Well good morning.

My name is Bill wept for and

I'm the chair of the Woodruff
school of mechanical engineering.

And it's my pleasure to welcome you
to the two thousand and eight gig and

Homer lecture on innovation.

Many of you are aware
that Harold Guggenheim or

as in one nine hundred thirty three.

I Jewett of the Woodruff
school mechanical engineering.

It's my understanding that Harold
chose to come to Georgia Tech for

various reasons One is that we're
great in mechanical engineering.

Another is we had a co-op program.

But the third reason is Georgia Tech
evidently had played in the Rose Bowl and

that helped catch Harold's attention.

But Harold returned to Long Island and.

Worked with the company his
father started grew it.

BALDWIN technology and
Harold developed a real passion for

innovation in the mansion and
during his career both as an engineer and

a businessman the earned
over twenty patents and

we were really fortunate that in
one thousand nine hundred five

Harold gave the Woodruff school
a very generous and dolman and

among the things that the gig and Homer
and Dom and supports are this lecture.

As well as a number of activities in
the school where we try to honor and

celebrate innovation creativity and
invention.

We have had a number of really
outstanding speakers over the years.

Give the gig and

hire a lecture and we're really
fortunate this year to have Jim West.

Jim is a professor at Johns Hopkins.

He's in both mechanical and
electrical engineering.

He was formerly
a Bell Laboratories fellow.

He's done pioneering research on
charge storage and Burton polymers.

This work led to the development
of electric transducers for

sound recording invoice.

Communication.

Jim holds over fifty U.S. patents and

roughly two hundred foreign patents
on various microphone sensors and

transducers he was inducted into
the National Inventors Hall of Fame

in one thousand nine hundred nine for the
invention of the Electric my microphone.

Jim is a member of
the National Academy of Engineering.

He's been very active in
both the i Tripoli and

the American Acoustical Society.

He's fellows of both societies and
I'm really pleased to share with you.

The fact that he received the National
Medal of Technology in two thousand

and six.

So it is with my great pleasure that I
would like to introduce Dr Jim West.

He will give us the two thousand and
eight gig in Homer lecture on innovation.

Thank

you very much ladies and gentlemen it's

truly a pleasure to be
here at Georgia Tech for

not only for the selector about
just want to point out that.

I also work here.

I have to collaborators.

Fred two on and as one of my collaborators

on immersive intelligent collaboration

the object of that work is to make
teleconferencing ubiquitous and

and seamless and
very much like face to face communications

my collaborator is a professor Eric run

on who's working with me
on the hospital project and

go through this you will hear
a little bit about her cause.

And what we're doing together.

Let me begin by telling you

the motivation for
current work at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

It's customary at Hopkins for
offices to adopt units and

in the hospital and the reason for
the said option is to allow the flow of

information from the technical side of the
house to the medical side of the house.

Many think that it is
that this function is

one of the reasons that Johns Hopkins
Hospital has been number one in the and

in this country for the past seventeen
years maybe eighteen years now.

But Stephanie real Dr Stephanie
real adopted the pediatric

intensive care unit and
the complaint and the P.T.

A trick intensive care unit was noise
that it was terribly noisy and that.

It was hard to communicate and

all of the difficulties that one
encounters and presence of noise.

At that time.

Eileen Bush Vishniac was still Hopkins and

Stephanie said Would you
guys take a look and

see what can be done and
so we volunteered to

take a look at the situation
figuring that at most of a couple

just a couple of weeks of literature
search to find out what other people had

solved the problem of noise in the
pediatric intensive care unit and move on.

Well that was more than three
years ago when we started and

we're still just scratching
the surface in terms of the noise and

hospitals the causes and
and possible cures.

So today I'm going to talk about.

The motivation and some of the work but

let's just stop a minute and
figure out why hospitals are so noisy.

Generally and architectural
acoustics saw in rooms we can put

nice carpets on the floor acoustic
ceilings and drapes and so forth.

All of which contribute to
reducing the reverberation

time in the reverberation time is the time
it takes sound to decay after a loud

noise but in hospitals these
solutions do not work and

they don't work because the surfaces and
hospitals must be able to be kept clean

and by the very nature of sound
absorbing the Tiriel as it

just means precisely that it's
porous that sound can go in and

somehow get trapped but
bacteria can also enter those traps and

and and therefore this is not
a solution and hospitals and

so hospitals are terribly noisy for for
that particular reason the fact that that

that you cannot use normal
means of soaking up sound.

I'm going to talk a bit about what we
found in the literature and also the noise

measurements at Johns Hopkins Hospital and
some conclusions.

If you see that even eight
hundred fifty nine the quote by

Florence Nightingale that noise and
hospitals are not a new problem.

It's a problem that has existed I
would imagine since since hospitals in

existence and what we've found in

the open literature is that
that there are a lot of.

And and in the literature on intensive

care units on operating
rooms nurseries and

also there are some work on tools
that are used in hospitals for

example and are theatrics

Quins that thinking of what's going on but
the one thing that

we've learned is that
surgeons have something

in common with rock musicians and
that is that they're prematurely deaf

that their hearing loss is as
much as head of their age and

this is just because of the exposure of

that they encounter in the operating rooms
due to the tools that that that used.

The other thing that we found in
the literature is that the only

approach that hospitals have taken to
control noise is that Minister and

most cases it's found that this works for
about five minutes you know talk softly

where soft tissues and and and those and
then a straight of techniques.

Although tried in many places do not work.

One of the most astounding things that
we found in the literature is that very

little very few papers were written by
people who understand acoustics that were

written mostly by nurses and
doctors and to me to Eileen and

I this pointed out was as near as we
could see a very loud cry for help.

The studies were not were done and
hospitals all over the world

from private hospitals to
large public hospitals and

it all came out in the same direction and.

In terms of the fact that it was noisy
Now why do we worry about noise and

hospitals what we do because it's
known that noise contributes to

to stress and and as you'll see and

a little later on in these environments
nobody is talking at the normal level.

They're all sort of
screaming at each other.

We also know on animals
that noise negatively

affects the speed of healing many studies

on with rats prove that but
there are some documents

has been documented that even with
with human beings this is the case.

And one very famous paper where
a cataract surgery patients for

acquired a longer stay during
exposure to construction noise it was

a construction site next door and
this was very definitely noticed

it's also well documented that if
the noise level is greater than sixty D.B.

and Ali blame but
what sixty represents and

just a minute that additional
medication was necessary.

And how does noise affect performance
well this is still a big question.

Some surgeons come into the operating
room with their boom box turn it on and

turn it up and go to work.

Surgeons only want one or
two people to talk during an operation so

there's there's a great
deal of confusion there and

I think it's primarily
a function of how you're trained

we used just the bells and acoustics
because of the range of the human ear.

I knew this would happen but here is.

The pressure level and we hear over
a range of seven orders of magnitude and

says a lot of zeros that
we have to write down.

So therefore we use logarithms and

if I get these buttons right and mine

is doing it on its own and so acquired
a library somewhere around forty D.B.

the average home around fifty D.B.

I won't use a pointer anymore but
you can see conversational speech and

vacuum cleaners and so
forth in that range.

This is just to give you a reference of

the sound pressure levels that we're
talking about now there are no

standards for hospitals but
there are there are recommendations and

the World Health Organization recommends
that a maximum sound pressure

level should be around forty D.B.A. and

that in in the rooms somewhere
around thirty to be a and

if I go back now to hear this
is sort of like of a quiet

bedroom I don't know whether this thing
is doing this or certainly a library

is where they would like the sound to be
there are several other standards all

bother to go into them because they
also basically say the same thing.

Our program at Hopkins sense
the literature did not give

us a solution to the problem that we faced
in the pediatric intensive care unit.

We've had to go to work and

find out just what noise in hospitals
what were the causes of noise and

hospitals and
if anything what can be done.

So we decided to make.

Of full range measurements at
Hopkins Hospital to measure the noise

is a function of time of day
noise in different locations we

also looked at the noise in octave bands
and we tried to identify the source.

We also began to try to figure
out if there was anything

that can be done in hospitals with with
respect to noise in architectural design

new materials can we find a material
that can both be cleaned and

sound absorptive and
we were able to do that.

There are a lot of special issues
around noise and hospitals.

Privacy is one problem and

the other is speech
communications areas areas.

Remember that our medical delivery
system depends on verbal commands and

the passing on of information from
the patient to the nurse to the doctor.

And so forth.

From the literature.

We were able to show that
the noise level and hospitals.

I knew it would do that have
been increasing over time and

believe me I'm only holding one button.

Let me do one thing.

OK that there is a positive slope.

This is looking at all of the literature
that we can find from one nine hundred

sixty in the literature that we could
believe in to today a positive slow.

Now here's where
the The World Health Organization

says that the noise and
hospital level should be in hospital.

And you see we're thirty D.B. above that.

And so there's no better way of

showing why that that that
hospitals are particularly

noisy then to look at that data
the historical data that has come about.

I took this picture because this is
in the pediatric intensive care unit

the patient is up here somewhere.

But this is typical
where portable equipment

is wheeled in to
the patient's bedside and.

All of these things have whistles and
bells and pumps and

the alarms go off and to me.

Nobody is paying attention.

So here.

The whole room the sauna fied when
I only wanted to people need to

know that that along has gone off and so

this is very very clearly
indicates that it was one way to

fix this is to put instead of having
these things on a fire the whole area to

to put bluetooth on them and have only the
person who needs to have that information

get it now there's also another
problem in that all of the pumps and

instruments that are here make
clucking noise they're moving air

around a fluids around and I don't think
anyone has paid any attention to the noise

that that that those instruments generate.

And so
now if we look at a typical building

this is the noise characteristic
that you get the blue curve and

a typical building but
in a hospital and this is averaged over

many many measurements that
the contour is very different now.

Why is the contour different.

Well the contours different because it's a
reverberant space sound is bouncing around

and people are talking nurses
are talking to nurses dock.

As of talking to nurses and somebody
is talking to patients I would imagine

they're somewhere along the line but
it's this area where one is communicating

that the noise level becomes
very much a problem.

This is a very busy power point here.

But let me see if it gets you through it.

These are some of the venue's that we
measured at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

The average sound put
pressure level the ele Q And

if you pay just attention to the red
ones I think you'll be in good shape and

you'll see that over time and

these are measurements made of
a twenty four hour time period that

the noise level is somewhere in
the vicinity of sixty D. B. a.

And you say OK that's fine but
now let's look at see this is where

the World Health Organization says
that sound level should be but

here's an interesting point.

Normal speech level.

This is if we're talking in
a reasonably quiet environment is is

is somewhere here somewhere
around forty D.B..

And if we shout as loud as we can.

This is this is loud as we can shout and
so

what this points out that is in hospital
is a something call of Lombard effect.

OK what are the why do people who
have difficulty hearing shout at you.

I mean after all you can hear well what
the people who are hard of hearing

doing they're using what we call a lumbar
defect they're listening to the feedback

that they're picking up at their ear and
of course if they're partially deaf.

If they don't hear very well they
talk louder to hear themselves and

so what nurses a.

Doctors what I do when I'm in the hospital
is I don't talk at a normal level.

I talk at a louder level because
the lumbar effect wants me to

be above all of these red peaks here.

So if the noise level
continues to rise in hospitals

megaphones will be necessary just
to communicate and you know that's

a sad story in the future if we
don't do something about it.

We measured over eighty
operations of various types and

and you can see that the noise
levels are only in one cases and

below sixty D. B.
A and all other cases it's much

higher with with a very broad range and

it turns out that plastic surgery
is the most offensive more more so

than orthopedic surgery and
I'm not sure what

what that means I think plastic surgery is
at the bottom which is slightly higher.

Now the average sound
pressure levels is one thing.

But in surgery if we look
at the people of holes.

And here going back to the table.

You know this level here
is like like a jet plane at

some fifty to one hundred meters and

we have peaks in the operating room
that are like gunshots going off.

OK And and these loud noises disturb me

because I don't want to be on
the on the operating table and

one of those loud noises come
comes about at the same time.

Sir and I asked for something and
he or she is misinterpreted.

So the structure of the noise and

the amount of noise and
the quality of the noise.

All affect the ability to communicate and

that's one point that I
think we need to to to be

totally aware of we have
a building that's Weinberg Center.

It's just opened in two thousand.

And nice thing about the Weinberg Center

is from from our standpoint is that
there are four symmetrical wards.

Eileen and
I were talking about this one evening and

we were over in our lab and
we have what we call a poor man's and

a Court chamber and
that chamber consists of fiberglass that

you can buy at Home Depot for
very inexpensively and

we covered it with with Muslim
material and this is just

to keep the fiberglass from trickling
down our necks and causing irritation.

And we asked the question
what would happen

if we took this fiberglass and
put it in a plastic bag.

And so we went and
robbed the garbage cans of

of plastic bags put the fiberglass in and
couldn't see the effect

of the plastic back now gray plastic bags
not going to work well in the hospital but

we were able to find a material
cause oral that is approved for

the oncology ward and it's a reasonably
flexible material with covered

these fiberglass batts with with.

Zoro missed material and we got
permission to put them up in one bird.

Now one birds a very interesting building
as I said it's a new patient rooms

on the outside and you have a nice
rectangular corridor there.

That with forty five degree
corners on three corners.

And if you were asked a mechanical
engineer to design a waveguide for

voice frequencies you couldn't do better
than what they did in the Weinberg Center.

And other words I can stand here in the
hall and I can hear myself go around rats

around and around here and through here.

We decided that this was a very good
laboratory and one that we could use and

all of the patches that you see the red
that you see is where we have added these

these fiberglass fiberglass
buttons battens and

these are two of our undergraduate
students participated in this work.

Not only did they design a perfect wave
but they they also made a very nice

whispering gallery right over
the reception area by the scoff at it.

Area here sound we get trapped in
there and it was much louder on

those that then in other places and

we treated the areas as
much as possible for where

we could these of these of the things you
can't see them very well and this picture.

But but those of the battings that we
used one of the measures of the room

is the reverberation time and that is
the time it takes a sound to decay.

Below already ability.

And the red curve here is
the reverberation time

before the treatment and here is the.

Reverberation time after
the addition of those battings And

as you see we decrease the reverberation
time by a factor of two.

Now decreasing number of reverberation
time by a factor of two should reduce

the noise by the same order it should
decrease the noise by sixty B. but one of

the most interesting points to me was that
I was there as these panels were going up.

Before the panels were put up
the telephone didn't bother me.

But as soon as those panels went up
the telephone was startling it was so

loud and but nobody had touched
the controls on on there.

So not so.

So the absorption decreased
the sound level by sixty.

But now you turned down all of the Along

all of the things that just made it noise
now could it could be turned down and so

consequently people talked softer and
and and

this was an improvement that that was was

unbelievable from

from many standpoints now
we ran the nurses and

the group ran a subjective study and

which they asked the patients.

All looked at complaints by patients for
noise and

look at the difference and
that in that ward.

Also they did a survey of the nurses and

you see A and equal.

All before and after drop this is
really really too good to be true

and in a sense and
Professor Reinhardt from.

Georgia Tech is working with
us to try to better validate

the studies She's an expert in and
subjective acoustics and

and these data were done by
novel novice so to speak.

But what we do know is that there
is a great improvement in fact.

By the way.

One thing I didn't mention is that in
the oncology ward they'd have to close

the whole place down if we made one screw
We wanted to drill one hole in the wall.

So we held these panels up with velcro and
and

the velcro hell but
the glue between the panel and

and the Vel Coast pro strip
was not too supportive so

these things would fall occasionally but
guess what it took them

all down because they were afraid that
they would fall and hurt someone.

The nurses and
physicians said we'll take that chance.

And so they put them back up
now objectively five see is.

Apologize for the.

Jacked of what we wanted to
do was to quote have a sound.

This is frequency going up and

this is time here and for

five see if she was if huge.

You look at an untreated
Ward which is down here.

Let me use this is a point to because
this thing is driving me crazy.

If I can find it if you look down and
here which is the untreated Ward you

see a lot of red red Kading that the
abundance of sound and are treated ward.

The sound red is substantially reduced.

There is one company called Eko phone that
makes one hundred sealing arrangement but

we couldn't put a hunk seal in and because
of what would have to be closed down.

So what we did was to take the the
material made four hundred seal and

put it up with Cro also this is sort of
a misuse the material wasn't designed for

that but but we tried it anyway and

there is some improvement here but nowhere
near what we were able to achieve with

with our with our material.

We the speech intelligibility
index is one of the coopt

quantities that we could measure and
this is not the best measure for

the sort of thing but it was the best we
could do at that time and the results.

What we do is to compare
the noise to the normal speech

level we measure the noise and then we
apply the normal speech level to that and

we get numbers from from one
to from from zero to one.

And very arbitrary scale but

if you look at what happens and five C.

we have a speech intelligibility
index of about point eight So

we said OK let's say that it's good
if the numbers above point seven.

Five D.
which was a partially treated wall.

We're down somewhere around point five but
astonishingly for

normal speech level in the untreated
ward the sound pressure or

the speech intelligibly intelligibility
index is very very low.

Now this is where we are today.

With one of the.

Addition.

We're now working with Du Pont and Du Pont
makes of very general material called

type of acts and you see this on new
buildings that are coming up but tab X.

is also a very thin plastic
material that has been approved for

certain they can make the stuff that's
approved for use and hospitals.

And your shower curtains and your sheets.

You know the stuff the covers of bedding
and so forth are made of this Dupont

material called tie back and so

our new experiment is or
what's in progress today

is that we're using the same
fiberglass batter battening.

Only this time covered with tiebacks.

The original work

including paying students we don't pay
them very much as students here know but

the total cost of that project was
around fifteen thousand dollars but

eight thousand dollars of that went for
the material that covered the fiberglass.

And we knew that that was not an adequate
solution from that standpoint and so

therefore we began to look for partners
and new materials and we found tiebacks.

And that's an ongoing work where we
are and we're going to quit the.

All four of those wards and

clued in some operating rooms with
these materials cover with tie back and

Dr Reinhardt will do the subject of
the valuations of the improvements there.

Now from what I've said so
far you get the idea

that we've just barely scratched
the surface on noise and hospitals and

I have never you know
it's amazing how off.

How quickly we went from
knowing nothing about noise and

hospitals to the world's expert on noise
and hospitals something wrong with

that statement something
wrong with society and

that this problem has not been
addressed and for future.

We we're still need to do a lot of work we
need to know what acoustical measurements

best correlate with patients and
staff outcomes and

also we need to know what changes
in acoustical measurements are.

Produced from a variety of noise.

Interventions and
the results of one and two could

lead us to determine which noise.

Interventions are most
likely to contribute to

improvements and
medical conditions more research is needed

to what extent do medical errors in
hospitals correlate with noise and

this is really really a very
important topic because one of

Lambert from the University of
Chicago found that nearly four

million drug errors were made
in the US by retail pharmacists.

Each year.

And this is primarily due to
the utterance of prescription

in the presence of noise these
form suitable or these drugstores

the same properties of hospitals and
the same problems as hospitals.

Well this is an ongoing study and you
know from that point on I very definitely

read my prescriptions very carefully
it strongly suggests that you do.

This is just one point where
errors occur errors also occur

in the presence of noise when when
when nurses and doctors communicate.

One of the nurses said that a number

of nurses said that when they have
to think they go to the bathroom and

they go to the bathroom because
that's the only place and

on the ward that's quiet and for them to
to be able to get into their own minds.

They do not do they are there.

They're their records at
the hospital they take them home and

do them at home because the noise and
to fears and

causes a great deal of concern and

they're on and on we can go.

What are the best ways to design
hospital units to reduce noise while

preserving the efficiency and
effectiveness of operation of operations.

The Weinberg Center as I mentioned
just opened in two thousand.

So that's a reasonably new construction.

But its design is very similar to what
has been done historically in hospitals.

Keep in mind that hospitals are undergoing
one of the largest construction

times ever.

I mean most of the construction is
probably keeping our economy going after.

If that if the work is still being done.

But these new constructions undone.

Because of the aging of
the population in this country and

the inability of our current plan to
be able to take care of those patients.

And so
there are many many errors areas in which

we need to really pay close attention to

the new operating suites
at Johns Hopkins hospitals

have no galleries as a matter of fact
they're very small operating wrongs and

the intent is to keep people out of the
operating rooms that don't belong there.

So how do we teach.

How do we train doctors without
the presence in the operating room.

I'll talk a little bit more you

know how do we cope with
the requirements of speech privacy.

This is a big thing with with with
regulations now where where we cannot

allow one person to know what's
going on with the other.

For fear of litigation.

Also hospitals are moving to
what's called a digital hospital.

This is a paperless hospital
this is where where

physicians hope to be able to
move from one bed to another

with some sort of device
that they can dictate in and

that that will be converted to
the written page by speech recognition.

Well speech recognition right now requires
a fifteen dbi signal to noise ratio.

How are you going to get
that in noisy house.

You're not going to get it.

And so that presents a problem
as I've already mentioned

the fact that is operating room strain and
how do we get to how do we cure this.

Well what we have to do is to be able
to you know visually we can do it

that works very well in terms of
seeing what the surgeon may be doing.

But the train the training
requires communications.

So what we need to be able to
do is to create galleries.

Where where where observations
of the surgery can be done.

We also need to bring the audience
of the operating room in to

the area where the students to train.

We also need to have two way
communications between those rooms so

that questions can be asked and
we go on and on again.

Did I just do this.

I think I dead.

Very importantly can we manufacture

surgical equipment or equipment for

hospitals that is less noisy Is it
necessary to have metal on metal

that's where a lot of the noise comes
from can we design new materials.

That will help in this problem.

Our solution than using fiber glass.

I think is is is an interim
solution to this problem.

It's not the final solution.

And so we must also work on that.

And one very good question why Santa.

By one hundred people and
only one person needs to get the message.

We did find one company called
both Sarah that makes a liar.

That's about the size of
this device that allows

the overhead paging to
completely disappear.

Because they from a server if I want.

Fred I said get me Fred and
Fred's thing will go off and

he can without touching
the device can answer.

Call me back.

I'm busy or what's your question.

And so there are solutions coming
online but that's just one solution and

competition is needed there because
this is not a perfect device.

There are still areas in which
which need to be improved there.

And I've been going on for
quite a while and

I think I'm going to stop
there because I believe

I've talked a little bit about this
digital hospital so let me stop there.

Ladies and gentlemen thank you very much.

Of.

Thank you

very much Jim I think we have
time I know we have time for

some questions and
Jim's agreed to answer them.

So I think we have mikes
out in the stage or

out in the audience any questions.

There's a microphone down
in the front center aisle.

Good afternoon.

I was wondering who was your
target specifically so.

And because I'm wondering if you're
looking what to make cost effective

solutions.

So you can implement it in more places or
it could also in your update that I'm I

was getting an echo and couldn't quite OK
where your primary targets like Target

beneficiaries are people who get of.

The solution to lower end hospitals or

higher hospitals private or
public or both could use.

I think he will.

He's asking Are there any differentiations
between the types of hospitals.

As you have work in.

That's a very good question.

Our solution is a set is is is a first cut
at finding a way to solve this problem.

I think that to some extent it
can be used in all hospitals

all establishment where where where
the problem is how reverberation time and

where you want to reduce reverberation
time I think this can very very definitely

act as a general solution
to shuttle question.

Don't be bashful I know
this crowd is not bad.

All the different solutions have heard so

far all passive Is there any research
being done an active noise cancellation

you know in ducks we
can do a very good job

at actively reducing noise and

I'm certain that this can be done well.

Our H B a C and reduce the noise there and
this will certainly help.

Because you know it's amazing that just
about every one that I was went in

I asked if they would get the H B A C.
guy up here and

balance out the system because it's
making unnecessary noise right.

But so far in an open environment

active means of controlling
noise have not worked very well.

And one of the reasons is that

that it requires that these active
techniques require stability.

And stability both in amplitude and
phase and

the very interesting thing even in
a room like this if I were to look at

two senses that were space
a a meter to two meters apart and

just look at the phase
difference between those two and

just do my own like this you'll see
the phase jump through many loops.

Now what this means is that
the speed of the cancellation

system has to be fast enough
to to to keep up with

those changes not just the change phase
but there are many other changes a go on

slight differential in temperature
changes a speed of sound.

And so these systems when tried have not

worked very well there
are future plans that

I think are very interesting in which
you make large area trans duces and

mainly polymer senses and
now if if sound wave intent is on that.

You can not only measure what's coming
out but you can do inverse filtering and

now counsel out that sound.

This research is just in its.

Infant stage but that could indeed
be one possible solution from

the standpoint of actively controlling
the noise in an environment like you

I think you in the midst of your talk you
sort of presented an example that was

almost non-linear to my years you had you
put up your fiberglass batts on the wall

and you noticed that
people started talking

more softly they were turning their
little peepers down their phones down.

Have you from that data or other data that
may not have been presented here been able

to quantify the added benefit of

even say a one decibel a production
you through absorption leads to

how many decibels reduction through
this turndown fact if you will.

This is a again an area that
we're just beginning to explore

a doctor I know is very
very interested and

volved and this work with me and
one of the things that we want to try to

do to get to the back and
answer to that is to use

an artificial head with
its ears to be able to

record actual scenes in
hospitals during rounds and so

forth to be able to gather the data
that would be necessary to

evaluate just those those issues
that that that you mentioned

the individual.

You know the human being.

Varies all over the place and
that's also a parameter

that we do not understand in terms of

of of our medical care delivery system for
example.

They'd provide someone I don't remember
can't recall just who did the study now.

But they took a group of surgeons and gave
them a task of stitching up baseball or

whatever it was on the quiet and

noisy conditions and it was a scatterplot

in the sense that there are surgeons and
physicians and

love in a bed like the loud noises or
like to create their own noise and

in those conditions I think
that that's kind of related to

teenagers in a way how they can study
with the hi fi blasting you know and

I think it's a masking effect you know
they get the sound level above all

the other sounds in the room in the salons
and to concentrate those A are human

parameters that we don't understand
very well either especially

in our medical delivery system and
we need to work those in and finally.

You know things sort of grow BIOS MOSIS
you know in your training you're

in a in a noisy environment and and

one one very good example
is the acoustic telescope.

We can do much better electronically.

But we can't get physicians and
nurses to use

electronic stuff to scopes because
they're not trained on them.

And so there are a lot of lot
of issues here that have to

be looked at the noise in hospitals and
never been looked at.

Seriously.

And so now that we are you know
we've opened Pandora's box and

and your questions are certainly some of
the questions that are on our minds and

in order to try to solve.

Thank you.

Really very interesting talk you had
in your abstract is some discussion

about the difference with between a sound
source and from a course material and

the problems with bacterial Harbury I
was wondering whether you could

talk about these plastic bags whether
they're as good because tickets or

bears and maybe better for bacteria versus
high that which may be more porous.

We're not sure when yet
here again we weird.

We've just begun to scratch
the surface and understanding this

phenomenon in the interesting thing about

plastic bags is that you can even get
an improvement of the absorption.

OK And I think this comes about
because you have a dire frown.

OK And so but
physically just what's going on and

we don't understand yet but and we're
trying to get to the bottom of this but

I think that this is that the plastic
is acting as as a diaphragm and

the reason that I suspect
that is that when my students

wrap these plastic bags.

It was not done as well as
the professionals did at Dupont and

never phenomena has disappeared.

I think.

And so but it but

it's not on away from my mind because
you know if we can take advantage of

you know hung ceiling works because it
because the sound impinges it twice.

It goes through.

It's a solid surface in a comes back and
and

this really doubles the effect of
the of sort of the of the material.

Now without a home sealing in
the environment that we're in

other things that we can
do from the standpoint.

Of of

an intermediate layer that
acts as a movable diaphragm to

to improve the absorption course fissions
especially at low frequencies and

you see that's where we suffer two inches
is a stick as we've gone way I imagine

we can go thicker and even improve
the absorption at low frequencies but

if we can find a trick that
would be all the better.

Why don't we do one more question it seems
that one of the biggest offenders in

hospitals are the only
floors that one season.

There have been compliance or
says around for some time to use flooring.

There are some services of
these kitchens right now for

people who have to stand on their feet for
long periods of time do

any of those services offers
significant sound their capability.

They absolutely do.

And in some areas where these where
these floors have been install it.

It's greatly appreciated by the by
the staff from not only the quieting but

also the reduction of the impact
of the foot on on the floor.

And these materials you know the very

very interesting just to digress a moment.

You know one of the questions I asked was

how in the heck with all
the acoustical consultants around.

How can hospitals like mine be designed so

poorly from the from
the standpoint of acoustics.

Well it turns out that they do
hire an acoustic consultants.

But they hire them based on their feet and
so

the consultant to can
who who did the work for

was an expert on helicopter pads and

and so but there's.

Another point too.

And that is that the first
thing cost cutting measures

in these establishment are well
why can't we use a concrete floor.

You know it's going to save us X.
dollars So

there's this cost cutting that goes
on both from the standpoint of hiring

the correct consultant to
the use of the proper materials.

Now all of this you see that these
are all compound ing effect.

Because.

Medical establishment worry about errors

the noise is one of the major
contributors to errors

but somehow this hasn't registered
in terms of those funding

agencies that that that should
fund work like we're doing.

But and I and so forth.

We've been to all of them and
we've talked to all of them and

they say you know that's a real problem.

But I can tell you that that resistant
bacteria is a bigger problem for

which I agree.

But somehow we've got to and
I feel that one of my responsibilities is

to make this problem as well
known as I possibly can so

that this might just open up
the opportunities for funding that

will allow answers to questions like
those that you raise to be addressed.

Well thank you very much and

I would like all of us now to
give him a big round of applause.

We

would like to present you with
a couple of tokens of my.

Our appreciation of
the Guggenheim are like.

Wow.

Should I open up please.

Tom Tom See I've got to
get rid of something.

Wow.

Thanks for
coming out with that this is the right.

This is yeah exactly the right
thing I do watch football.

Read but
not least we always provide pleasures with

another momento of the Woodruff school
the official two thousand and eight.

WOODRUFF school teacher.

So you can wear that with pride
that the home would absolutely.

Thank you so

again I want to thank him for a great
lecture and I want to invite all of you.

We have a reception a lunch
reception immediately following

in the galleries in the lobby
of the first center.

Thank you for tending Jim will
be at the luncheon I know that

some of you have questions in and I'm sure
Jim will be happy to answer them in line.

Thank you very much.

Thank you all very much.

Yo.