• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.31-38
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• 2016

For the patients with bladder dysfunction, measurement of urine volume inside the bladder is very critical to avoid bladder failure. In measuring urine volume inside a bladder, low-resolution 3D ultrasound images are widely used. However, urine volume estimation from 3D ultrasound images is prone to big errors and inconsistency because of low spatial resolution and low signal-to-noise ratio of ultrasound images. We developed a new robust volume estimation algorithm which is not computationally expensive. We tested the algorithm on a lab-built ultrasound bladder phantom and volunteers. The average error rate of the human bladder volume estimation was 5.9% which was better than the commercial machine.

• KIEAE Journal
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.3-8
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• 2007

Recently, the structural system of public residential buildings has been changed from the reinforced concrete (RC) wall system to the (PC) wall and moment resisting systems. Thus, it is important to develop the suitable wall system in accordance with the trend of the modern structural system. This paper presents the basic study on the suitable boundary wall in high-rise buildings. The research also demonstrates the evaluation results on sound characteristics in the aspect of sound insulation. The evaluation of sound insulation capability for the commercialized wall structure was conducted based on literature survey while the measurement of sound insulation capability for the light-weght EPP concrete was performed in according to KS F2808 in laboratory. The main objective of this research is to propose the most suitable dry wall system as a sound insulation structure through the comparison and analysis of frequency characteristics and weight-acoustic attenuation.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2009

Many types of small animal imaging modalities, like micro-CT, micro-PET, and micro-SPECT, have been recently developed worldwide. Small animal imaging systems are now recognized as indispensable tools to validate efficacy and safety of new drugs or new therapeutic methods using the animal disease models. With increasing demands for small animal imaging in biomedical research, multimodal small animal imaging systems, like micro-PET/CT or micro PET/MRI, are now also being developed. Small animal imaging with spatial resolution and sensitivity comparable to human imaging is quite challenging since laboratory small animals are much smaller than human beings. Research activities in Korea on small animal imaging systems are reviewed in this paper. In the field of micro-CT and micro-PET, many world-class technologies have been developed successfully in Korea. It is expected that the developed animal imaging system technologies can be used in the development of clinical imaging systems in Korea in the near future.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 1999.10a
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• pp.675-678
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• 1999

Rebar corrosion in concrete containing both chloride ions and calcium nitrite inhibitors were investigated by the various electrochemical methods. Rebar corrosion was accelerated by applying the impressed current to the rebar in concrete. Effect of chloride content and inhibitors on rebar corrosion were evaluated. Accelerated corrosion technique is the method to measure the time to the initiation of cracks of reinforced concretes, by applying constant voltage between rebar and the stainless steel cathedes. The increase of concentration of chloride ions in concrete result in the increase in anodic currents and the reduction of time to crack. However addition of inhibitors did not improve corrosion resistance of rebar in concrete. Rebar corrosion in concrete with chloride ions and inhibitors was also analyzed by the immersed tests though the mesurement of corrosion potentials.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.265-270
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• 1995

An implementation scheme of the magnetic nerve stimulator using a switching mode power supply is proposed. By using a switching mode power supply rather than a conventional linear power supply for chArging high voltage cApacitors, the weight and size of the magnetic net've stimulator can be considerably reduced. Maximum output voltage of the developed magnetic nerve stimulator using the switching mode power supply is 3,000 volts and switching time is about 100 msec Experimental results of human nerve stimulations using the developed stimulator are presented.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.303-309
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• 2001

It is well known that the electrical impedance of biological tissues is very sensitive to their temperature. In this paper, we have analyzed the effects of temperature change on the phase of magnetic resonance images obtained with external current injection. It has been found that the local phase in the current injected magnetic resonance image can be changed noticeably when local temperature change appears at a part of the tissue. At the experiments with a 0.3 Tesla MRI system, we observed the local phase changes at the phantom images when the phantom temperature was varied between 25 -45$^{\circ}C$. We think that the current injection MRI technique can be used for in-vivo monitoring of the temperature inside biiological tissues if the relation between the local temperature and phase can be quantified.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.223-229
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• 2001

In this paper, we have compared the direct fan-beam reconstruction method with the rebinning method in terms of computation time and spatial resolution using computer simulation. As a result, the direct fan-beam method is superior to the rebinning method in the spatial resolution though the former needs longer computation time. However, if we adopt the quarter-detector-offset technique to improve the spatial resolution, the rebinning method outperforms the direct fan-beam method. The computation times have been evaluated using the fast algorithms optimized to reduce the number of interpolation calculations at the back-projection, and the spatial resolutions have been compared using the computer generated phantoms.

• Journal of KSNVE
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.295-305
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• 1994

The reflection coefficient of a material at oblique incidence is measured in a free field. The sound pressure distributions are measured at discrete points on two measurement lines and then decomposed into plane wave components by using spatial Fourier transform. The inciedent and reflected plane wave components are obtained from a set of "decomposition equations" of which uses the plane wave propagation theory. Numerical simulations and experiments have been performed to see the effect of finite size of measurement area. To reduce this effect, a window fuction has been performed to see the effects of finite size of mesurement area. To reduce this effect, a window function has been proposed and its effect on the measurement of sound absorbing material property has been studied as well. The reflection coefficient obtained by this method is compared with those obtained from other methods; 2-microphone method in a duct and an expirical equation of which determines the characteristic impedance .rho.c and propagation constant k of a material from flow resistance information.formation.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.102-107
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• 2007

In molecular imaging studies via magnetic resonance imaging, in vivo cell tracking is an important issue for the observation of cell therapy or disease behavior. High resolution imaging and longitudinal study are necessary to track the cell movement. Since the field inhomogeneity extends over several voxels, we have performed the numerical analysis using the sub-voxel method dividing a voxel of MR image into several elements and the information about the field inhomogeneity distribution around the micro-beads. We imbedded ferrite-composite micro-beads with the size of $20-150{\mu}m$ in the subject substituted for cells to induce local field distortion. In the phantom imaging with the isotropic voxel size of $200{\mu}m^3$, we could confirm the feasibility of sub-voxel tracking in a 3.0 T MRI.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.97-104
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• 1994

In the conventional infrared imaging system, complex infrared lens systems are usually used for directing collimated narrow infrared beams into the high speed 2-dimensional optic scanner. In this paper, a simple reflective infrared optic system with a 2-dimensionaloptic scanner is proposed for the realization of medical infrared thermography system. It has been experimentally proven that the infrared thermography system composed ofthe proposed optic system has the temperature resolution of $0.1{\circ}C$ under the spatial resolution of 1mrad, the image matrix size of $256{\times}240$, and the imaging time of 4 seconds.