The Sound Manifesto

Computing practice today depends on visual output to drive almost all user interaction. Other senses, such as audition, may be totally neglected, or used tangentially, or used in highly restricted specialized ways. We have excellent audio rendering through D-A conversion, but we lack rich general facilities for modeling and manipulating sound comparable in quality and flexibility to graphics. We need co-ordinated research in several disciplines to improve the use of sound as an interactive information channel. Incremental and separate improvements in synthesis, analysis, speech processing, audiology, acoustics, music, etc. will not alone produce the radical progress that we seek in sonic practice. We also need to create a new central topic of study in digital audio research. The new topic will assimilate the contributions of different disciplines on a common foundation. The key central concept that we lack is sound as a general-purpose information channel. We must investigate the structure of this information channel, which is driven by the co-operative development of auditory perception and physical sound production. Particular audible encodings, such as speech and music, illuminate sonic information by example, but they are no more sufficient for a characterization than typography is sufficient for a characterization of visual information.Comment: To appear in the conference on Critical Technologies for the Future of Computing, part of SPIE's International Symposium on Optical Science and Technology, 30 July to 4 August 2000, San Diego, C

Airbag-related chest wall burn as a marker of underlying injury: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>This case of a man who sustained an airbag-induced thoracic injury and burn, highlights the potential harm that can be caused by airbags. It also serves to illustrate that a surface burn which looks small and benign can actually be a surface marker of a more serious injury. Staff working in emergency departments need to be aware of the risk of possible airbag-associated injuries.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>A 65-year-old man was the driver in a frontal collision. He was wearing a seatbelt. The airbag was activated and caused a superficial chest wall burn. Initial chest x-rays were unremarkable but following deterioration in his condition, a computed tomography scan revealed a serious sternal fracture. The location of the fracture was marked on the surface by the burn.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Airbags can cause significant chest wall injuries and burns. Surface burns at the point of impact should not be dismissed as trivial as the forces involved can cause significant injury. We recommend that all people with chest wall injuries and/or burns due to airbags should have more detailed chest imaging as initial emergency radiographs can be falsely reassuring.</p

Preliminary study on the use of near infrared hyperspectral imaging for quantitation and localisation of total glucosinolates in freeze-dried broccoli

peer-reviewedThe use of hyperspectral imaging to (a) quantify and (b) localise total glucosinolates in florets of a single broccoli species has been examined. Two different spectral regions (vis–NIR and NIR), a number of spectral pre-treatments and different mask development strategies were studied to develop the quantitative models. These models were then applied to freeze-dried slices of broccoli to identify regions within individual florets which were rich in glucosinolates. The procedure demonstrates potential for the quantitative screening and localisation of total glucosinolates in broccoli using the 950–1650 nm wavelength range. These compounds were mainly located in the external part of florets.Universidad de SevillaJ.M. Hernández-Hierro thanks the Spanish MICINN for the Juan de la Cierva contract (JCI-2011-09201) and Universidad de Sevilla for the mobility Grant (Universidad de Sevilla Research Plan). Spanish MICINN Project AGL2011-30254-C02 and Junta de Andalucia PGC Project AGR 6331

Bis(2-acetylpyridine-κ2 N,O)silver(I) tetra­fluoridoborate: a complex with silver in a seesaw coordination geometry

The reaction of 2-acetylpyridine with silver(I) tetra­fluorido­borate leads to the discrete title complex, [Ag(C7H7NO)2]BF4, in the cation of which the Ag atom is coordinated by two 2-acetylpyridine ligands, each of which is N,O-bidentate, albeit with stronger bonding to the N atoms [Ag—N = 2.2018 (15) and 2.2088 (14) Å; Ag—O = 2.5380 (13) and 2.5454 (13) Å]. The four-coordinate Ag atom has a seesaw coordination geometry with a τ4 index of 0.51. The tetra­fluoridoborate anion is disordered over two orientations with 0.568 (10):0.432 (10) occupancies