• Proceedings of the KOR-BRONCHOESO Conference
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• 1979.05a
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• pp.4.4-5
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• 1979

The degree of hearing impairment of chronic otitis media will indicate the nature and severity of middle ear pathology especially condition of ossicular chain, size of ear drum perforation and location of granulation tissue in the middle ear cavity. The subjects were 189 ears of tympanoplasty for chronic otitis media and divided into four groups as follows: Normal ossicular chain with only ear drum perforation (group I), normal ossicular chain with granulation tissue only around the ossicles regardless of any other region (group II), ossicular ankylosis or fixation of handle of malleus to promontory with or without granulation tissue around the ossicle (group III) and ossicular interruption by partial or complete destruction(groupf IV). The results were concluded as follows: 1) The average hearing threshold of chronic otitis media was 44.6 dB and hearing threshold was closely related to the condition of ossicular chain. Hearing threshold became greater in order of normal ossicular chain, ankylosis and interruption. 2) The average hearing threshold of ossicular interrupted group was 49.1 dB and it was greater in the cases of total destruction than that of partial destruction. 3) The hearing loss in the cases of normal ossicular chain with only tympanic membrane perforation was within 45 dB and this level was presumed to represent normal ossicular function. The degree of hearing loss was in proportion to the size of ear drum perforation and when over 45 dB, other middle ear pathology was suggested. 4) In the cases of small ear drum perforation with normal ossicular function, the hearing threshold was within 30 dB. 5) In the type of audiogram, flat type was 30.2% and ascending type 35.4%. Descending type was more frequent in the cases of normal ossicular mobility with granulation tissue around the ossicle and flat type was observed frequently in the cases of ossicular ankylosis. 6) Carhart's notch was seen in 14 cases (7.4%) and observed mainly in ossicular ankylosis. 7) There was no relation between hearing threshold and histopathological type of granulation tissue in chronic otitis media. However the degree of hearing impairment was related to the location of granulation tissue in the middle ear cavity. 8) Authors recognized the granulation tissue compensated the function of interrupted ossicular chain.

• IE interfaces
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.147-156
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• 2000

It is known that the human stature and its related dimensions generally increase until the late teens or early twenties, remain relatively constant throughout early adulthood, and decline from early-to-middle adulthood into old age. However, there is exception that the length of the human ears, which continue to grow throughout life. In this study, 600 Korean male and female subjects aging from 17 to 89 were selected. Four different points of external ears including Pinna length, ear connection point length, Concha length, and Lobule thickness were measured along with other relative subjects' demographic data(e.g., age, stature, weight) to determine the relationship among these obtained data. The results showed that the age, sex, and different ethnic populations were functions of ear dimensions similar to the human stature. For example, the Pinna length increases as the age increases(r= 0.689, p<0.00l). The primary objective of this study was thus to provide anthropometric dimensions of Korean ear for the product designers and recommend the appropriate product design solutions in relation to human ear. Based on the results of this study, it is suggested that the continuing growth of the human body parts should be considered in the application of anthropometric data to the design of the things especially for human use.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology and Dermatology
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.23-42
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• 2020

Objectives : This study is designed to analyze the outpatients who received medical treatments for ear diseases in ophthalmology & otolaryngology & dermatology clinic of Daejeon Korean Medical Hospital from March, 2013 to February, 2019. Methods : We classified the otology outpatients who received medical treatments in ophthalmology & otolaryngology & dermatology clinic of Daejeon Korean Medical Hospital from March, 2012 to February, 2019 according to gender, year, age, season, anatomical parts, and main diagnosis. The statistical analysis was performed using SPSS 25.0. Results : 1. The number of outpatients with ear diseases were 880; 505 female and 375 male. The number of female patients were approximately 1.7 times higher. 2. The average age of the outpatients with ear diseases were 50.0. The number of middle-aged (40-50s) patients were 439, which is almost half the number(49.9%) of the whole patients. 3. By analyzing the number of patients classified by year, we found out that the number of the outpatients with ear diseases has increased gradually for the past 7 years. 4. In the analysis of the number of patients classified by the anatomical parts of the ear, the inner ear diseases group were the largest, amounting to 79.3% of the whole patients. 5. In the analysis of the number of patients classified by main diagnosis, Tinnitus turns out to be the largest group with 338 patients, followed by sudden sensorineural hearing loss, dizziness, otalgia, Meniere's syndrome, otitis, auditory tube dysfunction, BPPV. 6. No statistical-significant difference were shown in the analysis of the number of patients classified by season. Conclusions : It turns out that patients with ear diseases had increased by the years, and middle aged patients (40-50s) were the largest among the age groups. Most of the patients came for the inner-ear diseases, and tinnitus, sudden sensorineural hearing loss took up the largest proportions.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.217-225
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• 2002

The implantable middle ear(IME) system, which has good sound quality. superior sound intelligibility and wide frequency characteristics. can resolve the sound distortion and ringing effect by sound feedback at high gain operation those are the major problems of conventional hearing aid. In this paper, we have manufactured the IME system using differential electromagnetic transducer(DET) and verified the performance of the system by carrying out vibration and animal implanting experiment. The DET was manufactured using micro-machining technology and vibration experiment of the transducer was performed to inspect whether the transducer could vibrate in accordance with the applied sound signal or not. And the result of the loaded experiment using temporal bone sampled from cadaver showed that the transducer can drive the middle ear bone and transmit the signal to inner ear After the internal unit of IME system was implanted in a dog. the auditory brainstem response (ABR) test was carried out. The result of the test indicated the Proper behavior of the IME system in the living body From the results of the experiments, it is verified that the manufactured system ewll work well when it is applied to human and a basis of clinical experiment of IME system to real human hearing impaired was be arranged.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.179-186
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• 2012

The aims of this study are to consider auditory physiological characteristics and to confirm audiological evaluation and interpretation in regards to cases of sensorineural hearing loss that observe an abnormal AB gap. Vestibulosaccular hearing occurs when there is an abnormally large air-bone gap (AB gap) in sensorineural hearing loss, also known as pure cochlear conductive hearing loss. Generally, an AB gap is caused by damage to the external and/or middle ear. In conductive hearing loss, loss of air condition hearing occurs due to a loss of resonance in the outer ear and/or impedance mismatching in the middle ear. Most of these types of hearing loss can be treated medically and surgically. However, there is no medical treatment for an AB gap in sensorineural hearing loss and hearing loss can worsen gradually or suddenly. In addition, many studies have reported that head trauma makes hearing loss even more serious. Therefore, in order to differentiate between conductive hearing losses, it is important to check whether or not there is an enlarged vestibular aqueduct by means of temporal bone computerized tomography and/or magnetic resonance imaging.

• Proceedings of the KOR-BRONCHOESO Conference
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• 1978.06a
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• pp.8.4-9
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• 1978

Since the first success of simple mastoidectomy, about 100 years ago by Schwartze (1873). Zollner (1951) and Wullstein (1952) had formulated systemically the basic principles of restorative surgery of chronic ear diseases. Although the last century has shown a remarkable advances in surgical technique, there are still lots of debatable problems yet. The authors experienced 970 cases of middle ear surgery during last four years and clinical and statistical analysis were done as a preliminary report.

• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.74-77
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• 2011

We report a novel extension of 840 nm wavelength- based spectral domain optical tomography to in vivo/real-time human middle ear diagnosis. The system was designed to access the middle ear region with a specifically dedicated handheld probe. The real-time displaying feature was mandatory for in vivo imaging human subject with the handheld probe, and the system could provide about 20 frames per second for 2048 pixels by 1000 A-scans without using any graphics process units under the Labview platform. The inner ear structure of a healthy male volunteer was imaged with the developed system with the axial and lateral resolutions of $15\;{\mu}m$ and $30\;{\mu}m$, respectively. The application of the OCT technology to early diagnose otitis media(OM) is very promising and could be another extensive branch in the OCT field because it provides the depth resolved image including tympanic membrane (TM) and structures below TM whereas the conventional otoscope technique only gives asurface image of the TM.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.369-376
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• 2004

The tinnitus retraining therapy(TRT) is an effective method for treating tinnitus patients. This therapy use the white noise to stimulate auditory cells for a wide frequency range. In this paper, the small white noise generator using the thermal noise is proposed. And frequency response controller which can compensate the frequency response changed by the human outer and middle ear system is proposed. We can know that proposed system is more proper type on a purpose of the tinnitus retraining therapy comparing with conventional white noise generator.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers C
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• v.49 no.10
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• pp.583-588
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• 2000

This paper presents the design and fabrication of micro electromagnetic vibration silicon elastic body characterized with small size, high efficiency and selective frequency bandwidth for Bio-MENS applications, such as implantable middle ear hearing aid. The presented electromagnetic vibration transducer that composed of wounded coil, permanent magnet and 4-beam cross type elastic body is fabricated by using of micromachining technology. The fabricated transducer has experimental characteristics, that is 5 nm/mA of an energy trasfer rate at the frequency range of 100∼2800 Hz. It has a size of $2{\times}2{\times}2.5\;mm^3$.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.625-632
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• 1999

이식형 인공중이에 사용되는 전자트랜스듀서는 압전형 트랜스듀서에 비해 음향특성은 좋으나 부피가 크고 효율이 낮으며 수술시 정밀한 코일-자석 간격 조정이 필요하며, 최근 제안된 FMT 트랜스듀서는 외부 자장의 변화에 민감하다는 문제점이 지적되고 있다. 본 논문에서는 코일-자석 간격조정이 필요 없고 외부자장에 영향을 받지 않는 차동 플로팅메스형 전자 트랜스듀서를 제안하였다. 제안된 방식은 2개의 소형 자석을 같은 극끼리 접합함으로써 외부자장에 대해 영향을 받지 않고 효율이 높은 등의 장점을 가진다. 제안된 트랜스듀서의 진동력 및 효율에 관한 정량적인 해석을 하였으며 기존의 트랜스듀서와 비교분석을 행하였다. 그리고 공급전류에 대해 발생되는 진동력의 크기를 계산함으로서 실제 이식형 인공중이의 제작에 필요한 객관적인 설계데이타를 제시하였다. 한편, 시험 제작된 트랜스듀서의 해석결과 제안한 트랜스듀서는 기존의 FMT 트랜스듀서보다도 효율이 1.5배 정도의 향상됨을 보였으며 무부하시험 및 사체의 이소골 진동실험을 통하여 적절한 진동을 효과적으로 이소골에 전달할 수 있음을 보였다.