• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.21-25
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• 2009

Generally, fully implantable middle ear hearing device (F-IMEHD) is implanted under the skin nearby human temporal bone with all components including implantable microphone and vibration transducer. The microphone and transducer have different characteristic before and after implant. Fitting process is performed for this characteristic change of them and proper performance of hearing aids for each patient. Conventional hearing aids and partially implantable hearing aids, they have wired connector for fitting process. However in case of F-IMEHD, it is difficult this wired connection, because all components of F-IMEHD is implanted. In this paper, fitting software that can be apply wireless fitting hardware for F-IMEHD has been designed and implemented. It can find out proper fitting parameter reflecting characteristics of the microphone and transducer for patients who has difficulty in hearing.

• Korean Journal of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery
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• v.61 no.12
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• pp.663-668
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• 2018

Background and Objectives The main objectives of this study were to determine the clinical usefulness of the program-assisted and real ear measurement (REM)-assisted fitting of hearing aids. Subjects and Method Fifteen participants with moderate to moderately severe hearing loss were enrolled in this study. Objective and subjective fitting results were assessed to compare the benefits between the program-assisted fitting (using a software fitting program) and the REM-assisted fitting. Real ear insertion gain (REIG), sound-field audiometry using warble tone, and Korean Hearing in Noise Test (K-HINT) were performed as objective tests. Sound quality rating was performed as a subjective test. Results In the program fitting, 48.89% of fitting points failed to come within ${\pm}10dB$ of the REIG target. In the REM fitting, however, the percentage of failure significantly decreased to 23.33% (p=0.013). In K-HINT test, the reception threshold for speech in quiet situation significantly decreased from 50.1 dB HL with the program fitting to 44.7 dB HL after the REM fitting (p<0.001). In front noise condition, signal-to-noise ratio improved from 4.53 dB to 3.50 dB with the REM fitting without statistical significance (p=0.099). In the sound quality rating, the REM fitting ($4.27{\pm}0.56$) showed a significantly better sound quality ratings than the program fitting ($3.69{\pm}0.74$) (p=0.017). Conclusion The REM fitting showed better results in both subjective and objective measurements than the program fitting.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.190-195
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• 2005

The hearing aid chip described in this paper is an analog & digital mixed system. The design focuses on the$\mu$DSP core. This $\mu$DSP core includes internal time delays to two inputs from front and rear microphones. The paper consists of two parts; one is the composure and signal processing algorithm of digital hearing aids and the other is Verilog HDL codes for$\mu$DSP cores. All digital modules in the design were coded and synthesized by Verilog HDL codes which were verified by Mentor Graphics and Synopsis semiconductor chip design tools.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2003.05a
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• pp.105-108
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• 2003

The purpose of this paper was to evaluate the effect of auditory feedback on fundamental frequencies in prelingulally deaf children. Participants totaled three groups of sixty children: deaf children with cochlear implantation(CI), deaf children with hearing aids (HA), and children with normal hearing(NH). Fundamental frequencies were measured during sustained phonation of /a/. There were statistically significant differences of fundamental frequencies across the groups(p<.01). In post hoc analysis, HA and NH group showed statistically significant differences, but CI group didn't. In correlation analysis between Fo and the chronological age, there were significant negative tendencies in CI and NH group, but not in HA group. The characteristics of fundamental frequencies in CI group were found similar to NH group than HA group in this study. This could be understood as the effect of relatively sufficient auditory feedback after cochlear implantation.

• 한국노년학
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.973-992
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• 2010

The hearing impairment is the representative disorder that affects the quality of the routine life of the aged period. This study was aimed to develop the Korean evaluation scale for hearing handicap(KESHH) with which we can evaluate social and psychological effects of the hearing impairment. Applying this scale clinically, we can analyze the geriatric hearing loss specifically and improve the quality of the aural rehabilitation that can help the hardness of the hearing impairment. Data were collected from 288 participants(176 hearing aid users and 112 non-hearing aid users) and the average age of the participants was 67.4 years old ( 60.15 for the hearing aids users and 78.9 for the non hearing users). The composition ratio of the male and female participants were 58.0% and 42.0% and extrovert and introvert personality were 49.3% and 50.7% showing balanced formation. The tentative draft of KESHH measurements were produced with 30 items and following 5 subscales. Using factor analysis, 6 items were erased and 4 subscales - social effect, psycho/emotional effect, interpersonal effect, and perception of hearing aids - were identified. As each subscale consisted of 6 items, 24 items were corrected and remained totally. Conclusively, the KESHH was developed with 24 items and 4 subscales including 6 items on each subscale. In addition, the KESHH was divided into type-1 and 2 depending on hearing aid users and non hearing aid users. The results of this study can be summarized as the following 5 parts. Firstly, the reliabilities of the KESHH were proved to be high because the subscales' Cronbach alpha values were from 0.723 through 0.895. Secondly, the KESHH showed systematically increasing score as the hearing impairment increased. The lowest score was 24 and the highest score was 117 and the average scores of the hearing impaired and non-hearing impaired are 72.06(SD=15.67) and 66.98(SD=20.94) showing 5.08 increased score for the hearing impaired. Depending on the degree of the hearing loss, the scores recorded 52.63 at the below of the mild hearing loss, 67.29 for the moderate hearing loss, 71.89 for the moderately severe hearing loss, and 75.57 for the severe hearing loss The comparison of the scores by hearing levels indicated that the higher the hearing levels were, the higher the scores of the KESHH with statistical significance(p<0.001). Thirdly, the correlation among 4 subscales was 0.384~0.880(p<0.001). Also, the pure tone average, personality, and the four subscales correlations showed statistical significance with 0.148~0.880 except for the pure tone average and personality and the pure tone average and perception of hearing aids. Fourthly, the total variances explained for the independent subscles were analyzed with multiple regression. The social effect was explained 17.4% with pure tone average, personality, and the status of hearing aid use variances. The psycho/emotional effect was explained 14.4% with puretone average, personality, and age variances. The interpersonal effect was explained 11.2% with pure tone average, personality, and the status of hearing aid use variances. The perception of hearing aids effect was explained 2.2% with only personality. Finally, test-retest reliability was proved to be high with 0.791(p<0.001). Conclusively, the KESHH that was developed considering Korean culture can be a useful instrument for expressing the hearing handicaps of the Korean aged hearing impaired in scores for both hearing aid users and non-users. Also, it is thought that the KESHH is useful clinically for identifying the changes of the hearing handicap scores before and after wearing hearing aids and aural rehabilitation at diverse situations.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.189-199
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• 2016

Many implantable hearing aids are being developed as alternatives to conventional hearing aids which has inconveniences for use and social stigma that make hearing-impaired people avoid to wear it. Particularly, the fully-implantable middle ear hearing devices (F-IMEHD) are being actively studied for mixed or sensorineural hearing impaired people. In development of F-IMEHD, the most difficult problem is improving the performance of implantable microphone. Recently, Cho et al. have studied the tympanic membrane installed microphone which has better sensitivity and is easier to operate on patient than the microphone implanted under the skin. But, it may cause howling problem due to the feedback signal via oval window and ossicle chain from the transducer on round window in the middle ear cavity, therefore, a feedback canceller is necessary. In this paper, we designed NLMS (normalized least mean square) adaptive feedback canceller for F-IMEHD with tympanic membrane installed microphone and a transducer implemented at round window, and computer simulation was performed to verify its operation. The designed adaptive feedback canceller has a delay filter, a 64 point FIR fixed filter and a 8-tap adaptive FIR filter. Computer simulation of the feedback path is modeled by using the data obtained through human cadaver experiment.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.8-13
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• 2013

Persons with sensorineural hearing impairment have troubles in hearing at noisy environments because of their deteriorated hearing levels and low-spectral resolution of the auditory system and therefore, they use hearing aids to compensate weakened hearing abilities. Various algorithms for hearing loss compensation and environmental noise reduction have been implemented in the hearing aid; however, the performance of these algorithms vary in accordance with external sound situations and therefore, it is important to tune the operation of the hearing aid appropriately in accordance with a wide variety of sound situations. In this study, a sound classification algorithm that can be applied to the hearing aid was suggested. The proposed algorithm can classify the different types of speech situations into four categories: 1) speech-only, 2) noise-only, 3) speech-in-noise, and 4) music-only. The proposed classification algorithm consists of two sub-parts: a feature extractor and a speech situation classifier. The former extracts seven characteristic features - short time energy and zero crossing rate in the time domain; spectral centroid, spectral flux and spectral roll-off in the frequency domain; mel frequency cepstral coefficients and power values of mel bands - from the recent input signals of two microphones, and the latter classifies the current speech situation. The experimental results showed that the proposed algorithm could classify the kinds of speech situations with an accuracy of over 94.4%. Based on these results, we believe that the proposed algorithm can be applied to the hearing aid to improve speech intelligibility in noisy environments.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.21-28
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• 2007

In most of hearing aids, amplification algorithms are used to compensate hearing loss, noise and feedback reduction algorithms are used and to increase the perception of speeches contrast enhancement algorithms are used. However, acoustic masking effect is occurred between formants if contrast is enhanced excessively. To confirm the masking effect in speeches, the experiment are composed of 6 tests; test pure tone test, speech reception test, word recognition test, pure tone masking test, formant pure tone masking test and speech masking test, and for objective evaluation, LLR is introduced. As a result of normal hearing subjects and hearing impaired subjects, more making is occurred in hearing impaired subjects than normal hearing subjects when using pure tone, and in the speech masking test, speech reception is also lower in hearing impaired subjects than in normal hearing subjects. This means that acoustic masking effect rather than distortion influences speech perception. So it is required to check the characteristics of masking effect before wearing a hearing aid and to apply this characteristics to fitting curve.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.282-290
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• 2006

We have developed a multi band digital hearing aid algorithm emphasizing feedback cancellation and a hardware module to evaluate the performance of our algorithm. The hearing aids should be able to compensate for individual hearing loss characteristics of hearing impaired person. Thus hearing aids need the function of multi-bands amplification and the capabilities of feedback cancellation that can remove howling caused by acoustic feedback. In this paper, we proposed a digital hearing aid algorithm which has multi-bands compensation using modified discrete cosine transform (MDCT) and can efficiently remove acoustic feedbacks. Moreover, we have developed digital hearing aid hardware module, which can evaluate hearing aid algorithms in real time operation. The developed algorithm and hardware module were verified through computer simulation and clinical tests. Through operational experiments, good performances in real time operation environment and an efficient howling cancellation were also observed. The developed hardware module can operate in stable condition and it is expected to become a good hardware platform for developing hearing aid algorithms.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.162-168
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• 2009

Implantable middle ear hearing devices (IMEHDs) have been widely studied as an alternative hearing aids to solve the problems of conventional hearing aids. Vibration transducer of middle ear hearing aids is a key component because vibration characteristics of transducer is directly involved performance of hearing aids. So, the study about middle ear hearing aids concentrate on the transducers. A floating mass type transducer is most efficient. In this paper, we suggest a lumped mechanical model of electromagnetic floating mass transducer implanted on human middle ear. The proposed model enables analysis of the vibration characteristics of a floating mass transducer and prediction of the variation after implant on ossicle that offers a simple and easy to analyze. The parameters was drawn based on the components and the structures of transducer. The Lumped mechanical model was converted by the electrical-mechanical equivalent model, and simulated using PSpice. So, we investigated vibration characteristics of transducer influenced it's components. And we predict vibration characteristics of stapes footplate due to implanted transducer's vibration using combining model of transducer and human ear. To prove the feasibility of the suggested model, we fabricated a differential floating mass transducer (DFMT) as one of floating mass transducers and performed experiments using the human temporal bones.