• Proceedings of the Acoustical Society of Korea Conference
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• spring
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• pp.373-378
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• 2004

하모니 영상은 초음파의 비선형 전파 과정에서 발생된 하모닉 성분을 영상화 한다. 하모닉 영상은 초음파에 비선형적으로 반응하는 초음파 조영제를 사용하여 하모닉 성분의 발생을 최대화 하고 있다. 일반적으로 현재 임상적으로 사용되는 하모닉 영상은 2차 고주파 성분을 사용한 것을 의미한다. 2차 하모닉 영상은 주파수의 상승으로 공간 분해능이 향상된다. 초음파 조영제를 이용하는 경우 서브 하모닉, 울트라 하모닉의 발생도 유의할 것으로 기대되지만 이에 대한 연구는 거의 없는 실정이다. 서브 하모닉은 상대적으로 2차 하모닉보다 전파 과정에서 감쇠 효과가 작기 때문에 심부의 영상에 유리하다 서브 하모닉 및 울트라 하모닉 성분 검출은 초음파 변환기의 대역폭에 대한 제한을 2차 하모닉에 비해 상대적으로 덜 받는다. 본 연구에서는 진단용 초음파에 의해 초음파 조영제에서 방사하는 하모닉 성분의 크기를 시뮬레이션 하였다. 수치해석은 Gilmore Equation을 이용하였으며, 초음파 조영제의 탄성 효과는 무시하였다. 초음파 조영제의 크기와 초음파의 MI에 따라 하모닉 성분의 크기를 정량적으로 비교하고, 서브 및 울트라 하모닉 영상의 구현에 대해 토의하였다.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.55-61
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• 1999

In this study, we have constructed the acoustic microscope using quadrature technique and analyzed the relative variation of image intensity and the quality of image by reconstructing the amplitude and phase image for surface defects with tiny hight variation. In this experiment, we have constructed the scanning acoustic microscope using the focused transducer with 3㎒ center frequency and the quadrature detector. And we have fabricated aluminum samples with round defects whose depth is different and reconstructed the amplitude and phase images for the samples. One sample has round defects with 2㎜ diameter and 100㎛ depth and the other has round defects with 4㎜ diameter and 5㎜ depth. In the result of line scanning for the sample with 100㎛ round defects, it has been shown that the variation rate of amplitude image intensity is 7% and the variation rate of phase image intensity is 89%. The phase image has better contrast than amplitude image for the sample. In contrast to this, the amplitude image has better contrast than phase image for the sample with 5㎜ depth's defects. Accordingly there is big difference between amplitude image and phase image for depth variation of defects whose boundary is 1 wavelength. Consequently the acoustic microscope using quadrature detector can be evaluated efficiently more than using envelope detector, for detecting defects which have height variation less than 1 wavelength. And also the phase image and the amplitude image can be used for detecting defects of tiny height variation with complimentary relation.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.78-86
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• 2005

This study considers the magnitude of the harmonic components radiated from the ultrasonic contrast agents (UCA) activated by a typical diagnostic ultrasound. The nonlinear dynamic response of UCA to a 2 MHz diagnostic ultrasound pulse was predicted using Gilmore Model. The elastic property of the shell membrane of the UCA was ignored in the numerical model. Simulation was carried out for the UCA varying from 1 - 9 $\mu$m in its initial radius and the driving diagnostic ultrasound whose mechanical index (MI) ranges from 0.125 to 8. The powers of the sub. ultra and second harmonics of the acoustic signal from the UCA activated were compared with that of the fundamental component. The results show that. if the UCA is bigger than its resonant size (2 $\mu$m in radius for the present case) the sub harmonic power was much bigger than the fundamental. In particular, the 2nd harmonic component currently used as an imaging parameter for the harmonic imaging, was predicted to be lower in power than both the sub and the ultra harmonic component. This study indicates that, for obtaining harmonic imaging with UCA, the sub or ultra harmonics could be taken as imaging parameters better than the 2nd harmonic component.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.57-65
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• 2008

Setting parameters of Ultrasonic scanners influence the quality of ultrasonic images. In order to obtain optimized images sonographers need to understand the effects of the setting parameters on ultrasonic images. The present study considered typical four parameters including TGC (Time Gain Control), Gain, Frequency, DR (Dynamic Range). LCS (low contrast sensitivity) was chosen to quantitatively compare the quality of the images. In the present experiment LCS targets of a standard ultrasonic test phantom (539, ATS, USA) were imaged using a clinical ultrasonic scanner (SA-9000 PRIME, Medison, Korea). Altering the settings in the parameters of the ultrasonic scanner, 6 LCS target images (+15 dB, +6 dB, +3 dB, -3 dB, -6 dB, -15 dB) to each setting were obtained, and their LCS values were calculated. The results show that the mean pixel value (LCS) is the highest at the max setting in TGC, mid to max in gain and pen mode in frequency and 40-66 dB in DR. Among all images, the image being the highest in LCS was obtained at the setting of DR 40 dB. It is expected that the results will be of use in setting the parameters when ultrasonically examining masses often clinically found In either solid lesions (similar to +15, +6, +3 dB targets) or cystic lesions (similar to -15, -6, -3 dB targets).

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.507-517
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• 2022

The PhotoAcoustic Microscopy (PAM) has been proved to be a useful tool for biological and medical applications due to its high spatial and contrast resolution. PAM is based on transmission of laser pulses and reception of PA signals. Since the strength of PA signals is generally low, not only are high-performance optical and acoustic modules required, but high-performance electronics for imaging are also particularly needed for high-quality PAM imaging. Most PAM systems are implemented with a combination of several pieces of equipment commercially available to receive, amplify, enhance, and digitize PA signals. To this end, PAM systems are inevitably bulky and not optimal because general purpose equipment is used. This paper reports a PA signal receiving system recently developed to attain the capability of improved Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) and Contrast to Noise Ratio (CNR) of PAM images; the main module of this system is a low noise, wideband signal receiver that consists of two low-noise amplifiers, two variable gain amplifiers, analog filters, an Analog to Digital Converter (ADC), and control logic. From phantom imaging experiments, it was found that the developed system can improve SNR by 6.7 dB and CNR by 3 dB, compared to a combination of several pieces of commercially available equipment.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.529-534
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• 2005

This study performed an physical analysis on the characteristics of urban environmental sound divided into three parts depending on their features. Object sounds were classified into traffic sound, waster sound and spatial sound. Traffice sound was selected because it is dominant sound in urban environment, and water sound is selected because it generally supplies pleasantness in contrast to traffic sound, Finally spatial sound was considered because it represents sound in various places of city having lots of behaviors and types of sound due to them. Physcal analysis was carried out using sound quality indices based on Zwicker's loudness, $L_{Aeq}$(equivalent noise level), Ln(percentile noise level) and other acoutical attributes applied to previous study. Through the analysis, this study aims to compare the acoustical characteristics of urban environmental sound and to provide fundamental data for the evaluation of urban environmental sound.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2001.11b
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• pp.866-870
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• 2001

Measurement techniques for in-duct acoustic source parameters can be classified into the direct method and the load method, according to whether it utilizes an extra external source or not. It is reported that the load methods yield the negative source resistance and the purpose of this paper is to clarify that the time-varying nature of the source is the main cause of this physically implausible result. For this purpose, the direct and load methods for measuring the source characteristics of a simplified fluid machine are simulated using the time domain numerical analysis. In the numerical simulations, the method of characteristics is employed and the source characteristics are calculated from the resultant data. It is shown that the load method results in negative source resistance for some frequencies, whereas the direct method yields positive values for all frequencies considered. It is found that the result of load method is quite sensitive to the change of cylinder pressure or valve profile in contrast to the direct method.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.53-59
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• 1989

A new proposed method can separate heart sounds and lung sounds by the realization of adaptive noise canceler using adaptive lattice Wiener filter in contrast to adaptive transversal LMS filter and high pass filter as before. Lung sounds and ECG signal are detected for this purpose, and especially the second heart sounds are reduced by finding T wave location with a T wave seeking algorithm. As a result, for heart sounds reduction It was found that adaptive transversal LMS filter required 100-200's orders, 75-100's orders In adaptive transversal MLMS filter, and only 10-20's orders in adaptive lattice Wiener filter. Adaptive filtering technique has shown greater accuracy than high pass filtering without loss of low frequency component.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.239-248
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• 2011

In order to improve the quality of strain images in medical ultrasound imaging, displacements need to be accurately estimated. In this paper, in order to apply one-dimensional displacement estimation methods to two-dimensional motion estimation, the axial and lateral displacements are separately estimated. In order to estimate lateral displacements, one-dimensional signals aligned in the lateral direction are converted to analytic signals, which are then crosscorrelated. Strain images are produced by first compensating two-dimensional displacements for lateral motion with lateral motion displacement estimates obtained from the proposed lateral displacement estimation algorithm and then estimating axial displacements. Both phantom and human data experiments show that the proposed method provides better signal-to-noise ratio and contrast-to-noise ratio characteristics than a conventional strain imaging method that utilizes axial displacement estimates only.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.238-246
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• 2017

High frequency ultrasound imaging typically suffers from low sensitivity due to the small aperture of high frequency transducers and shallow imaging depth due to the frequency-dependent attenuation of ultrasound. These limitations should be overcome to obtain high-frequency, high- resolution ultrasound images. One practical solution to the problems is a high-performance signal receiver capable of detecting a very small signal and amplifying the signal with minimal electronic noise addition. This paper reports a recently developed low-noise, wideband ultrasound receiver for high-frequency, high-resolution ultrasound imaging. The developed receiver has an amplification gain of up to 73 dB and a variable amplification gain range of 48 dB over an operating frequency of 80 MHz. Also, it has an amplification gain flatness of ${\pm}1dB$. Due to these high performances, the developed receiver has a signal-to-noise ratio of at least 8.4 dB and a contrast-to-noise ratio of at least 3.7 dB higher than commercial receivers.