• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.161-170
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• 2009

Purpose : A parallel imaging method provides us to improve temporal resolution to obtain three-dimensional (3D) MR images. The objective of this study was to optimize three 3D MRI techniques by adjusting 2D SESNE factors of the parallel imaging method in phantom and human brain. Materials and Methods : With a 3 Tesla MRI system and an 8-channel phase-array sensitivity-encoding (SENSE) coil, three 3D MRI techniques of 3D T1-weighted imaging (3D T1WI), 3D T2-weighted imaging (3D T2WI) and 3D fluid attenuated inversion recovery (3D FLAIR) imaging were optimized with adjusting SESNE factors in a water phantom and three human brains. The 2D SENSE factor was applied on the phase-encoding and the slice-encoding directions. Signal-to-noise ratio(SNR), percent signal reduction rate(%R), and contrast-to-noise ratio(CNR) were calculated by using signal intensities obtained in specific regions-of-interest (ROI). Results : In the phantom study, SENSE factor = 3 was provided in 0.2% reduction of signals against without using SENSE with imaging within 5 minutes for 3D T1WI. SENSE factor = 2 was provided in 0.98% signal reduction against without using SENSE with imaging within 5 minutes for 3D T2WI. SENSE factor = 4 was provided in 0.2% signal reduction against without using SENSE with imaging around 6 minutes for 3D FLAIR. In the human brain study, SNR and CNR were higher with SENSE factors = 3 than 4 for all three imaging techniques. Conclusion : This study was performed to optimize 2D SENSE factors in the three 3D MRI techniques that can be scanned in clinical time limitations with minimizing SNR reductions. Without compromising SNR and CNR, the optimum 2D SENSE factors were 3 and 4, yielding the scan time of about 5 to 6 minutes. Further studies are necessary to optimize 3D MRI techniques in other areas in human body.

• Neonatal Medicine
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.310-319
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• 2011

Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of perinatal risk factors on brain maturation and the relationship of brain maturation and neurodevelopmental outcomes with brain maturation scoring system in brain MRI. Methods: ELBWI infants born at the Seoul National University Children's Hospital from January 2006 to December 2010 were included. A retrospective analysis was performed with their medical record and brain MR images acquired at near full term. We read brain MRI and measured maturity with total maturation score (TMS). TMS is a previously developed anatomic scoring system to assess brain maturity. The total maturation score was used to evaluate the four parameters of maturity: (1) myelination, (2) cortical infolding, (3) involution of glial cell migration bands, and (4) presence of germinal matrix tissue. Results: Images from 124 infants were evaluated. Their mean gestational age at birth was 27.1${\pm}$2.1 weeks, and mean birth weight was 781.5${\pm}$143.9 g. The mean TMS was 10.8${\pm}$2.0. TMS was significantly related to the postmenstrual age (PMA) of the infant, increasing with advancing postmenstrual age (P<0.001). TMS showed no significance with neurodevelopmental delay, and with brain injury, respectively. Conclusion: TMS was developed for evaluating brain maturation in conventional brain MRI. The results of this study suggest that TMS was not useful for predicting neurodevelopmental delay, but further studies are needed to make standard score for each PMA and to re-evaluate the relationship between brain maturation and neurodevelopmental delay.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.118-131
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• 1982

1. In order to investigate the effect of variation of assembly time on glue bond strength, and to determine the optimum range of assembly time with given glue, this experiment was made at the suggestion of the Wood Technology Laboratory, School of Forestry, Yale University. 2. For this investigation, three-ply-plywoods with 1/22 inch, birch veneer, phenolic resin, and soybean glue were made at the following variation of assembly time, that is, 1, 5, 10, 25, 35, 50, and 70 minutes, under both open and closed assembly manners, and the shear strength test at dry and wet were adoptted. 3. The shear strength and wood failure of each plywood panel constructed at the given assembly time have been illustrated in Tables 1, 2, 3 and 4. It has shown that there is a remarkable tendency, for increasing assembly time to give lower shear strength and wood failure throughout almost all cases. The effective range of assembly time of tested glues in this investigation for both open and closed assembly are summarized in the Table 7. Thus, allowable assembly time for Phenolic resin may be up to 10 minutes under open assembly and up to 50 minutes under closed assembly. For soybean glue, the permissible assembly time may be up to 5 minutes under open assembly and up to 15 minutes under closed assembly. The allowable assembly time for open assembly with the same glue is reduced by approximately one third or more than one third as compared with closed assembly time. This might mean that the closed asembly time for these glues is more practical than the open assembly.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.37 no.9
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• pp.768-773
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• 2004

Failure of mitral valve repair sometimes may be ascribed to severe or progressive alteration of the subvalvar apparatus. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of new chordae formation on mitral repair. Material and Method: From March 1997 to february 1999, 26 patients underwent mitral valve repairs with new chordae formation, we compared the symptoms and echocardiographic findings checked at preoperative state, and intraoperative period, discharge, and their last OPD visit. There were 45 male, and 11 female patients, and their mean age was 51.2$\pm$43.4 years. Etiology of the lesions was degenerative (18), rheumatic (6), infective (1) and ischemic (1). Chordal lesions were caused by rupture (18), elongation (6), and a combination of two causes (2). Associated lesions included atrial septal defect (2), tricuspid insufficiency (7), aortic insufficiency(4), and a combination of previous two factors (2). The number of mean artificial chordae was 3.6$\pm$1.6. Annuloplasty was per-formed in all cases. The CPB time was 182,1$\pm$63.7 minutes and the ACC time was 133.1$\pm$45.6 minutes. Aver-age follow up period was 49.2$\pm$7.1 months. Result: There was no early death. Early reoperation was performed in bud patients, one patient received mitral valve replacement because of an abnormality of annuloplasty and ano-ther received pericardiostomy due to postoperative pericardial effusion. During the follow up of 49.2$\pm$7.1 moths, there was no late mortality. Postoperative NYHA functional class checked at last OPD visit was class I in 22 patients (88%), class II in 2 (8%), and class III in 1 (4%). Regarding the late echocardiogram MR was absent in 20 patients (78%), 1 in 4 (15%), and II in 1 (4%). The postrepair mitral valve area was 2.2$\pm$0.35 $\textrm{cm}^2$ Conclusion: This study suggests that mitral valve repair using new chordae formation provides good early and mid term survivals and functional improvement. We think that the artificial chorda formation with polytetrafluoroethylene suture might be safe and effective technique for mitral valve repair.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.24-31
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• 1996

Between January 1992 and February 1995, 36 patients with mitral regurgitation were treated by a mitral repair There wert nineteen men and seventeen women whose mean age was 41.8 years, ranged from 10 to 71. Seventeenth patients had dystrophic change of mitral valve, twelve patients had rheumatic change of mitral valve, second patients had infective change of mitral valve and another fifth patients had functional change of mitral valve. Operation proced res were suture annuloplasty (35 cases), resection of leaflet (25 cases), chordal shortening(9 cases) and commisurotomy(1 cases). These procedures were combined in most patients. Two third of the patients were in New York Heart Association class III or IV and four fifth of the patients were in mitral regurgitation grade III or IV by doppler echocardiogram. After mitral valve repair, the patients were improved hemodynamic, echocardiographic data and functional class. Intraoperative TEE had been used in all most patients after weaning of bypass. If there remained MR more than grade 2, the valve was re-repaired or replacement. There were no operative death. The late mortality was 5.5% and cause of death was congestive heart failure. Patients have been followed up from 3 to 40 months, mean 15. Second patients underwant reoperation due to recurred mitral regurgitation, 4 and 19 days after the operation. During reoperation, we found that the repair suture was disrupted in both patients. Th s expierence demonstrated that intraoperative TEE is accurate and predictable and excellent immediate and mid-term results have been achieved by mitral valve repair.

• The Journal of Korean Academy of Prosthodontics
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.8-15
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• 2011

Purpose: This study evaluated the bonding strength of direct relining resin to Co-Cr denture base material according to surface treatment and immersion time. Materials and methods: In this study, Co-Cr alloy was used in hexagon shape. Each specimen was cut in flat surface, and sandblasted with $110\;{\mu}m$ $Al_2O_3$ for 1 minute. 54 specimens were divided into 3 groups; group A-control group, group B-applied with surface primer A, group C-applied with surface primer B. Self curing direct resin was used for this study. Each group was subdivided into another 3 groups according to the immersion time. After the wetting storage, shear bond strength of the specimens were measured with universal testing machine. The data were analyzed using two-way analysis of variance and Tukey post hoc method. Results: In experiment of sandblasting specimens, surface roughness of the alloy was the highest after 1 minute sandblasting. In experiment of testing shear bond strength, bonding strength was lowered on group B, C, A. There were significant differences between 3 groups. According to period, Bonding strength was the highest on 0 week storage group, and the weakest on 2 week storage group. But there were no significant differences between 3 periods. According to group and period, bonding strength of all group were lowered according to immersion time but there were no significant differences on group B and group C, but there was significant difference according to immersion time on group A. Conclusion: It is useful to sandblast and adopt metal primers when relining Co-Cr metal base dentures in chair-side.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.92-98
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• 2016

To aim of this study was to assess the full scan and half scan of imaging with half scan factor. Patients without a cerebral vascular disease (n = 30) and were subject to the full scan half scan, and set a region of interest in the cerebral artery from the three regions (C1, C2, C3) in the range of 7 to 8 mm. MIP (maximum intensity projection) to reconstruct the images in signal strength SNR (signal to noise ration), PSNR (peak signal noise to ratio), RMSE (root mean square error), MAE (mean absolute error) and calculated by paired t-test for use by statistics were analyzed. Scan time was half scan (4 minutes 53 seconds), the full scan (6 minutes 04 seconds). The mean measurement range (7.21 mm) of all the ROI in the brain blood vessel, was the SNR of the first C1 is completely scanned (58.66 dB), half-scan (62.10 dB), a positive correlation ($r^2=0.503$), for the second C2 SNR is completely scanned (70.30 dB), half-scan (74.67 dB) the amount of correlation ($r^2=0.575$), third C3 of a complete scan SNR (70.33 dB), half scan SNR (74.64 dB) in the amount of correlation between the It was analyzed with ($r^2=0.523$). Comparative full scan with half of SNR ($4.75{\pm}0.26dB$), PSNR ($21.87{\pm}0.28dB$), RMSE ($48.88{\pm}1.61$), was calculated as MAE ($25.56{\pm}2.2$). SNR is also applied to examine the half-scans are not many differences in the quality of the two scan methods were not statistically significant in the scan (p-value > .05) image takes less time than a full scan was used.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.332-340
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• 2014

Purpose : A relative increase in deoxyhemoglobin levels in hypoperfused tissue can cause prominent hypointense signals in the draining veins (PHSV) within areas of impaired perfusion in susceptibility-weighted imaging (SWI). The purpose of this study is to evaluate the usefulness of SWI in patients with acute cerebral infarction by evaluating PHSV within areas of impaired perfusion and to investigate the usefulness of PHSV in predicting prognosis of cerebral infarction. Materials and Methods: In 18 patients with acute cerebral infarction who underwent brain MRI with diffusion-weighted imaging and SWI and follow-up brain MRI or CT, we reviewed the presence and location of the PHSV within and adjacent to areas of cerebral infarction qualitatively and measured the signal intensity difference ratio of PHSVs to contralateral normal appearing cortical veins quantitatively on SWI. The relationship between the presence of the PHSV and the change in the extent of infarction in follow-up images was analyzed. Results: Of the 18 patients, 10 patients showed progression of the infarction, and 8 patients showed little change on follow- up imaging. On SWI, of the 10 patients with progression 9 patients showed peripheral PHSV and the newly developed infarctions corresponded well to area with peripheral PHSV on initial SWI. Only one patient without peripheral PHSV showed progression of the infarct. The patients with infarction progression revealed significantly higher presence of peripheral PHSV (p=0.0001) and higher mean signal intensity difference ratio (p=0.006) comparing to the patients with little change. Conclusion: SWI can demonstrate a peripheral PHSV as a marker of penumbra and with this finding we can predict the prognosis of acute infarction. The signal intensity difference of PHSV to brain tissue on SWI can be used in predicting prognosis of acute cerebral infarction.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2014

Purpose : $T_2{^*}$ relaxation time which includes susceptibility information represents unique feature of tissue. The objective of this study was to investigate $T_2{^*}$ relaxation times of the normal glandular tissue and fat of breast using a 3T MRI system. Materials and Methods: Seven-echo MR Images were acquired from 52 female subjects (age $49{\pm}12 $years; range, 25 to 75) using a three-dimensional (3D) gradient-echo sequence. Echo times were between 2.28 ms to 25.72 ms in 3.91 ms steps. Voxel-based $T_2{^*}$ relaxation times and $R_2{^*}$ relaxation rate maps were calculated by using the linear curve fitting for each subject. The 3D regions-of-interest (ROI) of the normal glandular tissue and fat were drawn on the longest echo-time image to obtain $T_2{^*}$ and $R_2{^*}$ values. Mean values of those parameters were calculated over all subjects. Results: The 3D ROI sizes were $4818{\pm}4679$ voxels and $1455{\pm}785$ voxels for the normal glandular tissue and fat, respectively. The mean $T_2{^*}$ values were $22.40{\pm}5.61ms$ and $36.36{\pm}8.77ms$ for normal glandular tissue and fat, respectively. The mean $R_2{^*}$ values were $0.0524{\pm}0.0134/ms$ and $0.0297{\pm}0.0069/ms$ for the normal glandular tissue and fat, respectively. Conclusion: $T_2{^*}$ and $R_2{^*}$ values were measured from human breast tissues. $T_2{^*}$ of the normal glandular tissue was shorter than that of fat. Measurement of $T_2{^*}$ relaxation time could be important to understand susceptibility effects in the breast cancer and the normal tissue.

• Korean Journal of Digital Imaging in Medicine
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.13-19
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• 2014

Purpose: FLAIR image is beneficial for the diagnosis of various bran diseases including ischemic CVS, brain tumors and infections. However the border between the legion of brain metastasis and surrounding edema may not be clear. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the practical benefits of delayed imaging by comparing the image from a patient with brain metastasis before a contrast enhancement and the image 10 minutes after a contrast enhancement. Materials and methods: Of the 92 people who underwent MRI brain metastases in suspected patients 13 people in three patients there is no video to target the 37 people confirmed cases, and motion artifacts brain metastases in our hospital June-December 2013, 18 people measurement position except for the three incorrect patient (male: 11 people, female: 7 people, average age: 60 years) in the target, test equipment, 3.0T MR System (ACHIEVA Release, Philips, I was 8ChannelSENSE Head Coil use Best, and the Netherlands). TR 11000 ms, TE 125 ms, TI2800 ms, Slice Thickness 5 mm, gap 5 mm, is a Slice number 21, the parameters of the 3D FFE, T2 FLAIR variable that was used to test, TR 8.1 ms, TE 3.7 ms, Slice number 240 I set to. The experiment was conducted by acquiring the FLAIR prior to contrast enhancement (heretofore referred to as Pre FLAIR), and acquiring the 3D FFE CE five minutes after the contrast enhancement, and recomposing the images in an axial plane of S/T 3mm, G 0mm (heretofore referred to as MPR TRA CE). Using the FLAIR 10 minutes after the contrast enhancement (heretofore referred to as Post FLAIR) and Pi-View, a retrospective study was conducted. Using MRIcro on the image of a patient confirmed for his diagnosis, the images before and after the contrast media, as well as the CNR and SNR of the MPR TRA CE images of the lesion and the site absent of lesion were compared and analyzed using a one-way analysis of variance. Results: CNR for Pre FLAIR and Post FLAIR were 34.35 and 60.13, respectively, with MPR TRA CE at 23.77 showing no significant difference (p<0.050). Post-experiment analysis shows a difference between Pre FLAIR and Post FLAIR in terms of CNR (p<0.050), but no difference in CNR between Post FLAIR and MPR TRA CE (p>0.050), indicating that the contrast media had an effect only on Pre FLAIR and Post FLAIR. The SNR for the normal site Pre FLAIR was 106.43, and for the lesion site 140.79. Post FLAIR for the normal site was 107.79, and for the lesion site 167.91. MPR TRA CE for the normal site was 140.23 and for the lesion site 183.19, showing significant difference (p<0.050), and post-experiment analysis shows that there was a difference in SNR only on the lesion sites for Pre FLAIR and Post FLAIR (p<0.050). There was no difference in SNR between the normal site and lesion site for Post FLAIR and MPR TRA CE, indicating no effect from the contrast media (p>0.050). Conclusions: This experiment shows that Post FLAIR has a higher contrast than Pre FLAIR, and a higher SNR for lesions, It was not not statistically significant and MPR TRA CE but CNR came out high. Inspection of post-contrast which is used in a high magnetic field is frequently used images of 3D T1 but, since the signal of the contrast medium and the blood flow is included, this method can be diagnostic accuracy is reduced, it is believed that when used in combination with Post FLAIR, and that can provide video information added to the diagnosis of brain metastases.