• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
• /
• v.16 no.1
• /
• pp.67-75
• /
• 2012

Purpose : We studied enhanced method to view the vessels in the brain using Magnetic Resonance Angiography (MRA). Noticing that Maximum Intensity Projection (MIP) image is often used to evaluate the arteries of the neck and brain, we propose a new method for view brain vessels to stereo image in 3D space with more superior and more correct compared with conventional method. Materials and Methods: We use 3T Siemens Tim Trio MRI scanner with 4 channel head coil and get a 3D MRA brain data by fixing volunteers head and radiating Phase Contrast pulse sequence. MRA brain data is 3D rotated according to the view angle of each eyes. Optimal view angle (projection angle) is determined by the distance between eye and center of the data. Newly acquired MRA data are projected along with the projection line and display only the highest values. Each left and right view MIP image is integrated through anaglyph imaging method and optimal stereoscopic MIP image is acquired. Results: Result image shows that proposed method let enable to view MIP image at any direction of MRA data that is impossible to the conventional method. Moreover, considering disparity and distance from viewer to center of MRA data at spherical coordinates, we can get more realistic stereo image. In conclusion, we can get optimal stereoscopic images according to the position that viewers want to see and distance between viewer and MRA data. Conclusion: Proposed method overcome problems of conventional method that shows only specific projected image (z-axis projection) and give optimal depth information by converting mono MIP image to stereoscopic image considering viewers position. And can display any view of MRA data at spherical coordinates. If the optimization algorithm and parallel processing is applied, it may give useful medical information for diagnosis and treatment planning in real-time.

• Journal of Korean Ophthalmic Optics Society
• /
• v.19 no.2
• /
• pp.217-224
• /
• 2014

Purpose: This study was conducted to compare and analyze the accommodative system (accommodative response and accommodative lag) according to the material and font size of near visual media that we often encounter in daily life. Methods: Forty adult men and women aged 20 to 30 who not had specific ocular diseases and refractive surgery experience were examined to measure and compare the accommodative response according to the material of near visual media (print paper, newspaper, magazine, the I-Phone, LCD monitor) and font size (6, 8, 10, 12) by using both eyes open-view auto-refractometer. Results: The accommodative stimulus was $2.28{\pm}0.11D$ and the accommodative response was $1.66{\pm}0.30D$. The accommodative lag namely the difference between accommodative stimulus and accommodative response was $0.62{\pm}0.28D$. The accommodative response according to material of visual media using LCD monitor was $1.35{\pm}0.26D$ (p=0.00) and using the I-Phone was $1.55{\pm}0.25D$ (p=0.04). Both of them were statistically significant lower. The accommodative lag using LCD monitor was $0.93{\pm}0.24D$ (p=0.00) and using the I-Phone was $0.73{\pm}0.25D$ (p=0.04) and they were statistically significant higher. The accommodative response and accommodative lag according to font size were not statistically significant (p>0.05). Conclusions: During near working, the accommodative system was more affected by material than font size of visual media. Especially, visual media of non-luminous material (print paper, newspaper, magazine) are considered fewer burdens on eyes than luminous material (I-Phone, LCD monitor) in terms of accommodative system.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
• /
• v.43 no.6
• /
• pp.596-601
• /
• 2010

Background: This study was designed to evaluate the efficacy of a mixture of hyaluronic acid and sodium carboxymethyl cellulose ($Guardix-sol^{(R)}$) on experimental pericardial adhesion. Material and Method: Thirty rats were divided into 2 groups of 15 rats each and pericardial mesothelial injury was induced during surgery by abrasion. In the control group, blood and normal saline were administered into pericardium; in the test group, blood and HA-CMC solution were administered. Pericardial adhesions were evaluated at 2 weeks (n=5), 4 weeks (n=5), and 6 weeks (n=5) after surgery. The severity of adhesions was graded by macroscopic examination, and the adhesion tissue thickness was analyzed microscopically with Masson trichrome stain and an image processing program. Result: The test group had significantly lower macroscopic adhesion scores ($2.9{\pm}0.6$ : $3.9{\pm}0.4$, p<0.000) compared with the control group. For microscopic adhesion tissue thickness, the test group had lower scores compared with the control group, but this difference was not statistically significant ($91.73{\pm}49.91$ : $117.67{\pm}46.4$, p=0.106). Conclusion: We conclude that an HA-CMC solution ($Guardix-sol^{(R)}$) reduces the formation of pericardial adhesions in this animal model.

• Korean Journal of Ichthyology
• /
• v.19 no.4
• /
• pp.371-377
• /
• 2007

The passive integrated transponder (PIT) telemetry is a useful method for investigating fish population dynamics, community structure and migration. It can be applied for small fishes (TL<100 mm) because of its tiny size and light weight. The survival rate of PIT tag was investigated on 4 small size cyprindae fish species, Carassius gibelio langsdorfi (n=34, standard length; $91.9{\pm}0.9mm$, body weight; $21.2{\pm}0.9g$), Hypophthalmichthys molitrix (n=16, SL; $75.1{\pm}0.9mm$, BW; $6.0{\pm}0.2g$), Pseudorasbora parva (n=30, SL; $51.4{\pm}1.1mm$, BW; $2.7{\pm}0.2g$) and Phoxinus phoxinus (n=37, SL; $70.6{\pm}1.4mm$, BW; $8.2{\pm}0.5g$) under age 1 for applicability and effectiveness. We used three type tags including a small (length 11.0 mm, diameter 2.1 mm, weight 0.088 g), middle (20 mm, 3.5 mm, 0.102 g), large (30 mm, 3.5 mm, 0.298 g) size. After 30 days of tag insertion, survival rate of 117 individuals were 58.1% (large tag, 50.0%; middle tag, 57.5%; small tag, 61.4%). Survival rates varied between three types of tags because the abdominal cavity of each individual was different size. The death was due to surgical damage. If we apply tagging systems on field research of the Korean freshwater fish, the PIT tag will be effective method for analyzing fish ecology.

• Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
• /
• v.22 no.1
• /
• pp.13-22
• /
• 2014

Objectives : Breast cancer has been the most prevalent female cancer in South Korea since 2001. Early detection of this disease is the most effective strategy for reducing mortality. The objective of this study was to identify factors which could predict advanced stage at diagnosis of breast cancer. Methods : Participants who were initially diagnosed with breast cancer and referred to the Stress Clinic of the Breast Cancer Center at Kyungpook National University Hospital were included. Through a semi-structured interview, the authors investigated psychosocial variables such as the extent of marital and family functioning and emotional-economic family burden as well as sociodemographic and health behavior-, health characteristic- and cancer-related variables. Results : Data were collected from 219 participants. One hundred and twenty(54.8%) subjects were diagnosed with advanced-stage breast cancer. Variables that were significantly different between the advanced-stage and early-stage groups included : monthly breast self examination(p<0.000), annual mammographic screening(p<0.000), mode of tumor detection(p<0.000), nature of the first symptoms(p<0.000), time to treatment after diagnosis(p<0.000), overloaded economic and family burden(p=0.018), marital functioning(p<0.000) and family functioning(p<0.00). Logistic regression analysis indicated that irregular annual mammography screening(OR=7.431 ; 95% CI 2.407-22.944) or a lack of screening(OR=25.299 ; 95% CI 7.855-81.482) and a dysfunctional marital relationship(OR=4.772 ; 95% CI 2.244-10.145) were significantly associated with advanced stage at diagnosis of breast cancer. Conclusions : We reconfirmed screening behavior to be a risk factor for delayed diagnosis of breast cancer. Our findings also emphasized the importance of psychosocial factors such as marital functioning in early detection of breast cancer. Psychiatric consultation in the area of martial functioning could be beneficial for increasing early detection in breast cancer.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
• /
• v.38 no.3
• /
• pp.205-211
• /
• 2015

We evaluated the effectiveness of TL (Time Limit) method by comparing with NTL (Non-time limit) method when it is used for examinations for abdomen Anterior Posterior (AP) in this paper. The evaluation was conducted based on the comparison of dose, and of signal to noise ratio (SNR) and contrast to ratio (CNR) on both methods. The experiments were conducted with XGEO GC 80 (Samsung, Korea), Unfors ThinX RAD (Unfors, Sweden) and Rando Phantom (Alderson research laboratories, USA) and shielding material with the size of $5.5{\times}9{\times}0.1cm^3$. It was set to activate only two upper ionization chambers in automatic exposure control(AEC) mode and the tube-voltage was set to 80kVp. When the exposure time was limited, it is limited to 51 msec. The images both by NTL AEC method and TL AEC method were acquired when with and without attachment of shielding material on the upper ionization chambers. The images were evaluated by SNR and CNR which are the image evaluation methods using 'Image J'. The NTL AEC method showed increases in dose as much as 130.7% at maximum and 80% at minimum than other methods. The TL AEC method showed decreases in mAs and exposure dose than the NTL AEC method as much as 43.8% and 44.4% respectively. There were no significant differences in SNR or CNR for the experiments (($p{\geq}0.05$). Therefore, it is suggested that the TLAEC mode is more effective when examining patients who have high BMI index or a patient with a metallic substance in the body after surgery.

• The korean journal of orthodontics
• /
• v.37 no.6
• /
• pp.391-399
• /
• 2007

Three-dimensional approaches for the diagnosis and analysis of the dentofacial area are becoming more popular in accordance with the development of cone-beam CT (CBCT). The purposes of this study were to evaluate the reliability of cephalometric measurements of lateral cephalograms generated from a CBCT image by making comparisons with the traditional digital lateral cephalogram, and to evaluate the possibility of the clinical application of CBCT generated cephalogram images. Methods: Twenty patients whose external auditory meatus could be identified in the CBCT image were selected, and both CBCT and digital cephalograms were taken. Differences between the measurements of both cephalograms were tested by paired t-test. Results: Among the 22 measurements used, only U1-FH, Mx6 to PTV, and maxillomandibular difference showed statistically significant differences between the CBCT generated cephalogram and the digital cephalogram. Conclusions: The results suggest that the CBCT generated cephalogram can be used for some cephalometric measurements not requiring porion, PTV, condylion as a landmark (SNA, SNB, U1 to SN, IMPA, interincisal angle, etc.).

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
• /
• v.9 no.2
• /
• pp.51-56
• /
• 2009

Purpose: Peritoneal recurrence has been reported to be the most common form of recurrence of gastric cancer. Peritoneal recurrence can generally be suggested by several types of image studies and also if there is evidence of ascites or Bloomer's rectal shelf. It can be confirmed by explorative laparotomy, but diagnostic laparoscopy is a good alternative method and laparoscopic surgery has also been widely used. We reviewed and analyzed the ability of diagnostic laparoscopy to detect peritoneal recurrence or carcinomatosis, and especially for gastric cancer. Materials and Methods: We performed a retrospective review the 45 gastric cancer patients who were operated via diagnostic laparoscopy between 2004. 2. and 2009. 3. We analyzed the perioperative clinical characteristics and the accuracy of the diagnostic methods. Results: The study groups included 14 patients who had confirmed gastric cancer, but they suspected to have carcinomatosis, and 31 patients who had previously underwent gastric resection, but they suspected to have recurrence. The mean operation time was $44.1\pm26.9$ minutes and the mean postoperative hospital stay was $2.7\pm2.8$ days. There was one case of operation-related complication and no postoperative mortality occurred. The sensitivities for detecting peritoneal recurrence or carcinomatosis were 92.1% for diagnostic laparoscopy, 29.7% for detecting ascites and rectal shelf on the physical examination, 86.5% for abdominal computed tomography, 69.2% for PET CT and 18.8% for CEA. Conclusion: Diagnostic laparoscopy does not require a long operation time or a long hospital stay, and it showed a low complication rate in our study. It has high sensitivity for detecting peritoneal recurrence of gastric cancer. It can be an alternative diagnostic confirmative method and it is useful for deciding on further treatment.

• Journal of KIISE:Computer Systems and Theory
• /
• v.34 no.10
• /
• pp.493-501
• /
• 2007

The imprecise real-time system provides flexibility in scheduling time-critical tasks. Most scheduling problems of satisfying both 0/1 constraint and timing constraints, while the total error is minimized, are NP-complete when the optional tasks have arbitrary processing times. Liu suggested a reasonable strategy of scheduling tasks with the 0/1 constraint on uniprocessors for minimizing the total error. Song et at suggested a reasonable strategy of scheduling tasks with the 0/1 constraint on multiprocessors for minimizing the total error. But, these algorithms are all off-line algorithms. In the online scheduling, the NORA algorithm can find a schedule with the minimum total error for the imprecise online task system. In NORA algorithm, EDF strategy is adopted in the optional scheduling. On the other hand, for the task system with 0/1 constraint, EDF_Scheduling may not be optimal in the sense that the total error is minimized. Furthermore, when the optional tasks are scheduled in the ascending order of their required processing times, NORA algorithm which EDF strategy is adopted may not produce minimum total error. Therefore, in this paper, an online algorithm is proposed to minimize total error for the imprecise task system with 0/1 constraint. Then, to compare the performance between the proposed algorithm and NORA algorithm, a series of experiments are performed. As a conseqence of the performance comparison between two algorithms, it has been concluded that the proposed algorithm can produce similar total error to NORA algorithm when the optional tasks are scheduled in the random order of their required processing times but, the proposed algorithm can produce less total error than NORA algorithm especially when the optional tasks are scheduled in the ascending order of their required processing times.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
• /
• v.10 no.1
• /
• pp.59-67
• /
• 1992

From March 1979 through December 1986, 124 patients with early stage carcinoma of the uterine cervix received curative radiation therapy. According to FIGO classification, 35 patients were stage IB and 89 were stge II A. In stage IB, five year locoregional control, five year disease free survival, and five year overall survival was $79.0\%$, $76.4\%$ and $81.8\%$, respectively. In stage II A, five year locoregional control, five year disease free survival, and five year overall survival were $78.0\%$, $66.8\%$, and $72.1\%$, respectively. To identify prognostic factors, pretreatment parameters including age, ECOG performance status, number of pregnancies, history of diabetes mellitus and hypertension, histology, size and shape of primary tumor, CT findings and blood parameters were retrospectively analyzed in terms of locoregional control, disease free survival and overall survival using univariate analysis and multivariate analysis. In univariate analysis, tumor size on physicai examination and rectal invasion on CT significantly affected locoregional control, disease free survival and overall survival. Parametrial involvement on CT was a significant prognostic factor on locoregional control and disease free survival. Hemoglobin level affected disease free survival and overall survival. Histology and age were significant prognostic factors on locoregional control. In multivariate analysis excluding CT finding, tumor size on physical examination was a significant factor in terms of locoregioal control and overall survival. Hemoglobin level was significant in terms of disease free survival. In multivariate analysis including CT, histology was a prognostic factor on locoregional control and disease free survival. Hemoglobin level and rectal invasion on CT were significant factors on locoregional control.