Natural Science Forum / Physics / Acoustics / December 2008

I just recently heard that acoustic excitation has been used to anneal
welds as the are being made. Crudely, I presume that it would be
analogous to using a tamper for compacting concrete.
Please tell me where I can find more information on the subject.

Does anyone know of a fereely available database of speech files? it
looks like a speech database is often refered to as a "corpus",
meaning "collection". Perhaps I should ask for freely available
corpuses then :)

CALL FOR PAPERS
Special issue on Optical SuperComputing
Natural Computing journal, Springer-Verlag
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What is the procedure to follow to decide upon the best PA system
(only which loudspeakers and their positioning) for an existing
auditorium. Unfortunately I can´t change anything related to the room
´s architecture/structure.

I am on the board of a NYC co-op apartment.  Residents of the building
have ongoing issues with excessive noise and vibration resulting from
inadequate floor coverings and unrestrained activity of children in
apartments on the floor above.  Some noise in communal living is

When all the keys are closed on a saxophone, the fundamental produces
the natural harmonic series. As keys open up, and the fundamental
raises in pitch, the overtones get progressively sharper. Why is this?
How does this affect our perception of the tone? Thanks for your help.

Can someone please point me to an a vibrational analysis of a musical
saw? I am already know about the work of Dr. Woodhouse at Cambridge,
Bill