• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.177-178
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• 2006

The real-time tracking system is an essential factor for the development of low cost sensor networks for use in pervasive computing and ubiquitous networking. In this paper, we address the interference problems of the sensor network platform with ultrasonic for location tracking system. Ubiquitous indoor environments often contain substantial amounts of metal and other such reflective materials that affect the propagation of radio frequency signals in non-trivial ways, causing severe multi-path effects, dead-spots, noise, and interference. Especially we present a novel reducing interference location system that is particularly well suited to support context-aware computing. The system called Pharos, aims to combine the advantages of real-time tracking systems that implement distributed environment with regardless of infrastructure or infrastructure-less wireless sensor networks.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
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• v.43 no.3 s.309
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• pp.67-77
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• 2006

This thesis proposes an effi챠ent method for extracting a prostate volume from 3D ultrasound image by using wavelet transform and SVM classification. In the proposed method, a modulus image for each 2D slice is generated by averaging detail images of horizontal and vertical orientations at several scales, which has the sharpest local maxima and the lowest noise power compared to those of all single scales. Prostate contour vertices are determined accurately using a SVM classifier, where feature vectors are composed of intensity and texture moments investigated along radial lines. Experimental results show that the proposed method yields absolute mean distance of on average 1.89 pixels when the contours obtained manually by an expert are used as reference data.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2007.10a
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• pp.901-904
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• 2007

Nowadays, in many fields of medical treatment, we can make an observation and a diagnosis of inward disease without using a surgical operation. As one of them, ultra-sound diagnosis system can be available widely in its cost and size compared with other medical instruments. This system also make it possible for us to see the inner parts of the body in real time harmlessly for a long time. So it can be utilized to inspect the movement of heart or fetus and to diagnose an internal disease of the soft tissues. Ultra-sound images can be generated by the reflexive and scattered wave through the pulse generator and so in ultrasound images there exist inherently many affective noised signals. In this paper, we are to take an noise-restrained image and to extract a more affective regions of the images.

• Journal of the Korea Society for Simulation
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.21-29
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• 2007

In this paper, we present a method of detecting the boundary of the intima-media complex for automated measurement based on dynamic programming from carotid artery B-mode ultrasound images and then show the experimental results. We apply the dynamic programming for determining the optimal locations that a cost function is minimized. The cost function includes cost terms which are representing image features such as intensity, intensity gradient and geometrical continuity of the vessel interfaces. Moreover, we improve the boundary continuity by applying the B-spline to smooth the rough boundary due to noise such as speckle, dropout and weak edges. The proposed method has obtained more accurate reproducible results than conventional edge-detection by considering multiple image features and ensures efficient automated measurement by solving the problems of the inter- and intra-observer variability and its inefficiency due to manual measurement.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.114-120
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to examine the status of quality control using multipurpose phantom of ultrasound equipment used in hospital of veterinary college in South Korea by using ATS-539 multipurpose phantom so as to examine quantitative and objective new image evaluation method. Specialists discussed and analyzed multipurpose phantom images acquired by using convex transducer of 10 ultrasound imaging devices, currently used in 9 veterinary colleges, at 4.0-6.0 MHz. Total 8 items that can be measured with ATS-539 multipurpose phantom including dead zone, vertical and horizontal measurement, axial/lateral resolution, sensitivity, focal zone, functional resolution and gray scale/dynamic range were evaluated. For qualitative evaluation, valid decisions were made based on dead zone, axial/lateral resolution, and gray scale/dynamic range which are resolution index, and coefficient of variation (COV) and blind referenceless image spatial quality evaluator (BRISQUE) were found to increase objectivity. As a result of experiment, all the targeted ultrasonic devices were found appropriate from qualitative evaluation items of dead zone, axial/lateral resolution, and gray scale/dynamic range. In other evaluation items, they were found to be appropriate from focal zone and vertical measurement of quantitative evaluation while inappropriate from horizontal measurement, sensitivity, and functional resolution. COV value was 0.12 ± 0.04, and BRISQUE value was 47.77 ± 2.77, both analysis results show that the noise level of all ultrasonic devices was located within tolerance range. Upon image examination using ATS-539 multipurpose phantom, they were 100% appropriate with inspection standards of dead zone, axial/lateral resolution, and gray scale/dynamic range, and besides, focal zone and functional resolution can be used as evaluation items. In the field of veterinary medicine, 8 standard items using ATS-539 multipurpose phantom and image evaluation items using COV and BRISQUE can be used as standards for quality control of ultrasonography machine.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.200-203
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• 2009

Ultrasonic techniques have the advantage of determining the burning rates with wide range of pressure in only a single test. However, ultrasonic techniques have a drawback, which is that they are using high frequency transducers and it is easily affected by noise. Therefore, ultrasonic measurement method needs noise reduction algorithm to improve or grantee accuracy of burning rate measurements of solid propellants using ultrasound. Thus, in the present study, we propose a noise reduction method of measured ultrasonic signals by applying wavelet shrinkage.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.48-58
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• 2019

We investigate the signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) of time-domain (i.e. pulsed illumination) and frequency-domain (i.e. chirped illumination) photoacoustic signals measured by a spherically focused ultrasound transducer for spherical absorbers. The simulation results show that the time-domain photoacoustic SNR is higher than that of frequency-domain photoacoustic signals, as reported in the previous literature. We understand the reason for this SNR gap between the two measurement modes by analyzing photoacoustic-signal spectra, considering the incident beam energy controlled by the maximum permissible exposure. As the result of this approach, we find that filtering off the DC term in the chirped signal's spectrum improves frequency-domain photoacoustic SNRs by up to approximately 5 dB. In particular, it is observed that photoacoustic SNRs are highly sensitive to an upper-frequency value of frequency filtering functions, and the optimal upper-frequency values maximizing the SNR are different in time- and frequency-domain photoacoustic measurements.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.403-411
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• 2023

Functional ultrasound imaging, such as elasticity imaging and micro-blood flow Doppler imaging, enhances diagnostic capability by providing useful mechanical and functional information about tissues. However, the implementation of functional ultrasound imaging poses limitations such as the storage of vast amounts of data in Radio Frequency (RF) data acquisition and processing. In this paper, we propose a sub-Nyquist approach that reduces the amount of acquired axial samples for efficient shear-wave elasticity imaging. The proposed method acquires data at a sampling rate one-third lower than the conventional Nyquist sampling rate and tracks shear-wave signals through RF signals reconstructed using band-pass filtering-based interpolation. In this approach, the RF signal is assumed to have a fractional bandwidth of 67 %. To validate the approach, we reconstruct the shear-wave velocity images using shear-wave tracking data obtained by conventional and proposed approaches, and compare the group velocity, contrast-to-noise ratio, and structural similarity index measurement. We qualitatively and quantitatively demonstrate the potential of sub-Nyquist sampling-based shear-wave elasticity imaging, indicating that our approach could be practically useful in three-dimensional shear-wave elasticity imaging, where a massive amount of ultrasound data is required.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
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• v.44 no.2 s.314
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• pp.10-17
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• 2007

The echo signal on ultrasonic transducer is a mixed signal from tissues, blood vessel walls, blood cells and noise. In this mixed-signal, the signal reflected from tissues and blood vessel walls is called clutter. It is necessary to extract pure blood signal from this mixed-signal, when measuring blood flow velocity with medical ultrasonic system The quality of measured blood flow velocity is highly dependent on sufficient attenuation of the clutter signals. In this paper, we suggest a clutter rejection method using ICA For simulation, the echo signals are generated by Field n ultrasonic simulation program In this echo signals, independent signals are separated by using ICA Then the blood signal is obtained from the separated signals. Blood flow velocity is measured by 2D autocorrelation method. We compare ICA clutter rejection method with PCA-based eigen filter method using both measured blood flow velocity profiles by 2D autocorrelation. In simulation results, ICA clutter rejection method can be better applied measuring blood flow velocity in noisy echo signals.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.8 no.11
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• pp.1-9
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• 2008

Thanks to the multimedia technology development, it is possible to show image representations in high quality and to process images in various ways. Anisotropic diffusion as an effective diffusion filtering among many image preprocessing methods and postprocessing methods is used in reduction of speckle noises of ultrasound images, image restoration, edge detection, and image segmentation. However, the conventional anisotropic diffusion based on a cross-kernel causes the following problems. The problem is the concentration of edges in the vertical or horizontal directions. In this paper, a new anisotropic diffusion transform based on directions of gradient is proposed. The proposed method uses the eight directional square-kernel which is an expanded form of the cross-kernel. The proposed method is to select directions of small gradient based on square-kernel. Therefore, the range of proposed diffusion is selected adaptively according to the number of the directions of gradient. Experimental results show that the proposed method can decrease the concentration of edges in the vertical or horizontal directions, remove impulse noise. The image in high quality can be obtained as a result of the proposed method.