• Journal of the Korean Society of Fisheries and Ocean Technology
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.135-138
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• 1998

This paper describes the construction and experimetal results of prototype digital telesounder developed to monitor remotely the fish school entered in setnet. The telesounder consists of the sea station and land station. The former consists of an ultrasonic transceiving part of 50 KHz, a hand made 16 bits single board computer (SBC), and a RF MODEM of 9600 bps for data link. The SBC controls the trigger signal to transmit the ultrasonic pulse, maximum detection range, sampling rate in analog to digital converter and data link. The sampling rate of echo data was 80 ${\mu}$s. The later consists of a RF MODEM same as the former one and 486 notebook computer which displays the echogram and saves its raw data. The authors carried out some experiments to confirm the practical use of the telesounder. At results the echogram obtained on the land station is sufficiently good and clear to monitor the behavior of fish school in setnet.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.215-223
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• 2016

Purpose: The management of metal-induced field inhomogeneities is one of the major concerns of distortion-free magnetic resonance images near metallic implants. The recently proposed method called "Slice Encoding for Metal Artifact Correction (SEMAC)" is an effective spin echo pulse sequence of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) near metallic implants. However, as SEMAC uses the noisy resolved data elements, SEMAC images can have a major problem for improving the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) without compromising the correction of metal artifacts. To address that issue, this paper presents a novel reconstruction technique for providing an improvement of the SNR in SEMAC images without sacrificing the correction of metal artifacts. Materials and Methods: Low-rank approximation in each coil image is first performed to suppress the noise in the slice direction, because the signal is highly correlated between SEMAC-encoded slices. Secondly, SEMAC images are reconstructed by the best linear unbiased estimator (BLUE), also known as Gauss-Markov or weighted least squares. Noise levels and correlation in the receiver channels are considered for the sake of SNR optimization. To this end, since distorted excitation profiles are sparse, $l_1$ minimization performs well in recovering the sparse distorted excitation profiles and the sparse modeling of our approach offers excellent correction of metal-induced distortions. Results: Three images reconstructed using SEMAC, SEMAC with the conventional two-step noise reduction, and the proposed image denoising for metal MRI exploiting sparsity and low rank approximation algorithm were compared. The proposed algorithm outperformed two methods and produced 119% SNR better than SEMAC and 89% SNR better than SEMAC with the conventional two-step noise reduction. Conclusion: We successfully demonstrated that the proposed, novel algorithm for SEMAC, if compared with conventional de-noising methods, substantially improves SNR and reduces artifacts.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.23 no.7
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• pp.497-502
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• 2004

Both ultrasonic velocity at 3 MHz and absorption coefficient in the frequency range of 0.2-2 MHz were measured for poly (sodium 4-styrenesulfonate) aqueous solution over the concentration range of 5 to 25 % by weight. Pulse echo overlap method was employed to measure the ultrasonic velocity over the temperature range of 10-90 ℃ and the high-a ultrasonic resonator method was used for the absorption coefficient measurement at 20 ℃. The velocity exhibited a maximum value at approximately 55. 59, 63. 67, and 71 ℃ in 25, 20. 15, 10. and 5 wt% solutions, respectively. The velocity increased with poly (sodium 4-styrenesulfonate) concentration at a given temperature. The concentrations dependences of the relaxation frequency and amplitude showed that the relaxation around 200 kHz is related to the structural fluctuations of polymer molecules, such as the segmental motions of the polymer chains and that around 1 MHz resulted from the proton transfer reaction of the oxygen sites of SO₃. Both the absorption and the shear viscosity increase with the Polymer concentration. but decrease with temperature.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.23 no.8
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• pp.967-975
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• 2012

This paper presents a method to measure reflection coefficients of microwave devices or antennas based on time domain analysis with sampling oscilloscopes. The reflection coefficients were extracted by the Fourier transformation of echo pulses from devices with respect to the 20 GHz incident pulse signals. The three-error terms, which are commonly used for the correction of a microwave network, were determined using a 3.5 mm calibration kit. In addition, a modified error-correction model associated with a directional coupler for reflection coefficient measurements is introduced. The results were compared with those of measured with a commercial vector network analyzer.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.170-178
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• 1988

An automated ultrasonic flaw detection system was developed for thin-walled and short tubes such as Zircaloy-4 tubes used for cladding heavy-water reactor fuel. The system was based on the two channels immersion pulse-echo technique using 14 MHz shear wave and the specially developed helical scanning technique, in which the tube to be tested is only rotated and the small water tank with spherical focus ultrasonic transducers is translated along the tube length. The optimum angle of incidence of ultrasonic beam was 26 degrees, at which the inside and outside surface defects with the same size and direction could be detected with the same sensitivity. The maximum permissible defects in the Zircaloy-4 tubes, i.e., the longitudinal and circumferential v notches with the length of 0.76mm and 0.38mm, respectively and the depth of 0.04 mm on the inside and outside surface, could be easily detected by the system with the inspection speed of about 1 m/min and the very excellent reproducibility. The ratio of signal to noise was greater than 20 dB for the longitudinal defects and 12 dB for the circumferential defects.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.13-27
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• 2023

Fatigue crack is a fatal problem for steel structures. Early detection and maintenance can help extend the service life and prevent hazards. This paper presents the ultrasonic guided waves-based (UGWs-based) fatigue crack detection of a steel I-beam. The semi-analytical finite element model has been built to obtain the wave propagation characteristics. Damage indices in both time and frequency domains were analyzed by considering the characteristic variations of UGWs including the amplitude, phase angle, and wave packet energy. The pulse-echo and pitch-catch methods were combined in the detection scheme. Lab-scale experiments were conducted on welded steel I-beams to verify the proposed method. Results show that the damage indices based on the characteristic variations in the time domain can identify and localize the fatigue crack before it enters the rapid growth stage. The damage severity can be reasonably evaluated by analyzing the time-domain damage indices. Two nonlinear damage indices in the frequency domain give earlier warnings of the fatigue crack than the time-domain damage indices do. The identification results based on the above two nonlinear indices are found to be less consistent under various excitation frequencies. More robust nonlinear techniques needed to be searched and tested for early crack detection in steel I-beams in further study.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.286-293
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• 2013

Purpose : The objective of this study was to analyze the brain volume according to the brain image of healthy adults in the 20s taken with different inversion time (TI). Materials and Methods: Brain images of healthy adults in the 20 s were acquired using magnetization prepared rapid acquisition gradient echo (MPRAGE) pulse sequence with 1.5 mm thickness of pieces and four inversion times (1100 ms, 1000 ms, 900 ms, 800 ms). The acquired brain images were analyzed to measure the volume of white matter (WM), gray matter (GM), intracranial volume (ICV). The statistical difference according to brain volume and gender was analyzed for each TI. Results: The brain volume calculated using Freesurfer was WM$486.52{\pm}48.64cm^3$ and GM=$646.83{\pm}57.12cm^3$ in mean when adjusted by mean ICV=$1278.94{\pm}154.92cm^3$. Men's brain volume(WM, GM, ICV) was larger than women's brain volume. In the intrarater reliability test, all of the intraclass correlation coefficients were high (0.992 for WM, 0.988 for GM, and 0.997 for ICV). In the repeated measures analysis of variance, GM and ICV did not show a significant difference at each TI (GM p=0.143, ICV p=0.052), but WM showed a significant (p=0.001). In the linear structure relation analysis, all of the Pearson correlation coefficients were high. Conclusion: WM, GM, and ICV indicated high reliability and solid linear structure relations, but WM showed significant differences at each TI. The brain volume of healthy adults in the 20s could be used in comparison with that of patients for reference purposes and to predict the structural change of brain. It would be needed to conduct additional studies to examine the contract, SNR, and lesion detection ability according to variable TI.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.269-275
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• 2008

Although MR imaging is generally applicable to depict knee joint deterioration it, is sometimes occurred to mis-read and mis-diagnose the common knee joint diseases. In this study, we employed magnetization transfer ratio (MTR) method to improve the diagnosis of the various knee joint diseases. Spin-echo (SE) T2-weighted images (TR/TE 3,400-3,500/90-100 ms) were obtained in seven cases of knee joint deterioration, FSE T2-weighted images (TR/TE 4,500-5,000/100-108 ms) were obtained in seven cases of knee joint deterioration, gradient-echo (GRE) T2-weighted images (TR/TE 9/4.56/$50^{\circ}$ flip angle, NEX 1) were obtained in 3 cases of knee joint deterioration, In six cases of knee joint deterioration, fat suppression was performed using a T2-weighted short T1/tau inverse recovery (STIR) sequence (TR/TE =2,894-3,215 ms/70 ms, NEX 3, ETL 9). Calculation of MTR for individual pixels was performed on registration of unsaturated and saturated images. After processing to make MTR images, the images were displayed in gray color. For improving diagnosis, three-dimensional isotropic volume images, the MR tristimulus color mapping and the MTR map was employed. MTR images showed diagnostic images quality to assess the patients' pathologies. The intensity difference between MTR images and conventional MRI was seen on the color bar. The profile graph on MTR imaging effect showed a quantitative measure of the relative decrease in signal intensity due to the MT pulse. To diagnose the pathologies of the knee joint, the profile graph data was shown on the image as a small cross. The present study indicated that MTR images in the knee joint were feasible. Investigation of physical change on MTR imaging enables to provide us more insight in the physical and technical basis of MTR imaging. MTR images could be useful for rapid assessment of diseases that we examine unambiguous contrast in MT images of knee disorder patients.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.135-141
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• 1997

Purpose: To assess the usefulness of breath-hold fast MR imaging of liver with fat suppression (FS) by application of chemical saturation technique in the diagnosis of regional fatty changes suspected in sonography. Materials and Methods: Thirteen patients who had focal lesions with diffuse, homogeneous signal changes after FS through chemical saturation technique without additional changes of imaging parameter during MR imaging of liver were selected. T1-weighted fast low-angle shot and T2-weighted turbo spin-echo sequences were obtained with or without FS during each single breath-holding session. Subjective changes of signal intensity between the pre-FS and the FS images were compared with the sonographic findings in each lesion. Results: Seven lesions of decreased signal intensity after FS on T1 or T2-weighted images, including three lesions only at FS T1 images, were regarded as focal fat infiltration. All seven lesions had compatible sonographic findings as homogenously echogenic areas. Another six lesions of subjectively increased signal intensity including two lesions only at FS T2 images were regarded as focal fat sparing. All six lesions had sonographic findings as homogenous echo poor areas suggesting focal fat sparing. In cases regarded as fat infiltration, score changes were more prominent at FS T1 images than FS T2 images(p=0.0002). In cases regarded as fat sparing, score changes were more prominent at FS T2 images than FS T1 images(p=0.042). Conclusion: Breath-hold fast T1 and T2-weighted MR imaging with and without chemical saturation pre-pulse may be sufficient for characterization of regional fatty changes in the differential diagnosis of focal hepatic lesion found at sonography.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.15 no.7
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• pp.991-998
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to investigate the image quality of the SE-EPI and SSH-TSE technique for MR DWI. Datum were analyzed for 35 PACS transmission datum(Normal part: 12 males, 13 females, Cerebral Infarction: 10(5males and 5females), and average age 68±7.32), randomly selected patients who underwent MRDWI tests. The equipment used was Ingenia CX 3.0T, SSH_TSE and SE-EPI pulse sequence and 32 Ch. head coil were used for data acquisition. Image evaluation was performed on the paired t-test and Wilcoxon tests, and was considered significant when the p value was 0.05 or less. As a result of quantitative analysis of SNR for DWI images, the mean and standard deviation values of 4 parts (WM, GM, BG, Cerebellum) in ADC (s/mm2), Diffusion b=0, 1000 images were higher in SE-EPI techniques(ADC: 120.50 ± 40, b=0: 54.50 ± 35.91, b=1000: 91.61 ± 36.63) than in SSH-TSE techniques(ADC: 99.69 ± 31.10, b=0: 43.52 ± 25.00 , b=1000: 60.74 ± 24.85)(p<0.05). The CNR values for GM-WM, BG-WM sites were also higher in SE-EPI technique (ADC: 116.08 ± 43.30, b=0:27.23 ± 09.10, b=1000: 78.50 ± 16.56) than in SSH-TSE(ADC: 101.08 ± 36.81, b=0: 23.96 ± 07.79 , b=1000: 74.30 ± 14.22). As a visual evaluation of observers, ghost artifact, magnetic susceptibility artifacts and overall image quality for SE-TSE and SSH-TSE all yielded high results from SSH-TSE techniques(ADC:3.6 ± 0.1, 2.8 ± 0.2, b=0: 4.3 ± 0.3, 3.4 ± 0.1 b=1000: 4.3 ± 0.2, 3.5 ± 0.2, p=0.000). In conclusion, the SE-EPI technique obtained an superiority in SNR and CNR measurements using SSH-TSE, SE-EPI. In the qualitative analysis, the SSH-TSE pulse sequence was obtained a high result according to the pulse sequence characteristics.