear Me? – Georgia Zellou, University of California, Davis
Session 2aSC8 – Clear speech in the new digital era: Speaking and listening clearly to voice-AI systems, Tuesday, May 9 at 11:40 a.m. CT

Songs of the Oceans Raise Environmental Awareness – Colin Malloy, Ocean Network Canada
Session 3pMU5 – Sonification of ocean data in art-science, Wednesday, May 10 at 2:25 p.m. CT

Listening to the Largest Tree on Earth – Jeff Rice, sound artist
Session 3aABa7 – Beneath the tree: The sounds of a trembling giant, Wednesday, May 10 at 9:30 a.m. CT

###

For more information:
Ashley Piccone, AIP Media
+1 301-209-3090
media@aip.org

———————– MORE MEETING INFORMATION ———————–
Main meeting website: https://acousticalsociety.org/asa-meetings/
Technical program: https://eppro02.ativ.me/web/planner.php?id=ASASPRING23&proof=true

ASA PRESS ROOM
In the coming weeks, ASA’s Press Room will be updated with newsworthy stories and the press conference schedule at https://acoustics.org/asa-press-room/.

LAY LANGUAGE PAPERS
ASA will also share dozens of lay language papers about topics covered at the conference. Lay language papers are summaries (300-500 words) of presentations written by scientists for a general audience. They will be accompanied by photos, audio, and video. Learn more at https://acoustics.org/lay-language-papers/.

PRESS REGISTRATION
ASA will grant free registration to credentialed and professional freelance journalists. If you are a reporter and would like to attend the meeting or virtual press conferences, contact AIP Media Services at media@aip.org.  For urgent requests, AIP staff can also help with setting up interviews and obtaining images, sound clips, or background information.

ABOUT ASA
The Acoustical Society of America (ASA) is the premier international scientific society in acoustics devoted to the science and technology of sound. Its 7,000 members worldwide represent a broad spectrum of the study of acoustics. ASA publications include The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (the world’s leading journal on acoustics), JASA Express Letters, Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, Acoustics Today magazine, books, and standards on acoustics. The society also holds two major scientific meetings each year.

Lead Vocal Tracks in Popular Music Go Quiet

Lead Vocal Tracks in Popular Music Go Quiet

An analysis of top popular music from 1946 to 2020 shows a marked decrease in volume of the lead vocal track and differences across musical genres.

Estimated lead-to-accompaniment-ratio, LAR, for songs in five genres from 1990-2020. Purple circles correspond to solo artists and green squares to bands. Credit: Kai Siedenburg

WASHINGTON, April 25, 2023 – A general rule of music production involves mixing various soundtracks so the lead singer’s voice is in the foreground. But it is unclear how such track mixing – and closely related lyric intelligibility – has changed over the years.

Scientists from the University of Oldenburg in Germany carried out an analysis of hundreds of popular song recordings from 1946 to 2020 to determine…click to read more

From the Journal: JASA Express Letters
Article: Lead-vocal level in recordings of popular music 1946-2020
DOI: 10.1121/10.0017773

Acoustical Society of America Invites Media to Chicago Meeting, May 8-12

Hybrid meeting and livestreamed press conferences to feature fascinating advancements in science of sound #ASA184

CHICAGO, April 13, 2023 The Acoustical Society of America will hold its 184th meeting May 8-12 at the Chicago Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile Hotel. ASA184 will offer in-person and hybrid sessions throughout the week.

The scientific conference brings together acousticians, researchers, musicians, and more experts from around the world. While in Chicago, they will describe their work on topics that include measuring the calls of Puerto Rican coqui frogs, communicating with artificial intelligence, capturing the sounds of the stratosphere, simulating sounds on other planets, and ensuring linguistic justice by considering the unique aspects of African American English. Conference highlights can be found on social media by searching the #ASA184 hashtag.

Reporters are invited to attend in-person and hybrid sessions at no cost (registration details below).

Media are also encouraged to participate in a series of livestreamed press conferences featuring a selection of newsworthy sessions on Tuesday, May 9. Media may register to join the press conferences virtually or in person. Times and topics will be announced in the coming weeks, and journalists may pre-register here: https://live.webcastplatform.com/go/asa.  

——————— SAMPLING OF INTERESTING SESSIONS ——————–

  • 1pAB3 – Climate change drives frog call change in Puerto Rico: Predictions and implications.
  • 1aEA9 – 3D-printed acoustic head simulators that talk and move.
  • 2pPA11 – Virtual imaging trials to investigate impact of skin color on three-dimensional optoacoustic tomography of the breast.
  • 2aSC8 – Clear speech in the new digital era: Speaking and listening clearly to voice-AI systems.
  • 3aSC7 – Kids talk too: Linguistic justice and child African American English.
  • 3pMU5 – Sonification of ocean data in art-science.
  • 4aPAa9 – What might we hear on other worlds? A free demonstration programme for planetaria.
  • 4pEA2 – Capturing the sounds of the stratosphere using solar hot air balloons. 

More information on these and all other meeting sessions is available via ASA’s meeting page and in the technical program:

Main meeting website: https://acousticalsociety.org/asa-meetings/

Technical program: https://eppro02.ativ.me/web/planner.php?id=ASASPRING23&proof=true

———————– MORE MEETING INFORMATION ———————–

ASA PRESS ROOM
In the coming weeks, ASA’s Press Room will be updated with newsworthy stories and the press conference schedule at https://acoustics.org/asa-press-room/.

LAY LANGUAGE PAPERS
ASA will also share dozens of lay language papers about topics covered at the conference. Lay language papers are summaries (300-500 words) of presentations written by scientists for a general audience. They will be accompanied by photos, audio, and video. Learn more at https://acoustics.org/lay-language-papers/.

PRESS REGISTRATION
ASA will grant free registration to credentialed and professional freelance journalists. If you are a reporter and would like to attend the hybrid/in-person meeting or virtual press conferences, contact AIP Media Services at media@aip.org. For urgent requests, AIP staff can also help with setting up interviews and obtaining images, sound clips, or background information.

ABOUT THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
The Acoustical Society of America (ASA) is the premier international scientific society in acoustics devoted to the science and technology of sound. Its 7,000 members worldwide represent a broad spectrum of the study of acoustics. ASA publications include The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (the world’s leading journal on acoustics), JASA Express Letters, Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, Acoustics Today magazine, books, and standards on acoustics. The society also holds two major scientific meetings each year. See https://acousticalsociety.org/.

Vocal Tract Size, Shape Dictate Speech Sounds

Vocal Tract Size, Shape Dictate Speech Sounds

Main anatomical shape factors of the vocal tract. Credit: Antoine Serrurier

WASHINGTON, March 21, 2023 – Only humans have the ability to use speech. Remarkably, this communication is understandable across accent, social background, and anatomy despite a wide variety of ways to produce the necessary sounds. In JASA, published on behalf of the Acoustical Society of America by AIP Publishing, researchers from…click to read more

From the Journal: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Article: Morphological and acoustic modeling of the vocal tract
DOI: 10.1121/10.0017356

The Roar and Crackle of Artemis 1

The Roar and Crackle of Artemis 1

An array of four microphones ready for noise measurements for Artemis 1. Credit: Kent Gee

An array of four microphones ready for noise measurements. Credit: Kent Gee

WASHINGTON, Feb. 14, 2023 – When the Artemis 1 mission was launched by NASA’s Space Launch System, SLS, in November, it became the world’s most powerful rocket, exceeding the thrust of the previous record holder, Saturn 5, by 13%. With liftoff came a loud roar heard miles away. In JASA Express Letters, published on behalf of the Acoustical Society of America by AIP Publishing, researchers from Brigham Young University and Rollins College in Florida reported…click to read more

From the Journal: JASA Express Letters
Article: Space launch system acoustics: Far-field noise measurements of the Artemis-I launch
DOI: 10.1121/10.0016878

2023 Award and Prize Recipients