• Journal of fish pathology
• /
• v.21 no.3
• /
• pp.157-166
• /
• 2008

Streptococcal diseases are known as serious problems in fresh water and marine fish culture industry worldwide. Recently, the importance of the infection of Streptococcus parauberis has been increased among the streptococcicosis since severe outbreaks in cultured olive flounder (Paralichthys olivaceus) were recorded in Korea. The aims of the present study were to investigate immunomodulatory differences between S. parauberis and S. iniae. In this study, S. parauberis isolated from diseased olive flounder was investigated on the characteristics of morphological and immune responses. Immune response of the fish to the pathogen was characterized by bactericidal activity in the serum, phagocytic activity and reactive oxygen intermediaters (ROIs) production of olive flounder. The capsules of both bacteria, S. parauberis and S. iniae seem to be associated with the ability to resist killing activity of normal sera. Also, capsulated strains could survive in the phagocytes and induce to lower ROIs production.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.27 no.5
• /
• pp.291-299
• /
• 2006

A Computer-Aided Diagnosis system has been examined to reduce the effort of radiologist. In this paper, we propose the algorithm using Support Vector Machine(SVM) classifier to discriminate whether microcalcifications are malignant or benign tumors. The proposed method to detect microcalcifications is composed of two detection steps each of which uses SVM classifier. The coarse detection step finds out pixels considered high contrasts comparing with neighboring pixels. Then, Region of Interest(ROI) is generated based on microcalcification characteristics. The fine detection step determines whether the found ROIs are microcalcifications or not by merging potential regions using obtained ROIs and SVM classifier. The proposed method is specified on Korean mammogram database. The experimental result of the proposed algorithm presents robustness in detecting microcalcifications than the previous method using Artificial Neural Network as classifier even when using small training data.

• Journal of Radiation Industry
• /
• v.12 no.4
• /
• pp.325-332
• /
• 2018

Carotid angiography covering the aortic arch includes contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance angiography (CEA), which is applied to a large region and usually employs contrast media. However, the use of contrast media can be dangerous in infants, pregnant women, and patients with chronic renal failure (CRF). Follow-up patients informed of a lesion may also want to avoid constant exposure to contrast media. We aimed to apply time-of-flight (TOF) angiography to a large region and compare its usefulness with that of CEA. Ten patients (mean age, 58 years; range, 45~75 years) who visited our hospital for magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) participated in this study. A 3.0 Tesla Achieva magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system (Philips, Netherland) and the SENSE NeuroVascular 16-channel coil were employed for both methods. Both methods were applied simultaneously to the same patient. Three TOF stacks were connected to cover the aortic arch through the circle of Willis, and CEA was applied in the same manner. For the quantitative assessment, the acquired images were used to set the regions of interest (ROIs) in the common carotid artery (CCA) bifurcation, internal carotid artery, external carotid artery, middle cerebral artery, and vertebral artery, and to obtain the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) for the soft tissues. Three radiologists and one radiological resident performed the qualitative assessment on a 5-point scale - 1 point, "very bad"; 2 points, "bad"; 3 points, "average"; 4 points, "good"; and 5 points, "very good" - with regard to 4 items: (1) sharpness, (2) distortion, (3) vein contamination, and (4) expression of peripheral vessels. For the quantitative assessment, we estimated the mean SNR and CNR in each of the 5 ROIs. In general, the mean SNR was higher in TOF angiography (166.1, 205.2, 154.39, 172.23, and 161.95) than in CEA(92.05, 95.43, 84.76, 73.69, and 88.3). Both methods had a similar mean CNR: 67.62, 106.71, 55.9, 73.74, and 63.46 for TOF angiography, and 67.82, 71.19, 60.52, 49.45, and 64.07 for CEA. In all ROIs, the mean SNR was statistically significant (p<0.05), whereas the mean CNR was insignificant (p>0.05). The mean values of TOF angiography and CEA for each item in the qualitative assessment were 4.2 and 4.28, respectively for item 1; 2.93 and 4.55, respectively, for item 2; 4.6 and 3.13, respectively, for item 3; and 2.88 and 4.65, respectively, for item 4. Therefore, TOF angiography had a higher mean for item 3, and CEA had a higher mean for items 2 and 4; there was no significant difference between the two methods for item 1. The results for item 1 were statistically insignificant (p>0.05), whereas the results for items 2~4 were statistically significant (p<0.05). Both methods have advantages and disadvantages and they complement each other. However, CEA is usually applied to a large region covering the aortic arch. Time-of-flight angiography may be useful for people such as infants, pregnant women, CRF patients, and followup patients for whom the use of contrast media can be dangerous or unnecessary, depending on the circumstance.

• Proceedings of the Korea Environmental Mutagen Society Conference
• /
• 2003.10a
• /
• pp.134-134
• /
• 2003

• Genomics & Informatics
• /
• v.18 no.2
• /
• pp.12.1-12.2
• /
• 2020

• Imaging Science in Dentistry
• /
• v.35 no.1
• /
• pp.33-40
• /
• 2005

Purpose : (1) To analyse the effect of exposure time, ROI size and one impact factor in the image processing procedure on estimates of fractal dimension; and (2) to analyse the correlated relationship between the fractal dimension and the Cu-Eq value (bone density). Materials and Methods : The cylindric bone phantoms of 6 large and 5 small diameter having different bone densities respectively and human dry mandible segment with copper step wedge were radiographed at 1.0 and 1.2 sec esposure (70 kVp, 7 mA) using one occlusal film and digitized. Eleven rectangular ROIs from 11 cylindric bone phantoms and 4 rectan-gular ROIs from cortical, middle, periodontal regions, and socket of bone were selected. Gaussian blurred Image was subtracted from original image of each ROI and multiplied respectively by 1, 0.8, and 0.5, and then the image was made binary, eroded and dilated once, and skeletonized. The fractal dimension was calculated by means of a box counting method in the software ImageJ. Results : The fractal dimension was decreased gradually with continued bone density decrease showing strong correlations (bone phantom; r> 0.87, bone; r> 0.68) under 70 kVp 1.0 sec M = 0.8. Fractal dimensions showed the significant differerence (p < 0.05) between two different exposure times on the same small ROI of bone phantom. Fractal dimensions between two different sizes of ROI on bone phantom showed the significant differerence (p < 0.05) under 1.2 sec exposure, but did not show it (p > 0.05) under 1.0 sec exposure. Conclusions : Exposure time, ROI size, and modifying factor during subtracting could become impacting on the results of fractal dimension. Fractal analysis with thoroughly evaluated method considering the various impacting factors on the results could be useful in assessing the bone density in dental radiography.

• Imaging Science in Dentistry
• /
• v.35 no.1
• /
• pp.41-46
• /
• 2005

Purpose : The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the fractal dimension and radiographic image brightness of periapical radiograph were useful in predicting osteoporosis. Materials and Methods : Ninety-two postmenopausal women were classified as normal, osteopenia and osteoporosis group according to the bone mineral density of lumbar vertebrae and periapical radiographs of both mandibular molar areas were taken. The ROIs of 358 areas were selected at periapical and interdental areas and fractal dimension and radiographic image brightness were measured. Results : The fractal dimension in normal group was significantly higher than that in osteoporosis group at periapical ROI (P < 0.05). The radiographic image brightness in normal group was higher than that in osteopenia and osteoporosis group. There was significant difference not only between normal and osteopenia group (P < 0.05) but also within osteopenia and osteoporosis group (P< 0.01) at periapical ROI. Significant difference was observed not only between normal and osteopenia group but also between normal and osteoporosis group at interdental ROI (P< 0.01). Positive linear relationship was weakly shown at Pearson correlation analysis between fractal dimension and radiographic image brightness. BMD significantly correlated with fractal dimension at periapical ROI (P< 0.01), and BMD and radiographic image brightness significantly correlated at both periapical and interdental ROIs (P< 0.01). Conclusion : This study suggests that the fractal dimension and radiographic image brightness of periapical ROI may predict BMD. (Korean J Oral Maxillofac Radiol 2005: 35 : 41-6)

• The Journal of Pediatrics of Korean Medicine
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.183-210
• /
• 1998

Cheonggisan(CGS) is well known for its effect on such allergic disease as urticaria and atopic dermatitis. Gagamcheonggisan(GCGS) was formulated by subtracting several herbs from CGS and adding several herbs to CGS. Even though it is being used frequently in the clinicai medicine for the treatment of above hypersensitivity diseases, basic study to make sure the mechanism of its action is rare. In this study the author tried to know the effect of CGS and GCGS on the vascular permeability, contact dermatitis, granular secretion from mast cells and function of macrophages. The results obtained in this study are as follows : 1. Administration of CGS and GCGS decreased the vascular permeability induced by serotonin and histamine. The decrease by serotonin is more typical and dose-dependent. 2. Administration of CGS and GCGS inhibited foot-pad and ear swelling responses induced by sheep red blood cells and picryl chloride respectively, the inhibition of foot-pad swelling responses is bigger than that of ear swelling responses and both of them are not dependent on the dose3. Treatment of peritoneal mast cells with CGS and GCGS water extract decreased the histamine release triggered by compound 48／80 in a dose dependent fashion 4. Administration of CGS and GCGS increased the phagocvtic activity of peritoneal macrophages and treatment of peritoneal macrophages with CGS activated phagocytic function in a dose dependent fashion. 5. Administration of CGS and GCGS enhanced such reactive oxygen intermediates(ROIs) as superoxide and hydrogen peroxide production from peritoneal macrophages. 6. Treatment of CGS and GCGS activated peritoneal macrophages for the production of ROIs. The above results show that CGS and GCGS decreased the hypersensitivity reactions by inhibiting non-specific inflammatory mediator release and vascular permeability without affecting general immune responsiveness.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
• /
• v.48 no.2
• /
• pp.65-73
• /
• 2011

In this paper, we present a novel digital multifocusing approach using adaptive region-based histogram equalization for the multiple color-filter aperture (MCA) system with insufficient amount of incoming light. From the image acquired by the MCA system, we can estimate the depth information of objects at different distances by measuring the amount of misalignment among the RGB color planes. The estimated depth information is used to obtain multifocused images together with the process of the region-of-interests (ROIs) classification, registration, and fusion. However, the MCA system results in the low-exposure problem because of the limited size of the apertures. For overcoming this problem, we propose adaptive region-based histogram equalization. Based on the experimental results, the proposed algorithm is proved to be able to obtain in-focused images under the low light level environment.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
• /
• v.16 no.12
• /
• pp.49-57
• /
• 2011

Extraction of regions of interest (ROIs) is the first and important step for the applications in computer vision and affects the rest of the application process. However, ROI extraction can be easily affected by the environment such as illumination, camera, etc. Many applications adopt problem-specific knowledge and/or post-processing to correct the error occurred in ROI extraction. In this paper, proposed is a robust framework that could overcome the environmental change and is independent from the rest of the process. The proposed framework uses a differential image and a color distribution to extract ROIs. The color distribution can be learned on-line, which make the framework to be robust to environmental change. Even more, the components of the framework are independent each other, which makes the framework flexible and extensible. The usefulness of the proposed framework is demonstrated with the application of hand region extraction in an image sequence.