• The KIPS Transactions:PartA
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• v.13A no.5 s.102
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• pp.465-472
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• 2006

Recently, many suggestions have been made in image segmentation methods for extracting human organs or disease affected area from huge amounts of medical image datasets. However, images from some areas, such as brain, which have multiple structures with ambiruous structural borders, have limitations in their structural segmentation. To address this problem, clustering technique which classifies voxels into finite number of clusters is often employed. This, however, has its drawback, the influence from noise, which is caused from voxel by voxel operations. Therefore, applying image enhancing method to minimize the influence from noise and to make clearer image borders would allow more robust structural segmentation. This research proposes an efficient structural segmentation method by filtering based clustering to extract detail structures such as white matter, gray matter and cerebrospinal fluid from brain MR. First, coherence enhancing diffusion filtering is adopted to make clearer borders between structures and to reduce the noises in them. To the enhanced images from this process, fuzzy c-means clustering method was applied, conducting structural segmentation by assigning corresponding cluster index to the structure containing each voxel. The suggested structural segmentation method, in comparison with existing ones with clustering using Gaussian or general anisotropic diffusion filtering, showed enhanced accuracy which was determined by how much it agreed with the manual segmentation results. Moreover, by suggesting fine segmentation method on the border area with reproducible results and minimized manual task, it provides efficient diagnostic support for morphological abnormalities in brain.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.279-284
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• 2016

Single-shot echo planar imaging(SS-EPI) is well established as high sensitivity for ischemic stroke. However, it is prone to susceptibility artifact in brain stem that diminish the image quality. single-shot turbo spin echo(SS-TSE) is a new DWI technique that can reduce susceptibility artifact. Thus, this research was conducted so as to reduce geometric distortion in brain stem by using single-shot turbo spin echo technique. Thirty patients without brain disease underwent diffusion MR on a 3T scanner with SS-EPI and SS-TSE. Obtained images with both sequences were analyzed for geometric distortion and error percentage as well. Image quality in terms of geometric distortion of SS-TSE were found to be significantly better than those for SS-EPI. And error percentage was considerably reduced for 2.4% of b0 image(from 11.1% to 8.7%), 1.2% of b1000 image(from 11.4% to 10.1%), respectively. In summary, diffusion MR using SS-TSE significantly reduce geometric distortion compared to SS-EPI in brain stem and may provide improved diagnostic performance.

• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.401-409
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• 2008

Purpose: Recently multi-modal imaging system has become widely adopted in molecular imaging. We tried to fabricate animal-specific positioning molds for PET/MR fusion imaging using easily available molding clay and rapid foam. The animal-specific positioning molds provide immobilization and reproducible positioning of small animal. Herein, we have compared fiber-based molding clay with rapid foam in fabricating the molds of experimental animal. Materials and Methods: The round bottomed-acrylic frame, which fitted into microPET gantry, was prepared at first. The experimental mice was anesthetized and placed on the mold for positioning. Rapid foam and fiber-based clay were used to fabricate the mold. In case of both rapid foam and the clay, the experimental animal needs to be pushed down smoothly into the mold for positioning. However, after the mouse was removed, the fabricated clay needed to be dried completely at $60^{\circ}C$ in oven overnight for hardening. Four sealed pipet tips containing $[^{18}F]FDG$ solution were used as fiduciary markers. After injection of $[^{18}F]FDG$ via tail vein, microPET scanning was performed. Successively, MRI scanning was followed in the same animal. Results: Animal-specific positioning molds were fabricated using rapid foam and fiber-based molding clay for multimodality imaging. Functional and anatomical images were obtained with microPET and MRI, respectively. The fused PET/MR images were obtained using freely available AMIDE program. Conclusion: Animal-specific molds were successfully prepared using easily available rapid foam, molding clay and disposable pipet tips. Thanks to animal-specific molds, fusion images of PET and MR were co-registered with negligible misalignment.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.546-552
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• 2010

Previous studies could not offer available guideline to decide size of balloon and grade of injury before induction of spinal cord injury (SCI) because grade of SCI was assessed after inserting a catheter and each experimental animal were different in body size and weight as well as in species. This study was performed to provide guideline for standardized SCI model. Eight healthy adult beagle dogs that had 8 mm of spinal canal height were assigned to four groups according to the diameter of balloon and compression time: 4 mm/3hrs, 4 mm/6hrs, 4 mm/12hrs and 6 mm/3hrs group. Radiography was performed to standardize between experimental animal and balloon before selecting balloon diameter to induce SCI. Behaviors outcomes, somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and histopathological examination were evaluated. Behaviors outcomes and SEPs were not available to assess grade of SCI and those only indicate SCI. The damaged area was revealed clear hyperintensity on STIR image and T2WI after induction of SCI. The hyperintense area on MRI was cranially and caudally expanded with increasing of the diameter of balloon or the compression time. Well corresponded to expanding of hyperintense area on MRI, the damaged region and the numbers of caspase-3 and PARP immunoreactive cells were increased on histopathological findings. Therefore, these results will be considered fundamental data to induce standardized SCI model in experimental animal that has various weight and size.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.8 no.11
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• pp.210-216
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• 2008

In this study, image comparisons were carried out using a MRI contrast medium which was derived by mixing a polyaminocarboxylic ligand and a gadolinium (III) transition metal which is paramagnetic and has good neutron absorbing capabilities with Gd-DTPA which is currently being used widely in the clinical setting. By using a 1.0T (Harmony, SIEMENS) MR equipment, phantoms of which 100cc of saline was diluted with a diethylenetriaminetriacetic acid derivative and Gd-DTPA were imaged. The amount of diethylenetriaminetriacetic acid and Gd-DTPA which was diluted into the 100cc of saline was 0.05mmol/L, 0.1mmol/L, 0.15mmol/L, 0.2mmol/L, 0.3mmol/L, 0.5mmol/L, 1.0mmol/L, 2.0mmol/L, 3.0mmol/L and 4.9mmol/L respectively. Head coils were used and while fixing the SE pulse sequence and image variable (as TE is 14ms, 1NEX with a 256x201 matrix), the signal intensity and simple contrast ratios according to changing concentrations and TR were compared with various TR at 300ms, 400ms, 500ms, 600ms, 700ms, 800ms, 900ms, 1000ms, 1200ms, 1400ms and 1600ms. According to the comparison results of the signal intensity of the image based on changes in contrast medium concentrations and TR, the differences in signal intensity between the two contrast mediums were found to be small at $1.0{\sim}2.0mmol/L$ when the highest signal intensity was achieved. However, at concentrations of 1.0mmol/L or less, the signal intensity was markedly higher in the Diethylenetriaminetriacetic acid derivative than in the Gd-DTPA complex. It was also found that the differences in the signal intensities demonstrated by the concentrations of the contrast mediums were affected by the TR. Accordingly, the efficacy of the Diethylenetriaminetriacetic acid derivative was shown to be better than the Gd-DTPA and also possible to get the optimum image quality by the use of an appropriate TR with appropriate concentrations of contrast medium.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.333-338
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• 2000

In this paper, an automated segmentation algorithm is proposed for MR brain images using T1-weighted, T2-weighted, and PD images complementarily. The proposed segmentation algorithm is composed of 3 step. In the first step, cerebrum images are extracted by putting a cerebrum mask upon the three input images. In the second step, outstanding clusters that represent inner tissues of the cerebrum are chosen among 3-dimensional(3D) clusters. 3D clusters are determined by intersecting densely distributed parts of 2D histogram in the 3D space formed with three optimal scale images. Optimal scale image is made up of applying scale space filtering to each 2D histogram and searching graph structure. Optimal scale image best describes the shape of densely distributed parts of pixels in 2D histogram and searching graph structure. Optimal scale image best describes the shape of densely distributed parts of pixels in 2D histogram. In the final step, cerebrum images are segmented using FCM algorithm with its initial centroid value as the outstanding clusters centroid value. The proposed cluster's centroid accurately. And also can get better segmentation results from the proposed segmentation algorithm with multi spectral analysis than the method of single spectral analysis.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.246-255
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• 2022

Objective: To determine the usefulness of Silent MR angiography (MRA) for evaluating intracranial aneurysms treated with stent-assisted coil embolization. Materials and Methods: Ninety-nine patients (101 aneurysms) treated with stent-assisted coil embolization (Neuroform atlas, 71 cases; Enterprise, 17; LVIS Jr, 9; and Solitaire AB, 4 cases) underwent time-of-flight (TOF) MRA and Silent MRA in the same session using a 3T MRI system within 24 hours of embolization. Two radiologists independently interpreted both MRA images retrospectively and rated the image quality using a 5-point Likert scale. The image quality and diagnostic accuracy of the two modalities in the detection of aneurysm occlusion were further compared based on the stent design and the site of aneurysm. Results: The average image quality scores of the Silent MRA and TOF MRA were 4.38 ± 0.83 and 2.78 ± 1.04, respectively (p < 0.001), with an almost perfect interobserver agreement. Silent MRA had a significantly higher image quality score than TOF MRA at the distal internal carotid artery (n = 57, 4.25 ± 0.91 vs. 3.05 ± 1.16, p < 0.001), middle cerebral artery (n = 21, 4.57 ± 0.75 vs. 2.19 ± 0.68, p < 0.001), anterior cerebral artery (n = 13, 4.54 ± 0.66 vs. 2.46 ± 0.66, p < 0.001), and posterior circulation artery (n = 10, 4.50 ± 0.71 vs. 2.90 ± 0.74, p = 0.013). Silent MRA had superior image quality score to TOF MRA in the stented arteries when using Neuroform atlas (4.66 ± 0.53 vs. 3.21 ± 0.84, p < 0.001), Enterprise (3.29 ± 1.59 vs. 1.59 ± 0.51, p = 0.003), LVIS Jr (4.33 ± 1.89 vs. 1.89 ± 0.78, p = 0.033), and Solitaire AB stents (4.00 ± 2.25 vs. 2.25 ± 0.96, p = 0.356). The interpretation of the status of aneurysm occlusion exhibited significantly higher sensitivity with Silent MRA than with TOF MRA when using the Neuroform Atlas stent (96.4% vs. 14.3%, respectively, p < 0.001) and LVIS Jr stent (100% vs. 20%, respectively, p = 0.046). Conclusion: Silent MRA can be useful to evaluate aneurysms treated with stent-assisted coil embolization, regardless of the aneurysm location and type of stent used.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.305-322
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• 2005

Watermarking is a widely employed method tn protecting copyright of a digital image, the owner's unique image is embedded into the original image. Strengthened level of watermark insertion would help enhance its resilience in the process of extraction even from various distortions of transformation on the image size or resolution. However, its level, at the same time, should be moderated enough not to reach human visibility. Finding a balance between these two is crucial in watermarking. For the algorithm for watermarking, the predefined strength of a watermark, computed from the physical difference between the original and embedded images, is applied to all images uniformal. The mean brightness or contrast of the surrounding images, other than the absolute brightness of an object, could affect human sensitivity for object detection. In the present study, we examined whether the detectability for watermark noise might be attired by image statistics: mean brightness and contrast of the image. As the first step to examine their effect, we made rune fundamental images with varied brightness and control of the original image. For each fundamental image, detectability for watermark noise was measured. The results showed that the strength ot watermark node for detection increased as tile brightness and contrast of the fundamental image were increased. We have fitted the data to a regression line which can be used to estimate the strength of watermark of a given image with a certain brightness and contrast. Although we need to take other required factors into consideration in directly applying this formula to actual watermarking algorithm, an adaptive watermarking algorithm could be built on this formula with image statistics, such as brightness and contrast.

• Journal of the Korea Computer Graphics Society
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.77-85
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• 1996

Using a series of medical tomograms, we can reconstruct internal organs or other objects of interest and generate 3-D images. It is generally accepted that the axial resolution determined by two sequential image slices is lower than the planar resolution in one image slices. Therefore, various methods of interpolation were developed for an accurate display of reconstructed images. In this paper, a new algorithm for 3-D reconstruction of the medical images such as MRI and X-ray CT is suggested. The algorithm is shape-based and utilizes parts of the gray-level information. We extend the conventional shape-based interpolation of the binary images to the gray-scale images using the shortest distance map. Using this new algorithm, We could reduce the execution time for interpolation while keeping similar high quality of the reconstructed images with reduced execution time and is applicable to the various medical tomograms.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2011

Pigmented villonodular synovitis, synovial chondromatosis, long-standing rheumatoid arthritis, hemophilic arthropathy, chronic tophaceous gout, amyloid arthropathy, tuberculous arthritis, and hemangioma are the synovial diseases showing low signal intensity on T2-weighted image. Synovial deposition of hemosiderin, urate, and amyloid and fibrosis or caseous necrosis of hypertrophied synovium are known as the pathologic causes of T2 signal intensity. Because of the low incidence of the synovial lesions showing T2 low signal intensity, recognition of these diseases would be helpful for the exact diagnosis.