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The use of deep neural networks for speech recognition and recognizing speech commands continues to grow. This necessitates an understanding of the security risks that goes along with this technology. This paper analyzes the ability to interfere with the performance of neural networks for speech pattern recognition. With the methods proposed herein, it is a simple matter to create adversarial data by overlaying audio of a command at a fairly unnoticeable amplitude. This causes the neural network to lose around 20% accuracy and misidentify commands for other commands with an average to high confidence value. Such an attack is virtually undetectable to the human ear.

Introduction: The human ear is divided into external, middle and internal ear. The auricle helps in the clinical diagnosis of congenital anomalies and syndromes. The aim of this study is to determine the mean auricular index from the right and left ears, mean measurements of left and right ear and sex-related dimensions of the ear. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in medical students studying at a tertiary care hospital during the period of 1st April 2019 to 20th May 2019 after ethical clearance from the institutional review committee. Simple random sampling was done. Data were collected, entered in Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 20 and point estimate at 95% Confidence Interval was calculated along with frequency and proportion for binary data. Results: Out of total measurements done, we found the mean auricular index was found to be for right ear 51.75±4.51mm and for left ear 54.0996±4.95682mm at 95% CI (51.75-52.37) and (53.42654.766) respectively. The mean ear length, mean ear breadth, mean lobular length and mean lobular breadth were 57.62±5.03mm, 29.72±2.79mm, 19.32±2.60mm and 20.89±3.06mm on the right side and 57.89±4.89mm, 31.21±2.95mm, 19.38±2.55mm and 21.25±2.81mm on the left side respectively. Conclusions: The mean auricular index of the external ear of medical students was within the normal range as compared to the other studies conducted.

Abundant research has been done on the improvement of the security and trustworthiness of biometric systems. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the image key-point extraction technique and establish its uniqueness for biometric identification. Ear features comes out to be one of the important biometric systems, which prove to have great potential, in identifying humans in the real world applications. In this work, key-point based matching and recognition is done using SIFT (Scale Invariant Feature Transform) technique. This approach extracts features from images of distinctive invariant. These images are utilized to perform consistent matching between various objects (ear). The key-points are invariant to image scale and hence can provide good matching over a wide range of images. The distinctive features have been matched correctly using the proposed technique and tested on a large database of ear images. This study helps in establishing that the experimental results show improvements in recognition accuracy.

The accuracy of existing auditory saliency calculation models was analyzed in this paper. The subjective auditory attention saliency of 20 pieces of sound materials was judged by psychoacoustic experiment. Then the objective saliency of these sound materials was calculated using the existing auditory saliency calculation models. According to the relationship between the calculation results of the saliency calculation models and the subjective auditory attention perception of the human ear, the accuracy of existing auditory saliency calculation models was analyzed. The experimental results showed that, although auditory saliency computational models could calculate and judge the attention saliency of sound on certain extent, they had own shortcomings when calculating different types of sounds. Choosing different computational models based on the characteristics of the sound could improve the prediction accuracy of the auditory saliency calculation models.

The auditory system detects pressure fluctuations that propagate as waves. It can be considered as a successor of the lateral line system, which enables fish and some amphibians to detect particle accelerations. These indicate the location and swimming direction of near objects. The auditory system in fish extends the detection range of the lateral line system. Accordingly, its original function can be considered to be spatial orientation and mental representation of the acoustic surrounding, rather than communication. Starting with the lateral line system of fish and their auditory system, the human ear and auditory pathway are described. It appears that spatial information is encoded at the earliest stages of auditory processing in the brain. Spatial attributes of sound are Sound sources are localized long before they are recognized or consciously perceived.

Under noiseless experimental conditions, sugar concentration of secreted floral nectar may increase after flower exposure to nearby sounds of pollinator flight (Veits et al. 2019). However, we reject the argument that this represents adaptive plant behaviour, and consider that the appealing analogy between a flower and human ear is unjustified.

Some forms of triamcinolone may provide alternate options for local therapy of the inner ear in addition to the steroids currently in use. We compared the perilymph pharmacokinetics of triamcinolone-acetonide, triamcinolone, and dexamethasone, each delivered as crystalline suspensions to guinea pigs. Triamcinolone-acetonide is a widely used form of the drug with molecular properties that allow it to readily permeate biological barriers. When applied intratympanically triamcinolone-acetonide entered perilymph rapidly but was also found to be eliminated rapidly from perilymph. The rapid rate of elimination severely limits the apical distribution of the drug when applied locally, making it unsuitable for use in the ear. In contrast, triamcinolone, rather than triamcinolone-acetonide, is a more polar form of the molecule, with higher aqueous solubility but calculated to pass less-readily through biological boundaries. Perilymph concentrations generated with intratympanic applications of triamcinolone were comparable to those with triamcinolone-acetonide but elimination measurements showed that triamcinolone was retained in perilymph longer than triamcinolone-acetonide or dexamethasone. The slower elimination is projected to result in improved distribution of triamcinolone toward the cochlear apex, potentially allowing higher drug levels to reach the speech frequency regions of the human ear. These measurements show that triamcinolone could constitute an attractive additional treatment option for local therapy of auditory disorders.

Human ear recognition has attracted more attention in the past several years. In terms of the redundant information of Histogram of Oriented Gradient (HOG), this paper proposes a human ear recognition method in which the principal component analysis (PCA) was carried out on the HOG dimension reduction, then fused with local binary pattern (LBP) features. Using minimum distance classification for classification, experiments on USTB human ear image library shows that the proposed method improves the recognition rate and speeds up the training and detection.

For the quantitative analysis of medical images in clinical research, diagnosis and treatment, a reliable basic framework for developing a normal human ear atlas of voxel-based computed tomography (CT) images was proposed. We annotated 10 precise ear structures with different labels from 64 patients with normal ear structures. Paired-samples t test, Pearson’s test and descriptive statistics were carried on the volume and coordinate data, which were first obtained from annotation to verify the correlation and difference. In addition, we constructed a three dimensional (3D) model of the standard human ear atlas with six views for presentation. Through a series of statistical analyses, a standard 3D normal human ear atlas containing volume and spatial data was obtained from voxel-based CT images. There was a significant negative correlation exists between age and the volume of the incus, and no correlation with other structures. There was no significant correlation between slice thickness and the volume of 10 structures. The volume of most structures on both sides is significantly correlated and there was no significant difference in the volume of most structures on both sides except for the jugular foramen. Besides, the coordinate range of the bilateral structures is relatively consistent. The specific volume and spatial data for the human ear atlas are helpful in the diagnosis of abnormalities, and this 3D normal human ear atlas will provide new insights for radiologists in clinical research.

Since the end of the century, the number of elderly people worldwide has increased. By the year 2015 there will be about 2 billion people over the age of 60. This population growth is probably due to the decline in the birth rate, improvement of socio-economic conditions of life and progress of modern medicine

The rupture of the tympanic membrane (TM) is one of the major indicators for blast injuries due to the vulnerability of TM under exposure to blast overpressure. The mechanical properties of the human TM exhibit a significant change after it is exposed to such a high intensity blast. To date, the published data were obtained from measurement on TM strips cut from a TM following an exposure to blast overpressure. The dissection of a TM for preparation of strip samples can induce secondary damage to the TM and thus potentially lead to data not representative of the blast damage. In this paper, we conduct mechanical testing on the full TM in a human temporal bone. A bulging experiment on the entire TM is carried out on each sample prepared from a temporal bone following the exposure to blast three times at a pressure level slightly below the TM rupture threshold. Using a micro-fringe projection method, the volume displacement is obtained as a function of pressure, and their relationship is modeled in the finite element analysis to determine the mechanical properties of the post-blast human TMs, the results of which are compared with the control TMs without an exposure to the blast. It is found that Young's modulus of human TM decreases by approximately 20% after exposure to multiple blast waves. The results can be used in the human ear simulation models to assist the understanding of the effect of blast overpressure on hearing loss.

Immersive, stereoscopic displays may be instrumental to better interpreting 3-dimensional (3D) data. Further- more, the advent of commodity-level virtual reality (VR) hardware has made this technology accessible for meaningful applications, such as medical education. Accordingly, in the current work we present a commodity- level, immersive simulation for interacting with human ear anatomy. In the simulation, users may interact simultaneously with high resolution computed tomography (CT) scans and their corresponding, 3D anatomical structures. The simulation includes: (1) a commodity level, immersive virtual environment presented by the Oculus CV1, (2) segmented 3D models of head and ear structures generated from a CT dataset, (3) the ability to freely manipulate 2D and 3D data synchronously, and (4) a user-interface which allows for free exploration and manipulation of data using the Oculus touch controllers. The system was demonstrated to 10 otolaryngolo- gists for evaluation. Physicians were asked to supply feedback via both questionnaire and discussion in order to determine the efficacy of the current system as well as the most pertinent applications for future research.

This chapter describes the sensitivity of the human ear to sound signals as corresponding to the A-weighting network, which is formed primarily by the total transfer function of the external canal, eardrum, bone chain, and the oval window.

Cardiovascular disease screening is an effective means to effectively control the incidence of cardiovascular disease. The earlobe crease is an important marker for identifying cardiovascular diseases and can be used as an important sign for cardiovascular disease screening. Through the one-click uploading of human ear-based photos, the analysis of human ear crease based on image recognition is carried out, and the medical staff’s initial screening of cardiovascular disease assessment for some people is transformed into intelligent primary screening for cardiovascular disease in the city.

Made available in DSpace on 2019-10-06T16:44:59Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2019-01-01 Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) Objectives: Telangiectasia is a common venous formation that mainly affects women and causes discomfort, including psychological distress. This study compared photodynamic therapy (PDT) with glucose for vessel sclerosis in a rabbit ear model. Methods: Thirty-six ears of 18 rabbits were randomly divided into four groups: Group 1: only injection of Photogem (4 mg/mL); Group 2: only light (635 nm, 100 mW/cm2, 8 min, 48 J/cm2); Group 3: glucose 75% injection; Group 4: PDT procedure with injection of Photogem and illumination immediately after. Injections were made into the central ear artery. After injection or sham procedures, manual compression of the marginal vein was maintained for 8 min in all ears. Follow up was immediately after the procedures, and one and six days later. The percentage of length reduction of spider veins, the target vessels, was analysed in digital photographs with Image J software. Ear thermographs were made with a thermocamera device and average temperatures were collected for analysis. Ear biopsies were obtained after six days. Endothelium average, inflammation, fibrosis, necrosis, skin burn, and vascular thrombosis were assessed using a specific score. Results: The mean vessel length reduction was 26% for Group 4, 2.4% for Group 3, .4% for Group 1, and 0 for Group 2, highlighting that in Group 4, the vessel lengths were significantly reduced compared with the other groups (p < .001). In the thermal analysis, in Group 3, the temperature was unchanged from the initial temperature and the central diameter vessel increased after six days, while, in Group 4, the temperature decreased and the vessels were not clearly detected, suggesting a reduction of the vessels and smaller infusion. Histology showed no difference among groups and one case of necrosis was found in Group 4. Conclusions: PDT was associated with significantly more target vessel sclerosis than glucose injection and controls. São Carlos Institute of Physics University of São Paulo (USP), São Carlos Dept of Surgery and Orthopedics Botucatu School of Medicine UNESP Universidade Estadual Paulista, Botucatu Pathology and Legal Medicine Ribeirão Preto Medical School University of São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto Escola de Engenharia de São Carlos University of São Paulo (USP), São Carlos Dept of Surgery and Orthopedics Botucatu School of Medicine UNESP Universidade Estadual Paulista, Botucatu FAPESP: 2013/07276-1 CNPq: 465360/2014-9

Lower flux leakage designs have become important in the development of microspeakers used in thin and miniaturized mobile phones. We propose four methods to reduce the flux leakage of the magnetic circuit in a microspeaker. Optimization was performed based on the proposed approach by using the response surface method. Electromagnetic analyses were conducted using the finite element method. Experimental results are in good agreement with the simulated results obtained in one degree-of-freedom analysis from 100 to 5 ㎑. Both the simulated and experimental results confirm that one of the proposed methods is much more effective in reducing flux leakage than the other methods. In the optimized method, compared with a default approach, the average radial flux density in the air gap decreased only by 5.5%, the maximum flux leakage was reduced by 28.6%, and the acoustic performance at primary resonance decreased by 0.45 ㏈, which gap is indiscernible to the human ear.

In this study, we attempted to modify cotton gauze by partial carboxymethylation by varying the reaction time and concentration of monochloroacetic acid and sodium hydroxide. For each experiment, the relative value of the degree of substitution (DS) of the modified cotton gauze was evaluated and the whole blood clotting time (WBCT) and water absorption property were compared with cotton gauze and Surgicel. This revealed that, following an initial decrease, WBCT gradually increased. Using rabbit ear artery and liver haemorrhage models, the performance of the optimal modified gauze was compared to that of Surgicel and unmodified cotton gauze. The average bleeding times in the presence of modified cotton gauze in the rabbit ear arteries and the liver were 51.7s and 60.6s, while those with Surgicel and the unmodified cotton gauze were 76.8s and 95.5s, and 93.2s and 129.2s, respectively. The hemostatic and biocompatibility properties were evaluated using in vivo degradation experiments. This revealed that the modified gauze and Surgicel were totally degraded within 6 weeks.

This paper examines the complex and evolving relationship between science and the military in the development of listening technologies by British, French and German combatants during the First World War to combat increasingly effective ballistics and artillery on the Western Front. Land-based combat changed from the visual to the aural with an increasing selection of audio-based surveillance technologies being made available, notably sound-ranging, in part to combat the physical limitations of the human ear in the battlefield space. The article concludes by analyzing how post-war physics responded to these developments in sound-based battlefield technologies.

We propose a simple and yet effective technique for shape-based ear localization. The idea is based on using a predefined binary ear template that is matched to ear contours in a given edge image. To cope with changes in ear shapes and sizes, the template is allowed to deform. Deformation is achieved by dividing the template into segments. The dynamic programming search algorithm is used to accomplish the matching process, achieving very robust localization results in various cluttered and noisy setups.

Biosimulation models are used to understand the multiple or different causative factors that cause impairment in human organs. Finite Element Method (FEM) provide a mathematical framework to simulate dynamic biological systems, with applications ranging from human ear, cardiovascular, to neurovascular research. Finite Element (FE) Biosimulation experiments produce huge amounts of numerical data. Visualising and analysing this huge numerical biosimulation data is a strenuous task. In this paper, we present a Linked Data Visualiser–called SIFEM Visualiser–to help domain-experts (experts in the field of ear mechanics) and clinical practitioners (otorhinolaryngologists) to Visualise, analyse and compare biosimulation results from heterogeneous, complex, and high volume numerical data. The SIFEM visualiser builds on conceptualising different aspects of biosimulations. In addition to the visualiser, we also propose how biosimulation numerical data can be conceptualised, such that it sustains the visualisation of large numerical data. The SIFEM Visualiser aims to help domain scientists and clinical practitioners exploring and analysing Finite Element (FE) numerical data and simulation results obtained from different aspects of inner ear (Cochlear) model — such as biological, geometrical, mathematical, and physical models. We validate the SIFEM Visualiser in both dimensions of qualitative and quantitative evaluation. This publication has emanated from research supported in part by the research grant from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) under Grant No. SFI/12/RC/2289 and EU project SIFEM (contract number 600933). peer-reviewed

Presently there already existed a few human ear image databases, which have been very influential in advancing the research on ear recognition. However no ear video databases are available. In this paper, we introduce the construction and basic content of the Chinese Ear Video Database (CEVD) and some primary evaluation results on it. The CEVD consists of 3600 ear video segments collected from 120 subjects. All the video segments in the database were collected in specially designed environment with three principal variations of illumination condition, viewing angle and interference. Compared with other public ear database, CEVD can not only be used for image-based applications but also video-based applications. In this paper we introduce the database and describe the collecting procedure. It excels in its large-scale and variation modes and is expected to have positive impact on the development and evaluation of ear recognition algorithms. This paper also gives experiment results of improved CamShift and AdaBoost algorithm on the database.

In recent years, automatic ear recognition has become a popular research. Effective feature extraction is one of the most important steps in Content-based ear image retrieval applications. In this paper, the authors proposed a new vectors construction method for ear retrieval based on Block Discriminative Common Vector. According to this method, the ear image is divided into 16 blocks firstly and the features are extracted by applying DCV to the sub-images. Furthermore, Support Vector Machine is used as classifier to make decision. The experimental results show that the proposed method performs better than classical PCA+LDA, so it is an effective human ear recognition method.

Audio-based automated pulmonary symptom detection has the potential to offer accurate and continuous assessment of patients with lung disease. However, privacy preservation becomes a significant issue when it comes to continuous passive audio recording. Various techniques have been employed to obfuscate the speech within audio in these applications. However, that penalizes the accuracy of detection by affecting of-interest, non-speech audio parts. This is inevitably undesirable as it contradicts the notion of sensing. In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm to achieve the goal by employing a machine-learning-based vowel detection algorithm. The algorithm is implemented in a configurable manner to address many different scenarios of data collection. Logistic regression has been utilized to make the algorithm feasible for on-device implementation. We have shown that our algorithm achieves the goals in that the obfuscated speech is unrecognizable while cough sounds are identifiable by symptom detection models as well as a human ear.

We aim at building and studying artificial hair cells (AHC) based on MEMS technology to understand the extraordinary sound perception of the human ear and build a sensor system with similar properties. These perception properties, i.e. detecting six orders of sound pressure level and simultaneously frequency differences of only 3-5 Hz, are obtained mainly due to the sophisticated biological sensors in the inner ear, called hair cells, which convert the acoustic waves into electric signals. They amplify weak inputs and compress larger ones, known as compressive nonlinearity, thus enabling this impressive dynamic range, typically not captured by current engineering solutions. We tackle this demand by building artificial hair cells on the basis of smart, self-actuated and self-sensing mechanical resonator beams with suitable actuation feedback. Thereby, we take advantage of the fact that the compressive nonlinearity arises naturally in dynamical systems tuned to a bifurcation point. This tuning is achieved by an appropriate feedback loop inspired by physiological models. Initial results on the detection properties of a single AHC will be shown demonstrating amplification and a decreased width of the resonance peak.

Background With the changing conditions of terrorism, particularly in urban areas, high-energy explosive devices such as improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and projectile missiles (PMs) are frequently used. Traumas caused by these devices particularly affect the maxillofacial region and typically lead to otologic problems. In this study, we aimed to evaluate otologic complaints, otoscopic and auricular examinations, and tuning-fork tests of patients who were exposed to high-energy blast-related injuries and perform a comparison between trauma patients injured by IEDs and PMs. Methods The medical data of patients admitted to an operational field hospital emergency room with injuries related to highenergy explosive devices such as IEDs and PMs between July 27, 2015 and July 22, 2016 was reviewed. The hearing impairment, tinnitus, otologic examination, auricular region examination, and tuning-fork tests of all patients were evaluated. The otologic evaluation, records of the patients (n=86) were evaluated using a scoring system established by the authors. The patients were categorized into two groups according to the device causing the injury: IEDs in group I and PMs in group II. Results A total of 241 combatants were injured by high-energy explosive devices. All patients were male with a mean age of 30.2 years (range, 20-54). Of these, 86 had hearing impairments that were detected by tuning-fork tests. Of those, 50 were injured by IEDs and 36 by PMs. Of the 86 patients, 18 had traumatic tympanic membrane perforation, and of those, 6 patients were injured by IEDs and 12 by PMs. Further, 68 of the 86 patients had sensorineural hearing loss, and of those, 44 were injured by IEDs and 24 by PMs. There was a statistically significant difference between the IED and PM groups according to otologic evaluation score (p=0.044). Conclusion This study demonstrates that PMs can have a large impact on the human ear and may cause more severe otologic manifestations among combatants than those caused by IEDs. The early and accurate evaluation of patients exposed to high-energy explosive devices in an operational field is important for the appropriate management of these patients.

Ultrasound is composed of mechanical sound waves that originate from molecular movements that oscillate in a propagation medium. The waves have a very high frequency, equal to approximately 20 kHz, are divided into two categories (i.e., low-intensity and high-intensity waves) and cannot be perceived by the human ear. Nature has created the first ultrasound applications. Bats use ultrasound to navigate in the dark, and many cetaceans use echolocation to detect prey or obstacles using ultrasound produced by their vocal system. Ultrasound is commonly associated with the biomedical field. Today, ultrasound-based methods and equipment are available to detect organs, motion, tumour masses, and pre/post-natal handicaps, and for kidney stone removal, physiotherapy, and aesthetic cures. However, ultrasound has found multiple applications in many other fields as well. In particular, ultrasound has recently been used in the food industry to develop various effective and reliable food processing applications. Therefore, this review summarizes the major applications of ultrasound in the food industry. The most common applications in the food industry include cell destruction and extraction of intracellular material. Depending on its intensity, ultrasound is used for the activation or deactivation of enzymes, mixing and homogenization, emulsification, dispersion, preservation, stabilization, dissolution and crystallization, hydrogenation, tenderization of meat, ripening, ageing and oxidation, and as an adjuvant for solid-liquid extraction for maceration to accelerate and to improve the extraction of active ingredients from different matrices, as well as the degassing and atomization of food preparations.

Auricular branch of vagus nerve stimulation is continuously evolving as a minimal-invasive treatment option in patients suffering from chronic pain. For optimization of stimulation mechanisms, we conducted in-silico modelling of the electrode-tissue-nerve interface by a thorough literature review of the anatomical structures combined with nerve and vessel structures from episcopic images of a human ear. Four nerves and two vessels in the ear were implemented in a 3D CAD model for future optimization of stimulation regions and patterns. Mean diameters for nerves were 30 µm, and for vessels 100 µm. Mean distance between nerves and vessels was about 100 µm.

Human tissues have a high coefficient of absorption in the 60–300 GHz range. This focuses the study of human radiation exposure in this band to the skin and the cornea. The capacity of 60–300 GHz radiation to access the deeper parts of the ear has not been studied. Simulations show that over 90 % of the radiation that is presented parallel to the ear canal penetrates to 20mm into the canal at 60 and 90 GHz. The structures of the outer ear are highly protective, reducing penetration to 20%. At 300 GHz, the canal develops areas of up to 190% of the incident intensity, reducing to 150% when the outer ear structures are represented. These findings have important implications for the design of devices emitting 60–300 GHz radiation.

Recently, intensive research efforts are conducted on the human ear as a promising biometric modality for identity recognition. However, one of the main challenges facing ear recognition systems is to find robust representation for the image information that is invariant to different imaging variations. Recent studies indicate that using the distribution of local intensity gradients or edge directions can better discriminate the shape and appearance of objects. Moreover, gradient-based features are robust to global and local intensity variations as well as noise and geometric transformation of images. This paper presents an ear biometric recognition approach based on the gradient-based features. To this end, four local feature extractors are investigated, namely: Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG), Weber Local Descriptor (WLD), Local Directional Patterns (LDP), and Local Optimal Oriented Patterns (LOOP). Extensive experiments are conducted for both identification and verification using the publicly available IIT Delhi-I, IIT Delhi-II, and AMI ear databases. The obtained results are encouraging, where the LOOP features excel in all cases achieving recognition rates of approximately 97%.

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.

Auricular vasomotor responses are considered to be signs of clinical conditions including migraine. The mechanisms of auricular vasomotor control are still debatable. This study aimed at investigating perivascular co-transmitters of vasomotor control in the auricle. Another aim was to provide three-dimensional arterial maps of the auricle, as a proxy of periarterial autonomic innervation. Twelve paired human auricles were used to visualize the arteries following Spalteholz clearing and μ-CT-based reconstruction. Perivascular innervation staining was conducted using anti-tyrosine hydroxylase (TH), anti-neuropeptide Y (NPY), anti-vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) and anti-choline acetyl transferase (ChAT). The combined Spalteholz technique and μ-CT revealed a highly consistent arrangement of the auricular vasculature. The superficial temporal (STA) and posterior auricular artery (PAA) supply the helical rim arcade and arcade, with the STA mainly forming the superior and the PAA forming the middle and inferior auricular artery. Co-existence of sympathetic NPY+ and TH+ terminals mediating vasoconstriction, and VIP+ and ACh+ indicating cholinergic vasodilatation, was found in the perivascular zone. The presence of both sympathetic vasoconstriction and cholinergic co-innervation for active vasodilatation was shown in the perivascular auricular zone. Assuming that the highly-consistent vasculature gives way to these terminals, this periarterial innervation may be found spread out across the helix.

Recognizing identity from morphological shape of the human ear using one sample image per person in training-set (i.e. only one model of the individual to be identified is registered in the database and available for the task of identification), with insufficient and incomplete training data, dealing with strong person-specificity can be very challenging. In addition, most encountered testing-images in real world applications are not in high quality due to their acquisitions in difficult conditions (ex, video-surveillance) which cause more challenges like: rotated images or images with low resolution. In continuation to our previous works on ear recognition, we present in this paper an experimental and comparative study on the effects of rotation and scaling of ear images using only one sample image per person in training-set which are considered as problems largely encountered in real world applications. Several local color texture descriptors are tested and compared under several color spaces. Support Vector Machine (SVM) is used as a classifier. We experiment with USTB-1 ear database. The experiments show very acceptable and interesting results in comparison to those reported in literature.

Purpose: Knowledge of anthropometric measurements of the external ear is important as variations exist based on gender, age and ethnicity. This study has derived anthropometric data pertaining to the external ear in the Maharashtrian population. Materials and Methods: Nine variables of the external ear were measured in 505 Maharashtrian adults (aged 18–64 years) using photoanthropometric methods. Results: Descriptive data and the left-right symmetry for the study population were obtained. Conclusion: These data have applications in screening for or monitoring diseases, otoplastic surgery, forensics, industrial design, apparel design and ergonomics.

A Thai government's law prohibiting the cutting down of trees for making Thai xylophones (Ranā d xek) has had a major effect on musical instrument makers. It is necessary for these instrument makers to now synthesize or find a new replacement material. The original instrument must be used as a benchmark in terms of sound. An objective measurement procedure, beside the human ear, is needed to compare sounds of instruments made of the original wood and new materials. In this experimental project, audio measurements of the original Thai xylophone's sound were collected and statistically analyze, focusing on the inharmonic structure of its spectrum of partials. The result is shown as numerical data. This data can now be used as a benchmark and compared to possible replacement materials in further research.

In the current years, many kinds of prostheses have been developed to replace parts with deformity or absent from the human body. Facial prosthesis production methods have undergone little change in the last 40 years. Today, manual techniques are used to produce prostheses, which are usually cast in wax over a replica of the patient’s anatomy. Silicone is the most appropriate structural material used in the production of atrial prostheses due to its mechanical and chemical characteristics. Recently, new technologies, such as 3D scanning and additive manufacturing techniques are being applied in the production of auricular prostheses with better cost/quality relation when compared to the manual manufacturing process. In this research, four methods to acquire the structure of a human ear were investigated (photogrammetry, 3D scanning, 3D reconstruction of computed tomography images and parameterized 3D modeling) to produce auricular prosthesis molds by additive manufacture using the fused deposition modeling (FDM) technique. The best silicone ear prosthesis produced shows an excellent esthetic result with 0.1–3% of dimensional error. Mechanical analysis of the silicone (tensile strength and hardness tests) shows that the prostheses produced have excellent mechanical resistance that is not altered by the pigmentation process. The research demonstrates the feasibility of an accessible methodology to produce ear prostheses using free software, technologies and supplies available in the market.

Morphable models are useful shape priors for biometric recognition tasks. Here we present an iterative process of refinement for a 3D Morphable Model (3DMM) of the human ear that employs data augmentation. The process employs the following stages 1) landmark-based 3DMM fitting; 2) 3D template deformation to overcome noisy over-fitting; 3) 3D mesh editing, to improve the fit to manual 2D landmarks. These processes are wrapped in an iterative procedure that is able to bootstrap a weak, approximate model into a significantly better model. Evaluations using several performance metrics verify the improvement of our model using the proposed algorithm. We use this new 3DMM model-booting algorithm to generate a refined 3D morphable model of the human ear, and we make this new model and our augmented training dataset public.

The aim of this study was to investigate effect of radiofrequency radiation (RFR) emitted from mobile phones on DNA damage in follicle cells of hair in the ear canal. The study was carried out on 56 men (age range: 30-60 years old)in four treatment groups with n = 14 in each group. The groups were defined as follows: people who did not use a mobile phone (Control), people use mobile phones for 0-30 min/day (second group), people use mobile phones for 30-60 min/day (third group) and people use mobile phones for more than 60 min/day (fourth group). Ear canal hair follicle cells taken from the subjects were analyzed by the Comet Assay to determine DNA damages. The Comet Assay parameters measured were head length, tail length, comet length, percentage of head DNA, tail DNA percentage, tail moment, and Olive tail moment. Results of the study showed that DNA damage indicators were higher in the RFR exposure groups than in the control subjects. In addition, DNA damage increased with the daily duration of exposure. In conclusion, RFR emitted from mobile phones has a potential to produce DNA damage in follicle cells of hair in the ear canal. Therefore, mobile phone users have to pay more attention when using wireless phones.

Introduction Machines and processes in the metal industry produce noise levels that are harmful to the human ear if not properly controlled. Empirical studies are lacking to document noise exposure which is one of the stepping stones towards development and enforcement of policies, and standards on noise control in developing countries, including Tanzania where this is lacking. Methods The study was conducted from June 2016 to June 2017. Full-shift noise measurements (LAeq) were taken by personal dosimeters (Bruel and Kjaer type 4448) in four metal factories in Tanzania (Factory A; 47 measurements, B; 47, C; 34 and D; 40). Workers were randomly selected from payroll and shift list and assigned into job groups; Melters, moulders, firemen, tongsmen, roughing, cutters and pushers. Results Personal noise exposure varied both within and between factories. The average noise exposure was 91.6 dB(A) in factory A, 96.7 dB(A) in factory B, 93.7 dB(A) in factory C and 89.9 dB(A) in factory D. The moulders had the lowest noise exposure (87.3 dB(A)), followed by melters (89.9 dB(A)), pushers (91.6 dB(A)), tongsmen (93.7 dB(A)), roughing (94.2 dB(A)), firemen (94.5 dB(A)) and cutters/bundlers (98.1 dB(A)). Discussion To our knowledge this is the first study in East Africa to document personal noise exposure levels in metal industries. The noise exposure exceeded the occupational exposure limit used by OSHA, Tanzania. This study is expected to serve as an important input towards the development of the country’s own regulations regarding noise exposure at the workplace.

The most internal part of the human ear, the inner ear, is essential for us to hear and have a sense of balance. It is formed by a complex series of connected cavities filled by a liquid. When sound waves and changes in the position of the body make this liquid move, specialized ‘hair’ cells can detect these subtle movements; neurons then relay this information to the brain where it is decoded and interpreted. For the inner ear to work properly, the body needs to finely regulate the pressure created by the liquid inside the cavities. For example, people with unstable pressure in their ears can experience deafness or problems with balance. A structure known as the endolymphatic sac, which is a balloon-like chamber connected to the rest of the inner ear by a thin tube, helps with this regulation. However, scientists are still unsure about how exactly the sac performs its role. One problem is that the inner ear is difficult to study because it is encased in one of the densest bones in the body. Many other animals also have inner ears, from fish to birds and mammals. Here, Swinburne et al. examine the inner ear of zebrafish embryos because, in this fish, the ear starts working before the bones around it form; the structure is therefore accessible for injections and microscopy. Experiments show that when the pressure in the inner ear rises, the endolymphatic sac slowly fills up with the ear liquid, and then it rapidly deflates. Fish with mutations that stop the sac from deflating have overinflated sacs, which is a symptom also found in certain patients with hearing and balance disorders. Looking into the details of these inflation-deflation cycles, Swinburne et al. found that the cells that form the sac have gaps between them, unlike a normal sheet of cells. A flap covers these gaps to keep the liquid in, but under pressure, the flap opens and the liquid can escape. These results show that the endolymphatic sac works as a pressure relief valve for the inner ear. Ultimately, understanding how pressure is regulated in the ear could help patients with inner ear disorders. It could also serve as a template to investigate how eyes, kidneys and the brain, which all have liquid-filled cavities, control their internal pressure.

Introduction The ear deformity Tanzer type V, also known as prominent ears, is the most common genetic defect of the pinna. The surgery designed for its correction is known as otoplasty. This esthetic surgery can be performed using different techniques, which requires great skill of its operator. Objective The purpose of this work is the development of a new tool for otoplasty techniques training, aimed on the possibility to minimize errors during the otoplasty. Methods Synthetic molds of the external ear from patients with Tanzer type V deformity were made, using silicone material and rayon. Results The main procedures of otoplasty could be performed in the molds made of silicone and rayon with a good esthetic result. Conclusion The elaborated molds had identical size and shape of a human ear and could be positioned in the same shape of the patient ears. Thus, the synthetic molds were presented as promising simulation tools for the training and surgical enhancement of otoplasty, especially for doctors beginners. Resumo Introdução A deformidade da orelha tipo V de Tanzer, também conhecida como orelhas proeminentes, é o defeito genético mais comum da aurícula. A cirurgia criada para sua correção é conhecida como otoplastia. Essa cirurgia estética pode ser feita com diferentes técnicas, o que requer grande habilidade de seu operador. Objetivo O objetivo desse trabalho é o desenvolvimento de uma nova ferramenta para o treinamento de técnicas de otoplastia, com o objetivo de minimizar erros durante a otoplastia. Método Foram feitos moldes sintéticos da orelha externa de pacientes com deformidade tipo V de Tanzer com material de silicone e rayon. Resultados Os principais procedimentos de otoplastia foram feitos nos moldes de silicone e rayon com um bom resultado estético. Conclusão Os moldes elaborados tinham tamanho e forma idênticos aos de uma orelha humana e puderam ser posicionados no mesmo formato das orelhas dos pacientes. Assim, os moldes sintéticos foram apresentados como ferramentas de simulação promissoras para o treinamento e aperfeiçoamento cirúrgico da otoplastia, especialmente para médicos iniciantes.

In recent years, many researchers have shown interest in combining features of different biometrie traits to improve recognition performance of the biometrie systems. In this paper, we examine the feature-level fusion of two contactless biometric modalities of the same image i.e. ear and profile face. Initially, two most efficient local feature descriptors such as LDP (Local Directional Patterns) and LPQ (Local Phase Quantisation) are used to represent both biometric modalities. Due to combination of two feature descriptors, dimension of the feature sets are increased and so PCA is separately applied to both modalities before normalization and fusion steps. Finally, to obtain more discriminant nonlinear features the Kernel Dis-criminative Common Vector (KDCV) method is employed after fusion to the combined feature vector. Experimental evaluation on University of Notre Dame (Collection E) side face database clearly reveals the proposed method is more efficient to increase the recognition performance over other existing ear based unimodal and multimodal biometric systems.

This Paper is about finding a low cost solution to Audio effects used by musicians and audio engineers. From chorus to flanger, rotary, delay, overdrive, and pitch shifting, etc… This paper focuses on two effects: Delay and Pitch shifting. The first part the delay was used since the beginning of using electronics in musical instruments. It adds some delayed versions of the input signal which gives a warm tone and adds a depth to the sound of the instrument, from a psychological point of view it keeps hitting the ear drum of the listener to a level where the ear is used to it and actually is some strange type of a very short time addiction. It was done through using a circular buffer technique to save the memory and to get rid of latency. The second part is the pitch shifting. It actually allows one person to play two lines at the same time, giving the listener a variation of frequencies that hit the low pass filter which is the human ear, making some sort of linear surrounding effect depending on how the panning of the original signal and the shifted version is done. The techniques used are carefully selected and implemented with some types of interpolation to make sure to get the best results.

Biometric authentication using human ear is a recent trend in security applications including access control, user recognition, surveillance, forensic, and border security systems. This paper aims to propose a fast and robust authentication scheme using ear biometric. In this work, a fast technique based on the AdaBoost algorithm is used to detect the ear of the user from profile images. An efficient stereo matching algorithm is used to match the user’s ear data (probe) to the previously enrolled (stored) ear data in a gallery database for verification and recognition. Correspondences are established between extracted features of the probe and gallery image sequences. The performance of the recognition approach is evaluated on different standard ear datasets and compared with other techniques. Experimental results suggest the superiority of the proposed approach over other popular techniques reported in this work.

Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text., Background: In the human ear and nose, cartilage plays a key role in establishing its form and function. Interestingly, there is a noticeable paucity on biochemical, structural, and mechanical studies focused on facial cartilage. Such studies are needed to provide elementary knowledge that is fundamental to tissue engineering of cartilage. Therefore, in this study, a comparison is made of the biochemical, structural, and mechanical differences between ear, ala nasi, and septum on the extracellular matrix (ECM) level. Methods: Cartilage samples were harvested from 10 cadaveric donors. Each sample was indented 10 times with a nanoindenter to determine the effective Young’s modulus. Structural information of the cartilage was obtained by multiple-photon laser scanning microscopy capable of revealing matrix components at subcellular resolution. Biochemistry was performed to measure glycosaminoglycan (GAG), DNA, elastin, and collagen content. Results: Significant differences were seen in stiffness between ear and septal cartilage (P = 0.011) and between ala nasi and septal cartilage (P = 0.005). Elastin content was significantly higher in ear cartilage. Per cartilage subtype, effective Young’s modulus was not significantly correlated with cell density, GAG, or collagen content. However, in septal cartilage, low elastin content was associated with higher stiffness. Laser microscopy showed a distinct difference between ear cartilage and cartilage of nasal origin. Conclusion: Proposed methods to investigate cartilage on the ECM level provided good results. Significant differences were seen not only between ear and nasal cartilage but also between the ala nasi and septal cartilage. Albeit its structural similarity to septal cartilage, the ala nasi has a matrix stiffness comparable to ear cartilage.

Three-dimensional sound effects require a considerable number of sound channels, causing audio-visual spatial orientation sense distortion under circumstances in which the code rate is restricted by the limitation of transmission channel bandwidth and storage capacity. As a result, existing 3D audio systems are incompatible with real-time broadcasting and home theatre applications, severely limiting the application and development of 3D audio systems. By investigating the mechanism of orientation parameters perceptual redundancy, this paper studied 3D spatial orientation cue perceptual characteristics, established an orientation cue perceptual model, developed a heterogeneous quantification table accordingly, and controlled the differences between each quantified value below the quantitative value perception threshold. Using this method, only the information perceptible to the human ear was quantified and perceptual distortions were minimized. The experimental results revealed that, compared to the SLQP method, the quantified bit of the proposed method was reduced by 8.66% in low resolution and 65.23% in high resolution. In addition, the accuracy of this method was higher than that of the SLQP method, enabling better alignment with human perceptual

In this article, a multi-tone signal generated by micro-speaker is adopted as the acoustic stimulation, and two microphones are used to collect the DPOAE data from human ear and background noise respectively. Otoacoustic emission is modeled based on Volterra kernel. The feature of human ear’s DPOAE feature model is extracted intelligently by improved stimulation annealing genetic mixed algorithm. In order to apply this model feature to identification, its feasibility is verified by BP neural network. This provides a new biometric method for identity authentication.

Oto-acoustic emissions (OAEs) are an audiometric diagnostic test that allows quick objective measure of hair cell function in the inner ear. It is a reflection of hearing function at the interface of conductive and sensorineural components in the human ear. Unfortunately, it is not commonly used due to the unique expertise and niche equipment required to successfully carry it out. This article is to further shed light about the use of such tests to junior doctors so that such resources can be better utilised. It also reviews the current and possible future applications of OAEs at the frontiers in otology today.