• Smart Media Journal
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.29-34
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• 2018

This paper presents a study on adapting optical communication technology using infrared ray for the enhancement of hearing aids in noisy environment. The transmitter module containing microphone and infrared ray-emitting diode converts audio signal to infrared optical signal and sends it out in the air. The receiver module located in a distance receives the infrared signal, converts it to electrical signal, and transfers it to an input of a digital hearing aid. Especially, the receiver module needs to be small, low voltage, and consume low power since it will be attached to hearing aids. Experiments with applying infrared communication technology of digital modulation method and analog non-modulation method show that the analog non-modulation method is adequate for infrared communication of approximately 5m distance indoor. Prototypes of transmitter module and receiver module were manufactured, and internal parameters of the digital hearing aid were adjusted to confirm normal transmit-receive operation of audio signals.

• Journal of Audiology & Otology
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.8-13
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• 2021

Background and Objectives: In 2013, the Singapore government reviewed and expanded the Senior Mobility Fund (SMF) to provide subsidy for assistive devices, including hearing aids (HA). While SMF has improved accessibility to HA, its impact on HA acquisition has not been determined. The study aims to elucidate the influence of SMF on HA acquisition and the relationship between financial funding and compliance to HA use. Subjects and Methods: Retrospective review of 643 patients seen between January 2017 to January 2018 at the earnose and throat specialist outpatient clinic, who were referred for a hearing aid evaluation. Of the 643 patients, 109 patients with baseline hearing handicap (HH) scores recorded, and no formal diagnosis of cognitive impairment were included. The patients were grouped according to SMF eligibility and clinical data were obtained. Results: The odds ratio for acquiring HA was significantly higher with SMF, regardless of HH scores. When looking at actual degree of hearing loss (DHL), HA uptake was significantly higher in the least severe of DHL categories. There is no relationship between SMF and compliance to HA use. However, HH score is positively correlated with data log in regression analyses. Conclusions: SMF appears to influence HA acquisition. Especially in financially funded patients with low self-perceived HH, the benefits of HA may be underappreciated given the few hours of HA use. Further studies are warranted to investigate the impact of financial funding on outcomes of HA users to help policy planners and clinicians be prudent in the utilization of SMF.

• Korean Journal of Audiology
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.8-13
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• 2021

Background and Objectives: In 2013, the Singapore government reviewed and expanded the Senior Mobility Fund (SMF) to provide subsidy for assistive devices, including hearing aids (HA). While SMF has improved accessibility to HA, its impact on HA acquisition has not been determined. The study aims to elucidate the influence of SMF on HA acquisition and the relationship between financial funding and compliance to HA use. Subjects and Methods: Retrospective review of 643 patients seen between January 2017 to January 2018 at the earnose and throat specialist outpatient clinic, who were referred for a hearing aid evaluation. Of the 643 patients, 109 patients with baseline hearing handicap (HH) scores recorded, and no formal diagnosis of cognitive impairment were included. The patients were grouped according to SMF eligibility and clinical data were obtained. Results: The odds ratio for acquiring HA was significantly higher with SMF, regardless of HH scores. When looking at actual degree of hearing loss (DHL), HA uptake was significantly higher in the least severe of DHL categories. There is no relationship between SMF and compliance to HA use. However, HH score is positively correlated with data log in regression analyses. Conclusions: SMF appears to influence HA acquisition. Especially in financially funded patients with low self-perceived HH, the benefits of HA may be underappreciated given the few hours of HA use. Further studies are warranted to investigate the impact of financial funding on outcomes of HA users to help policy planners and clinicians be prudent in the utilization of SMF.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.3 no.5
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• pp.495-505
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• 2000

In this paper, we propose an efficient auto-fitting system for digital hearing-aids which automatically adjusts the fitting parameters according to the auditory characteristics of hearing handicapped person. The fitting parameters are extracted from audiogram of hearing handicapped and are applied to digital hearing-aid purposed GM3036 chip. The characteristics of each parameter are compared with those from theoretical 2cc graph. The purposed system has applied to 50 patients and their satisfaction ratios show to the very high. As results, it shows effectiveness of proposed system.

• Journal of Korea Society of Digital Industry and Information Management
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.49-58
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• 2012

This paper is on an improved orthogonal projection method which can cancel the acoustic feedback signals in the digital hearing aids. Comparing with the NLMS algorithm which is widely used for simplicity and stability, it shows that this method has the improvement of the convergence performances, and has small computational quantities, for signals with the large auto-correlation as speech signals. This uses the improved orthogonal projection algorithm which reduces the correlation of signals. To verify the convergence characteristics of the proposed algorithm, we simulated about various input signals. The acoustic feedback canceller has a 12-bit resolution with 64-tap adaptive FIR filter. And we compared the results of simulation for this algorithm with the ones for the NLMS algorithm. By these works, it is proved that the feedback canceller adopting the proposed algorithm shows about 3.5dB more high SNR than the NLMS algorithm in the colored input signals.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.143-146
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• 2017

In this paper, a novel approach is proposed to improve the performance of speech/music classification using the recurrent neural network (RNN) in the enhanced voice services (EVS) of 3GPP for hearing aids. Feature vectors applied to the RNN are selected from the relevant parameters of the EVS for efficient speech/music classification. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated under various conditions and large speech/music data. The proposed algorithm yields better results compared with the conventional scheme implemented in the EVS.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.347-354
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• 1996

This paper presents digital hearing aids signal processing system in WT(wavelet transform) domain. For implementation of hearing aids in WT domain, the gain in frequency domain is approximated in WT domain. We also present the gain selection algorithm to deal with the change of input signal power. Most transform methods produce blocking effect, and this effect degrades the convergence rate of feedback canceller. As a solution, we proposed wavelet transform bascd feedback canceller. To evaluate the performance, we compared it with LOT (lapped orthogonal transform) method in the frequency domain. This system has not shown the blocking effect, and improves convergence rate as compared with the LOT based feedback canceller.

• Proceedings of the KOSOMBE Conference
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• v.1996 no.05
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• pp.248-251
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• 1996

In this paper, we presented WT(wavelet transform) domain feedback canceller in hearing aids system. Most transform methods produce blocking effect and this effect degrades the performance of feedback canceller and overall hearing aids system. As a solution we proposed WT based feedback canceller. The performance of this new approach was compared with LOT (lapped orthogonal transform) based method in the frequency domain. As a result, WT based feedback canceller has not shown the blocking effect and improved convergence rate as compared with the LOT based feedback canceller.

• Clinical and Experimental Otorhinolaryngology
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.250-258
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• 2018

Objectives. To compare narrative skills between fourth and fifth grades of Persian-speaking students with hearing impairments and typical hearing students of the same grade and also to evaluate the effects of group, sex, hearing age, and educational grade of the students on their spoken/written narrative performance. Methods. The subjects were 174 students aged 10-13 years, 54 of whom wore cochlear implants, 60 suffered from moderate to severe hearing losses and wore hearing aids, with the remaining 60 students being typical hearing in terms of the sense of hearing. The micro- and macrostructure components of spoken and written narrative were elicited from a pictorial story (The Playful Little Elephant) and then scored by raters. Results. Compared to the typical hearing, the students with hearing impairments had significantly lower scores in all of the microstructure components of narratives. However, the findings showed no significant difference among different groups in macrostructure components of narratives. It was also revealed that the students had equal performance in spoken and written narrative. Finally, factor analysis manifested that group, sex, hearing age, and educational level of children might alter the outcome measures in various interactions. Conclusion. Although cochlear implantation was more effective than hearing aid on spoken and written narrative skills, the Persian-speaking students with hearing impairments were seen to need additional trainings on microstructure components of spoken/written narrative.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.62 no.12
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• pp.1744-1749
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• 2013

Acoustic feedback is perceived as whistling or howling, which is a major complaint of hearing-aids users. Acoustic feedback cancellation is important in hearing-aids because acoustic feedback degrades performance of the hearing aid device by reducing maximum insertion gain. Adaptive systems for estimate acoustic feedback path and feedback suppression algorithms have been proposed in order to solve this problem. A typical feedback cancellation algorithm is LMS(least mean squares) because of its computational efficiency. However it has problem of convergence performance in high correlated input signal. In this paper, we propose a new variable step-size normalized LMS(least mean squares) algorithm using VAD(voice activity detection) to overcome the limitation of the LMS algorithm. The VAD algorithm is GSAP(global speech absence probability) and the feedback cancellation algorithm is normalized LMS. The proposed algorithm applies different step-size between voice and non-voice using VAD, for high stability, fast convergence speed and low misalignment when correlated inputs, such as speech. The result of simulation with white noise mixed speech signal, the proposed algorithm shows high performance then traditional algorithm in terms of stability, convergence speed and misalignment.