• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.1066-1076
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• 2018

Objective: The reliability of size measurements of liver metastases from neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) on contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CT) phases made by different readers may be hampered due to transient, variable rim enhancement in arterial phase (AP) or portal venous phase (PVP) images. We aimed to assess the reliability of tumor size measurements in pre- and post-contrast scans. Materials and Methods: The study coordinator selected target lesions according to Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors 1.1 guidelines in 44 consecutive patients with pathologically confirmed NET liver metastases. Two blinded readers measured the longest diameters of target lesions on pre-contrast, AP, and PVP images twice with a 4-week interval. Inter- and intra-observer agreements were evaluated using Bland-Altman plots and 95% limit of agreement (LOA) calculations. Results: Of the 79 target lesions (approximate mean size of 3 cm), 45 showed rim enhancement. Inter-observer agreement assessed based on LOA was highest in pre-contrast CT images (-6.1-5.7 mm), followed by PVP (-7.9-7.1 mm) and AP (-8.5-7.4 mm) images. Intra-observer agreement showed the same trend: -2.8-2.9 mm and -2.9-2.9 mm for readers 1 and 2, respectively, on pre-contrast CT, -2.8-2.9 mm and -3.0-3.2 mm, respectively, on PVP, and -3.2-4.2 mm and -3.4-3.2 mm, respectively, on AP images. Mean tumor diameters differed significantly among the phases in the following increasing order: pre-contrast CT, PVP, and AP images. Conclusion: There was better inter- and intra-observer agreement in size measurements of NET liver metastases on pre-contrast scans than on AP and PVP scans. Pre-contrast CT may be the optimal for measuring NET liver metastases if its accuracy is proven.

• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.38-46
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• 2001

Purpose : The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of tissue inhomogeneities when appling to contrast medium among Homogeneous, Batho and ETAR dose calculation method in RTP system. Method and Material : We made customized heterogeneous phantom it filled with water or contrast medium slab. Phantom scan data have taken PQ 5000 (CT scanner, Marconi, USA) and then dose was calculated in 3D RTP (AcQ-Plan, Marconi, USA) depends on dose calculation algorithm (Homogeneous, Batho, ETAR). The dose comparisons were described in terms of 2D isodose distribution, percent depth dose data, effective path length and monitor unit. Also dose distributions were calculated with homogeneous and inhomogeneous correction algorithm, Batho and ETAR, in each patients with different clinical sites. Results : Result indicated that Batho and ETAR method gave rise to percent depth dose deviation $1.5{\sim}2.7\%,\;2.3{\sim}3.5\%$ (6MV, field size $10{\times}10cm^2$) in each status with and without contrast medium. Also show that effective path lengths were more increase in contrast status (23.14 cm) than Non-contrast (22.07 cm) about $4.9\%$ or 10.7 mm (In case Hounsfield Unit 270) and these results were similary showned in each patient with different clinical site that was lung. prostate, liver and brain region. Concliusion : In conclusion we shown that the use of inhomogeneity correction algorithm for dose calculation in status of injected contrast medium can not represent exact dose at GTV region. These results mean that patients will be more irradiated photon beam during radiation therapy.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.608-617
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• 2017

Methods of contrast enhancement have problem such as side effect of over-enhancement with non-gaussian histogram distribution, tradeoff enhancement efficiency against brightness preserving. In order to enhance contrast at various histogram distribution, segmentation to region with gaussian distribution and then enhance contrast each region. First, we segment an image into several regions using GMM(Gaussian Mixture Model)fitting by that k-mean clustering and EM(Expectation-Maximization) in $L^*a^*b^*$ color space. As a result region segmentation, we get the region map and probability map. Then we apply local contrast enhancement algorithm that mean shift to minimum overlapping of each region and preserve brightness histogram equalization. Experiment result show that proposed region based contrast enhancement method compare to the conventional method as AMBE(AbsoluteMean Brightness Error) and AE(Average Entropy), brightness is maintained and represented detail information.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartB
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• v.16B no.4
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• pp.263-270
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• 2009

Histogram Equalization (HE) is a very popular technique for enhancing the contrast of an image. HE stretches the dynamic range of an image using the cumulative distribution function of a given input image, therefore improving its contrast. However, HE has a well-known problem : when HE is applied for the contrast enhancement, there is a significant change in brightness. To resolve this problem, we propose An Adaptive Contrast Enhancement Algorithm using Subhistogram Area-Ratioed Histogram Redistribution, a new method that helps reduce excessive contrast enhancement. This proposed algorithm redistributes the dynamic range of an input image using its mean luminance value and the ratio of sub-histogram area. Experimental results show that by this redistribution, the significant change in brightness is reduced effectively and the output image is able to preserve the naturalness of an original image even if it has a poor histogram distribution.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.44 no.2 s.314
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• pp.126-136
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• 2007

This paper presents an enhanced algorithm for compensating the visual quality in back-light image. Current cameras do not represent all details of scene into human's eye. Saturation and underexposure are common problems in back-light image. Retinex algorithm, derived from Land's theory on human visual perception is known to be effective in enhancing the contrast. However, its weaknesses are long processing time and low contrast of bright area in back-light scene because of compensating the details of dark area. In this paper, K-Retinex algorithm is proposed to reduce the processing time and enhance the contrast in both dark and bright area. To show the superiority of proposed algorithm, we compare the processing time, local standard deviation and contrast per pixel of each area above.

• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.525-532
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• 2018

Recently, due to the advancements of sensor network technologies and camera technologies, there are increasing needs to effectively monitor the environment in a region that is difficult to access by using the visual sensor network that combines these two technologies. Since the image captured by the visual sensor reflects the natural phenomenon as it is, the quality of the image may deteriorate depending on the weather or time. In this paper, we propose an algorithm to improve the contrast of images using the characteristics of images obtained from visual sensors. In the proposed method, we first set the region of interest and then analyzes the change of the color value of the region of interest according to the brightness value of the image. The contrast of an image is improved by using the high contrast image of the same object and the analysis information. It is shown by experimental results that the proposed method improves the contrast of an image by restoring the color components of the low contrast image simply and accurately.

• Journal of Korean Biological Nursing Science
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.57-68
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• 2004

The contrast medium is very commonly used in more than 90% of computed tomography(CT) scans. It is difficult to predict the occurrence of adverse reactions and the degree of adverse reactions are diverse from mild urticaria, itching, nausea, vomiting to even cardiopulmonary arrest. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the symptoms, occurrence rate and risk factors of the adverse reactions in patients after contrast injection during CT examinations. Two hundreds sixty-five patients showed symptoms of adverse reactions out of 71,117 adult patients who received intravenous contrast administration during CT scans from January 2003 to December 2003 at a general hospital. Data was collected by reviewing adverse reaction records and electronic medical record. The results of this study were as follows; 1. Adverse reactions occurred in 265 out of a total of 71,117 patients(0.37%). Clinical symptoms of adverse reactions were most commonly dermatologic problems such as urticaria(69.81%) and itching(63.02%), followed by dyspnea(14.34%), dizziness(11.70%), nausea(6.79%), and vomiting(7.17%). 2. Anaphylactoid reactions occurred in 47 out of a total of 265 patients, and their pattern of symptoms were most commonly related to cardiovascular system(90.91%), followed by respiratory system(82.22%), gastrointestinal system(51.72%), and dermatologic system(16.51%). Eleven patients were transferred to emergency room for further treatment and two patients needed cardiopulmonary resuscitation. 3. The adverse reactions were significantly more common in women than in men(0.46% vs.0.32%, p=.003) and in type D contrast medium than the others(p<.001). The occurrence rate of adverse reactions was not significantly different according to the age and infusion speed of the contrast medium.

• Journal of Korean Ophthalmic Optics Society
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.47-51
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• 2016

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the change of contrast sensitivity by prescribing tinted lenses and to provide the clinical manual. Methods: Contrast sensitivity was measured for twenty adults with normal vision while they wore yellow, orange and green tinted lenses. To measure contrast sensitivity, the 5 spatial frequencies (2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 cpd) were used for 33 ms and 233 ms, respectively. Results: The contrast sensitivity was overall higher with 233 ms than 33 ms (p<0.05). The peaks of contrast sensitivity with 33 ms and 233 ms were 1.75 log unit with the yellow lens and 1. 85 log unit without the color respectively. However, there was no significance between the yellow and orange tinted lens (p>0.64) Conclusions: Yellowish tinted lens that reduces chromatic aberration and the scattering is prescribed for the various purposes to improve visual functions. Before prescribing tinted lens, identifying characteristic of user and tinted lens for cut off wavelengths is recommended.

• Journal of Korean Ophthalmic Optics Society
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.77-81
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• 2009

Purpose: To study the change of fixation disparity and accommodation as fusion contrast is deteriorated. Methods: 16 subjects who had above 20/20 and stereopsis took part. Monocular and binocular refraction were done with Zeiss Polatest Classic whereas the critical angle for stereopsis was done with TNO. A computer programmed with Random-Dot stereogram and vernier test managed a precise change of the fusion contrast and exposure time. Results: The fixation disparity was influenced by reduction of fusion contrast and had tendancy to exophoria (p=0.0004), especially it is considerably higher when uncrossed disparity was shown to exophoric subjects. Although accommodation was not influenced by a change of fusion contrast (p=0.803), vernier acuity was influenced (p=0.0000). Conclusions: Exophoric trend arose as the fusion contrast was reduced, nevertheless there was no accommadative change.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.52 no.10
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• pp.108-117
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• 2015

If typical contrast enhancement algorithms for natural images are applied to X-ray images, they may cause artifacts such as overshooting or produce unnatural visual quality because they do not consider inherent characteristics of X-ray images. In order to overcome such problems, we propose a locally adaptive block-based contrast enhancement algorithm for X-ray images. After we derive a weighted cumulative distribution function for each block, we apply it to each block for contrast enhancement. Then, we obtain images that are removed from block effect by adopting block-based overlapping. In post-processing, we obtain the final image by emphasizing high frequency components. Experimental results show that the proposed block-based contrast enhancement algorithm provides at maximum 5-times higher visual quality than the exiting algorithm in terms of quantitative contrast metric.