Development of a normative database for wide-band acoustic immittance measures

描述(申请人提供)：这项工作旨在开发宽带声导抗(WAI)测量作为一种非侵入性听觉诊断工具，其中WAI是指基于功率和基于阻抗的测量的集合，包括吸光度、功率反射率、阻抗和相关量。这些措施的潜在用途包括(1)在鼓室导纳不太成功的情况下检测新生儿和婴儿耳朵中的液体，(2)确定传导性听力损失的原因(例如，液体、脱节听小骨、固定听小骨)，以及(3)监测由于颅内压变化导致的中耳僵硬的变化。这里提出的工作将继续并使WAI措施规范数据库的开发正式化，到目前为止，该数据库在很大程度上是临时的。特别是，建议建立一个数据库，该数据库最初将填充从拟议工作中收集的数据，并最终包括允许其他研究人员提供数据的程序。拟议的工作包括对人体受试者的测量，旨在确定标准化的WAI测量如何依赖于参数：仪器、年龄、性别和种族。结果将决定是否需要对这些数量中的任何一个的标准数据进行参数化。拟议工作的第二个重点是为史密斯学院的本科生提供研究型教育，史密斯学院是一所全女性文科学院。工科本科生将积极参与到计划工作的所有领域，目的是鼓励他们考虑继续攻读博士学位。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This work aims to develop wideband acoustic immittance (WAI) measures as a noninvasive auditory diagnostic tool, where WAI refers to the collection of both power-based and impedance-based measurements that include absorbance, power reflectance, impedance, and related quantities. Potential use of these measures includes (1) detection of fluid in newborn and young infant ears where tympanometry is less successful, (2) identification of the cause of a conductive hearing loss (e.g., fluid, disarticulated ossicle, fixed ossicle), and (3) monitoring changes in middle-ear stiffness that result from intracranial pressure changes. The work proposed here continues and formalizes the development of a normative database for WAI measures, which to date has been largely ad hoc. In particular, a database is proposed that will initially be populated with data collected from the proposed work and ultimately include procedures to allow for contributions of data from other researchers. The proposed work includes measurements on human subjects that are designed to determine how normative WAI measures depend on the parameters: instrumentation, age, gender, and race. The results will determine whether or not normative data would need to be parameterized for any of these quantities. A second emphasis of the proposed work is the research-based education of undergraduate students at Smith College, an all-women's liberal arts college. Undergraduate engineering students will be actively involved in all areas of the proposed work, with the goal of encouraging them to consider continuing their education toward a Ph.D.