SWISS ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY -SGA-
1. SOCIETY LOGO
2. SOCIETY DATA
COUNTRY
1. Country: Switzerland
SOCIETY DATA
2. Status: Full Member
3. Society name (in English): Swiss Acoustical Society
4. Original Society name: Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Akustik
Societé Suisse d’Acoustique
5. Society acronyms: SGA-SSA
6. Address: c/o Bereich Physik
CH-6002 Luzern, Switzerland
7. Phone: +41 41 419 5494
8. Fax: +41 41 419 6213
9. E-mail: info@sga-ssa.ch
10. Web: www.sga-ssa.ch
11. Society Journal (name): SGA-Bulletin / Courrier SSA
PRESIDENT DATA
12. Family name, first name: Hohmann, Beat W.
13. Institution/Company: Bereich Physik, Suva
14. Address: Postfach 4358
CH-6002 Luzern, Switzerland
15. Phone: +41 41 419 5494
16. Fax: +41 41 419 6213
17. E-mail: Beat_Hohmann@bluewin.ch
SECRETARY/SECRETARIAT
DATA
18. Family name, first name: Strobel, Annelis
19. Institution/Company:
20. Address: Postfach 164
CH-6003 Sempach-Station, Switzerland
21. Phone: +41 41 469 4040
22. Fax: +41 41 469 4050
23. E-mail: admin@sga-ssa.ch
TREASURER
DATA
24. Family name, first name: Brun, Patricia
25. Institution/Company: Bereich Physik, Suva
26. Address: Postfach 4358
CH-6022 Luzern, Switzerland
27. Phone: +41 41 419 5494
28. Fax: +41 41 419 6213
29. E-mail: info@sga-ssa.ch
3. SOCIETY PROFILE
The Swiss Acoustical Society (SGA-SSA) was founded in 1971. The society's present Honorary President, Prof. Eric J. Rathe, was one of the founding members. Since then, the Society has grown continuously. Today it has about 310 individual and 140 company members. The majority of the members are consulting engineers and practitioners, mostly in the field of environmental noise protection, only a small minority is doing research.
The aim of the society is the promotion of acoustics in Switzerland by supporting studies and research, by exchange of experience between experts, by taking position to questions of noise control legislation and by strengthening the cooperation of acousticians over the language borders in this multilingual country. Therefore the official name of the Society is "Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Akustik - Société Suisse d'Acoustique SGA - SSA".
The most important services offered to the society's members are each year the two conferences: the spring conference usually held in the French-speaking part of Switzerland and the autumn conference with the general assembly. Four to five times a year the society newsletter - bilingual in French and German - informs the members about news and topics in acoustics in Switzerland and abroad, refers to lectures, courses, congresses, new publications, and interesting webpages.
An additional service of SGA/SSA are comparative measurements in order to improve the quality of its member's work, e.g. determination of the sound emission (sound power level) of a small machine and measurements in the field of building acoustics.
There is no formal education in Acoustics in Switzerland. Therefore the society offers to its individual members the possibility to pass an examination for the title "Akustiker SGA" and thereby making prove of their qualification.
Regarding the fields of acoustics SGA's members are interested in, noise control leads with building acoustics and room acoustics coming second. A majority of the members is interested in measuring technique, one third of the members list physical acoustics among their interests and still a quarter musical acoustics and electroacoustics. This priority is reflected in the choice of subjects treated at the society's events, but other fields and applications of acoustics are neglected neither: hearing aid technology (with well-known manufacturers in Switzerland), hearing conservation at working places and during leisure time activities (Switzerland having a nation-wide legislation with sound level limits for concerts and discotheques), active noise control, speech intelligibility in churches to name but a few. For audio-related topics such as transducers, surround sound, hearing or room acoustics, SGA cooperates with the Swiss section of the Audio Engineering Society AES. A joint meeting on a subject of common interest is held every year.
SGA-SSA has published a report on the quality assessment of sound reinforcement systems for speech. This report is available in German and French. A short publication on classroom acoustics is also available.
Currently, there are three specialised groups:
- Room acoustics with special attention to class room acoustics
- Quality control of software in acoustics
- Education in Acoustics
International cooperation is an obvious need for a small country which cannot do everything on its own: SGA/SSA is member of the European Acoustics Association EAA, the International Commission of Acoustics ICA and the International Institute of Noise Control Engineering I-INCE. Foreign speakers are heard regularly at conferences of the SGA. In 1998, SGA hosted the German Acoustical Conference DAGA which took place at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH in Zürich with more than 700 participants. Encouraged by this fruitful cooperation, the French Congress on Acoustics CFA2000 was held in autumn 2000 as a joint conference of the French Acoustical Society (Société Française d'Acoustique SFA) and SGA-SSA.
For more detailed information, please consult SGA-SSA's website www.sga-ssa.ch or mail to info@sga-ssa.ch.