• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.96-101
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• 2015

A tongue coating evaluation method for WTCI(Winkel Tongue Coating Index) is proposed in this paper, which is used as the diagnostic criteria in the tongue diagnosis. This method uses the color channel analysis and tongue coating extraction from the ultraviolet tongue image. Proposed method analyzes the histogram distribution of the respective color channel for extracting a tongue coating, and performs the verification test from the selected color channel in the tongue coating extraction. Also, Objectivity of the tongue diagnostic criteria is verified by the artificial sample and real-tongue image experiments. In order to evaluate the performance of the proposed Computerized Assistant WTCI Evaluation method, after verifying a measurement accuracy by using the artificial sample images, and applying to the various real-tongue image of subjects. As a result, the proposed WTCI method is very successful.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.945-961
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• 2019

Tongue diagnosis is one of the most important diagnostic methods in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Tongue image segmentation aims to extract the image object (i.e., tongue body), which plays a key role in the process of manufacturing an automated tongue diagnosis system. It is still challenging, because there exists the personal diversity in tongue appearances such as size, shape, and color. This paper proposes an innovative segmentation method that uses image thresholding, gray projection and active contour model (ACM). Specifically, an initial object region is first extracted by performing image thresholding in HSI (i.e., Hue Saturation Intensity) color space, and subsequent morphological operations. Then, a gray projection technique is used to determine the upper bound of the tongue body root for refining the initial object region. Finally, the contour of the refined object region is smoothed by ACM. Experimental results on a dataset composed of 100 color tongue images showed that the proposed method obtained more accurate segmentation results than other available state-of-the-art methods.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.242-254
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• 2023

Although upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs) are common diseases, there have been no studies of their relationship with the indices obtained from tongue image analyses. The purpose of this study was to identify a tongue index through an analysis of tongue images (TIs) showing significant changes before and after treatment in patients with URTIs. A computerized tongue image acquisition system was developed to acquire TIs from subjects in the same environment. An image was taken from each of 39 URTI patients and 39 healthy controls. For the patients, images were acquired before and after treatment to identify changes. The tongue area was classified into a tongue body and a tongue coating, and the coating ratio between the two areas, the average value of the colour of each area, and teeth marks were calculated. No significant difference was observed in age or sex between the URTI patients and control participants. Heart rates were slightly different. The analysis of TIs showed that the luminance of the tongue coating and the coating area ratio were decreased, while the reddish value of the tongue body at the centre area increased as the treatment progressed. Tongue coating and body in URTIs had different colour and shape from those in the normal. It is expected that this result will contribute not only to the objectification of traditional Chinese medicine but also to diagnostic methods that do not involve face-to-face physician visit during the pandemic.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.201-210
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• 2021

In Korean medicine, tongue diagnosis is one of the important diagnostic methods for diagnosing abnormalities in the body. Representative features that are used in the tongue diagnosis include color, shape, texture, cracks, and tooth marks. When diagnosing a patient through these features, the diagnosis criteria may be different for each oriental medical doctor, and even the same person may have different diagnosis results depending on time and work environment. In order to overcome this problem, recent studies to automate and standardize tongue diagnosis using machine learning are continuing and the basic process of such a machine learning-based tongue diagnosis system is tongue segmentation. In this paper, image data is augmented based on the main tongue features, and backbones of various famous deep learning architecture models are used for automatic tongue segmentation. The experimental results show that the proposed augmentation technique improves the accuracy of tongue segmentation, and that automatic tongue segmentation can be performed with a high accuracy of 99.12%.

• Journal of Multimedia Information System
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.99-106
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• 2019

In traditional Chinese medical (TCM) science, tongue images can be observed for medical diagnosis; however, the tongue diagnosis of TCM is influenced by the subjective factors of doctors, and the diagnosis results vary from person to person. Quantitative TCM tongue diagnosis can improve the accuracy of diagnosis and increase the application value. In this paper, digital image processing and pattern recognition technologies are employed on mobile device to classify tongue images collected in different health states. First, through grayscale integral projection processing, the trough is found to localize the tongue body. Then the tongue body image is transferred from RGB color space to HSV color space, and the average H and S values are considered as the color features. Finally, the diagnosis results are obtained according to the relationship between the color characteristics and physical symptoms.

• The Journal of the Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.125-131
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• 2016

Tongue image segmentation is critical for automation of the tongue diagnosis system. However, most image segmentation methods for tongue diagnosis systems in oriental medicine have been proposed as user-based manual types or semi-automatic types. This study proposed a new method for tongue image segmentation, which is the most important image processing stage for complete automation of the tongue diagnosis system in oriental medicine. The proposed method improved the conventional snake algorithm, by making improvement on the internal energy function so that, as the points move outward reversely, the snake energy function is minimized, by using the image characteristics of tongue images. To calculate external energy, hierarchical spatial filtering is applied to ensure resistance against noise. Also, The proposed method was tested by using sample images and actual images, and showed more robustness against the background noise than the conventional snake algorithm. And, when one selected point was moved by the improved snake algorithm, energy values at the starting, middle, and end points were analyzed, and showed robustness that does not fall in the local minima.

• The Journal of the Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.181-188
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• 2012

An effective extraction method for extracting a coated tongue is proposed in this paper, which is used as the diagnostic criteria in the tongue diagnosis. Proposed method uses the fluorescence response characteristics of the coated tongue that is occurred by using the ultraviolet light. Specially, this method can solved the previous problems including the issue in the limits of the diagnosis environment and in the objectivity of the diagnosis results. In our method, original tongue image is acquired by using the ultraviolet light, and binarization is performed by thresholding a valley-points in the histogram that corresponds to the color difference of tongue body and tongue coating. Final view image is presented to the oriental doctor, after applying the canny-edge algorithm to the binary image, and edge image is added to the original image. In order to evaluate the performance of the our proposed method, after building a various tongue image, we compared the true region of coated tongue by the oriental doctor's hand with the extracted region by the our method. As a result, the proposed method showed the average 87.87% extraction ratio. The shape of the extracted coated tongue region showed also significantly higher similarity.

• The Journal of the Society of Korean Medicine Diagnostics
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.51-65
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• 2016

Objectives This study was conducted to suggest a standard operating procedure (SOP) in order to improve the reliability of tongue-image analysis system. Methods An affecting-factors list was made, which may affect the diagnostic parameters of the tongue-image analysis system. They were sub-classified into two groups: controllable and uncontrollable. Only the controllable factors, which could affect the results and easily set-up, were included into the SOP draft. Affecting factors control experiment was performed to investigate the effects of controllable factors, whose influence on diagnostic parameters of the tongue-image analysis system is ambiguous: rehearsal for tongue extrusion; alignment of camera axis; and presentation of a guideline. Three subjects volunteered for this experiment. Each of three variables was implemented twice in a random order by two operators on the subjects. Finally, 96 tongue images obtained in the aggregate. The diagnostic parameter set as a primary outcome in this experiment was the percentage of tongue coating. Results All of the control variables were not significant in both operators; however, the presentation of a guideline was relatively more affect than two other variables. Interaction effects among the variables were also insignificant. Therefore, the presentation of a guideline was included in the final SOP and the other variables were not included. Conclusions We suggested the SOP which could be used for both experimenter and subject. Moreover, Each of the SOPs applied to various types of tongue-image analysis system should be developed in order to improve the reliability.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.141-146
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• 2016

In this paper, we apply limited area mask operation and active contour model to accurately detect tongue area outline in tongue diagnosis system. To accurately analyze the properties of the tongue, first, the tongue area to be detected. Therefore an effective segmentation method for detecting the edge of tongue is very important. It experimented with tongue image DB consists of 20~30 students 30 people. Experiments on real tongue image show the good performance of this method. Experimental results show that the proposed method extracts object boundaries more accurately than existing methods without mask operation.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.1437-1442
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• 2005

Tongue Diagnosis is the important traditional oriental medical diagnosis method that observes not only the general physiological state but also some kinds of disease. However, manual tongue diagnosis is much influenced by surrounding illumination. Therefore, Digital Tongue Inspection System(DigiTis) is needed for the quantification of objective tongue information, In this research, Tongue images of 98 malignant Neoplasm patients and 34 normal persons were collected by Digital Tongue Inspection System. Statistical analysis of tongue images and patient data indicates that cancer group has more blue-purple components in tongue body(舌質) and yellow components in tongue coating than normal group. Also, there are a lot of rose-pink components in the cancer group of second stage and blue-purple components in the cancer group of third or fourth stage. Our study shows that tongue image is a useful index for distinction between disease and health. Furthermore we need more extended research through the additional sampling and various disease.