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Human ear detection is one of the key features in biometric-based identification and person authentication. Detecting ears for position, dimension, and texture is tedious due to the height and movement of humans. The biometric systems based on ear detection are defaced by the height of humans and specific positions. For this purpose, a multi-feature and multi-contour-based assessment for precise detection is required. To address this problem, this article introduces an Enhanced Active Contour Method (EACM) for improving ear detection precision. The proposed method extracts the textural features for differentiating the antitragus and helix of the human ear. The extracted features are fused using a fuzzy threshold for the maximum possibilities of the ear structures. In verifying the maximum possibilities, the helix and antitragus contours are fused by identifying similar features. The features from the existing dataset are used for verifying the similarity; the similarity succeeding contours are used for detecting human ears. The proposed method maximizes accuracy and precision by 12.99% and 12.79% and reduces extraction time by 11.34%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When someone without permission does pre-intrusion activities like auditory surveillance close to a door or window and has oils and waxes on their auricles, the deposition of a latent ear print may take place. By using methods analogous to those used in fingerprint lifting processes, the visibility of this print can be increased. An earprint is a 2D representation of the auricle segments that have come into contact with a certain surface, similar to the impression left by a rubber stamp. This study critically reviewed the efficacy of ear prints as a form of corroborative evidence and its significance in the realm of personal identification. Ear prints, in conjunction with other latent evidence, have the potential to be identified and gathered at the location of a criminal incident. The literature that has been examined exhibits promising advancements and a notable level of precision in the field of ear print development and identification, thereby emphasizing the necessity for further study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In related work, such as human ear shape clustering, three-dimensional human ear modeling, and personal customized headphones, the key physiological curves of the human ear and the accurate positions of key points need to be determined. Moreover, as an important biological feature, the morphological analysis and classification of the human ear are of considerable value for medical work related to the human ear. However, because of the complex morphological structure of the human ear, the generation of a general standard for the morphological structure of the human ear is difficult. This study divided the morphological structure of the human ear into three regions, namely, helix, antihelix, and concha, for instance segmentation and key physiological curve extraction. Traditional edge extraction methods are sensitive to illumination and posture variations. Moreover, the color distribution of one human ear image is relatively consistent. Thus, the transition among the three regions may not be obvious, which will cause poor adaptability for traditional edge extraction methods when extracting the key physiological curves of the human ear. To address this problem, this study proposed an improved YOLACT（You Only Look At CoefficienTs） instance segmentation model based on the ResNeSt backbone and the “screening mask” strategy, which improves the original YOLACT model from two aspects, namely, localization and segmentation. Our ResNeSt-based YOLACT model was trained with labeled ear images from the USTB-Helloear image set. In the prediction stage, the original cropping mask strategy was discarded and replaced with our proposed screening mask strategy to ensure the integrity of the edges of the segmentation area. These improvements enhance the accuracy of curve detection and extraction and can accurately segment different regions of the human ear and extract key physiological curves. Compared with other methods, our proposed method shows better segmentation accuracy on the test image set and is more robust to posture variations of the human ear.

Introduction- The earlobe is formed by tough areola and adipose tissue, lacking the firmness and elasticity of the rest of the ear auricle. The study of earlobe attachment, as a morphogenetic trait can be used to investigate the diversity that arises within and among different populations due to genetic variations. Materials and methods- The present longitudinal randomized study was carried on randomly selected 100 families, residing in Sriganganagar Rajasthan. Digital camera, USB Cable and laptop were used for the study. Results- Out of total 158 offspring 86.08% are free and 13.92% are attached. Males and females displayed the highest frequency of free earlobes. There is no significant gender difference in the pattern of earlobe attachment. Conclusion- The free earlobe is more predominant than attached earlobe and this study investigated an inheritance pattern of simple dominance recessive pattern where free earlobes are dominant over attached earlobes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, the use of the human ear images gains importance for the sustainability of biometric authorization and surveillance systems. Contemporary studies show that such processes can be done semi-automatically or fully automatically, instead of being done manually. Due to the fact that deep learning uses abstract features (i.e., representation learning), it reaches quite high performance values compared to classical methods. In our study, a synergistic gender recognition approach based on hybrid deep learning was created based on the use of human ear images in classifying people fully automatically according to their gender. By means of hybridization, hybrid deep neural network architectural models are used, which include both convolutional neural network component and recurrent neural network type components together. In these models, long-short term memory and gated recurrent unit are taken as recurrent neural network type components. Thanks to these components, the hybrid model extracts the relational dependencies between the pixel regions in the image very well. On account of this synergistic approach, the gender classification accuracy of hybrid models is higher than the standalone convolutional neural network model in our study. Two different image datasets with gender marking were used in our experiments. The reliability of the experimental results has been proven by objective metrics. In the conducted experiments, the highest values in gender recognition with hybrid models were obtained with the test accuracy of 85.16% for the EarVN dataset and 87.61% for the WPUT dataset, respectively. Discussion and conclusions are included in the last section of our study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The human auricle has attracted the attention of forensic scientists since a long for its unique morphological characteristics. In modern times, these unique features can be captured by CCTV cameras, which may be extremely useful during the identification process in a criminal investigation. Unique morphological characteristics such as Darwin's tubercle, shape, and size of the ear, different morphological features of the helix, tragus, lobule, etc. are frequently used in the identification and individualization process. The human ear was not only accessible for its morphological and morphometric variations, but also its existing bilateral, sex, and population differences. The present study was conducted on 140 individuals (71 males and 69 females) aged between 18 and 30 years. The data were collected from the colleges of Nahan city of Sirmaur district in Himachal Pradesh state of North India. Various anthropometric measurements were taken independently on the left and right ear of each individual with the help of a pair of sliding calipers using a standard method. These linear measurements were physiognomic ear length, physiognomic ear breadth, ear length above tragus, distance from tragus to antihelix, distance from tragus to the helix, lobule height, and lobule width. Auricular index, lobular index, and lobular ear index were calculated from the aforementioned measurements. Further, an independent t-test/ Mann Witney U test and paired sample t-test/ Wilcoxon Signed Rank test were applied for the evaluation of sex differences and bilateral differences in the human ear, respectively. For the prediction of sexual dimorphism, discriminant function analysis was applied. Physiognomic ear length, physiognomic ear breadth, ear length above tragus, distances from tragus to antihelix (left ear only), and tragus to helix exhibited significant sex differences on both sides (p<0.05). Significant bilateral differences (p<0.05) were reported for all the measurements of the ear in males except for lobule height, whereas, significant side differences (p<0.05) were shown for ear length above tragus, distance from tragus to helix, and lobule width among females. The discriminant function model showed 82.10% accuracy for determining sexual dimorphism. The study highlighted sexual dimorphism and bilateral differences in ear morphometry in a north Indian population and provided a database of anthropometric variables in the human ear for forensic and anthropological uses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Human external ear is a morphologically complex structure and plays a vital role in the collection of sound. The present study would provide the information regarding the shape and size of the various morphological structures of the ear in normal individuals which may help the plastic surgeons to reconstruct the anatomy of the deformed ear and the physical and forensic anthropologists to study variations and establishing its use as a biometrics. The aim of the study was the morphological examination of the ear and its features to investigate the biological variations, sex differences, bilateral variations and further attempt to provide a database of external ears Methodology: The sample for the present study comprises of 80 males and 77 females aged of the 19 years. Thickness, and attachment of the earlobe and shape of the helix were examinations. Results: The earlobe showed different characteristics in different individuals. In nearly half of the cases in both males and females, the earlobe was found to be attached to the face; in many cases, it was free and in some partially attached. The size and shape of the earlobe also showed variations with respect to sides as well as sexes. The shape of the helix is highly variable in the individuals showing certain characteristics such as normally rolled helix, concave, flat, and wide covering scapha helix. The other types of the helix such as concave, flat, and wide covering scapha helix were present among rest of the subjects. Conclusion: The database may be useful in the reconstruction of the deformed ears and in the anthropological and forensic research for comparison purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background External human ear is considered to be a highly variable structure showing different morphological and individualistic features in different individuals and population groups. The uniqueness of the ear may be useful in establishing the identity of individuals by direct examination, during the examination of CCTV footage or analysis of the ear prints. Considering the forensic significance of the human ear and ear prints encountered at the scene of the crime, the present study is an attempt to evaluate various morphological characteristics of the ear in a north Indian population. Methodology The sample for the present study comprises of 90 males and 87 females aged between 18 and 30 years. All the study participants were from upper reaches of Himachal Pradesh in North India. The morphological characteristics such as overall shape of the ear, size and shape of the tragus, earlobe, shape of the helix, and forms of Darwin’s tubercle were studied in the participants. Results The oval-shaped ear was present among 40% of the males and 44.8% of the females in the study sample. The other types of the ear such as oblique, rectangular, round, and triangular were also found in both sexes. Bilateral asymmetry was observed in the shape of the ear. The shape of the tragus also varied with respect to the left and right sides as well as sexes. The earlobe showed different characteristics in different individuals. In nearly half of the cases in both males and females, the earlobe was found to be attached to the face; in many cases, it was free and in some partially attached. The size and shape of the earlobe also showed variations with respect to sides as well as sexes. The Darwin’s tubercle showed a variety of structures in both the left and right sides in both sexes. Conclusion The present study shows that the individualistic characteristics of the ear can provide very useful information for personal identification in forensic examinations. The shape of the ear and the important structures such as the tragus, helix, earlobe, and Darwin’s tubercle show a variety of structures and individuality. The importance and variability of the human ear may encourage the researchers in conducting further studies and solving the forensic cases pertaining to the investigation of CCTV footage and in examination of dead in airplane crashes, intentional mutilation and dismemberment, explosions, or other mass disasters.

The growth of consumer electronic products is encouraged by innovations and has stimulated the persistent development of earphones for high-quality sound reproduction. Earbud earphone is located in the concha of the human ear facing an ear-canal. The placement of earphones in the concha plays a remarkable role in the sound pressure level response of an earphone. In this study, ten earphones were tested for frequency response and total harmonic distortion using head and torso simulator in an anechoic chamber. Three positions and two orientations of earphones in the concha were identified for measurement. Based on the responses of all earphones at all orientations and positions, it is concluded that there is a variation in the frequency response and total harmonic distortion. Even though the variation is small in magnitude, its effect on sound perception, sound exposure, and the hearing threshold is phenomenal. Based on the proposition presented in this work and the safe daily sound exposure, it has been determined that the variation in the frequency response affects the perceived loudness of sound and can cause significant differences in the daily sound exposure limit for a human being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background The human ear is a distinctive facial feature, revealing valuable information about ethnicity, gender, and age. Anthropometric measures play a crucial role in fields such as forensic medicine, prosthetics, and plastic surgery. The external ear, known for its diversity in structure and individual characteristics, has become a subject of interest in various populations. This study aims to determine the mean values of morphometric measurements for both right and left ears while exploring sexual dimorphism in ear dimensions. Methodology A prospective, observational, cross-sectional study was conducted among 200 volunteers from the eastern province of Saudi Arabia, comprising 98 males and 102 females, at the Department of Anatomy, Institute of Medical Sciences, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University. Participants were randomly selected from King Fahad University Hospital workers and patients. Using a Vernier caliper and after obtaining consent, various aspects of ear morphology were measured. The study employed statistical analyses such as the volunteers' t-test, Pearson's coefficient of correlation, and linear regression equations. Results In males, the mean total height of the right and left ears was 6.054 ± 0.5394 and 6.044 ± 0.5235 cm, respectively, while for females, it was 5.489 ± 0.4481 and 5.763 ± 4.8446 cm, respectively. The mean widths, heights, and other dimensions of the ears exhibited variations between genders. Conclusions The study provides comprehensive insights into the dimensions and indices of the pinna among the population of the eastern province of Saudi Arabia. The findings confirmed the presence of sexual dimorphism in the ear measurements, consistent with observations in other ethnic groups., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright © 2024, Hiware et al.)

The design of the human ear is one of nature’s engineering marvels. This paper examines the merit of ear design using axiomatic design principles. The ear is the organ of both hearing and balance. A sensitive ear can hear frequencies ranging from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz. The vestibular apparatus of the inner ear is responsible for the static and dynamic equilibrium of the human body. The ear is divided into the outer ear, middle ear, and inner ear, which play their respective functional roles in transforming sound energy into nerve impulses interpreted in the brain. The human ear has many modules, such as the pinna, auditory canal, eardrum, ossicles, eustachian tube, cochlea, semicircular canals, cochlear nerve, and vestibular nerve. Each of these modules has several subparts. This paper tabulates and maps the functional requirements (FRs) of these modules onto design parameters (DPs) that nature has already chosen. The “independence axiom” of the axiomatic design methodology is applied to analyze couplings and to evaluate if human ear design is a good design (i.e., uncoupled design) or a bad design (i.e., coupled design). The analysis revealed that the human ear is a perfect design because it is an uncoupled structure. It is not only a perfect design but also a low-cost design. The materials that are used to build the ear atom-by-atom are chiefly carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, calcium, and nitrogen. The material cost is very negligible, which amounts to only a few of dollars. After a person has deceased, materials in the human system are upcycled by nature. We consider space requirements, materials cost, and upcyclability as “constraints” in the axiomatic design. In terms of performance, the human ear design is very impressive and serves as an inspiration for designing products in industrial environments.

Hearing damage induced by blast exposure is a common injury in military personnel involved in most operation activities. Personal hearing protection devices such as earplugs come as a standard issue for Service members; however, it is not clear how to accurately evaluate the protection mechanisms of different hearing protection devices for blast overpressures (BOP). This paper reports a recent study on characterization of earplugs' protective function to BOP using human cadaver ears and 3D finite element (FE) model of the human ear. The cadaver ear mounted with pressure sensors near the eardrum (P1) and inside the middle ear (P2) and with an earplug inserted was exposed to BOP in the blast test chamber. P1, P2, and BOP at the ear canal entrance (P0) were simultaneously recorded. The measured P0 waveform was then applied at the ear canal entrance in the FE model and the P1 and P2 pressures were derived from the model. Both experiments and FE modeling resulted in the P1 reduction which represents the effective protection function of the earplug. Different earplugs showed variations in pressure waveforms transmitted to the eardrum, which determine the protection level of earplugs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: External human ear is considered to be a highly variable structure showing different morphological and individualistic features in The uniqueness of the ear may be useful in establishing the identity of individuals by direct examination, during the examination of CCTV footage or analysis of the ear prints. Considering the forensic significance of the human ear and ear prints encountered at the scene of the crime, the present study is an attempt to evaluate various morphological characteristics of the ear . Methodology: The sample for the present study comprises of 90 males and 87 females aged of the 19 years. characteristics such as overall shape of the ear, size and shape of the tragus. Results: The oval-shaped ear was present among 40% of the males and 44.8% of the females in the study sample. The other types of the ear such as oblique, rectangular, round, and triangular were also found in both sexes. Bilateral asymmetry was observed in the shape of the ear. The shape of the tragus also varied with respect to the left and right sides as well as sexes. Conclusion: The present study shows that the individualistic characteristics of the ear can provide very useful information for personal identification in forensic examinations. The shape of the ear and tragus, show a variety of structures and individuality. The importanceand variability of the human ear may encourage the researchers in conducting further studies and solving the forensic cases pertaining to the investigation of CCTV footage and in examination of dead in airplane crashes, intentional mutilation and dismemberment, explosions, or other mass disasters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The morphological characters of the ear are a tool in physiognomic identification. • Most of the characters of the ear are associated with each other. • When there is a positive association, only one character should be considered. • The characters with negative association have a greater identification weight. The aim of this paper is to provide information on dependency relationships between the morphological characters of the external ear and their importance in physical identification. At present, there is a lack of population data in this field, and little research has been published. Our study sample consisted of 281 Spanish university students of European descent aged between 18 and 31 years old. We analysed a total of 562 ears. For a large number of characters, we found a dependency between anatomically related characters, confirming our hypothesis. For example, we found relationships between ear shape and protrusion, between rolling of the superior and posterior helix, and between the upper and lower parts of the scapha. However, our results also indicated that some anatomically related characters did not present relationships. Thus, we found no dependency between contour shape of the supero-posterior helix and rolling of the posterior helix or between intertragic incisure shape and tragus or antitragus shape. In addition, we found that some characters that are not anatomically related also showed relationships. These included rolling of the superior helix and intertragic incisure shape, and contour shape of the superior helix and the inferior part of the scapha. These results are of great importance and should be taken into account in forensic applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rupture of the eardrum or tympanic membrane (TM) is one of the most frequent injuries of the ear after blast exposure. To understand how the TM damage is related to blast wave direction, human cadaver ears were exposed to blast waves along three directions: vertical, horizontal, and front with respect to the head. Blast overpressure waveforms were recorded at the ear canal entrance (P0), near the TM (P1), and inside the middle ear (P2). Thirteen to fourteen cadaver ears were tested in each wave direction and the TM rupture thresholds were identified. Results show that blast wave direction affected the peak P1/P0 ratio, TM rupture threshold, and energy flux distribution over frequencies. The front wave resulted in lowest TM rupture threshold and the horizontal wave resulted in highest P1/P0 ratio. To investigate the mechanisms of TM injury in relation to blast wave direction, the recorded P1 waveforms were applied onto the surface of the TM in a three-dimensional finite element model of the human ear and distributions of the stress in TM were calculated. Modeling results indicate that the sensitivity of TM stress change with respect to P1 pressure (dσ/dP1) may characterize mechanical damage of the TM in relation to blast waves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, PATRAN software was used to establish a complete 3D finite element model of human ears and it was then combined with NASTRAN software to analyze frequency responses. This paper conducted a detailed analysis on the dynamic parameters including umbo and stapes displacements of normal human ears under sound pressures 90 dB and 105 dB. The numerically computational results were compared with experimental data. When the analyzed frequency was less than 1000 Hz, the computational result of numerical simulation was well consistent with the upper limit. When the analyzed frequency was more than 1000 Hz, the computational result of numerical simulation was well consistent with the lower limit. Therefore, the numerically computational model was reliable. In addition, based on the verified model, this paper studied vibration characteristics of spiral basilar membrane after replacing artificial auditory ossicle based on the whole hearing system and found that vibration characteristics of spiral basilar membrane had an obvious change at low and high frequencies after replacing artificial auditory ossicle TORP. Using finite element method to analyze vibration characteristics of spiral basilar membrane can well predict the hearing recovery effect after replacing artificial auditory ossicle. Compared with normal ears, the vibration level of spiral basilar membrane after replacing artificial auditory ossicle has slowed down in 100 Hz-600 Hz, 2000 Hz-4000 Hz and 7000 Hz-10000 Hz, and has been strengthened in 600 Hz-2000 Hz and 4000 Hz-7000 Hz, which provided some help for the hearing recovery at the high-frequency band. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper used PATRAN/NASTRAN software to establish a three-dimensional finite element model of human ear and conduct dynamic simulation of hearing system. The correctness of the finite element model was verified through analyzing the tympanic membrane displacement of normal human ear under the sound pressure of 80 dB and comparing with the experimental data. Based on the verified model, this paper qualitatively and quantitatively studied and compared the influence of artificial auditory ossicle with 7 kinds of common materials (titanium, stainless steel, teflon, porous polyethylene, alumina ceramic, EH composites and hydroxylapatite ceramics) on the sound conduction of human ear and the effect of postoperative hearing recovery under different sound pressures (50 dB, 80 dB, 105 dB and 120 dB) at 100-10000 Hz. Results showed that the hearing recovery of human ear had the same effect after replacing artificial auditory ossicle under different sound pressures with different frequency. At different frequencies with the same sound pressure, the postoperative hearing of human ear had different effects after replacing different materials of artificial auditory ossicle. Artificial auditory ossicle of hydroxylapatite ceramics, stainless steel and alumina ceramic had better effect on sound conduction at low frequencies, while artificial auditory ossicle of porous polyethylene and teflon had better effect on sound conduction at high frequencies. Under different sound pressures, replacing artificial auditory ossicle with 7 kinds of common materials showed little difference in the hearing recovery of human ear at each frequency band and had a stable influence on the sound conduction of human ear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finite element method was employed in this study to analyze the change in performance of implantable hearing devices due to the consideration of soft tissues' viscoelasticity. An integrated finite element model of human ear including the external ear, middle ear and inner ear was first developed via reverse engineering and analyzed by acoustic-structure-fluid coupling. Viscoelastic properties of soft tissues in the middle ear were taken into consideration in this model. The model-derived dynamic responses including middle ear and cochlea functions showed a better agreement with experimental data at high frequencies above 3000 Hz than the Rayleigh-type damping. On this basis, a coupled finite element model consisting of the human ear and a piezoelectric actuator attached to the long process of incus was further constructed. Based on the electromechanical coupling analysis, equivalent sound pressure and power consumption of the actuator corresponding to viscoelasticity and Rayleigh damping were calculated using this model. The analytical results showed that the implant performance of the actuator evaluated using a finite element model considering viscoelastic properties gives a lower output above about 3 kHz than does Rayleigh damping model. Finite element model considering viscoelastic properties was more accurate to numerically evaluate implantable hearing devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The finite element (FE) method was used to analyze the effect of coupling conditions between the actuator and the round window membrane (RWM) on the performance of round window (RW) stimulation. A FE model of the human ear consisting of the external ear canal, middle ear and cochlea was firstly developed, and then validation of this model was accomplished through comparison between analytical results and experimental data in the literature. Intracochlear pressure were derived from the model under normal forward sound stimulation and reverse RW stimulation. The equivalent sound pressure of RW stimulation was then calculated via comparing the differential intracochlear pressure produced by the actuator and normal ear canal sound stimulus. The actuator was simulated as a floating mass and placed onto the middle ear cavity side of RWM. Two aspects about the actuator coupling conditions were considered in this study: (1) the cross-section area of the actuator relative to the RWM; (2) the coupling layer between the actuator and the RWM. The results show that smaller actuator size can improve the implant performance of RW stimulation, and size requirements of the actuator can also be reduced by introducing a coupling layer between the actuator and RWM, which will benefit the manufacture of the actuator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]