• 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.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.53 no.9
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• pp.137-142
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• 2016

When injecting intravenously of CT inspection, the effusion of the contrast meium can induce the tissue damage with the blood vessel outside. We detect extravasation which is generated in the course where we inject the contrast medium into the blood vessel. And we use the bolus tracking system for the detection of that. By using MPR and VR images, moreover we detected the extravasation in order to prevent the tissue damage. In order to detect the effusion of the contrast medium, we used 16-MDCT and 64-MDCT. Three dimensional images about the outflow of the blood vessel can provide the treatment information which is important in the patient treatment. Moreover we applied the image processing technique in order to improve sharpness between contrast media and organization. And sharpness and contrast was improved.

• Journal of Korean Ophthalmic Optics Society
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.241-246
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• 2013

Purpose: The aim of this study was a comparative analysis of the effect of distance contrast sensitivity when wearing free-form progressive lens and conventional progressive lens. Methods: The 20 subjects who do not have any ocular diseases were participated in this study. Contrast sensitivities at 5 different levels of spatial frequency were conducted by using FACT (Stereo Optical, USA). Results: Contrast sensitivity was measured for free-form progressive lens and conventional progressive lens in the order of right eye, left eye and binocular. Right/left/binocular contrast sensitivity values of the free-form progressive lenses compared to the conventional progressive lenses were higher 16%/17%/11% at A(1.5 cpd) of spatial frequency, 11%/5%/5% at B(3 cpd) of spatial frequency, 6%/6%/9% at C(6 cpd) of spatial frequency, 19%/16%/13% at D(12 cpd) of spatial frequency, 4%/3%/18% at E(18 cpd) of spatial frequency. Conclusions: In all the area of spatial frequency, distance contrast sensitivity values were measured highly on free-form progressive lens than on conventional progressive lens.

• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.186-187
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• 2006

A 64-year-old female with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) was assigned to our department for whole body PET/CT scan. She ingested 1 liter of pure water as negative oral contrast just before PET/CT examination. FDG-PET/CT images showed a very intense hypermetabolic, focal lesion in the abdominal cavity around descending colon. The SUVmax of the lesion was 17.2. But there was no abnormal lesion corresponded to the area of PET scan in the combined contrast enhanced CT scan. We suggested considering a malignant lesion due to very intense glycolytic activity. Conventional abdominal CT scan & colonoscopy were accomplished within one week after PET/CT evaluation. There was no abnormality in both examinations. We executed follow-up PET/CT evaluation after 1 month and couldn't find any abnormality around the corresponding area. So we concluded the hypermetabolism was colonic physiologic uptake. A colonic physiologic uptake is a well known cause of false positive finding. Nuclear physicians should be considered the possibility of malignancy when interpret focal colonic uptake, especially incidental finding. There are a few reports that using of negative oral contrast is able to reduce gastrointestinal physiologic uptakes. But as we can see in this case, although we used negative oral contrast, intense physiologic uptake is detected and maxSUV is able to up to 17.2. So, it is important to keep a fact in mind. Even though there is a colonic physiologic uptake in PET/CT image, it may be able to show very intense hypermetabolism regardless of using negative oral contrast.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
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• v.39 no.6
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• pp.27-33
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• 2002

This paper proposes a method to drive an AC plasma display panel(PDP) with a significantly improved contrast ratio. In the proposed method, during the first sub-field of one frame, all PDP cells are reset by the ramp waveform, and during the other sub-fields, only the cells turned on in the previous sub-field are reset. No light is emitted during the reset period of every sub-field except the first sub-field. For a 10-bit picture, the luminance of the dark level for the proposed method is 10 times lower than that for the conventional method, in which the ramp waveform for the reset is used in every sub-field. Accordingly, the contrast ratio for the proposed method is 10 times higher than that for the conventional method. For the 10-bit picture, the measured contrast ratio was about 3080:1 for the proposed method and about 285:1 for the conventional method, resulting in 10.8 times increase in the contrast ratio. This result shows that the proposed method can realize an image with high contrast ratio.

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.239-244
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• 2009

Image contrast enhancement has an important role in image processing applications. Conventional contrast enhancement techniques, histogram stretching and histogram equalization, and many methods based on histogram equalization often fail to produce satisfactory results for broad variety of low-contrast images. So, this paper proposes a new image contrast enhancement method based on the clustering method. The number of cluster of histogram is found by analysing the histogram of original image. The histogram components is classified using K-means algorithm. And then these histogram components are performed histogram stretching and histogram equalization selectively by comparing cluster range with pixel rate of cluster. From the expremental results, the proposed method was more effective than conventional contrast enhancement techniques.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.9 no.12
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• pp.273-279
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• 2018

This study researched how the refraction error and illumination influence to contrast sensitivity when we wear the circle contact lenses. The study population comprised 16 students and adults(5 of Male, 11 of Female). The study population comprised 16 students and adults(5 of Male, 11 of Female), We measured the contrast sensitivity on uncorrected vision, according to color of circle contact and change the illumination of laboratory. The contrast sensitivity by illumination decreased than unaided vision when they wore the color contact lenses and more increased mesopic than photopic. Compared between black and brown lenses, brown was higher the contrast sensitivity than black. Also emmetropia had significantly differences when we compared the contrast sensitivity of subjects who had emmetropia, myopia and myopia astigmatism whether refractive error has or not. Therefore, it is important to provide sufficient understanding and recognition of color contact lenses.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.14 no.7
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• pp.937-946
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• 2020

The grating interferometer provides the differential phase contrast image of an phase object due to refraction of the wavefront by the object, and it needs to be converted to the phase contrast image. The line-integration process to obtain the phase contrast image from a differential phase contrast image accumulates noise and generate stripe artifacts. The stripe artifacts have noise and distortion increases to the integration direction in the line-integrated phase contrast image. In this study, we have configured and compared several machine learning methods to reduce the artifacts. The machine learning methods have been applied to simulated numerical phantoms as well as experimental data from the X-ray and neutron grating interferometer for comparison. As a result, the combination of the wavelet preprocessing and machine learning method (WCNN) has shown to be the most effective.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.1-20
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• 2023

In this study, we examined the effects of spatial attention in Hangul word recognition depending on visual factors. The visual complexity of words (Experiment 1) and contrast (Experiment 2) were manipulated to examine whether the effect of spatial attention differs depending on visual quality. Participants responded to words with and without codas in experiment 1 and words in high-contrast and low-contrast conditions in experiment 2. The effects of spatial attention were investigated by calculating the difference in performance between the condition where spatial cues were given at the target location (valid trial) and the condition where the spatial cues were not given at the target location (invalid trial) as the cuing effects. As a result, the cuing effects were similar depending on the complexity of the words. It indicates that the effects of spatial attention were not different across the visual complexity conditions. The cuing effects were greater in the low-contrast condition than in the high-contrast condition. The greater effect of spatial attention when the contrast is low was explained as a mechanism of signal enhancement.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.30-35
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• 2011

Purpose: The Boramae Hospital are currently using Wide beam reconstruction (WBR: UltraSPECT, Israel) to improve the resolution. The Xact-bone belongs to the WBR. It has been reported that Xact-bone helps us to improve image resolution and contrast. This study will be evaluated clinical usefulness of Xact-bone method. Materials and Methods: The usefulness evaluation of Xact-bone method was analyzed in resolution test and contrast ratio. The resolution test in Planar image were obtained from Full width at half maximum (FWHM) by using capillary tube. And the contrast ratio was obtained from Bone and Soft tissue (B/S) ratio values that were acquired from bone scan study of 50 patients before and after using the Xact-bone method. We prepared the Triple Line Source Phantom, NEMA IEC Body Phantom and Standard Jaszczak Phantom to acquire the FWHM and Contrast Ratio values of Single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) image. Subsequently we compared among the Filtered backprojection (FBP), Orderd subset expectation maximization (OSEM) and Xact-Bone image. Results: The results of the planar Xact-bone data improved resolution about 20% by using capillary tube. In addition it was improved B/S ratio about 15%. When using Triple Line Source Phantom, SPECT Xact-bone data improved resolution for both FBP, OSEM methods about 20% and 10%, respectively. Contrast ratio in each spheres has also been increased for both methods that using NEMA IEC body Phantom and Standard Jaszczak Phantom. Conclusion: When we were using Xact-bone method, we could see to improve the resolution and Contrast ratio as compared to do not use the Xact-bone method. Accordingly, by using WBR's Xact-bone method is expected to improve the image quality. However, when introducing new software, it is needed to match the characteristics of the hospital protocol and clinical application.