• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.203-209
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• 2006

The aim of this study is to investigate the feasibility of ex vivo MR diffusion tensor imaging technique in order to observe the diffusion-contrast characteristics of human gastric tissues. On normal and pathologic gastric tissues, which have been fixed in a polycarbonate plastic tube filled with 10% formalin solution, laboratory made 3D diffusion tensor Turbo FLASH pulse sequence was used to obtain high resolution MR images with voxel size of $0.5{\times}0.5{\times}0.5mm^3\;using\;64{\times}32{\times}32mm^3$ field of view in conjunction with an acquisition matrix of $128{\times}64{\times}64$. Diffusion weighted- gradient pulses were employed with b values of 0 and $600s/mm^2$ in 6 orientations. The sequence was implemented on a clinical 3.0-T MRI scanner(Siemens, Erlangen, Germany) with a home-made quadrature-typed birdcage Tx/Rx rf coil for small specimen. Diffusion tensor values in each pixel were calculated using linear algebra and singular value decomposition(SVD) algorithm. Apparent diffusion coefficient(ADC) and fractional anisotropy(FA) map were also obtained from diffusion tensor data to compare pixel intensities between normal and abnormal gastric tissues. The processing software was developed by authors using Visual C++(Microsoft, WA, U.S.A.) and mathematical/statistical library of GNUwin32(Free Software Foundation). This study shows that 3D diffusion tensor Turbo FLASH sequence is useful to resolve fine micro-structures of gastric tissue and both ADC and FA values in normal gastric tissue are higher than those in abnormal tissue. Authors expect that this study also represents another possibility of gastric carcinoma detection by visualizing diffusion characteristics of proton spins in the gastric tissues.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.977-998
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• 2009

In this article, we give a comparative study on the last 300 years of USA and Korean tertiary mathematics. The first mathematics classes in United States were offered before July, 1638, but the real founding of tertiary mathematics courses was in 1640 when Henry Dunster assumed the duties of the presidency at Harvard. President Dunster read arithmetics and geometry on Mondays and Tuesdays to the third year students during the first three quarters, and astronomy in the last quarter. So tertiary mathematics education in United States began at Harvard which is the oldest college in USA. After 230 years since then, Benjamin Peirce in 1870 made a major and first American contribution to mathematics and got an attention from European mathematicians. Major change on the role of Harvard mathematics from teaching to research made by G.D. Birkhoff when he joined as an assistant professor in 1912. Tertiary mathematics education in Korea started long before Chosun Dynasty. But it was given to only small number of government actuarial officers. Modern mathematics education of tertiary level in Korea was given at Sungkyunkwan, Ewha, Paichai, and Soongsil. But all college level education opportunity, particularly in mathematics, was taken over by colonial government after 1920. And some technical and normal schools offered some tertiary mathematics courses. There was no college mathematics department in Korea until 1945. After the World War II, the first college mathematics department was established, and Rimhak Ree in 1949 made a major and first Korean contribution to modern mathematics, and later found Ree group. He got an attention from western mathematicians for the first time as a Korean. It can be compared with Benjamin Peirce's contribution for USA.