• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.201-208
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• 2008

Physical evaluations provide the basis for an objective and quantitative analysis of the image quality. Nonetheless, there are limitations in using physical evaluations to judge the utility of the image quality if the observer's subjectivity plays a key role despite its imprecise and variable nature. This study proposes a new method for objective and quantitative evaluation of image quality to compensate for the demerits of both physical and subjective image quality and combine the merits of them. The images of chest phantom were acquired from four digital radiography systems on clinic sites. The physical image quality was derived from an image analysis algorithm in terms of the contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) of the low-contrast objects in three regions (lung, heart, and diaphragm) of a digital chest phantom radiograph. For image analysis, various image processing techniques were used such as segmentation, and registration, etc. The subjective image quality was assessed by the ability of the human observer to detect low-contrast objects. Fuzzy integral was used to integrate them. The findings of this study showed that the physical evaluation did not agree with the subjective evaluation. The system with the better performance in physical measurement showed the worse result in subjective evaluation compared to the other system. The proposed protocol is an integral evaluation method of image quality, which includes the properties of both physical and subjective measurement. It may be used as a useful tool in image evaluation of various modalities.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.448-463
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• 2017

Multimedia is a ubiquitous and indispensable part of our daily life and learning such as audio, image, and video. Objective and subjective quality evaluations play an important role in various multimedia applications. Blind image quality assessment (BIQA) is used to indicate the perceptual quality of a distorted image, while its reference image is not considered and used. Blur is one of the common image distortions. In this paper, we propose a novel BIQA index for Gaussian blur distortion based on the fact that images with different blur degree will have different changes through the same blur. We describe this discrimination from three aspects: color, edge, and structure. For color, we adopt color histogram; for edge, we use edge intensity map, and saliency map is used as the weighting function to be consistent with human visual system (HVS); for structure, we use structure tensor and structural similarity (SSIM) index. Numerous experiments based on four benchmark databases show that our proposed index is highly consistent with the subjective quality assessment.

• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.163-177
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• 2024

The fingerprint image quality relies on the clearness of separated ridges by valleys and the uniformity of the separation. The condition of skin still dominate the overall quality of the fingerprint. However, the identification performance of such system is very sensitive to the quality of the captured fingerprint image. Fingerprint image quality analysis and enhancement are useful in improving the performance of fingerprint identification systems. A fuzzy technique is introduced in this paper for both fingerprint image quality analysis and enhancement. First, the quality analysis is performed by extracting four features from a fingerprint image which are the local clarity score (LCS), global clarity score (GCS), ridge_valley thickness ratio (RVTR), and the Global Contrast Factor (GCF). A fuzzy logic technique that uses Mamdani fuzzy rule model is designed. The fuzzy inference system is able to analyse and determinate the fingerprint image type (oily, dry or neutral) based on the extracted feature values and the fuzzy inference rules. The percentages of the test fuzzy inference system for each type is as follow: For dry fingerprint the percentage is 81.33, for oily the percentage is 54.75, and for neutral the percentage is 68.48. Secondly, a fuzzy morphology is applied to enhance the dry and oily fingerprint images. The fuzzy morphology method improves the quality of a fingerprint image, thus improving the performance of the fingerprint identification system significantly. All experimental work which was done for both quality analysis and image enhancement was done using the DB_ITS_2009 database which is a private database collected by the department of electrical engineering, institute of technology Sepuluh Nopember Surabaya, Indonesia. The performance evaluation was done using the Feature Similarity index (FSIM). Where the FSIM is an image quality assessment (IQA) metric, which uses computational models to measure the image quality consistently with subjective evaluations. The new proposed system outperformed the classical system by 900% for the dry fingerprint images and 14% for the oily fingerprint images.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.292-302
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• 2012

The patient dose in advanced radiotherapy techniques is an important issue. These methods should be evaluated to reduce the dose in diagnostic imaging for radiotherapy. Especially, the Computed Tomography in radiotherapy has been used widely; hence the CT was evaluated for dose and image in this study. The evaluations for dose and image were done in equal condition due to compare the dose and image simultaneously. Furthermore, the possibility of dose and image evaluations by using the Monte Carlo simulation MCNPX was confirmed. We made the iterative reconstruction for low dose CT image to elevate image quality with Maximum Likelihood Expectation Maximization; MLEM. The system we developed is expected to be used not only to reduce the patient dose in radiotherapy, also to evaluate the overall factors of image modalities in industrial research.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.33-43
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• 1992

The objective of this study were to (1) investigate the relationship between evaluations of apparel advertising, fashion involvement, and social attitudes, (2) examine how evaluation of apparel advertising, fashion involvement, and social attitudes vary according to gender, and (3) investigate the possible differences in purchase attitudes toward the advertised apparels according to gender and advertisement slogan. Questionnaire for evaluations of apparel advertising was comprised of four sections; apparel advertising acceptance, evaluation of advertisement slogan, purchase attitude toward the advertised apparels, and perception of effective media for apparel advertising. For evaluation of advertisement slogan, 5 sets of apparel advertisements were selected. Each set had two advertisements; one advertisement contained an image-oriented slogan, while the other had a quality-oriented slogan. "The Social Attitude Scale' by Kerlinger and 'Fashion Involvement Index' by Tigert, Ring & King were used. All the items were selected on the Cronbach's alpha reliability. The subjects were 217 college male and famale students in Seoul; 60 were asked about purchase attitude toward the image-oriented slogan, 60 purchase attitude toward the quality-oriented slogan, and 97 all the items included in evaluation of the two slogans. The data were analyzed using Pearson's correlation coefficient, X2-test, t-test, two-way ANOVA, and multiple regression analysis. The results of the study were the followings. 1. Fashion involvement had positive relationship with apparel advertising acceptance. The higher the level of conservative attitude males had, the more positive attitude they had in fashion involvement and apparel advertising acceptance. Subjects high in conservative attitude, fashion involvement, and apparel advertising acceptance. Subjects high in conservative attitude, fashion involvement, and apparel advertising acceptance had more positive in purchase of the advertised apparels. 2. Females high in apparel advertising acceptance were more favorable toward image-oriented advertisements. 3. Fashion involvement and apparel advertising acceptance were significantly higher in females than in males. Liberal attitude was significantly higher in males than in females. Evaluation of advertisement slogan did not differ according to gender. 4. Males perceived 'TV' was the most effective media for apparel advertising while females perceived 'display' was the most effective. 5. No significant interactions between advertisement slogan and gender were found in purchase attitude of the advertising apparels. 6. Apparel advertising acceptance was influenced by fashion involvement, social attitude, and sex. The explanatory power of the three variables was 17%.

• Imaging Science in Dentistry
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.139-151
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• 2019

Purpose: This study was performed to investigate the effect of exposure parameters on image quality obtained using a cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) scanner and the relationship between physical factors and clinical image quality depending on the diagnostic task. Materials and Methods: CBCT images of a SedentexCT IQ phantom and a real skull phantom were obtained under different combinations of tube voltage and tube current (Alphard 3030 CBCT scanner, 78-90 kVp and 2-8 mA). The images obtained using a SedentexCT IQ phantom were analyzed technically, and the physical factors of image noise, contrast resolution, spatial resolution, and metal artifacts were measured. The images obtained using a real skull phantom were evaluated for each diagnostic task by 6 oral and maxillofacial radiologists, and each setting was classified as acceptable or unacceptable based on those evaluations. A statistical analysis of the relationships of exposure parameters and physical factors with observer scores was conducted. Results: For periapical diagnosis and implant planning, the tube current of the acceptable images was significantly higher than that of the unacceptable images. Image noise, the contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), the line pair chart on the Z axis, and modulation transfer function (MTF) values showed statistically significant differences between the acceptable and unacceptable image groups. The cut-off values obtained using receiver operating characteristic curves for CNR and MTF 10 were useful for determining acceptability. Conclusion: Tube current had a major influence on clinical image quality. CNR and MTF 10 were useful physical factors that showed significantly associations with clinical image quality.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.27-37
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• 2016

This study examined consumer perceptions towards outdoor wear differentiation and product attributes for outdoor wear differentiation to develop an outdoor wear differentiation strategy. It also investigated how consumer's evaluated product attributes according to consumer's demographic characteristics. Data were acquired from a survey of 454 adult respondents aged over 20 that was analyzed with descriptives, frequency, t-test, one-way ANOVA, factor analysis, and reliability. The results were as follows. First, it showed that consumers did not have a positive or a negative perception toward outdoor wear differentiation, and they thought outdoor wear should be differentiated. Those married and older tended to think that outdoor wear should be differentiated more than that for those single and younger. Consumer evaluations were significantly different on the necessity of outdoor wear differentiation according to age and total income. Second, consumers assessed that color, pattern and textiles had similar characteristics among outdoor wear brands; in addition, brand recognition and brand image had very different characteristics. Third, product attributes for outdoor wear differentiation were service and store, product quality, brand and popularity, and product designs with mean values of product quality, product design, service and store, and brand and popularity, respectively. Fourth, consumers were significantly different in the importance assessment of product attributes for differentiation according to gender, marital status and age.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.29-36
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• 2023

To have highly reliable diagnostic performance of it, this study comparatively analyzed spatial resolution of SPECT images and interrelationship depending on the changes of system uniformity of ga㎜a camera through phantom analysis. This study chose 6 kinds of results from quality control (uniformity) of triple head SPECT scanner operated in an university hospital in Seoul for six months. Then, study measured spatial resolutions (FWHM) of the images restructured by injecting radiopharmaceuticals to Jaszczak phantom, and doing SPECT scanning under the same conditions as clinical ones using the analytical program (image J). Quality controls performed by the experimental institution showed that differential uniformity of UFOV ranged from 2.76% to 7.61% (4.46±2.07), and integral uniformity of UFOV ranged from 1.98% to 5.42% (3.01±1.43). Meanwhile, Quantitative analysis evaluations of phantom images depending on the changes of uniformity of SPECT scanner detector showed that as the uniformity values of UFOV and CFOV decreased, FWHM values of phantom images decreased from 8.5 ㎜ to 5.8 ㎜. That is, it was quantitatively identified that the higher uniformity of detector is, the better spatial resolution of images gets (P<0.05). It is very important to perform continuous and consistent quality control of the nuclear medicinal system, and users should be clearly conscious of it.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.12
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• pp.4591-4596
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• 2023

Single-photon emission computed tomography SPECT image reconstruction methods have a significant influence on image quality, with filtered back projection (FBP) and ordered subset expectation maximization (OSEM) being the most commonly used methods. In this study, we proposed newly-designed adaptive non-blind deconvolution with a structural similarity (SSIM) index that can take advantage of the FBP and OSEM image reconstruction methods. After acquiring brain SPECT images, the proposed image was obtained using an algorithm that applied the SSIM metric, defined by predicting the distribution and amount of blurring. As a result of the contrast to noise ratio (CNR) and coefficient of variation evaluation (COV), the resulting image of the proposed algorithm showed a similar trend in spatial resolution to that of FBP, while obtaining values similar to those of OSEM. In addition, we confirmed that the CNR and COV values of the proposed algorithm improved by approximately 1.69 and 1.59 times, respectively, compared with those of the algorithm involving an inappropriate deblurring process. To summarize, we proposed a new type of algorithm that combines the advantages of SPECT image reconstruction techniques and is expected to be applicable in various fields.

• Architectural research
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.53-62
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to examine design preferences for the sales spaces of duty-free shops (DFSs) by conducting image evaluations. The results will help improve quality by influencing designs for the construction, extension or remodeling of these shops. An image measurement method, the semantic differential method, was used to measure cognitive structure using photos of shops. Photos were collected of the DFS at Jeju Island, as well as photos of brand stores designed by architects. Two sets of 16 photos (32 different photos in all) were selected according to photo classification standards and design concepts, both decided by reviewing previous studies and related materials. The evaluation and survey were done by two sets of subjects: sales employees, who have experience and special knowledge of the evaluation of sales space; and students majoring in architecture. To strengthen the evaluation results, I conducted a preliminary survey and a main survey, verifying and complementing findings. 116 surveys were conducted, of which 14 were of poor quality and rejected, leaving and 102 to be analyzed. The collected surveys were statistically analyzed, using SPSS 12.0 for Windows. Reliability, image profile, factor and multi-dimensional scaling analyses were conducted. As a result, image evaluation structure and characteristics were obtained for sales spaces of DFSs, confirming the difference between them and other spaces.