• Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.70-75
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• 2018

Background: Otitis media with effusion (OME) is defined as middle ear effusion without acute signs of infection. OME usually resolves spontaneously; however, persistent OME may require the insertion of a ventilation tube. This study investigated risk factors for persistent OME in children who undergo ventilation tube insertion. Methods: Children who were admitted to undergo ventilation tube insertion at Jeju National University Hospital between August 2015 and July 2016 were enrolled as the case group. Healthy children without persistent OME from August 2016 to July 2017 were enrolled as the control group. Baseline characteristics and predisposing factor data were collected using an interview questionnaire. Middle ear fluids were collected from the case group. Results: A total of 31 patients underwent ventilation tube insertion. The mean age of the case group was 4.53 years, with a male-to-female ratio of 21:10. Twenty-nine (93.5%) children attended a daycare center, and 21 (67.7%) had experience with bottle feeding. Fifteen (48.4%) children in the case group and 3 (9.7%) in the control group first attended a daycare center at <1 year of age (odds ratio=9.96; 95% confidence interval=2.44-39.70; p=0.001). No bacteria were found in middle ear fluid collected from the 31 operated children. Nasopharyngeal bacterial colonization was found in 13 (41.9%) and 17 (54.8%) children in the case and control groups, respectively. Conclusion: Earlier attendance at a daycare center was the only predisposing factor for ventilation tube insertion in our study. The aseptic nature of middle ear fluids found in children with OME highlights the efficacy of antimicrobial use.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.227-233
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• 2002

The IME(implantable middle ear) system is Promising due to its ability to free from sound feedback and Produce a good sound quality and intelligibility with low distortion even if it is operated with high gain for severe hearing impaired. The differential electromagnetic vibration transducer. which was developed for using in IME system and has two small magnets attached the same Pole facing in the coil. is not influenced by environmental external magnetic field. Besides, it has high vibration efficiency and good frequency response characteristics. In this Paper, using acoustic model of the transducer and ear model of normal Person. the signal transfer characteristics of the IME system are analyzed and investigated From the differences of the characteristics between normal ear and the IME system, it is Possible that design of the IME system that have the signal transfer characteristics similar to normal person's ear.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2015.10a
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• pp.693-694
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• 2015

This paper present a decision method of middle ear disease which is developed in children and adults. In the proposed method, features are extracted from the middle ear disease images and normal images using HOG(histogram of oriented gradient) descriptor and the extracted features are learned by SVM(support vector machine) classifier. Input images are classified by SVM classifier based on the model of learning features. Experimental results show that the method yields accuracy of over 90% in decision.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.63-71
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• 2017

In this paper, a signal processing circuit for semi-implantable middle ear hearing device is designed using the TCBT which is recently proposed for a new middle ear transducer that can be implanted at round window of cochlea. The designed semi-implantable hearing device transmits digital sound signal from external device located at behind the ear to the internal device implanted under the skin using inductive coupling link methods with high efficiency. The coils and signal processing circuits are designed and implemented considering the total transmission and reception distance including skin thickness of temporal bone for the semi-implantable hearing device. And also, to improve the data transmission efficiency, the output circuits which can supply sufficient signal power is designed. In order to confirm operation of semi-implantable hearing device using inductive coupling link, the circuit analysis was performed using PSpice, and the performance was verified by implementing a signal processing board of an available size.

• Proceedings of the KOR-BRONCHOESO Conference
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• 1978.06a
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• pp.7.3-7
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• 1978

Adenoid cystic carcinoma that is found most frequently in the salivary gland is an extremely rare malignant tumor in middle ear and is a slow growing one with a characteristic tendency of recurrence after surgical removal. Recently we experienced a case of this rare adenoid cystic carcinoma arising from middle ear of 30 year old male patient. The patient complained of hearing impairment for two years duration and pulsating tinnitus for two weeks duration in the right ear. Under the local anesthesia, throgh exploratory tympanotomy, a grayish white mass measuring $1.5\times$1.5$\times$1mm in the hypotympanic portion was removed out and a adenoid cystic carcinoma was verified histopathologically.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.24 no.7
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• pp.379-386
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• 2005

Among various kinds of hearing aids which have been developed so far. the conventional air conduction hearing aids have some problems such as the acoustic distortion, an howling effect due to acoustic feedback. Another type of hearing aid. the cochlear implant system can be applied to the profound imparied person. However. it shows the disadvantage that there is no possibility of recovery of the acoustic organ such as ossicle. On the other hand. the implantable middle ear heaving device directly vibratos the ossicular chain and has better sound qualify. good cosmetics for appearance. and wide frequency responses so that it can overcome the defects or the conventional hearing aids. In this paper, a mathematical modeling and a momentum equation derivation of the DET has been performed. For the optimization of the structure dimension generating maximal vibrating force of the DET. the computer simulation using a finite element analysis (FEA) software has been performed. Also. the vibrating transducer has been designed to make the frequency characteristics or the transducer be similar to those of the normal middle ear. Through the experimental results, the measured vibration characteristics of the DET has been evaluated to verify the performance for the application to implantable middle ear hearing devices.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.167-179
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• 1999

The hearing mechanism is a complicated system. Sound is generated by a source that sends out air pressure or power. The pressure or power makes the sound waves. These waves reach the eardrum, or tympanic membrane, which vibrates at a rate and magnitude proportional to the nature of the sound waves. The tympanic membrane transforms this vibration into the mechanical energy in the middle ear, which in turn converts it to the hydraulic energy in the fluid of the inner ear. The hydraulic energy stimulates the sensory cells of the inner ear which send neuroelectrical impulses to the central auditory nervous system. The passive perception of auditory information starts just here. The listener gives attention to the speech sound, differentiates the sound from background noise, and integrates his experience with similar sounds. The listener then puts all of these aspects of audition into the context of the moment to identify the nature of sound. This has a major role in human communication. This paper provides an overview of the nature and characteristics of sound, the structure and function of the auditory system, and the way in which sound is processed by the auditory system.

• 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.

• Journal of muscle and joint health
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.14-24
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• 2010

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of ear reflexotherapy on back pain of working women in middle age. Methods: The quasi-experimental, nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest design was used for the study. Total of 56 participants composed of experimental group (n=26) and control group (n=30), who were working in four hospitals in urban area. The degree of back pain after ear reflexotherapy was measured by VAS. The data were analyzed by frequency, percent, t-test and $X^2$-test. Results: The degree of back pain after ear reflexotherapy in the experimental group was significantly reduced, while there was no difference in control group. There was a significant difference between the experimental group and control group in the degree of back pain after ear reflexotherapy (t=3.702, p=.001). Conclusion: Application of ear reflexotherapy was effective for employed women in middle age and it needs to be further evaluated among the other population.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.621-629
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• 2016

This paper presents a decision method of middle ear disease which is developed in children and adults. In the proposed method, features are extracted from the middle ear disease images and normal images using HoG (histogram of oriented gradient) descriptor and the extracted features are learned by SVM (support vector machine) classifier. To obtain an input vector into SVM, an input image is resized to a predefined size and then the resized image is partitioned into 16 blocks each of which is partitioned into 4 sub-blocks (namely cell). Finally, the feature vector with 576 components is given by using HoG with 9 bins and it is used as SVM learning and classification. Input images are classified by SVM classifier based on the model of learning features. Experimental results show that the proposed method yields the precision of over 90% in decision.