Page 8 - Summer 2021

From the Editor
Arthur N. Popper
This issue of Acoustics Today (AT) has a “From the President” column and three “Sound Perspectives” essays that discuss how the COVID pan- demic has affected members of the
Acoustical Society of America (ASA) and the Society itself. In her last column as ASA president, Diane Kewley-Port discusses what must be the most stressful and “different” presidency in the history of the ASA because it required navigating the pandemic and keeping the Society func- tioning and serving its members. Diane, in her piece, talks about these issues and how the ASA met numer- ous challenges.
The first article by Murray Campbell, Joël Gilbert, and Arnold Myers is about the muting of musical horns. To get “in the mood,” I suggest that readers click on the first link in the article and listen to “Take the A Train” as they
read. The article has a number of other wonderful multi- media, some of which are musical demonstrations by the authors. Then, when you get near the end of the article, click on the link to Miles Davis and enjoy the music as you read. (As an aside, I am quite partial to the “A train” because it ran right by our apartment in very far uptown Manhattan1 (New York City) when I was growing up and I knew the line very well!)
Our second article is by linguist Ettien Koffi. Ettien discusses the thousands of languages that have disap- peared or are disappearing due to limited use. These are all around the world, and Ettien shares ideas on how to preserve these precious parts of various heritages.
A few years ago, I attended a session at an ASA meet- ing and heard a talk by doctoral student Maggie Raboin. Maggie talked about the potential effects of anthropo- genic (man-made) sound on terrestrial insects. I’d never really thought about anthropogenic sound and insects before so I found the topic so interesting that I invited Maggie to write an article. As you will see, Maggie makes
1 If any other ASA member is from Washington Heights or Inwood, drop me a line.
it clear that many of the issues that we think about regarding anthropogenic sound and vertebrates (includ- ing humans) are also issues for insects.
In the fourth article, Frederik J. Simons, Joel D. Simon, and Sirawich Pipatprathanporn discuss seismologi- cal studies of the Earth. They point out that to really understand seismology on a global scale, it is impera- tive to have receivers not only on land but also at sea. The authors discuss these marine seismic devices, focusing on the development of different generations of receivers. Put another way, the focus is on device evolution.
In the fifth article, Brandon L. Southall brings us up-to- date on the latest thinking about anthropogenic sound and marine mammals. The article focuses on the evolution of the ideas that have led to the current thinking on how to deal with the potential effects of man-made sound on marine mammals. It also points out the very substantial gaps in our understanding of marine mammal bioacoustics.
The final article is by Timothy K. Stanton, Wu-Jung Lee, and Kyungmin Baik. The authors consider how one goes about extracting information from echoes that are used to do everything from imaging unborn babies to radar analysis of potential tornadoes. It turns out that there is great commonality in the approaches to the analysis of all such signals in order to get meaningful information. The authors provide great insight into this analysis.
“Ask an Acoustician” features Efren Fernandez-Grande, a Spanish engineer who lives and teaches in Denmark. Efren is very involved in research and teaching and balances all of that with considerable involvement with the ASA. This is fol- lowed by an essay by L. Keeta Jones, education and outreach coordinator of the ASA. Keeta shares how she developed a host of interesting ways to keep up the involvement of the
ASA in education and outreach during the pandemic.
We then have two essays about how the SARS-CoV-2 pan- demic has impacted ASA members. The first is by ASA Student Council (SC) members Hilary Kates Varghese, Kieren H. McCord, Mallory Morgan, and Elizabeth Weidner,
8 Acoustics Today • Summer 2021