Microphones for hearing aid systems are required to have high sensitivity, an appropriate bandwidth, and a wide dynamic range. In this paper, a high sensitivity microphone, 4 mm in diameter and using a multilayer graphene-PMMA laminated diaphragm that can be applied in hearing aids, is designed, optimized, and implemented. Typically, polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) has been used for the diaphragm of electret condenser microphones (ECM), and this method provides simple, low cost mass production. Generally, the sensitivity of the commercial 4 mm diameter ECM is about -30 to 35 dB (0 dB = 1 V/Pa). A microphone using a nanometer-thick graphene diaphragm has been found to have higher sensitivity than the conventional ECM. However, nanometer-thick multilayer graphene is vulnerable to large mechanical shocks or high sound pressures, and the practical production of nanometer-thick diaphragms also poses a challenge. However, if a multilayer graphene diaphragm of the same thickness as the conventional ECM is used, displacement during diaphragm vibration will be severely attenuated due to the high elastic modulus of graphene, and the microphone sensitivity will be greatly reduced. In this paper, we fabricate a multilayer graphene/poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) laminated diaphragm with sensitivity higher than that of any other microphones currently available for hearing aids, with the appropriate bandwidth in the auditory range. The high sensitivity arises from the laminated structure of the thin graphene membrane with high elastic modulus and from the PMMA membrane with lower elastic modulus and higher dielectric constant. The optimal thickness ratio of the graphene-PMMA layered diaphragm was studied by both analytical and experimental methods, and then a fabricated diaphragm was assembled in a 4 mm diameter microphone package. The performance of the implemented microphone was evaluated, including the sensitivity and total harmonic distortion. It is demonstrated that the microphone using a multilayer graphene-PMMA diaphragm has an excellent sensitivity of -20 dB and a dynamic range of 90 dB, which is on average 9 dB higher than the microphone using the conventional ECM diaphragm.

The aims of this study were to estimate the incidences of BCR/ABL, MLL, TEL/AML1 rearrangements, and p16 deletions in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), to identify new abnormalities, and to demonstrate the usefulness of interphase fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH). We performed G-banding analysis and FISH using probes for BCR/ABL, MLL, TEL/AML1 rearrangements, and p16 deletions on 65 childhood ALL patients diagnosed and uniformly treated at a single hospital. Gene rearrangements were identified in 73.8% of the patients using the combination of G-banding and FISH, while the chromosomal abnormalities were identified in 49.2% using G-banding alone. Gene rearrangements were disclosed by FISH in 24 (72.7%) of 33 patients with normal karyotype or no mitotic cell in G-banding. Among the gene rearrangements detected by FISH, the most common gene rearrangement was p16 deletion (20.3%) and the incidences of others were 14.1% for TEL/AML1, 11.3% for MLL, and 1.8% for BCR/ABL translocations. Infrequent or new aberrations such as AML1 amplification, MLL deletion, ABL deletion, and TEL/AML1 fusion with AML1 deletion were also observed. We established the rough incidences of gene rearrangements in childhood ALL, found new abnormalities and demonstrated the diagnostic capability of interphase FISH to identify cryptic chromosome aberrations.

No abstract

We designed and implemented an electromagnetic transducer for implantable bone conduction hearing aids. The proposed transducer is smaller than previous bone conduction transducers for easy implantation and was designed using high permeability metals to produce large electromagnetic forces. In addition, the number of cantilever beams was changed from two to three to minimize distortion of the transducer, potentially due to twisting of the cantilever beam. The proposed transducer consists of a titanium cover with three screw holes, a metal ring, a circular plate, a vibrational membrane with a three-cantilever structure, a metal plate and cylinder, a permanent magnet, top and bottom coils, and a cylindrical titanium case. The transducer was optimally designed based on analysis of electromagnetic and mechanical vibrations, and the target resonance frequency was derived by controlling the variable elements of the vibrational membrane. The transducer was manufactured based on the results of finite element analysis, and the validity of the design was verified by comparing the results of vibration measurement experiments and a simulation. Finally, to evaluate the performance of the proposed transducer, the transducer was attached to the mastoid of participants and functional near-infrared spectroscopy was used to measure brain activation changes of the auditory cortex due to vibration stimulation. INDEX TERMS Implantable bone conduction hearing aid, electromagnetic transducer, finite element analysis, functional near-infrared spectroscopy.

Fully Implantable hearing devices consist of a microphone that is implanted under the human skin. However after the implantation, the gain characteristics of the microphone are attenuated at the high frequencies because of the sound filtering effect of the skin and tissue. To solve this problems, we proposed an implantable microphone with an acoustic tube, which generates a resonance effect between the diaphragm and the acoustic transducer inside a case. By performing several experiments in water, it has been confirmed that the frequency response of the implantable microphone at high frequencies can be improved by use of the acoustic tube.