• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.551-563
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• 2012

Medical ultrasound systems have been used since 1950s, and are now widely used in most hospitals as indispensable diagnostic imaging systems. Since array probe was introduced in 1970s, beamforming technology using electronic signal processing has been adopted to the medical ultrasound system, and has been improved. Beamforming is a important technology which defines the resolution of the ultrasound system. In this paper, the technologies are introduced from basic beamforming principles to current trend. They include principles of beamforming using array probe, basic theory, and practical implementation, and recent topics of synthetic aperture imaging, adaptive beamforming, 2-dimensional beamforming using 2-dimensional array are also introduced. These various technologies will improve system performances continuously by merging innovatively with various technologies in other fields.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.490-496
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• 2010

In this study, in order to overcome the weakness of acoustic field analysis which is generally used for ultrasonic probe performance evaluation, automatic acoustic field measurement system and evaluation parameters were proposed. The comparisons between acoustic field simulation and measured acoustic distribution data of normal and abnormal channels were conducted to evaluate the availability of proposed system and evaluation parameters. First, the impulse response characteristic of sample probe was investigated to classify the normal elements and abnormal elements. And then, normal channels and abnormal channels with abnormal element were chosen. The suggested 12 evaluation parameters were calculated using the acoustic fields of these channels. The availability of proposed automatic acoustic field measurement system and evaluation parameters was confirmed. And the performance evaluation of ultrasonic probe using acoustic field analysis could be easier and faster.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.346-354
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• 2018

In the probe of a medical ultrasound device, three parts were selected randomly by the examiner and the bacteria in the probe were detected by the blood examiners. In addition, the degree of death of the pathogenic bacteria after each disinfection of the detected pathogens, disinfecting ethanol, and disinfecting tissue of the detected pathogens were analyzed quantitatively. The following was detected: S Aureus (32.3 %), Bacillus spp. (26.5 %), Micrococcus spp. (21.5 %), and CNS (20 %). With the conventional probe, S. aureus (26.2 %), a playback curve (24.2 %), and a micron (19.5 %), Micrococcus spp. (15.5 %), and CNS (14.6 %) were observed. In the fan probe, S. aureus (24.7 %), Enterococcus (24.7 %), Enterococcus (17.7 %), and CNS (13.8 %) were detected. The disinfection of the three pathogens detected revealed sterilization of most of the pathogens, and most cases contained at least 91.3 % of the total sterilizing effect (P>0.05). In addition, for the disinfection of Propolis extract and disinfecting tissue, the disinfection effect was lower than that of disinfecting ethanol, but the difference was not statistically significant (P>0.05). The results revealed bacteria on most of the ultrasound probes. Antiseptic disinfection of surgical instruments using an extract of propolis works with results similar to those of ethanol. A blood test along with disinfection can help prevent infection if an ultrasound probe is applied to food.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.10 no.10
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• pp.75-80
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• 2019

During the medical ultrasound exercise at school, we randomly select parts of the ultrasound device and areas with the most contact in the abdominal phantom to detect bacteria that are above the probe and determine the number of pathogens. I want to find out. The experimental method was rubbed 20 times with the sterilized cotton swab for sterilization and then smeared on Lysogeny broth (LB) agar, put into the incubator and incubated for 48 hours, and the colony forming unit (CFU) count was measured. The bacterial distribution of probe handle and abdominal phantom was evaluated by evaluation. As a result, the CFU value is the lens was $3.0{\pm}0.87$, print button was $5.5{\pm}1.06$, freeze button was $8.0{\pm}4.95$, phantom was $20.0{\pm}2.78$, line was $23.5{\pm}2.50$, and probe handle was measured as $35.3{\pm}10.75$. In this study, it is expected that attention to infection control of equipment during practice during medical ultrasound practice can be highlighted and further contributed to the reduction of bacterial infection rate of ultrasound devices.

• Physical Therapy Korea
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.15-27
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• 2003

Therapeutic ultrasound is commonly applied for deep heating in physical therapy setting. However, it is difficult to determine the exact application dosage and to confirm the immediate heating effect. Microwave Radio-Thermometer (MRT) can measure the temperature by the electromagnetic energy in the microwave region of the object that emits above absolute zero temperature. MRT was used for early diagnosis of breast cancer since it was not harmful, non-invasive, and non-ionizing to the human body. The purposes of this study were to investigate how accurately 1.1 GHz RTM (RES Ltd. Russia) measures the change of average temperature in the tissue, and to determine the depth of temperature change measurement. Therapeutic ultrasound was applied (continuous wave for 5 minutes, 1 MHz, intensity of 1.5 $W/cm^2$ [in vitro] and 1.0 $W/cm^2$ [in vivo]) in four different conditions: (1) 30 cases of in vitro specimen of pork, (2) 30 cases of in vitro specimen of pork ankle joint, (3) 10 cases of in vivo canine thigh, and (4) 30 cases of in vivo human body. Intraclass Correlation Coeffients (ICC[3,1]) between average needle probe thermometer below surface and MRT temperature was revealed as followed: (1) Before ultrasound application ICCs ranges above .8 in specimen of pork (15 mm underneath the skin) and above .82 in specimen of pork ankle joint (10~30 mm underneath the skin). (2) After ultrasound application ICCs ranges above .7 in both specimens of pork and pork ankle joint. (3) Before ultrasound application ICCs ranges above .8 in canine thigh (20 mm underneath the skin). (4) After ultrasound application ICCs ranges above .82 in canine thigh. The temperature of the human body increased significantly with the mean of $15^{\circ}C$ in muscle tissue and with the mean of $3.5^{\circ}C$ in joint (p<.00). It was revealed that the average depth of temperature measurement of the tissue by MRT was in between 10 and 35 mm, and determined that the proper temperature measurement band was $36.5{\sim}37.0^{\circ}C$.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.173-176
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• 2022

Intravenous catheterization is a common procedure in human and veterinary medicine. Occasionally, a catheter might break within the blood vessel, and the fragment may cause embolization, infections, or other severe complications, and therefore must be removed promptly. For a successful and low-risk removal, the fragment should be localized accurately; however, ultrasound may be challenging to perform on small dogs due to inadequate probes. We report the case of a 2-year-old, 2.6 kg, intact female toy poodle that presented to the veterinary medical center owing to a recent onion intake; the owner requested to induce emesis. A 24 gauge peripheral intravenous catheter was inserted into the cephalic vein prior to the emetic injection. When the clinician removed the catheter, a device breakage was observed. A tourniquet was applied immediately proximal to the elbow. Ultrasonography was performed with a high-frequency small-footprint linear array transducer, also called a hockey-stick probe, to localize the fragment. An additional ultrasound was performed before surgery to confirm the location of the catheter piece, which migrated 5 cm proximally. Afterward, a surgical intervention allowed us to retrieve the fragment. This report highlights the effectiveness of a hockey-stick probe to determine the location of a catheter fragment in small breed dogs.

• 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 KIISE:Software and Applications
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.418-426
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• 2006

This paper proposes a robust and efficient segmentation method for a cardiac ultrasound image taken from a probe inserted into the heart in surgery. The method consists of three steps: initial boundary extraction, whole boundary modification using confidence competition, and local boundary modification using the rolling spoke method. Firstly, the initial boundary is extracted with threshold regions along the global spokes emitted from the center of an ultrasound probe. Secondly, high confidence boundary edges are detected along the global spokes by competing among initial boundary candidate and new candidates achieved by edge and appearance information. finally, the boundary is modified by rolling local spokes along concave regions that are difficult to extract using the global spokes. The proposed method produces promising segmentation results for the ultrasound cardiac images acquired during surgery.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.147-152
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• 2022

This research is to measure real-time temperature distribution inside a tissue-mimicking phantom for the safety and effectiveness evaluations of focused ultrasound (FUS) device capable of linear scanning stimulation. Since the focusing area of the FUS stimulation device is smaller than diameter of conventional thermal probe and keeps moving, it is impossible to monitor temperature distribution inside the phantom. By using the phantom with a thin film temperature sensor array inserted, real-time temperature change caused by the FUS device was measured. The translation of the measured temperature peak was also tracked successfully. The present phantom had been experimentally proven to be applicable to validate the performance and safety of the therapeutic ultrasound devices.

• Physical Therapy Rehabilitation Science
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.259-267
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• 2023

Objective: Rehabilitative ultrasound imaging is a safe and noninvasive technique for evaluating muscle thickness. A dual probe-fixing frame (DPF) can provide visual feedback during exercises targeting specific muscles. The purpose of this research was to verify the reliability and validity of the DPF for dual-probe ultrasound (DPU)-based visual feedback exercises, allowing users to use both hands freely. Design: This cross-sectional study used repeated measures to compare muscle thickness measurements obtained using the handheld device and DPF with DPU. Methods: Twenty healthy adults participated in the study. Measurements were taken over two sessions, with a two-day interval between the sessions. The thicknesses of the rectus abdominis (RA) and transverse abdominis (TrA) muscles were measured using DPU. The DPF with DPU developed by the research team, was used along with a laptop-based muscle viewer. Bland-Altman analysis and intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) calculations were used in statistical analyses to evaluate agreement and reliability, respectively. Results: The results of the Bland-Altman analysis showed small average differences between the handheld and DPF methods for both RA and TrA muscle thicknesses. Inter-rater reliability analysis showed high ICC values for DPF measurements of both RA (0.908-0.912) and TrA (0.892-741) muscle thicknesses. Intra-rater reliability analysis also showed good ICC values for measurements taken by a single examiner over two days. Conclusion: The findings of this study demonstrate that the DPF provides reliable and valid measurements of muscle thickness during visual feedback exercises using the DPU.