• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.48-54
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• 2020

In this paper, we deal with a liver fibrosis classification problem using ultrasound B-mode images. Commonly representative methods for classifying the stages of liver fibrosis include liver biopsy and diagnosis based on ultrasound images. The overall liver shape and the smoothness and roughness of speckle pattern represented in ultrasound images are used for determining the fibrosis stages. Although the ultrasound image based classification is used frequently as an alternative or complementary method of the invasive biopsy, it also has the limitations that liver fibrosis stage decision depends on the image quality and the doctor's experience. With the rapid development of deep learning algorithms, several studies using deep learning methods have been carried out for automated liver fibrosis classification and showed superior performance of high accuracy. The performance of those deep learning methods depends closely on the amount of datasets. We propose an enhanced U-net architecture to maximize the classification accuracy with limited small amount of image datasets. U-net is well known as a neural network for fast and precise segmentation of medical images. We design it newly for the purpose of classifying liver fibrosis stages. In order to assess the performance of the proposed architecture, numerical experiments are conducted on a total of 118 ultrasound B-mode images acquired from 78 patients with liver fibrosis symptoms of F0~F4 stages. The experimental results support that the performance of the proposed architecture is much better compared to the transfer learning using the pre-trained model of VGGNet.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.52-58
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• 2015

The automated dental cavity detection program for a new concept intra-oral dental x-ray imaging device, an auxiliary diagnosis system, which is able to assist a dentist to identify dental caries in an early stage and to make an accurate diagnosis, was to be developed. The primary theory of the automatic dental cavity detection program is divided into two algorithms; one is an image segmentation skill to discriminate between a dental cavity and a normal tooth and the other is a computational method to analyze feature of an tooth image and take an advantage of it for detection of dental cavities. In the present study, it is, first, evaluated how accurately the DRLSE (Direct Regularized Level Set Evolution) method extracts demarcation surrounding the dental cavity. In order to evaluate the ability of the developed algorithm to automatically detect dental cavities, 7 tooth phantoms from incisor to molar were fabricated which contained a various form of cavities. Then, dental cavities in the tooth phantom images were analyzed with the developed algorithm. Except for two cavities whose contours were identified partially, the contours of 12 cavities were correctly discriminated by the automated dental caries detection program, which, consequently, proved the practical feasibility of the automatic dental lesion detection algorithm. However, an efficient and enhanced algorithm is required for its application to the actual dental diagnosis since shapes or conditions of the dental caries are different between individuals and complicated. In the future, the automatic dental cavity detection system will be improved adding pattern recognition or machine learning based algorithm which can deal with information of tooth status.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.21 no.8
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• pp.1540-1546
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• 2017

Digital image processing is widely used in various fields including the military, medical, image recognition system, robot and commercial sectors. But in the process of acquiring and transmitting digital images, noise is generated by various external causes. There are various types of general noise depending on the cause and form, but AWGN and impulse noise is one of the leading methods. Removing noise during image processing is essential to the pre-treatment process such as segmentation, image recognition and characteristic extraction. As such, this paper suggests an algorithm that distinguishes the non-edge area and edge area using the Canny edge to apply different filters to different areas in order to effectively remove noise from the image. To verify the effectiveness of the suggested algorithm, it was compared against existing methods using zoom images, edge images and PSNR(peak signal to noise ratio).

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.24-32
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• 2010

In this study, we have proposed a pre-processing algorithm newly developed for improving the tracking efficiency of the optical flow method. The developed pre-processing algorithm consists of a median filter, binarization, morphology, canny edge, contour detecting and an approximation method. In order to evaluate whether the optical flow tracking capacity increases, this study applied the pre-processing algorithm to the Lucas-Kanade(LK) optical flow algorithm, and comparatively analyzed its images and tracking results with those of optical flow without the pre-processing algorithm and with the existing pre-processing algorithm(composed of median filter and histogram equalization). As a result, it was observed that the tracking performance derived from the LK optical flow algorithm with the pre-processing algorithm, shows better tracking accuracy, compared to the one without the pre-processing algorithm and the one with the existing pre-processing algorithm. It seems to have resulted by successful segmentation for characteristic areas and subdivision into inner and outer contour lines.

• Journal of the Korea Computer Graphics Society
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.29-38
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• 2018

In this paper, we propose an automatic segmentation method of meniscus in knee MR images by automatic meniscus localization, multi-atlas-based locally-weighted voting, and patch-based edge feature classification. First, after segmenting the bone and knee articular cartilage, the volume of interest of the meniscus is automatically localized. Second, the meniscus is segmented by multi-atlas-based locally-weighted voting taking into account the weights of shape and intensity distribution in the volume of interest of the meniscus. Finally, to remove leakage to the collateral ligaments with similar intensity, meniscus is refined using patch-based edge feature classification considering shape and distance weights. Dice similarity coefficient between proposed method and manual segmentation were 80.13% of medial meniscus and 80.81 % for lateral meniscus, and showed better results of 7.25% for medial meniscus and 1.31% for lateral meniscus compared to the multi-atlas-based locally-weighted voting.

• Proceedings of the KOSOMBE Conference
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• v.1997 no.05
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• pp.68-71
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• 1997

The early detection of brest cancer is clearly a key ingredient for any strategy designed to reduce breast cancer mortality. Microcalcification(MCC) is one of the primary signatures to discriminate between normal and cancerous tissue. The detection and locating procedures can be automated by digital image processing, however, MCCs have various sizes, shapes, and intensity levels in film images, so it is difficult to find accurate locations and sizes. Firstly, we made quantitative analysis for many characteristic features of mammograms that can be used to segment MCCs from normal tissues. Secondly, we developed algorithms proper to segmentation like pattern matching. The performance was evaluated with TP and FP rates.

• Proceedings of the Korea Information Processing Society Conference
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• 2012.11a
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• pp.367-368
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• 2012

Possibilistic c-means (PCM) 알고리즘은 fuzzy c-means (FCM) 의 노이즈 민감성을 극복하기 위해 제안 되었다. 하지만, PCM 은 사용되는 시스템 파라미터들의 초기화와 coincident 클러스터링 문제로 인하여 그 성능이 민감하다. 본 논문에서는 이러한 문제점들을 극복하기 위해 개미군집 알고리즘(Ant colony algorithm)을 이용한 퍼지 클러스터링(fuzzy clustering) 알고리즘을 제안한다. 먼저, 개미군집 알고리즘을 통해 PCM 의 클러스터 개수 및 중심 값 파라미터를 최적화 하고, 미리 분류된 화소 정보를 이용하여 PCM 의 coincident 클러스터링 문제를 해결하였다. 제안된 알고리즘의 효율성을 의료 영상 분할 문제에 적용하여 확인하였다.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.23 no.12
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• pp.1476-1485
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• 2020

Segmenting OCT retinal images into layers is important to diagnose and understand the progression of retinal diseases or identify potential symptoms. The task of manually identifying these layers is a difficult task that requires a lot of time and effort even for medical professionals, and therefore, various studies are being conducted to automate this using deep learning technologies. In this paper, we use cGAN-based neural network to automatically segmenting OCT retinal images into seven terrain-type regions defined by six layer boundaries. The network is composed of a Segnet-based generator model and a discriminator model. We also proposed a dynamic programming algorithm for refining the outputs of the network. We performed experiments using public OCT image data set and compared its performance with the Segnet-only version of the network. The experimental results show that the cGAN-based network outperforms Segnet-only version.

• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
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• v.30 no.1_2
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• pp.83-95
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• 2018

Purpose : After planning the Respiratory Gated Radiotherapy for Lung cancer, the movement and volume change of sparing normal structures nearby target are not often considered during dose evaluation. This study carried out 4-D dose evaluation which reflects the movement of normal structures at certain phase of Respiratory Gated Radiotherapy, by using Deformable Image Registration that is well used for Adaptive Radiotherapy. Moreover, the study discussed the need of analysis and established some recommendations, regarding the normal structures's movement and volume change due to Patient's breathing pattern during evaluation of treatment plans. Materials and methods : The subjects were taken from 10 lung cancer patients who received Respiratory Gated Radiotherapy. Using Eclipse(Ver 13.6 Varian, USA), the structures seen in the top phase of CT image was equally set via Propagation or Segmentation Wizard menu, and the structure's movement and volume were analyzed by Center-to Center method. Also, image from each phase and the dose distribution were deformed into top phase CT image, for 4-dimensional dose evaluation, via VELOCITY Program. Also, Using $QUASAR^{TM}$ Phantom(Modus Medical Devices) and $GAFCHROMIC^{TM}$ EBT3 Film(Ashland, USA), verification carried out 4-D dose distribution for 4-D gamma pass rate. Result : The movement of the Inspiration and expiration phase was the most significant in axial direction of right lung, as $0.989{\pm}0.34cm$, and was the least significant in lateral direction of spinal cord, as -0.001 cm. The volume of right lung showed the greatest rate of change as 33.5 %. The maximal and minimal difference in PTV Conformity Index and Homogeneity Index between 3-dimensional dose evaluation and 4-dimensional dose evaluation, was 0.076, 0.021 and 0.011, 0.0 respectfully. The difference of 0.0045~2.76 % was determined in normal structures, using 4-D dose evaluation. 4-D gamma pass rate of every patients passed reference of 95 % gamma pass rate. Conclusion : PTV Conformity Index was more significant in all patients using 4-D dose evaluation, but no significant difference was observed between two dose evaluations for Homogeneity Index. 4-D dose distribution was shown more homogeneous dose compared to 3D dose distribution, by considering the movement from breathing which helps to fill out the PTV margin area. There was difference of 0.004~2.76 % in 4D evaluation of normal structure, and there was significant difference between two evaluation methods in all normal structures, except spinal cord. This study shows that normal structures could be underestimated by 3-D dose evaluation. Therefore, 4-D dose evaluation with Deformable Image Registration will be considered when the dose change is expected in normal structures due to patient's breathing pattern. 4-D dose evaluation with Deformable Image Registration is considered to be a more realistic dose evaluation method by reflecting the movement of normal structures from patient's breathing pattern.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.1257-1263
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• 2006

Many automatic medical devices have been invented and developed mostly for the western medicine, not for the oriental medicine. Facial ocular inspection is one of the four diagnosis methods of oriental medicine, which makes a diagnosis of disease by observing the shape and color of patient's vital organs. In facial ocular inspection, the regions of five sensory organs and Myungdang are specially important. In this paper, we propose a novel method to extract the five sensory organ and Myungdang from a facial image for facial ocular inspection. Finally, we show the usefulness of the proposed method by experiments.