• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.5 no.1
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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.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.26 no.1
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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.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.302-306
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• 2008

Plastic hardener and softener based ultrasound phantoms were made in various constitutions and their acoustic properties were measured. Speed of sound is approximately $1.4\;mm/{\mu}sec$ in all the phantoms, which is about 7% less than that of in soft tissue. Attenuation coefficient is strongly dependent on the ratio between hardener and softener. In order to achieve the tissue level attenuation (0.5 dB/cm/MHz), 60% of hardener or less is required. The synthesized phantoms can be preserved for more than 6 months without structural degradation.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.245-252
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• 2010

This study analyzed speed of sound, impedance, attenuation coefficient in accordance with acoustic characteristic standard of body soft tissue corresponding with Annex DD of IEC standard 60601-2-37(2007) which is about tissue mimicking materials (TMM) synthesized by polyurethane as a main material and new type of n-type scatter materials. This study reached the following conclusion after analyzing and evaluating image characteristic with SONOACE 9900 c PRIME (MEDESON Co.) and brightness, maximum penetration with convex probe (2.5~5.0 MHz). When n-type scatter materials are increasingly synthesised 0~8% with prepolymer as a main material and polyol mixture as a catalyst, 1. The more scatter materials are increased, the more sound speed of TMM becomes closely similar to soft tissue. 2. The more scatter materials are decreased, the more acoustic impedance becomes closely similar to soft tissue. 3. The more scatter materials are increased, the more attenuation coefficient is increased. 4. The more scatter materials are increased, the more average brightness of images is increased, but there is threshold. 5. The maximum penetration becomes closely similar to soft tissue at the 6% TMM as a scatter material.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.21-26
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• 2016

Purpose Because of many advantages, PET-CT Scanners generally use CT Data for attenuation correction. By using CT based attenuation correction, we can get anatomical information, reduce scan time and make more accurate correction of attenuation. However in case metal artifact occurred during CT scan, CT-based attenuation correction can induce artifacts and quantitative errors that can affect the PET images. Therefore this study infers true SUV of metal artifact region from attenuation corrected image count -to- non attenuation corrected image count ratio. Materials and Methods Micro phantom inserted $^{18}F-FDG$ 4mCi was used for phantom test and Biograph mCT S(40) is used for medical test equipment. We generated metal artifact in micro phantom by using metal. Then we acquired both metal artifact region of correction factor and non metal artifact region of correction factor by using attenuation correction image count -to- non attenuation correction image count ratio. In case of clinical image, we reconstructed both attenuation corrected images and non attenuation corrected images of 10 normal patient($66{\pm}15age$) who examined PET-CT scan in SNUH. After that, we standardize several organs of correction factor by using attenuation corrected image count -to- non attenuation corrected count ratio. Then we figured out metal artifact region of correction factor by using metal artifact region of attenuation corrected image count -to- non attenuation corrected count ratio And we compared standard organs correction factor with metal artifact region correction factor. Results according to phantom test results, metal artifact induce overestimation of correction factor so metal artifact region of correction factors are 12% bigger than the non metal artifact region of correction factors. in case of clinical test, correction factor of organs with high CT number(>1000) is $8{\pm}0.5%$, correction factor of organs with CT number similar to soft tissue is $6{\pm}2%$ and correction factor of organs with low CT number(-100>) is $3{\pm}1%$. Also metal artifact correction factors are 20% bigger than soft tissue correction factors which didn't happened metal artifact. Conclusion metal artifact lead to overestimation of attenuation coefficient. because of that, SUV of metal artifact region is overestimated. Thus for more accurate quantitative evaluation, using attenuation correction image count -to-non attenuation correction image count ratio is one of the methods to reduce metal artifact affect.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.14 no.3
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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.

• ALGAE
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.369-377
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• 2005

Seashore joining with land and sea, which is typical habitat for marine macroalgae, is classified two types of shore as soft- and hard-bottom shore according to topographical (geological) and ecological features. We compared two of Ulva pertusa Kjellman from two contrasting habitats, sandy (soft-bottom, Haenam) and rocky shore (hard-bottom, Hadong) in terms of chlorophyll-a fluorescence and its parameters, and various photosynthetic pigment and nutrient content in the tissue of those. Both of habitats were different in the light environment such as light attenuation coefficient and even in nutrient concentration of ambient seawater. Electron transport rate (ETR) of Ulva from sandy shore was higher than from rocky shore. The range of photosynthetic pigment content in the tissue of U. pertusa was significantly much more in from sandy shore, and also nitrogen and phosphorus content were significantly higher except for carbon content. However, there were no significant differences in the ratio of among photosynthetic pigments, and N:P ratio was similar between each other, even though significantly different. Our result implied on the reason of why most of green tides in the worldwide concentrated and frequently occurred at sites with sandy, muddy and silty bottoms, being classified as soft-bottom shore.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.253-260
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• 1989

The time domain methods of estimating the attenuation coefficient are generally based on the analysis of statisical properties of the reflected echoes form an attenuating medium. Hence, it is often required to have a large number of data samples in order to obtain a statistically stable estimation result. In the attenuation estimation problem, this means that many different speckle patterns are required in the spatial resolution volume of an attenLlation image. In this paper, by using the fact that the speckle pattern Is sensitive to the point spread function of the ultrasound beam, we suggest a method to generate the statiscally uncorrelated or slightly correlated data samples in a given region by rotating a linear transducer and carrying out lateral scans for all rotating angles. This technique is applied to the entropy method for attenuation estimation proposed recently by the authors where the performance is verified by experiments using a tissue equivalent phantom.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.55-71
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• 1993

Measured and calculated the TMR and SMR factors from percent depth dose underpartial attenuators which cover the whole part of the radiation beam with variousfilter thickness from 0 to 50 mm. This study was performed for x-ray beams generated with a 6 MV linear acceleratorat source to surface distance of 100cm in a water phantom for Lipowitz metal. TMR(0,d,t) was derived from non-linear polynomial regression with field sizedifferencies and a given filter thickness. In this experiments, the TMR(0,10,50) of 50mm of filter thickness was showed13.6 % higher than that of open field and SMR(5,10,50) was 38.5% smaller than thatof open field in same depth.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.12
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• pp.4158-4165
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• 2021

In this study, tissue equivalency (TE) of a newly developed epoxy-based phantom to 3-5 years child's tissue was investigated in paediatric energy range. Epoxy-based TE-phantoms were produced at different glandular/adipose (G/A) ratios of 17/83%, 31/69%, 36/64% and 10/90%. A procedure was developed in which specific amounts of boron, calcium, magnesium, sulphur compounds are mixed with epoxy resin, together with other minor substitutes. In paediatric energy range of 40-60 kV_p half-value layer (HVL) values were measured and then Hounsfield Units (HU) were determined from Computed Tomography(CT) scans taken in the X-ray energy range of 80-120kV_p. It is found that radiation absorption properties of these phantoms in terms of the measured HVL values related to linear attenuation coefficients (µ) are very well mimicking a 3 years child's soft tissue in case a ratio of 10/90%G/A. Additionally, the HU values of phantoms were determined from the CT scans. The HU = 47.8 ± 4.8 value was found for the epoxy-based phantom produced at a ratio of 10/90%G/A. The obtained HVL and HU values also support the suitability of the new epoxy based-phantom produced at a ratio of 10/90%G/A for a satisfactory mimicking a 3 years child's soft tissue by 5%. Thus they can have a potential use to perform the quality controls of medical X-ray systems and dose optimization studies.