• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.153-160
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• 2018

3D ultrasound bladder scanners are getting popular in hospitals for the patients with bladder dysfunction. A current bladder scanner adopts a mechanical scan to acquire 3D images and requires two motors and complicated mechanical devices. In this paper, we propose a new ultrasound bladder scanner using hand-motion scan. Instead of two motors and mechanical devices, it has a motion sensor to record transducer positions during hand-motion scan. The experiments with a bladder phantom and volunteers showed similar measurement accuracy to a conventional 3D ultrasound bladder scanner. We expect that the proposed method will reduce the cost and size of the bladder scanner.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.66-78
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• 2009

A mobile ultrasound scanner developed for use in point-of-care applications is introduced, which can not only provide ultrasound images but can also measure various bio-signals. The mobile ultrasound scanner is also designed to meet the demanding requirements for point-of-care diagnosis, such as battery-powered operation, portability in terms of size and weigh, and real-time wireless communications capability for remote diagnosis. To meet these requirements, an efficient beamforming method for high resolution imaging with a small number of active elements, a hardware efficient beamformer architecture, and echo processing algorithms with greatly reduced computational complexity have been developed. Experimental results show that the prototype mobile ultrasound scanner is fully functional and satisfies most of the design requirements.

• Korean Journal of Digital Imaging in Medicine
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.81-87
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• 2010

The setting parameters of ultrasound scanner give influences to change of image. Sonographers have used a Matlab program to make Low Contrast Sensitivity(LCS) value and compared original images in order to evaluate the use of the supersonic diagnosis machinery. We confirmed the change of image in Grayscale values using Photoshop program. Experiment equipment of our research used A Medison Accuvix V10, A Multi-Tissue Ultrasound Phantom(040 GSE) of CHRIS Company, A Adobe Photoshop CS4 Program, A Convex Probe, A USB memory stick, A Probe Fixation Equipment. The method used Gain, Dynamic Range(DR) of the setting parameters of ultrasound scanner and researched Gain and DR was set to 10 dB. We changed the different settings to see the changes of images using Grayscale values of a Photoshop program about tissue images of a phantom. This study evaluated DR and Gain whether it is an image controller to get the optimum contrast to produce an image to see the how effect on the images. We did not use Gateway in supersonic diagnosis machinery. We can easily open to open the files through Photoshop program before we get Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine(DICOM) files use USB memory stick in supersonic diagnosis machinery. When we diagnosed the lesion of the patient with ultrasound, the contrast and the Gray scale value of image are very important. In this research, we determined the optimum setting parameters that provided useful information to diagnose disease and evaluated the change of improved images.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.33-42
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• 1996

A multimedia remote ultrasound image transfer system for tole-medical services was implemented. The image data of the ultrasound scanner system of the slave is compressed using image compression system. It is transferred to the master PC via ISDN UNI(User-Network Interface) and decompressd by image decompression system. The total system is composed of three parts; first, the image capture card which transfers bidirection- al data between ultrasound scanner system and PC, second, image compression and decompression card, finally, ISDN TA(Terminal Adaptor) card for transferring the image. This system has a easy user interface because it is executed on the basis of MS-WINDOWS. So it is capable of serving medical services at a remote place.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.77-84
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• 1984

A prototype of a linear real-time ultrasound B-scanner has been developed which has an axial resolution of 1-2mm and lateral resolution of 2-3mm. In the actual hardware and software implementations of the B-scanner, the following features were emphasized; (1) a dynamic focusing to improve resolution; (2) signal processing to obtain low noise image; (3) various functions for the user's convenience' (4) simplification of the system by an extensive use of recently developed LSI's; (5) development of a prototype at the level of a commercial product. This paper reports the experimental results of the overall system and the design approach of the analog part. The work on the digital part of the B-scanner is reported in part (II) seperately.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.681-687
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• 2011

Bioorgan transgenic cloned mini pig has a problem of growth retardation in uterus during end of pregnancy so that survival rate is very low in newborn piglet. In order to support their life after birth, cesarean section of fetus with sufficient growth in uterus was tested in this study. First of all, fetus growth measured using a ultrasound scanner during pregnancy in transgenic mini pig, comparing normal pig. After 113 days for delivering, fetus was removed out of uterus. Fetus growth for normal pig was 1.8 cm at 4weeks and 14.4 cm at end of pregnancy (15 weeks). At 113 days, fetus growth was $15.9{\pm}4$ cm in ultrasound scanner and real growth measurement from fetus removal out of uterus was $16.0{\pm}2$ cm. It is very a similar result between measurement of ultrasound scanner and real measurement. Therefore, using ultrasound scanner for measuring fetus growth will be useful to predict fetus growth in uterus.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.59-66
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• 1986

A prototype ultrasound sector B-scanner has been developed where the front-end hardware refers to all the necessary circuits for transmitting the ultrasound pulses into the human body and receiving the reflected echo signals from it. The front-end hardware can generally be divided into three parts, i.e., a pulse generator for insonification, a receiver which is responsible for processing of low-level analog signals, and a steering controller for driving the mechanical sector probe whose functions and design concepts are described in this paper. The front-end hardware is implemented which incorporates the following features: improvement of the axial resolution using a circuit which reduces the ring-down time, flexibility of generating time-gain compensation curve, and adoption of a one-chip microcomputer for generating the rate pulses based on the sensor output waveforms.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.18 no.7
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• pp.949-956
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• 2005

The weekly ultrasound scanner (US) observations of reproductive organs in a commercial dairy herd with the popular stanchion style management were conducted for over 26 months. Based on reproductive records, the following were evaluated: 1) the effect of postpartum period commencement of US monitoring on herd reproductive efficacy, and 2) the effectiveness of a US monitoring-based diagnosis and subsequent treatments of reproductive disorders on postpartum reproductive efficiency. The reproductive parameters of cows, which were subjected to US monitoring between Days 30-40 (Day 0 = day of parturition), Days 41-50, Days 51-60, and above Day 61, were compared. The reproductive parameters of cows diagnosed as having reproductive disorders (RD) with US monitoring before or after the first artificial insemination (AI) were also compared. It was found that the day of commencement of US monitoring in cows diagnosed with and without RD significantly affected the period towards the first AI and the open period. In particular, cystic follicles and anoestrus detected either before or after the first AI significantly affected herd reproductive efficiency. The implementation of US monitoring improved reproductive efficiency by reducing the open period and increasing the number of milking cows in the herd. The results of this field trial indicate that the postpartum reproductive management of dairy cows with the use of the US monitoring system is one strategy to improve reproductive efficiency, especially in a high-yielding dairy herd reared stanchion management style.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.423-428
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• 2007

Programmable FIR filters are used in various signal processing tasks in medical ultrasound imaging, which are one of the major factors increasing hardware complexity. A widely used method to reduce the hardware complexity of a programmable FIR filter is to encode the filter coefficients in the canonic signed digit (CSD) format to minimize the number of nonzero digits (NZD) so that the multipliers for each filter coefficients can be replaced with fixed shifters and programmable multiplexers (PM). In this paper, a new structure for programmable FIR filters with a improved frequency response and a reduced hardware complexity compared to the conventional shift-and-add architecture using PM is proposed for implementing a very small portable ultrasound scanner. The CSD codes are optimized such that there exists at least one common nonzero digit between neighboring coefficients. Such common digits are then implemented with the same shifters. For comparison, synthesisable VHDL models for programmable FIR filters are developed based on the proposed and the conventional architectures. When these filters have the same hardware complexity, pass-band ana stop-band ripples of the proposed filter are lower than those of the conventional filter by about $0.01{\sim}0.19dB$ and by about $5{\sim}10dB$, respectively. For the same filter performance, the hardware complexity of the proposed architecture is reduced by more than 20% compare to the conventional SaA architecture.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.41-47
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• 2013

Purpose: To describe the early experience of analyzing variations and time trends in bladder volume of the rectal cancer patients who received bladder ultrasound scan. Materials and Methods: We identified 20 consecutive rectal cancer patients who received whole pelvic radiotherapy (RT) and bladder ultrasound scan between February and April 2012. Before simulation and during the entire course of treatment, patients were scanned with portable automated ultrasonic bladder scanner, 5 times consecutively, and the median value was reported. Then a radiation oncologist contoured the bladder inner wall shown on simulation computed tomography (CT) and calculated its volume. Results: Before simulation, the median bladder volume measured using simulation CT and bladder ultrasound scan was 427 mL (range, 74 to 1,172 mL) and 417 mL (range, 147 to 1,245 mL), respectively. There was strong linear correlation (R = 0.93, p < 0.001) between the two results. During the course of treatment, there were wide variations in the bladder volume and every time, measurements were below the baseline with statistical significance (12/16). At 6 weeks after RT, the median volume was reduced by 59.3% to 175 mL. Compared to the baseline, bladder volume was reduced by 38% or 161 mL on average every week for 6 weeks. Conclusion: To our knowledge, this study is the first to prove that there are bladder volume variations and a reduction in bladder volume in rectal cancer patients. Moreover, our results will serve as the basis for implementation of bladder training to patients receiving RT with full bladder.