• 대한의용생체공학회:의공학회지
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• 제26권1호
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• pp.55-63
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• 2005

A novel imaging system for High-resolution Ultrasonic Transmission Tomography (HUTT) and soft tissue differentiation methodology for the HUTT system are presented. The critical innovation of the HUTT system includes the use of sub-millimeter transducer elements for both transmitter and receiver arrays and multi-band analysis of the first-arrival pulse. The first-arrival pulse is detected and extracted from the received signal (i.e., snippet) at each azimuthal and angular location of a mechanical tomographic scanner in transmission mode. Each extracted snippet is processed to yield a multi-spectral vector of attenuation values at multiple frequency bands. These vectors form a 3-D sinogram representing a multi-spectral augmentation of the conventional 2-D sinogram. A filtered backprojection algorithm is used to reconstruct a stack of multi-spectral images for each 2-D tomographic slice that allow tissue characterization. A novel methodology for soft tissue differentiation using spectral target detection is presented. The representative 2-D and 3-D HUTT images formed at various frequency bands demonstrate the high-resolution capability of the system. It is shown that spherical objects with diameter down to 0.3㎜ can be detected. In addition, the results of soft tissue differentiation and characterization demonstrate the feasibility of quantitative soft tissue analysis for possible detection of lesions or cancerous tissue.

• 대한의용생체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한의용생체공학회 1998년도 추계학술대회
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• pp.275-276
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• 1998

In this paper, we present the software on the development of the computerized imaging system for diagnosis and treatment plannig of orthodontics and orthognathic surgery. Soft tissue changes followed by orthognathic surgery mainly depends on surgical movements of hard tissue. Then, the stepwise multiple regression method was used to investigate the soft tissue changes followed by hard tissue changes. As a result of this research, we were able to develop a system which diagnoses automatic X-ray images and predicts soft tissue changes after othognathic surgery.

• 대한의용생체공학회:의공학회지
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• 제14권3호
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• pp.273-282
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• 1993

This study is concerned with the temperature dependence characteristics of ultrasound parameters in biological tissues, which are basic on the noninvasive deep body temperature estimation. Used parameters are ultrasonic attenuation coefficient and sound velocity In order to accomplishment our purpose, several signal processing methods were used. Attenua4iorl coefficient was estimated by spectral difference method and sound velocity was estimated by P-P method. And we also examined these methods through a series of IN VITRO experi mentis that used tissue-mimicking phantom samples and biological tissue samples. In order to imitate the biological soft tissue two kinds of phantom samples are used, one is agar phantom sample which is composed of agar, graphite, N-propyl alcohol and distilled water, and the other is fat phantom sample which is composed of pure animal fat. And the ultrasound transmission mode and reflection mode experiments are performed on the pig's spleen, kidney and fat. As a result, it is found that the temperature characteristics are uniform in case of phan- tom samples but not in biological tissues because of complicate wave propagation within them. Consequently, the possibility of temperature measurement using ultrasound on biological tissue is confirmed and its results may contribute to the establishment of reference values of internal temperature measurement of biological tissues.

• 대한의용생체공학회:의공학회지
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• 제24권3호
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• pp.141-149
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• 2003

본 논문에서는 초음파 의용 영상시스템의 B-모드 영상으로 잘 관찰되지 않는 암이나 종양을 진단하기 위하여 인체 연조직의 탄성계수를 측정하여 영상화하는 방법을 제안하였다. 연조직의 단단함을 측정하기 위하여 조직에 정현파 진동을 인가하고 연조직의 기계적인 진동의 크기를 초음파 영상의 스페클 밝기의 시간적 변화를 추정하여 구하였다. 제안한 방법은 B-모드 영상에서 비교적 적은 계산량으로 쉽게 조직의 단단함을 추정할 수 있음을 시뮬레이션과 실험으로 검증하였다

• 대한의용생체공학회:의공학회지
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• 제5권1호
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• pp.55-62
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• 1984

A digital spectrum analysis technique was used to estimate the tissue characteristic parameters (transmission velocity and attenuation coefficient) in the phantom study and the human liver's ultrasound scanning. The soft tissue equivalent phantom was made with the combination materials of agar, water, powdered graphite, and n-propyl alcohol. In the human study, twenty five normal subjects and three patients with liver diseases were studied using the ultrasonic reflection signals and the spectrum analysis method The following results were obtained; 1. The soft tissue-equivalent materical could be produced with various acoustic parameters by changing the composition amount of the powdered graphite and n-propyl alcohol. 2. Attenuation coefficients of normal human liver tissue were estimated to be 0. 36 dB/cm MHz$\pm$0.11. In patients with liver disese, tile attenuation coefficients were shown to be different from the above normal values.

• 대한기계학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한기계학회 2007년도 춘계학술대회A
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• pp.372-377
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• 2007

For more than 2,500 years, surgical teaching has been based on the so called "see one, do one, teach one" paradigm, in which the surgical trainee learns by operating on patients under close supervision of peers and superiors. However, higher demands on the quality of patient care and rising malpractice costs have made it increasingly risky to train on patients. Minimally invasive surgery, in particular, has made it more difficult for an instructor to demonstrate the required manual skills. It has been recognized that, similar to flight simulators for pilots, virtual reality (VR) based surgical simulators promise a safer and more comprehensive way to train manual skills of medical personnel in general and surgeons in particular. One of the major challenges in the development of VR-based surgical trainers is the real-time and realistic simulation of interactions between surgical instruments and biological tissues. It involves multi-disciplinary research areas including soft tissue mechanical behavior, tool-tissue contact mechanics, computer haptics, computer graphics and robotics integrated into VR-based training systems. The research described in this paper addresses the problem of characterizing soft tissue properties for medical virtual environments. A system to measure in vivo mechanical properties of soft tissues was designed, and eleven sets of animal experiments were performed to measure in vivo and in vitro biomechanical properties of porcine intra-abdominal organs. Viscoelastic tissue parameters were then extracted by matching finite element model predictions with the empirical data. Finally, the tissue parameters were combined with geometric organ models segmented from the Visible Human Dataset and integrated into a minimally invasive surgical simulation system consisting of haptic interface devices and a graphic display.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• 제17권5호
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• pp.257-263
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• 2001

Species of the genus Orobanche are parasitic flowering plants, holoparasites, which cling to the roots of green plants. Their tiny seeds (200 x $250\mu\textrm{m}$) germinate in response to chemical stimuli produced by host and some non-host plants. Successful contact with their host leads to development of haustoria for obtaining water and food. The shoots above the ground expose flowers and disseminate seeds. Several samples of Orobanche ramosa, O. crenata, O. cernua, and O. egyptiaca were collected from different localities in Jordan. These samples showed one of the following disease symptoms: dry rot at the base of the stem; general deterioration and expanded lesion from base upward; soft tissue maceration of stem; and black rot of flower parts with incomplete maturation of the ovary and seeds. Isolation from diseased stems and seeds was made on three different mycological media. Several fungi were isolated, mainly, Fusarium spp., Alternaria alternata, Rhizoctonia sp., Dendrophora sp., Chaetomium sp., and an ascomycetus fungus with a perithecium. Pathogenicity tests showed that Fusarium spp. and Alternaria alternata attacked healthy living tissue of Orobanche spikes. These fungi caused lesions of black soft rot and complete deterioration within 5-7 days. They also attacked Orobanche seeds, arresting their germination and causing maceration of non-germinated and germinated seeds after 5-7 days of incubation. Meanwhile, Dendrophora sp. and Chaetomium sp. caused limited lesion at first, but were able to colonize the tissue as it aged and senesced. This study showed the presence of a potential endogenous pathogenic fungi in Jordan, which can be investigated as a biological control for Orobanche.

• 대한의용생체공학회:의공학회지
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• 제30권1호
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• pp.18-22
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• 2009

Laser has been widely used in various fields of medicine. Recently, noninvasive low-level laser therapeutic medical devices have been introduced in market. However, low-level laser cannot deliver enough photon density to expect positive therapeutic results in deep tissue layer due to the light scattering property in tissue. In order to overcome the limitation, this study was aimed to develop a negative pressure applied low-level laser probe to optimize laser transmission pattern and therefore, to improve photon density in soft tissue. In order to evaluate the possibility of clinical application of the developed laser probe, ex-vivo experiments were performed with porcine skin samples and laser transmissions were quantitatively measured as a function of tissue compression. The laser probe has an air suction hole to apply negative pressure to skin, a transparent plastic body to observe variations of tissue, and a small metallic optical fiber guide to support the optical fiber when negative pressure was applied. By applying negative pressure to the laser probe, the porcine skin under the metallic optical fiber guide is compressed down and, at the same time, low-level laser is emitted into the skin. Finally, the diffusion images of laser in the sample were acquired by a CCD camera and analyzed. Compared to the peak intensity without the compression, the peak intensity of laser increased about $2{\sim}2.5$ times and FWHM decreased about $1.67{\sim}2.85$ times. In addition, the laser peak intensity was positively and linearly increased as a function of compression. In conclusion, we verified that the developed low-level laser probe can control the photon density in tissue by applying compression, and therefore, its potential for clinical applications.

• 대한의용생체공학회:의공학회지
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• 제27권3호
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• pp.117-124
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• 2006

Recently, active research has been going on to measure the elastic modulus of human soft tissue with medical ultrasound imaging systems for the purpose of diagnosing cancers or tumors which have been difficult to detect with conventional B-mode imaging techniques. In this paper, a real-time ultrasonic elasticity imaging system is implemented in software on a Pentium processor-based ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system. Soft tissue is subjected to external vibration, and the resulting tissue displacements change the phase of received echoes, which is in turn used to estimate tissue elasticity. It was confirmed from experiment with a phantom that the implemented elasticity imaging system could differentiate between soft and hard regions, where the latter is twice harder than the former, while operating at an adequate frame rate of 20 frames/s.

• Animal cells and systems
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• 제9권4호
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• pp.205-209
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• 2005

A rapid, simple and efficient method to extract RNA from the adult polyps of a soft coral, marine cnidarian, Scleronephthya gracillimum $(K\ddot{u}kenthal)$; was developed in this study. The highest yield and purity of RNA was obtained with the lysis solution containing 35 mM EDTA, 0.7 M LiCl, 7.0% SDS, and 200 mM Tris-Cl (pH 9.0). Approximately $40{\mu}g$ of total RNA was extracted from 200 mg of liquid nitrogen-pulverized polyp tissue. The ratio of absorbance at 260 nm and 280 nm ranged from 1.8 to 2.0. The results of the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RTPCR) with ${\beta}-actin$ gene specific primers and Northern blot analysis using the same gene probe revealed that the RNA extracted by our method had high quality, and was sufficient for subsequent molecular biological analyses. This method was effective for RNA extraction from other soft coral species which belong to the genus Dendronephthya.