• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.12 no.9
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• pp.4336-4354
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• 2018

Fuzzy C-means (FCM) algorithm is a most usually technique for medical image segmentation. But conventional FCM fails to perform well enough on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data with the noise and intensity inhomogeneity (IIH). In the paper, we propose a Gamma correction conditional FCM algorithm with spatial information (GcsFCM) to solve this problem. Firstly, the pre-processing, Gamma correction, is introduced to enhance the details of images. Secondly, the spatial information is introduced to reduce the effect of noise. Then we introduce the effective neighborhood mechanism into the local space information to improve the robustness for the noise and inhomogeneity. And the mechanism describes the degree of participation in generating local membership values and building clusters. Finally, the adjustment mechanism and the spatial information are combined into the weighted membership function. Experimental results on four image volumes with noise and IIH indicate that the proposed GcsFCM algorithm is more effective and robust to noise and IIH than the FCM, sFCM and csFCM algorithms.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.17 no.10
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• pp.2788-2808
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• 2023

Brain tumors are one of the most threatening malignancies for humans. Misdiagnosis of brain tumors can result in false medical intervention, which ultimately reduces a patient's chance of survival. Manual identification and segmentation of brain tumors from Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans can be difficult and error-prone because of the great range of tumor tissues that exist in various individuals and the similarity of normal tissues. To overcome this limitation, the Amended Convolutional Neural Network (ACNN) model has been introduced, a unique combination of three techniques that have not been previously explored for brain tumor detection. The three techniques integrated into the ACNN model are image tissue preprocessing using the Kalman Bucy Smoothing Filter to remove noisy pixels from the input, image tissue segmentation using the Isotonic Regressive Image Tissue Segmentation Process, and feature extraction using the Marr Wavelet Transformation. The extracted features are compared with the testing features using a sigmoid activation function in the output layer. The experimental findings show that the suggested model outperforms existing techniques concerning accuracy, precision, sensitivity, dice score, Jaccard index, specificity, Positive Predictive Value, Hausdorff distance, recall, and F1 score. The proposed ACNN model achieved a maximum accuracy of 98.8%, which is higher than other existing models, according to the experimental results.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.1760-1778
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• 2018

For image segmentation with intensity inhomogeneity, many region-based level set methods have been proposed. Some of them however can't get the relatively ideal segmentation results under the severe intensity inhomogeneity and weak edges, and without use of the image gradient information. To improve that, we propose a new level set method combined with local direction gradient in this paper. Firstly, based on two assumptions on intensity inhomogeneity to images, the relationships between segmentation objects and image gradients to local minimum and maximum around a pixel are presented, from which a new pixel classification method based on weight of Euclidian distance is introduced. Secondly, to implement the model, variational level set method combined with image spatial neighborhood information is used, which enhances the anti-noise capacity of the proposed gradient information based model. Thirdly, a new diffusion process with an edge indicator function is incorporated into the level set function to classify the pixels in homogeneous regions of the same segmentation object, and also to make the proposed method more insensitive to initial contours and stable numerical implementation. To verify our proposed method, different testing images including synthetic images, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and real-world images are introduced. The image segmentation results demonstrate that our method can deal with the relatively severe intensity inhomogeneity and obtain the comparatively ideal segmentation results efficiently.

• Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
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• v.36 no.10
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• pp.825-835
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• 2009

The advance in medical technology has decreased death rates from diseases such as tubercle, pneumonia, malnutrition, and hepatitis. However, death rates from cardiac diseases are still increasing. To prevent cardiac diseases and quantify cardiac function, magnetic resonance imaging not harmful to the body is used for calculating blood volumes and ejection fraction(EF) on routine clinics. In this paper, automatic left ventricle(LV) segmentation is presented to segment LV and calculate blood volume and EF, which can replace labor intensive and time consuming manual contouring. Radial threshold determination is designed to segment LV and blood volume and EF are calculated. Especially, basal slices which were difficult to segment in previous researches are segmented automatically almost without user intervention. On short axis cardiac MRI of 36 subjects, the presented algorithm is compared with manual contouring and General Electronic MASS software. The results show that the presented algorithm performs in similar to the manual contouring and outperforms the MASS software in accuracy.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.82-88
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• 2017

Enlargement of the lateral ventricles have been identified as a surrogate marker of neurological disorders. Quantitative measure of the lateral ventricle from MRI would enable earlier and more accurate clinical diagnosis in monitoring disease progression. Even though it requires an automated or semi-automated segmentation method for objective quantification, it is difficult to define lateral ventricles due to insufficient contrast and brightness of structural imaging. In this study, we proposed a fully automated lateral ventricle segmentation method based on a graph cuts algorithm combined with atlas-based segmentation and connected component labeling. Initially, initial seeds for graph cuts were defined by atlas-based segmentation (ATS). They were adjusted by partial volume images in order to provide accurate a priori information on graph cuts. A graph cuts algorithm is to finds a global minimum of energy with minimum cut/maximum flow algorithm function on graph. In addition, connected component labeling used to remove false ventricle regions. The proposed method was validated with the well-known tools using the dice similarity index, recall and precision values. The proposed method was significantly higher dice similarity index ($0.860{\pm}0.036$, p < 0.001) and recall ($0.833{\pm}0.037$, p < 0.001) compared with other tools. Therefore, the proposed method yielded a robust and reliable segmentation result.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.145-156
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• 2000

본 논문에서는 중앙시상 두뇌 자기공명영상 분할결과를 이용한 3차원 시상 두뇌 자기공명영상의 자동분할기법을 제안한다. 제안된 알고리즘에서는 먼저 3차원 시상 두뇌 자기공명영상의 중앙영상을 분할하고, 분할된 중앙두뇌 자기공명영상을 인접하는 영상에 마스크로 적용한다. 이 때 마스크 적용으로 인하여 인접하는 영상이 절단되는 문제가 발생할 수 있다. 이러한 문제를 해결하기 위하여 절단 영역의 경계점을 검출한 후, 절단 영역에 대한 경로 재설정을 통해 절단 영역을 복원한다. 이러한 경로 재설정을 위해 connectivity-based threshold segmentation algorithm을 사용하였다. 실험결과 제안된 알고리즘의 유용성을 확인할 수 있었다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2019.05a
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• pp.432-435
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• 2019

Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) have recently been gaining popularity in the medical image analysis field because of their image segmentation capabilities. In this paper, we present a CNN that performs automated brain tumor segmentations of sparsely annotated 3D Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans. Our CNN is based on 3D U-net architecture, and it includes separate Dilated and Depth-wise Convolutions. It is fully-trained on the BraTS 2018 data set, and it produces more accurate results even when compared to the winners of the BraTS 2017 competition despite having a significantly smaller amount of parameters.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.57 no.2
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• pp.274-282
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• 2019

In recent years, big data analysis has been expanded to include automatic control through reinforcement learning as well as prediction through modeling. Research on the utilization of image data is actively carried out in various industrial fields such as chemical, manufacturing, agriculture, and bio-industry. In this paper, we applied NASNet, which is an AutoML reinforced learning algorithm, to DeepU-Net neural network that modified U-Net to improve image semantic segmentation performance. We used BRATS2015 MRI data for performance verification. Simulation results show that DeepU-Net has more performance than the U-Net neural network. In order to improve the image segmentation performance, remove dropouts that are typically applied to neural networks, when the number of kernels and filters obtained through reinforcement learning in DeepU-Net was selected as a hyperparameter of neural network. The results show that the training accuracy is 0.5% and the verification accuracy is 0.3% better than DeepU-Net. The results of this study can be applied to various fields such as MRI brain imaging diagnosis, thermal imaging camera abnormality diagnosis, Nondestructive inspection diagnosis, chemical leakage monitoring, and monitoring forest fire through CCTV.

• Proceedings of the Korea Multimedia Society Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.205-208
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• 2012

Nowadays GPU (Graphic Process Unit) is not only used to show and render some images, but also for another computation. In this paper, we tried to use GPU to do some morphology operations to remove skull from axial MRI images. This skull removing process is an important step in brain segmentation because we would like to work with the brain only, without any skull on it. The result shows that simple morphology operations to remove skull has been successfully applied on MRI images, but there are still many parts that can be develop to get better images.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.123-131
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• 2020

Purpose: Joint label fusion (JLF) is a popular multi-atlas-based segmentation algorithm, which compensates for dependent errors that may exist between atlases. However, in order to get good segmentation results, it is very important to set the several free parameters of the algorithm to optimal values. In this study, we first investigate the feasibility of a JLF algorithm for prostate segmentation in MR images, and then suggest the optimal set of parameters for the automatic prostate segmentation by validating the results of each parameter combination. Materials and Methods: We acquired T2-weighted prostate MR images from 20 normal heathy volunteers and did a series of cross validations for every set of parameters of JLF. In each case, the atlases were rigidly registered for the target image. Then, we calculated their voting weights for label fusion from each combination of JLF's parameters (r_pxy, r_pz, r_sxy, r_sz, β). We evaluated the segmentation performances by five validation metrics of the Prostate MR Image Segmentation challenge. Results: As the number of voxels participating in the voting weight calculation and the number of referenced atlases is increased, the overall segmentation performance is gradually improved. The JLF algorithm showed the best results for dice similarity coefficient, 0.8495 ± 0.0392; relative volume difference, 15.2353 ± 17.2350; absolute relative volume difference, 18.8710 ± 13.1546; 95% Hausdorff distance, 7.2366 ± 1.8502; and average boundary distance, 2.2107 ± 0.4972; in parameters of r_pxy = 10, r_pz = 1, r_sxy = 3, r_sz = 1, and β = 3. Conclusion: The evaluated results showed the feasibility of the JLF algorithm for automatic segmentation of prostate MRI. This empirical analysis of segmentation results by label fusion allows for the appropriate setting of parameters.