• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.266-274
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• 2019

As can be seen in the statistics on domestic performance facilities, small or large scale of acoustic renovations seem to be unavoidable in many of those facilities due to its senility. However it is hard to find case studies which can be referred to for its acoustic renovation process. This study tried to provide a case study example of acoustic renovation for a high school auditorium which has many restrictions as a cultural heritage building. Requirements from the client and acoustic problems found through a field measurement of existing space motivated acoustic design solutions and alternatives which can improve the acoustics of the space. The whole process from the initial stage of diagnosing acoustic problems to the final stage of a post acoustic evaluation after the completion of construction was described. The result from the post acoustic evaluation suggested that reverberation characteristics of the space as well as definition and clarity have been greatly improved by applying acoustic design solutions and alternatives. However, loudness of sounds in the space didn't reach the aimed level, which is due to the limited capability of slat ceiling structure for providing strong early reflections.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Educational Facilities
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.3-14
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• 2021

Speech information of teachers is transmitted to students in classrooms so that appropriate aural environment should be provided for academic purposes. Many researches have been undertaken for classroom acoustics, and acoustic standards of domestic classrooms were suggested based on the reverberation time and background noise level. However, these standards are suitable for middle and high schools and so not consider the auditory ability by ages. As a precedent research, the present study was begun to suggest an acoustic standard for lower grade elementary school classrooms with children under age 9 who have not normal auditory ability. In order to do this, acoustic performances of the lower grade classrooms were measured and compared with the general classrooms. Also, change of acoustic parameters depending on the desk layout was measured and analyzed. The measured acoustic parameters were background noise, signal to noise ratio, RT, STI, D₅₀, and IACC. As a result, it was found that background noise is exceed the standard of 35dB(A) at the schools along the road sides. Also, it was shown that most of acoustic parameters are higher in the classrooms built recently rather than the old classrooms. Generally, there are not much difference of acoustic parameters among the various desk layouts but, better acoustic performances are acquired at the center line and the seats near sound source. Also, Higher IACC was measured at the seats on the center line facing the source squarely.

• Journal of Audiology & Otology
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.189-198
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• 2021

Background and Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the occupational performance of Korean workers with and without hearing loss and analyze the hearing-related difficulties in the working environment. Subjects and Methods: The Amsterdam checklist for hearing and work was used for the analyses and the occupational environments of the Korean workers were investigated. Out of 129 total participants, 86 workers experienced severe to profound hearing loss and 43 had the normal hearing ability. The hearing-impaired workers were recruited from two leading vocational centers and normal-hearing workers were their colleagues. Results: The hearing-impaired workers were found to take fewer sick leaves and exhibited higher rates of permanent job statuses compared to the normal-hearing workers. Workers with hearing loss rarely detected background sound; however, they could perceive reverberation more frequently. They felt more satisfied with their careers than the normal hearing workers as they received social support and needed to put their effort into hearing for most hearing activities. Furthermore, the effort in hearing increased with the increase in job demand, job control, social support, and career satisfaction. The working hours per week increased with the increase in age, education level, job demand, job control, and social support. Different trends were observed in 9 out of 12 variables while comparing the data from the present study with that obtained from the hearing-impaired workers of the Netherlands, indicating a large difference between countries. Conclusions: Although the hearing-impaired Korean workers operate diligently with good job positions, it is necessary to enhance their acoustic environment and provide them social support. Considering the cultural background of the hearing-impaired workers, the development of suitable vocational rehabilitation programs and specific questionnaires is strongly recommended worldwide.

• Korean Journal of Audiology
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.189-199
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• 2021

Background and Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the occupational performance of Korean workers with and without hearing loss and analyze the hearing-related difficulties in the working environment. Subjects and Methods: The Amsterdam checklist for hearing and work was used for the analyses and the occupational environments of the Korean workers were investigated. Out of 129 total participants, 86 workers experienced severe to profound hearing loss and 43 had the normal hearing ability. The hearing-impaired workers were recruited from two leading vocational centers and normal-hearing workers were their colleagues. Results: The hearing-impaired workers were found to take fewer sick leaves and exhibited higher rates of permanent job statuses compared to the normal-hearing workers. Workers with hearing loss rarely detected background sound; however, they could perceive reverberation more frequently. They felt more satisfied with their careers than the normal hearing workers as they received social support and needed to put their effort into hearing for most hearing activities. Furthermore, the effort in hearing increased with the increase in job demand, job control, social support, and career satisfaction. The working hours per week increased with the increase in age, education level, job demand, job control, and social support. Different trends were observed in 9 out of 12 variables while comparing the data from the present study with that obtained from the hearing-impaired workers of the Netherlands, indicating a large difference between countries. Conclusions: Although the hearing-impaired Korean workers operate diligently with good job positions, it is necessary to enhance their acoustic environment and provide them social support. Considering the cultural background of the hearing-impaired workers, the development of suitable vocational rehabilitation programs and specific questionnaires is strongly recommended worldwide.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.649-655
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• 2022

In this paper, a determinant-based two-channel noise reduction method which utilizes speech presence probability (SPP) is proposed. The proposed method improves noise reduction performance from the conventional determinant-based two-channel noise reduction method in [7] by applying SPP to the Wiener filter gain. Consequently, the proposed method adaptively controls the amount of noise reduction depending on the SPP. For performance evaluation, the segmental signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), the perceptual evaluation of speech quality, the short time objective intelligibility, and the log spectral distance were measured in the simulated noisy environments considered various types of noise, reverberation, SNR, and the direction and number of noise sources. The experimental results presented that determinant-based methods outperform phase difference-based methods in most cases. In particular, the proposed method achieved the best noise reduction performance maintaining minimum speech distortion.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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• v.62 no.1
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• pp.6.1-6.4
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• 2022

A 10-year-old, spayed female, Doberman Pinscher dog presented with right forelimb lameness. On physical examination, painful reaction and crepitation were present at the right shoulder. Radiographic evaluation of the shoulder revealed nothing remarkable. On the ultrasonography of the right shoulder joint, 2 small echogenic masses accompanied by reverberation artifacts were observed in the right biceps tendon near its origin at the supraglenoid tuberosity. Based on these findings, we suspected biceps calcifying tendinopathy. Clinical signs resolved intermittently after administration of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug. This study described the ultrasonographic findings of calcifying biceps brachii tendinopathy which is an unusual finding in dogs.

• Korean Journal of Audiology
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.105-111
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• 2014

Assistive listening devices (ALDs) refer to various types of amplification equipment designed to improve the communication of individuals with hard of hearing to enhance the accessibility to speech signal when individual hearing instruments are not sufficient. There are many types of ALDs to overcome a triangle of speech to noise ratio (SNR) problems, noise, distance, and reverberation. ALDs vary in their internal electronic mechanisms ranging from simple hard-wire microphone-amplifier units to more sophisticated broadcasting systems. They usually use microphones to capture an audio source and broadcast it wirelessly over a frequency modulation (FM), infra-red, induction loop, or other transmission techniques. The seven types of ALDs are introduced including hardwire devices, FM sound system, infra-red sound system, induction loop system, telephone listening devices, television, and alert/alarm system. Further development of digital wireless technology in hearing instruments will make possible direct communication with ALDs without any accessories in the near future. There are two technology solutions for digital wireless hearing instruments improving SNR and convenience. One is near-field magnetic induction combined with Bluetooth radio frequency (RF) transmission or proprietary RF transmission and the other is proprietary RF transmission alone. Recently launched digital wireless hearing aid applying this new technology can communicate from the hearing instrument to personal computer, phones, Wi-Fi, alert systems, and ALDs via iPhone, iPad, and iPod. However, it comes with its own iOS application offering a range of features but there is no option for Android users as of this moment.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.291-297
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• 2006

This paper proposes a new Digital Reverberator that models Analog Helical Coil Spring Reverberator for guitar amplifiers. While the conventional digital reverberators are proposed to provide better sound field mainly based on room acoustics, no algorithm or analysis of digital reverberators those model Helical Coil Spring Reverberator was proposed. Considering the fact that approximately $70{\sim}80$ percent of guitar amplifiers are still with Helical Coil Spring Reverberator, research was performed based not on Room Acoustics but on Helical Coil Spring Reverberator itself as an effector. After performing simulations with proposed algorithm, it was confirmed that the Digital Reverberator by proposed algorithm provides perceptually equivalent response to the conventional Analog Helical Coil Spring Reverberators.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.432-440
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• 2009

Recently, the necessity of underwater acoustic communication and demand for transmitting and receiving various data such as voice or high resolution image data are increasing as well. The performance of underwater acoustic communication system is influenced by underwater channel characteristic. Especially, a delay spread caused by reverberation and multi-path induces the ISI (Inter-Symbol-Interference) and reduces the communication performance. In this paper, we study the OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) technique for robust the delay spread in underwater channel. We also use the clipping method to overcome the performance degradation in high PAPR (Peak-to-Average Power Ratio). We confirm the performances of underwater communication system by the underwater channel model simulation model and experiment in small water tank. As a result, the multi-carrier modulation with clipping method presented low BER and the previous single carrier modulation had high BER.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.29 no.7
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• pp.411-421
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• 2010

A time-reversal mirror (TRM) is useful in diverse areas, such as reverberation ing, target echo enhancement and underwater communication. In underwater communication, the bit error rate has been improved significantly due to the increased signal-to-noise ratio by spatio-temporal focusing. This paper deals with two issues. First, the optimal number of array elements for a given environment was investigated based on the exploitation of spatial diversity. Second, an algorithm was developed to determine the optimal location of the given number of array elements. The formulation is based on a genetic algorithm maximizing the contrast between the foci and area of interest as an objective function. In addition, the developed algorithm was applied to the matched field processing with ocean experimental data for verification. The sea-going data and simulation showed almost 3 dB improvement in the output power at the foci when the array elements were optimally distributed.