(Press-News.org) HONOLULU, Dec. 4, 2025 — The world is loud. A walk down the street bombards one’s ears with the sound of engines revving, car horns blaring, and the steady beeps of pedestrian crossings. While smartphone alerts to excessive sound and public awareness of noise exposure grows, few tools help people take protective action.
To address this gap, Santino Cozza and a team from Applied Research Associates, Inc. developed the Hearing Protection Optimization Tool (HPOT). HPOT was designed to move beyond traditional noise reductions ratings and highlight performance characteristics that matter in real-world conditions. This user-friendly software platform, which draws on years of research and operational insight, helps people select the appropriate hearing protection device (HPD) for their specific environment.
Cozza will present the software Thursday, Dec. 4, at 11:45 a.m. HST as part of the Sixth Joint Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America and Acoustical Society of Japan, running Dec. 1-5 in Honolulu, Hawaii.
“The underlying science of how humans perceive sound is complex, drawing from acoustics, psychology, and physiology,” said Cozza. “We designed HPOT to translate that into something usable, empowering smarter, more personalized hearing protection.”
HPOT asks users to share basic information about their noise environment, such as sound intensity and exposure duration. If measurements aren’t available, the platform estimates exposure levels based on users’ descriptions of their setting.
By combining noise exposure levels with algorithmic analyses of the benefits of different HPDs, HPOT matches users with a database of suitable, regulatory-approved HPDs. It translates complex acoustic and psychoacoustic factors and calculations, like insertion loss, speech intelligibility, and sound localization, into clear visuals that help users directly compare HPDs.
Users can toggle inputs for communication needs, mobility, cost, and power requirements to visualize trade-offs and optimize HPD selection for their preferences.
While HPOT was initially developed to support military hearing protection decisions, Cozza sees its utility as reaching far beyond that.
“Whether you’re a hearing conservationist protecting workers, an audiologist trying to stay current with new technologies, or just someone choosing earplugs for a concert, HPOT was built to help,” he said.
The team is currently developing advanced updates for the platform to widen its relevance, including support for impulse noise environments and integrating double hearing protection.
“HPOT is a blueprint for modernizing how personal protective equipment is selected,” Cozza said. “We envision a future where intuitive, data-driven tools exist across all categories. Our goal is to simplify those processes using the same science-to-software approach that powers HPOT.”
###
Main Meeting Website: https://acousticalsociety.org/honolulu-2025/
Technical Program: https://eppro02.ativ.me/web/planner.php?id=ASAASJ25
ASA PRESS ROOM
In the coming weeks, ASA’s Press Room will be updated with newsworthy stories and the press conference schedule at https://acoustics.org/asa-press-room/.
LAY LANGUAGE PAPERS
ASA will also share dozens of lay language papers about topics covered at the conference. Lay language papers are summaries (300-500 words) of presentations written by scientists for a general audience. They will be accompanied by photos, audio, and video. Learn more at https://acoustics.org/lay-language-papers/.
PRESS REGISTRATION
ASA will grant free registration to credentialed and professional freelance journalists. If you are a reporter and would like to attend the meeting and/or press conferences, contact AIP Media Services at media@aip.org. For urgent requests, AIP staff can also help with setting up interviews and obtaining images, sound clips, or background information.
ABOUT THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
The Acoustical Society of America is the premier international scientific society in acoustics devoted to the science and technology of sound. Its 7,000 members worldwide represent a broad spectrum of the study of acoustics. ASA publications include The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (the world’s leading journal on acoustics), JASA Express Letters, Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, Acoustics Today magazine, books, and standards on acoustics. The society also holds two major scientific meetings each year. See https://acousticalsociety.org/.
ABOUT THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF JAPAN
ASJ publishes a monthly journal in Japanese, the Journal of the Acoustical Society of Japan, as well as a bimonthly journal in English, Acoustical Science and Technology, which is available online at no cost https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/ast. These journals include technical papers and review papers. Special issues are occasionally organized and published. The Society also publishes textbooks and reference books to promote acoustics associated with various topics. See https://acoustics.jp/en/.
###
END
Software platform helps users find the best hearing protection
The Hearing Protection Optimization Tool translates the complexities of how humans perceive sounds to personalized situational hearing protection recommendations. #ASA_ASJ2025 #ASA189
2025-12-04
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Clean hydrogen breakthrough: Chemical lopping technology with Dr. Muhammad Aziz (full webinar)
2025-12-04
Explore the future of clean hydrogen in this recorded webinar featuring Dr. Muhammad Aziz from the University of Tokyo. Discover how chemical looping technology can produce high-purity hydrogen, capture CO₂, and recover usable heat—all within a near-zero emission process.
???? In this session, you’ll learn about:
Advanced oxygen carrier materials for stable reactor performance
Process intensification strategies for efficient hydrogen production
Real-world applications in power generation, steelmaking, refineries, and renewable energy storage
Key scientific, economic, ...
Understanding emerges: MBL scientists visualize the creation of condensates
2025-12-04
By Diana Kenney
WOODS HOLE, Mass. -- One of the enigmas of life is emergence, when the whole becomes more than its parts. Flocks of birds can instantly change direction when a predator appears, guided not by a lead bird but by a collective intelligence that no single bird can possess on its own.
Multitudes of molecules skitter chaotically in a cell, but certain ones find each other, interact, and give rise to sophisticated cellular structures and functions that could not have been predicted by studying the molecules alone.
Understanding how emergent properties arise in cells – in this case, how liquid droplets called condensates spontaneously form from rapidly moving molecules ...
Discovery could give investigators a new tool in death investigations
2025-12-04
A discovery by FIU researchers could help forensic investigators close the gap on estimating time of death.
Often, death investigations rely on maggots — the larvae of blow flies that are among the first insects to colonize a body after death — to estimate how long a person has been dead. The presence of eggs or the sizes of the maggots are indicators of time since death. Yet, there is a stage in their development, where the maggot’s physical form changes very little, which limits the precision of time of death estimates. While changes may not be visible on a maggot’s outside, their ...
Ultrasonic pest control to protect beehives
2025-12-04
HONOLULU, Dec. 4, 2025 — Bees, and other pollinator species, are dying. Between pesticides, the climate crisis, and habitat loss, bee colonies are becoming weaker, leaving them more vulnerable to parasites like the greater and lesser wax moths. Vulnerable bees have cascading effects on beekeepers and food security in the apiculture industry.
A team of researchers from the University of Strathclyde and Japan’s National Agriculture and Food Research Organization is exploiting the unusual hearing of wax moths to develop a sustainable and efficient ...
PFAS mixture disrupts normal placental development which is important for a healthy pregnancy
2025-12-04
The placenta regulates the exchange of nutrients, gases, and metabolic products between a pregnant woman and the foetus, thereby ensuring healthy development. The first 90 days of pregnancy are particularly important, because the baby’s organs begin to develop during this sensitive period. Although the placenta has barrier mechanisms designed to prevent the passage of dangerous substances into the baby, PFAS can accumulate in the body, interfere with foetal development, and, in severe cases, increase the risk of miscarriage. “For an accurate risk assessment, ...
How sound moves on Mars
2025-12-04
HONOLULU, Dec. 4, 2025 — Acoustic signals have been important markers during NASA’s Mars missions. Measurements of sound can provide information both about Mars itself — such as turbulence in its atmosphere, changes in its temperature, and its surface conditions — and about the movement of the Mars rovers.
Using these sound measurements to the best extent possible requires an accurate understanding of how sound propagates on Mars. Charlie Zheng, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Utah State University, and his doctoral student Hayden Baird, who is partially sponsored by the Utah Space Grant Consortium Graduate ...
Increasing plant diversity in agricultural grasslands boosts yields, reducing reliance on fertilizer
2025-12-04
Higher plant diversity in agricultural grasslands increases yields with lower inputs of nitrogen fertiliser. That is the headline finding of a landmark, international study led by Trinity College Dublin that paints a promising picture for more sustainable agriculture.
And in further good news, the research shows that under warmer temperatures, the yield benefits of more diverse grasslands further increase. This highlights the climate adaptation potential of multispecies mixtures in an era where the global climate crisis is driving rising temperatures in many countries.
The research, published today in leading ...
Scientists uncover a new role for DNA loops in repairing genetic damage
2025-12-04
When DNA breaks, cells must repair it accurately to prevent harmful mutations. Researchers have discovered that during a key repair process called homologous recombination, the cell uses loops in its DNA structure to speed up the search for an intact copy of the damaged region. These loops act like shortcuts, allowing the repair machinery to scan along the chromosome in a directed way rather than randomly. This finding, published today in Science, reveals an unexpected function for chromatin loops—not just in organizing the genome, but also in helping maintain its integrity.
“Homologous recombination is a key DNA repair process often linked to cancer, but ...
AI chatbots can effectively sway voters – in either direction
2025-12-04
ITHACA, N.Y. -- A short interaction with a chatbot can meaningfully shift a voter’s opinion about a presidential candidate or proposed policy in either direction, new Cornell University research finds.
The potential for artificial intelligence to affect election results is a major public concern. Two new papers – with experiments conducted in four countries – demonstrate that chatbots powered by large language models (LLMs) are quite effective at political persuasion, moving opposition voters’ preferences ...
Study reveals 'levers' driving the political persuasiveness of AI chatbots
2025-12-04
Even small, open-source AI chatbots can be effective political persuaders, according to a new study. The findings provide a comprehensive empirical map of the mechanisms behind AI political persuasion, revealing that post-training and prompting – not model scale and personalization – are the dominant levers. It also reveals evidence of a persuasion-accuracy tradeoff, reshaping how policymakers and researchers should conceptualize the risks of persuasive AI. There is a growing concern amongst many that advances in AI – particularly conversational ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
How talking slows eye movements behind the wheel
The Ceramic Society of Japan’s Oxoate Ceramics Research Association launches new international book project
Heart-brain connection: international study reveals the role of the vagus nerve in keeping the heart young
Researchers identify Rb1 as a predictive biomarker for a new therapeutic strategy in some breast cancers
Survey reveals ethical gaps slowing AI adoption in pediatric surgery
Stimulant ADHD medications work differently than thought
AI overestimates how smart people are, according to HSE economists
HSE researchers create genome-wide map of quadruplexes
Scientists boost cell "powerhouses" to burn more calories
Automatic label checking: The missing step in making reliable medical AI
Low daily alcohol intake linked to 50% heightened mouth cancer risk in India
American Meteorological Society announces Rick Spinrad as 2026 President-Elect
Biomass-based carbon capture spotlighted in newly released global climate webinar recording
Illuminating invisible nano pollutants: advanced bioimaging tracks the full journey of emerging nanoscale contaminants in living systems
How does age affect recovery from spinal cord injury?
Novel AI tool offers prognosis for patients with head and neck cancer
Fathers’ microplastic exposure tied to their children’s metabolic problems
Research validates laboratory model for studying high-grade serous ovarian cancer
SIR 2026 delivers transformative breakthroughs in minimally invasive medicine to improve patient care
Stem Cell Reports most downloaded papers of 2025 highlight the breadth and impact of stem cell research
Oxford-led study estimates NHS spends around 3% of its primary and secondary care budget on the health impacts of heat and cold in England
A researcher’s long quest leads to a smart composite breakthrough
Urban wild bees act as “microbial sensors” of city health.
New study finds where you live affects recovery after a hip fracture
Forecasting the impact of fully automated vehicle adoption on US road traffic injuries
Alcohol-related hospitalizations from 2016 to 2022
Semaglutide and hospitalizations in patients with obesity and established cardiovascular disease
Researchers ‘listen in’ to embryo-mother interactions during implantation using a culture system replicating the womb lining
How changing your diet could help save the world
How to make AI truly scalable and reliable for real-time traffic assignment?
[Press-News.org] Software platform helps users find the best hearing protectionThe Hearing Protection Optimization Tool translates the complexities of how humans perceive sounds to personalized situational hearing protection recommendations. #ASA_ASJ2025 #ASA189