• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.395-401
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• 2016

Upper gastrointestinal series is a diagnostic test that X-ray passes through the stomach after administering contrast media such as barium or gastrografin. Upper gastrointestinal series with an advantage of no side effect except temporary constipation or abdominal pain has been widely used to diagnose diseases of the gastrointestinal system. However, image degradation and diagnostic accuracy frequently occurred when improper movement and breath control were carried out by lack of understanding the overall inspection process for the upper gastrointestinal series. The movie of the upper gastrointestinal series was made for improving inspection accuracy and image quality. The examinees encouraged to see the movie for waiting time before doing upper gastrointestinal series. In this study, image quality and diagnostic accuracy was examined for the effect of the movie about upper gastrointestinal series. 60 patients composed of each 10 people from 30s to 80s were selected randomly among both 2,940 examinees in 2014 and 3,076 examinees in 2015. Image quality was evaluated by the full width at half maximum of profile for each image using the Image J. The measurement of the full width at half maximum showed 0.208 mm and 0.133 mm for after and before seeing the movie. Thus it was verified that the movie education could improve the image quality and diagnostic accuracy for upper gastrointestinal series.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.184-191
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• 2007

Our objective was to develop and evaluate a non-invasive device for rigid immobilization and surface disease non-contact of the table in the lower extremity during CT angiography. The immobilization device consists of two components. The patient's lower limb device stabilizing elements made of polyethylene resin soft materials, and pelvis parts foam pad is used for non-contact surface. In a Prospective study the lower extremity device was used in patients who underwent a CT angiography of the lower limb. Immobilization with our device was well tolerated by all patients. The quality of the resulting images in the popliteal and infrapopliteal region was rated by five-point scale. The rigid immobilization resulted in a complete absence of motion artifacts. The new device is an effective, well tolerated and easily used immobilization that is suitable of use in 3D lower extremity CT angiography.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.53-62
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• 2023

The purpose of this study is to find an optimized imaging technique and evaluate its usefulness by comparing and analyzing the difference in contrast enhancement of lower extremity artery according to the patient's heart rate during lower extremity Computed Tomography Angiography examination. From January 2022 to August 22nd, 139 outpatients who visited Ajou University Hospital and underwent lower extremity angio CT examination were targeted. According to the heart rate, the groups were divided into four groups: A(HR ≤65), B(65 < HR < 80), C(80≤ HR). In addition, among patients with a heart rate of 65 or less, the heart rate was considered, and the scan was divided into D, E, F group with a delay time. The time of arrival of contrast medium and the average value of contrast enhancement were compared and analyzed. As a result of quantitative evaluation, B and C groups with a heart rate of more than 65 times had better HU values in the popliteal artery than A group (HR ≤ 65), and D group showed better HU improvement effects compared to A group (p<0.001). The comparative analysis with other groups was insignificant. The difference in heart rate affected the angiographic intensity of the lower extremities artery. Therefore, it is effective to apply the appropriate test timing for each patient by using the heart rate during the lower extremity angio CT Scan.

• Ultrasonography
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.59-65
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• 2013

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to establish the methodology regarding synthesis of ultrasound contrast agent imaging, and to evaluate the characteristics of the synthesized ultrasound contrast agents, including size or degradation interval and image quality. Materials and Methods: The ultrasound contrast agent, composed of liposome and SF6, was synthesized from the mixture solution of $21{\mu}mol$ DPPC (1, 2-Dihexadecanoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine, $C_{40}H_{80}NO_8P$), $9{\mu}mol$ cholesterol, $1.9{\mu}mol$ of DCP (Dihexadecylphosphate, $[CH_3(CH_2)_{15}O]_2P(O)OH$), and chloroform. After evaporation in a warm water bath and drying during a period of 12-24 hours, the contrast agent was synthesized by the sonication process by addition of buffer and SF6 gas. The size of the contrast agent was controlled by use of either extruder or sonication methods. After synthesis of contrast agents, analysis of the size distribution of the bubbles was performed using dynamic light scattering measurement methods. The degradation curve was also evaluated by changes in the number of contrast agents via light microscopy immediate, 12 hours, 24 hours, 36 hours, 48 hours, 60 hours, 72 hours, and 84 hours after synthesis. For evaluation of the role as an US contrast agent, the echogenicity of the synthesized microbubble was compared with commercially available microbubbles (SonoVue, Bracco, Milan, Italy) using a clinical ultrasound machine and phantom. Results: The contrast agents were synthesized successfully using an evaporation-drying-sonication method. The majority of bubbles showed a mean size of 154.2 nanometers, and they showed marked degradation 24 hours after synthesis. ANOVA test revealed a significant difference among SonoVue, synthesized contrast agent, and saline (p < 0.001). Although no significant difference was observed between SonoVue and the synthesized contrast agent, difference in echogenicity was observed between synthesized contrast agent and saline (p < 0.01). Conclusion: We could synthesize ultrasound contrast agents using an evaporation-drying-sonication method. On the basis of these results, many prospective types of research, such as anticancer drug delivery, gene delivery, including siRNA or microRNA, targeted molecular imaging, and targeted therapy can be performed.

• KIPS Transactions on Software and Data Engineering
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• v.3 no.6
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• pp.231-236
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• 2014

The transit time of contrast agents and the parameters of time-intensity curves in ultrasonography are important factors to diagnose various diseases of a digestive organ. We have implemented an automatic parametric imaging method to overcome the difficulty of the diagnosis by naked eyes. However, the micro-bubble noise and the respiratory motions may degrade the reliability of the parameter images. In this paper, we introduce an optimization technique based on MRF(Markov Random Field) model to enhance the quality of the parameter images, and present an image tracking algorithm to compensate the image distortion by respiratory motions. A method to extract the respiration periods from the ultrasound image sequence has been developed. We have implemented the ROI(Region of Interest) tracking algorithm using the dynamic weights and a momentum factor based on these periods. An energy function is defined for the Gibbs sampler of the image enhancement method. Through the experiments using the data to diagnose liver lesions, we have shown that the proposed method improves the quality of the parametric images.

• Proceedings of the Korea Information Processing Society Conference
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• 2013.11a
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• pp.1386-1389
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• 2013

조영증강 초음파 동영상은 측정 부위의 혈류의 형태와 특성 정보를 포함하지만, 이를 육안으로 판별하는 것은 매우 어려운 일이다. 이에 본 연구에서는 초음파 영상으로부터 간 질환과 연관한 병변을 추출하고 그 특성을 분석하기 위한 기반 기술로서 영상 처리 및 분석 기법을 제안한다. 마이크로버블(microbubble) 형태의 노이즈와 빠른 속도로 변화하는 각 프레임의 영상으로부터 근사화된 원형 또는 타원 형태로 나타나는 병변을 추출하기 위하여 허프 변환(Hough transform)을 이용한 병변 추출 기법을 제시하며, 추출한 병변의 특성을 분석하기 위하여 TIC(time intensity curve)의 특성과 조영 효과의 전이 시간(transit time) 등의 정보를 영상의 형태로 가시화하는 방법과 MRF(Markov random field) 모델을 이용한 영상개선 기법을 소개한다. 제안된 이론은 실제 간 질환 진단 초음파 영상에 적용하여 그 유용성을 평가한다.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.49-56
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• 2001

Purpose : To evaluate value of superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPIO) as a negative oral contrast agent in MR cholangiopancreatography (MRCP). Materials and methods : Forty-eight patients with suspected biliary tract or pancreatic diseases and six healthy volunteers were enrolled in this study. All MR images were obtained using a 1.5 T MR unit. MR-CP using fat-suppressed half-Fourier acquisition single-shot turbo spin echo (HASTE) and turbo spin echo (TSE) techniques were performed and reconstructed with maximal intensity projection (MIP). To determine the most optimal concentration of SPIO to obliterate the high signal intensity of water, a phantom experiment was conducted with various concentrations of SPIO-water mixture. Two radiologists evaluated pre- and postcontrast MRCPS. The contrast enhancement was assessed on the basis of loss of signal intensity in the stomach and duodenum. Results : In the phantom experiment, a significant increase of percentage of signal intensity loss (PSIL) occurred in concentration of 22.4 ugFe/ml (Feridex1 ml diluted with water 500 ml). Postcontrast MRCP showed an improved image quality compared with precontrast images. The rate of improvement in the diagnosis of diseases of the common bile duct and pancreatic duct was 25% (12/48). Conclusion : In patients with suspected biliary tract and pancreatic diseases, the SPIO is useful as a negative oral contrast agent for MRCP and provides an improvement of image quality.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartB
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• v.12B no.5 s.101
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• pp.543-552
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• 2005

This paper proposes the extraction of coronary arteries based on DSA(Digital Subtraction Angiography) through a texture analysis of background in the angiography. DSA is a well established modality for the visualization of coronary arteries. DSA involves the subtraction of a mask image - an image of the heart before injection of contrast medium - from live image. However, this technique is sensitive to the movement of background and can result to a wrong detection by the variance of background gray-level intensity between two images. Therefore, this paper solves a structural problem resulted from a background movement bV selecting an image which has the least difference of movement through an analysis of the similarity of background texture and proposes a method to extract only the blood vessel efficiently through local gray-level correction of the selected image. Using the coronary angiogram of 5 patients clinical data, we proved that the proposed method has the lower false-detection rate, approximately $2\%$, and the higher accuracy than the existing methods.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Computer Information Conference
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• 2019.01a
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• pp.115-118
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• 2019

무선 센서 네트워크(Wireless Sensor Network)는 낮은 배터리, 짧은 통신거리 등의 제한된 센서들의 성능에 기인하여 내부자공격(insider attacks)에 취약한 것으로 알려져 있는데, 내부자 공격에 대응하기 위한 대표저인 방법으로 노드들의 행위 관찰하여 신뢰도를 평가하고 낮은 신뢰도를 갖는 노드들을 제거하는 신뢰메커니즘(Trust Mechanism: TM)이 있다. TM은 평가노드 자신의 직접관찰 정보뿐만 아니라 이웃노드의 간접관찰 정보를 함께 고려하도록 발전되어 왔는데, False-Praise 공격은 의도적으로 거짓 관찰 정보를 평가노드에게 제공하여 TM의 신뢰도 평가 프로세스의 신뢰성을 훼손하는 지능적 공격이다. 본 논문에서는 False-Praise 공격에 대응을 위한 합의 알고리즘을 기반의 개선된 TM 제안하고, 실험을 통해 제안 체계의 성능과 효과를 검증한다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.345-346
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• 2007