Mechanical prosthetic cardiac valves generate not only the widely recognized audible closing clicks but also ultrasonic closing clicks, as previously reported by us. A personal-computer-based measurement and analysis system with the bandwidth of 625 kHz has been developed to clarify the characteristics of these ultrasonic closing clicks. Fifty cases in total were assessed clinically, including cases with tilting disk valves, bileaflet valves, and flat disk valves. The ultrasonic closing clicks are damped vibrations continuing for about two milliseconds, and their frequency range was confirmed to be from 8 kHz to 625 kHz, while that of the audible click was up to 8 kHz. Although the sensitivity of the sensor decreased by approximately 30 dB at 625 kHz, effective power of the ultrasonic closing click was confirmed at this frequency. Moreover, it was shown that, surprisingly, the signal power at 625 kHz was still at the same level as that at around 100 kHz. Those wide bandwidth signal components exist independent of the type of mechanical valve, but the spectral pattern shows some dependence on the valve type.

A new in vitro experimental tool was developed to study the mechanism of the ultrasonic closing clicks' genesis of mechanical heart valves. Since the newly developed tester adopted compressed air flow directly instead of the blood analog fluid to drive the mechanical heart valve, it is not possibe to generate any cavitation. Closing clicks were measured with a small accelerometer at the surface of the valve holder made of silicone rubber. Ultrasonic closing clicks as well as audible closing clicks, similar to those measured clinically, could be observed using this setup. Thus, it was confirmed that the ultrasonic closing clicks can be generated without the existence of cavitation. Simultaneous measurements of the valve motion were made with a high-speed video camera, and the analysis of the video frames and clicks showed that higher frequency signal components of more than 50 kHz could be generated only at the instant of the closure, which means the collision of the occluder with the housing. Eighteen miniature accelerometers with an area of one square millimeter were developed and stuck on the housing to monitor the distribution of the housing vibrations in detail, and it was found that the vibrations correspond to the ultrasonic closing clicks propagated from the valve stop: the collision point of the occluder with the housing. This fact indicated that the generation of ultrasonic closing clicks are limited to the small area of the collision. From those results, it was concluded that the major origin of the ultrasonic closing clicks' genesis should be the collision of the occluder with the housing.

When the automated driving cars are in widespread usage, traffic will coexist with prioritized vehicles (e.g., ambulances, fire trucks, police vehicles) and automated driving cars. Automated driving cars are expected to be safer and lower stress than manual driving vehicles because of passengers paying less attention to driving. However, there are many challenges for automated driving cars to get along with surrounding transport participants. In particular, when an ambulance is driving into an intersection with the red traffic signal, the automated driving car is required to deal with a situation differently from normal traffic situations. In order to continue safe driving, it is necessary to recognize the approach of the ambulance at an earlier time. Possible means of recognizing ambulances include siren sound, rotating red lights and vehicle to vehicle communication. Based on actual traffic data, the authors created a mathematical model of deceleration for giving way and consider the status of suitable behavior by automated driving cars. The authors calculate the detection distance required to take suitable action. The results indicate that there are advantages in vehicle to vehicle communication in detecting ambulances by automated driving cars.

By applying Wigner distribution, which has high time resolution and high random noise reducing capability, to the acoustic bio–signals, the possibility of early diagnosis in both intracranial vascular deformation and prosthetic cardiac valve malfunction increased. Especially in latter case, 1st–order local moment of the distribution showed its effectiveness.

For the purpose of detecting the intracranial vascular deformations noninvasively, transducer for bruit sound emanated from diseased lesion and analyzing system were developed and applied clinically. Several aspects of the bruit signals were clarified and the possibility of early diagnosis was increased.

Intracranial blood flow noise measuring and analyzing system were developed to detect the cerebrovascular diseases such as aneurysm, stenosis and occlusion in their early stage. To realize the effective measuring of the sound known as the 'bruit,' dedicated PVDF-film based sensor working on the closed eyelid was designed. FFT spectrums and Wigner distributions were used as analyzing methods to clarify both the precise spectrum and the time variance of the signals. Thirty normal people without any history of cerebrovascular disease were tested with the system to estimate the characteristics of the background noise. Thirteen patients, including eight stenosis, four aneurysm and one occlusion, were studied with the system. FFT spectral differences between patient and normal existed over the frequency range from 0.5kHz to 1.2kHz. In this range apparent increases of the signal components' power were observed for the patients. Numerically, this tendency was confirmed by the power difference between 750Hz and 1.5kHz, which could be the possible index of the existence diagnosis for cerebrovascular diseases. The shape of the FFT spectral pattern showed some difference between stenosis and aneurysm. In stenosis cases, it seemed that there existed the flat level from 0.4kHz to 1.2kHz, while in aneurysm cases the power decreases smoothly as frequency increases from the peak around 0.7kHz. Time variance of the bruit according to the cardiac cycle could be seen in the cases of stenosis from 30% to 50%, but not in the cases from 40% to 90%. This fact suggested the possibility to diagnose the extent of the stenosis. In most cases, recognizable spectral peak around 0.7 kHz were observed. Although the physical meanings of those peaks were not so clear, still it was the apparent characteristics and might be including important information.