| 1. |
- Amini, Hashem, et al.
(författare)
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The Swedish Birth Defects Registry : ascertainment and incidence of spina bifida and cleft lip/palate
- 2009
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Ingår i: Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica. - : Wiley. - 0001-6349 .- 1600-0412. ; 88:6, s. 654-659
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- OBJECTIVES: To assess the ascertainment of spina bifida and cleft lip/palate (CLP) in newborns and in fetuses from terminated pregnancies (ToPs) in the Swedish Birth Defects Registry (BDR) and to estimate the true incidences of these two anomalies. DESIGN: Retrospective register study. SETTING: Center for Epidemiology at the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare, and Uppsala University Hospital. POPULATION: Newborns and fetuses from ToPs with spina bifida (1999-2004) and CLP (1999-2002) in Sweden. METHODS: Data from four registries/sources were used to estimate ascertainment in BDR and incidences of spina bifida and CLP. Main outcome measure: Ascertainment, under-ascertainment, and true incidence. RESULTS: For newborns, under-ascertainment of spina bifida and CLP were 6 and 13%, respectively, in BDR after record linkage with the Medical Birth Registry. Ascertainment of cleft palate increased when accompanied by cleft lip. The under-ascertainment of spina bifida in ToPs after 18 gestational weeks was 27%. Ascertainment of CLP in all ToPs and of spina bifida in ToPs before the 18th gestational week could not be estimated. The majority (109/155, 70%) of ToPs with spina bifida occurred before the 18th week. The estimated incidence of spina bifida per 10,000 births was 6.1 (2.4 newborns and 3.7 ToPs) and of CLP 20.1 (18.9 newborns and 1.2 ToPs). CONCLUSION: The ascertainments are relatively high for newborns in BDR, but lower or unknown for ToPs, which has an impact on the surveillance of spina bifida in view of the high proportion of ToPs.
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| 2. |
- Axelsson, Östen, et al.
(författare)
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A Swedish instrument for measuring soundscape quality
- 2009
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Ingår i: Euronoise 2009. - Edinburgh : Institute of Acoustics.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In 2008 the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) decided to put together a new expert working group ISO/TC 43/SC 1/WG 54 named “Perceptual assessment of soundscape quality”. The purpose of this expert group is to propose the first ever, international standard on how to measure the perceived quality of soundscapes, by means of questionnaire techniques. This work is chiefly motivated by a need to harmonise methods in soundscape research internationally in order to improve the comparability of research results across countries and over time. Within the Swedish research program Soundscape Support to Health, the present authors developed such a technique based on field work and laboratory studies. In the present paper we present research in which we validated our initial findings and finalised our questionnaire protocol. We propose that the measurement of perceived soundscape quality must include: (1) identification of perceived sounds sources, such as, technological sounds, human sounds, and natural sounds, (2) classification of soundscape quality on a good–bad scale, and (3) qualitative measurement of a set of eight perceived-soundscape attributes defined in a two-dimensional Pleasantness–Eventfulness measurement model.
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| 3. |
- Axelsson, Östen, et al.
(författare)
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Soundscape assessment.
- 2005
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Ingår i: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. - 0001-4966. ; 117:4, s. 2591-2592
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In order to improve the quality of the soundscape it is necessary to know its descriptive and evaluative properties, and the relationships between these properties. This was explored in a listening experiment with 100 participants (48 women, 52 men; mean age 25,6 years). Each participant scaled 5 out of 50 soundscapes with regard to 116 single verbal attributes, using a visual analogue scale of agreeableness. In addition, acoustical properties of the soundscapes were assessed. A principal component analysis identified two major evaluative components, labeled Hedonic Tone and Eventfulness. Furthermore it was found that the mere presence of common sound sources, regardless of sound level, correlated significantly with these evaluative components. Technological sounds (e.g., traffic noise) were negatively associated with both Hedonic Tone and Eventfulness, while a positive association was found between Hedonic Tone and sounds of nature (e.g., bird song), and a positive association was found between Eventfulness and human sounds (e.g., human voices). These relationships lead to the hypothesis that introduction of nature and human sounds, in combination with the reduction of technological sounds may improve the quality of soundscapes considerably.
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| 4. |
- Berglund, Birgitta, et al.
(författare)
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A dualistic psychoacoustic research strategy for measuring soundscape quality : Paper 034.
- 2006
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Ingår i: Inter-Noise 2006–Engineering a Quieter World..
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In order to be able to design future soundscapes, tools are needed by which soundscape quality can be measured. For this purpose a “dualistic psychoacoustic research strategy” has been developed. The main goal of this strategy is to identify new ways to characterize soundscapes acoustically. The core question is how soundscapes should be measured on the one hand acoustically, on the other perceptually, such that the acoustic soundscapes that are similar (or dissimilar) would be identical to the perceived soundscapes that are similar (or dissimilar). A top down approach is favored in which tools for measuring perceived soundscape quality are first developed, and followed by developing models of measurement for acoustic soundscapes. Our multidimensional tool for measuring perceived soundscapes includes (perceived) similarity analysis for finding basic underlying dimensions and corresponding similarity analysis of acoustic (waterfall) soundscape quality. This means that this tool measures soundscape quality beyond loudness of unwanted sounds or mere sound level of predominant noise. Research on neural network models is in progress for finding appropriate acoustic measures of soundscapes.
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| 5. |
- Berglund, Birgitta, et al.
(författare)
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Are similar acoustic soundscapes perceived as similar? : Paper SS29-355.
- 2006
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Ingår i: EuroNoise 2006.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Health guidelines are concerned with soundscapes as coherent wholes (emissions from all sounds) and everyday life also takes place in soundscapes. Current noise control focuses on sound level change for singular sources, isolated from invariant background and other component sounds. By applying a dualistic similarity approach to data sets of perceptual soundscapes and acoustic soundscapes, it was possible to meaningfully differentiate properties of acoustic soundscapes of relevance for improving urban and suburban soundscapes. Apart from the mere presence of common sounds (e.g., birds, sounds of nature or technological sounds), meaningful differentiations of soundscapes include: (1) the relative proportion of direct and shielded sounds in background soundscapes, (2) the modification of loudness/softness and eventfulness/uneventfulness by acoustic quality, and (3) the “sound signatures” traceable to the relative foreground-background character of perceived soundscapes. Acoustically similar soundscapes (evolutionary spectra) were not always perceived similar, because the reasons for the two types of similarities differ. This fact calls for new ways to assess the acoustic soundscapes such that adequate design tools for coherent soundscapes can be developed.
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| 6. |
- Berglund, Birgitta, et al.
(författare)
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Soundscape perception.
- 2006
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Ingår i: Joint Baltic-Nordic Acoustics Meeting 2006..
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Konferensbidrag (populärvet., debatt m.m.)abstract
- Annoyance research typically focuses on single sources and on adverse effects of noise. In contrast, soundscape research focuses on the total sound environment, including all its positive and negative aspects. A major challenge in soundscape research is to develop methods for measuring the perceived soundscape. In the research program “Soundscape Support to Health”, we have developed new methods for this purpose, including listening tests in the laboratory, listening walks in the field and questionnaire studies targeted on the soundscape. We have thus identified major perpetual dimensions of soundscapes (pleasantness and eventfulness), linked these features to important acoustical and informational properties of soundscapes (type of sources), and explored the effect of noise mitigation on soundscape perception. Our research show (a) that pleasantness of soundscapes is related to the presence of natural sounds, whereas eventfulness is related to the presence of sounds from humans, (b) that traffic noise should be reduced to below 50 dBA, in order to have a chance to create good outdoor soundscapes in urban residential and recreational areas, and (c) that mitigation efficiency in sound level of various barriers and facades may overestimate corresponding perceptual mitigation efficiency. Based on these findings, new tools for ‘green labelling’ of soundscapes are being developed.
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| 7. |
- Berglund, Birgitta, et al.
(författare)
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Soundscape psychophysics in place
- 2007
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Ingår i: Proc. Inter-Noise 2007. ; , s. IN07–114-
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 8. |
- Berglund, Birgitta, et al.
(författare)
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The soundscape explicated.
- 2005
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Ingår i: Archives of Acoustics. - 0137-5075. ; 30:4 (Supplement), s. 127-130
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Landscapes but not soundscapes are planned. Today’s noise control is based on traffic noise prognosis and is confined to average sound level of traffic noise. However, the heterogeneous soundscape embraces many component sounds, background sound inclusive. Prognostic design tools are needed by which “quiet” and pleasing soundscapes can be ensured. In a psychoacoustic experiment, promising properties of soundscapes were retrieved from similarities among evolutionary spectra. These were meaningfully differentiated in accord with features of perceived soundscapes extracted by multi-dimensional scaling: (a) position and slope of loudness functions due to qualitative differences (road-traffic exposed or shielded sides of buildings), (b) clusters of shielded soundscapes relative to two types of sound-exposed soundscapes, and (c) relative contribution of direct sound to background in soundscapes. The dualistic similarity approach conveys useful knowledge for soundscape design and mitigation psychophysics.
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