• Archives of Plastic Surgery
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.356-360
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• 2009

Purpose: Lipofibromatous Hamartoma(LFH) of nerve is a tumor - like lipomatous process principally involving the young persons. This is rare disease characterized by a soft slowly growing mass surrounding and infiltrating major nerves and their branches of the palm and digits. LFH of nerve usually affects the median nerve, with the most common sites of presentation being the distal forearm and hand in the wrist or palm. It may cause symptoms of compression neuropathy and is associated with macrodactyly. Recently, MRI plays a major role in confirming the diagnosis of LFH. Therefore, we present two cases of LFH in the hand with MRI features and surgical management. Methods: One is 6 - years - old female who presented with macrodactyly involving both the soft tissue and bony parts of the second, third and forth digits of her right hand. The other one is 16 - years - old man who presented involving the soft tissue of the second and third digits of his right hand, with pain and numbness, along with motor and sensory deficits in the median nerve distribution. To evaluation about LFH, we enforced preoperative MRI and physical examination. After confirming the diagnosis of LFH, we proposed decompression of all compromised peripheral nerve to help alleviate pain and paresthesia to reduce the likelihood of permanent motor and sensory sequelae. Results: A characteristic feature on MRI is the appearance of serpentiform nerve fascicle surrounded by fibro - fatty tissue within the expended nerve sheet. Distribution of fat between fascicles is asymmetric. Two cases were treated by limited debulking of the redundant tumor tissue and excision of epineurial fatty tissue. These cases were performed with relief of symptom. Conclusion: MRI not only confirms the diagnosis, it also provides a detailed assessment of nerve involvement preoperatively. Especially, on coronal images, the nerve has a spagetti - like appearance that is pathognomonic of LFH. Recommendations for early treatment include decompression of the carpal tunnel, debulking of the fibro - fatty sheath, microsurgical dissection of the neural elements and excision of involve nerve with or without grafting.

• Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
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• v.34 no.12
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• pp.1056-1064
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• 2007

Biomolecular computing is a new computing paradigm that uses biomolecules such as DNA for information representation and processing. The huge number of molecules in a small volume and the innate massive parallelism inspired a novel computation method, and various computation models and molecular algorithms were developed for problem solving. In the meantime, the use of biomolecules for information processing supports the possibility of DNA computing as an application for biological problems. It has the potential as an analysis tool for biochemical information such as gene expression patterns. In this context, a DNA computing-based model of a biomolecular perceptron has been proposed and the result of its experimental implementation was presented previously. The weight encoding and weighted sum operation, which are the main components of a biomolecular perceptron, are based on the competitive hybridization reactions between the input molecules and weight-encoding probe molecules. However, thermodynamic symmetry in the competitive hybridizations is assumed, so there can be some error in the weight representation depending on the probe species in use. Here we suggest a generalized model of hybridization reactions considering the asymmetric thermodynamics in competitive hybridizations and present a weight encoding method for the reliable implementation of a biomolecular perceptron based on this model. We compare the accuracy of our weight encoding method with that of the previous one via computer simulations and present the condition of probe composition to satisfy the error limit.

• Journal of International Academy of Physical Therapy Research
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.573-587
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was conducted in order to analyze the effects of the manual intervention and self-corrective exercise models of general coordinative manipulation(GCM) on the balance restoration of spine & extremities joints with distortions and mal-alignment areas. The subjects were the members who visited GCM Musculoskeletal Prevent Exercise Center from March 1 2012 to December 31 2013 because of spine & extremities joints distortion and mal-alignments, poor posture, and body type correction. All subjects were diagnosed with the four types of the GBT diagnosis. And according to the standards of the mobility vs stability types of the upper & lower body, they were classified into Group 1(40 persons) and Group 2(24 persons). For every other day for three times a week, GCM intervention models were applied to all subjects for four weeks, adding up to 12 times in total. Then the balance restoration effects were re-evaluated with the same methods. The results are as follows. 1) Balance restoration effects of VASdp(Visual analysis scale pain & discomfort) and ER(Equilibrium reaction: ER) came out higher in GCM body type(GBT) II III IV of Group 1. 2) In case of balance restoration effects in Moire and postural evaluation areas, Group 1 was higher and cervical and scapular girdle were higher in Group 2. The balance restoration of the four GBT types was significant in all regions(p<.05), and the scapular girdle came out as high in the order of GBTII IV I. 3) In case of thoracic-lumbar scoliosis and head rotation facial asymmetric cervical scoliosis ribcage forward, the balance restoration effects of the upper body postural evaluation areas came out the highest in Group 1 and Group 2, respectively. The balance restoration effects of the four GBT types were significant in all regions(p<.05), and came out the highest in lumbar scoliosis GBTIII I, ribcage forward and thoracic scoliosis GBTII IV. 4) The balance restoration effects of the lower body postural evaluation areas came out higher in Group 1 and Group 2 for pelvis girdle deviation patella high umbilicus tilt and hallux valgus foot longitudinal arch: FLA patella direction, respectively. The balance restoration effects of the four GBT types were significant in all regions(p<.05), and came out the highest in pelvis girdle deviation GBTIII I and patella high-direction GBTIV II I. 5) The balance restoration effects between the same GBT came out significant (p<.05) in all evaluation areas and items. The conclusions of this study was the manual intervention and self-corrective exercise models of the GCM about the mal-alignment of the spine & extremities joints across the whole body indicated high balance restoration effects(p<.05) in spine & extremities joints in all evaluation areas.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.636-643
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• 2000

Facial asymmetry is the most frequent disease in craniofacial deformities. And the primary causing area of that is mostly placing in mandible. That is to say, it is known that primarily, mandible grows excessively or deficiently, and other facial region involving maxilla undergoes compensatory growth secondarily, so asymmetric face develops. In facial asymmetry, the surgical correction of undergrowth is more difficult than that of overgrowth and the reason of it is the postoperative relapse caused by stress of surrounding soft tissues. It means the stress of surrounding soft tissues occurring after bone lengthening and reducing above stress is the same meaning with reducing postoperative relapse. Among various areas, mandibular ramus is the most difficult area to lengthen vertically and maintain its length. The reason of it is considered by many authors as the stress of surrounding pterygomasseteric sling which is enveloping lower border of mandible and interrupting elongation of ramal height. So we applied two different surgical procedures in which pterygomasseteric slings have different stress respectively to monkeys which have similar masticatory function and anatomy to human being and compared relapse by radiographic film and observed periodically the histochemical change of masseteric muscle fiber. So we could see the following results. The relapse was less in EVRO group in which we separated pterygomasseric sling in inferior border and didn't approximate muscle sling after vertical lengthening to minimize the stress of soft tissues than IVRO group in which we elongated ramal height preserving pterygomassetric sling. Of course, we could see a problem in EVRO group such as bone resorption in inferior border caused by uncovering the periosteum of inferior border. But we expect that such problem will be solved by developing periosteum substitutes for covering the exposed bone and minimizing the surgical trauma. In histochemical study of masseteric muscle fiber, the fiber constituents of EVRO group in which we minimized soft tissue stress was changed immediately after operation and maintained it for 1 year, whereas that of IVRO group in which we preserved soft tissue stress was changed in more portion after operation and recovered it by 1 year. By the histochemical results, we can see that the recovery of fiber constituents reflect the recovery of muscle stress and it is closely related with relapse phenomenon.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea CI
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.80-91
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• 2010

As the volume of image data increases dramatically, its good organization of image data is crucial for efficient image retrieval. Clustering is a typical way of organizing image data. However, traditional clustering methods have a difficulty of requiring a user to provide the number of clusters as a parameter before clustering. In this paper, we discuss an approach for clustering image data that does not require the parameter. Basically, the proposed approach is based on Cross-Association that finds a structure or patterns hidden in data using the relationship between individual objects. In order to apply Cross-Association to clustering of image data, we convert the image data into a graph first. Then, we perform Cross-Association on the graph thus obtained and interpret the results in the clustering perspective. We also propose the method of hierarchical clustering and the method of outlier detection based on Cross-Association. By performing a series of experiments, we verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Finally, we discuss the finding of a good value of k used in k-nearest neighbor search and also compare the clustering results with symmetric and asymmetric ways used in building a graph.

• Proceedings of the KSMRM Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.103-105
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• 2003

After fifteen years of development, Magnetic Resonance (MR) technology for human imaging and spectroscopy is reaching a refined state with FDA approved 3T clinical products from Siemens, GE, and Philips. Broker has cleared CE approval with a 4T system. Varian supports a 4T system platform as well. Shielded magnets are standard at 3T from GE, Oxford, Magnex, and IGC. A shielded 4T whole body magnet is available from Oxford. Stronger switched gradients and dynamic shim coils, desired at any field, areespecially useful at higher static magnetic fields B0. In addition to the higher currents required for higher resolution slice or volume selection afforded by higher SNR, whole body gradient coils will be driven at increasing slew rates to meet the needs of new cardiac applications and other requirements. For example 3T and 4T systems are now being equipped with 2kV, 500A gradient coils and amplifiers capable of generating 4G/cm in 200msec, over a 67+/-cm bore diameter. High field EPI applications require oscillation rates at 1 kHz and higher. To achieve a benchmark 0.2 ppm shim over a 30cm sphere in a high field magnet, at least four stages of shimming need to be considered. 1) A good high field magnet will be built to a homogeneity spec. falling in the range of 100 to 150 ppm over this 30cm spherical "sweet spot" 2) Most modern high field magnets will also have superconducting shim coils capable of finding 1.5 ppm by their adjustment during system installation. 3) Passive ferro-magnetic shimming combined with 4) active, high order room temperature shim coils (as many as five orders are now being recommended) will accomplish 0.2 ppm over the 30cm sphere, and 0.1 ppm over a human brain in even the highest field magnets for human studies. Safety concerns for strong, fast gradients at any B0 field include acoustic noise and peripheral nerve stimulation. One or more of the mechanical decoupling methods may lead to quieter gradients. Patient positioning relative to asymmetric or short gradient coils may limit peripheral nerve stimulation at higher slew rates. Gradient designs combining a short coil for local speed and strength with a longer coil for coverage are being developed for 3T systems. Local gradients give another approach to maximizing performance over a limited region while keeping within the physiologically imposed dB0/dt performance limits.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.3037-3040
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• 2013

Introduction: Mammography is the most basic modality in breast cancer imaging. However, the overlap of breast tissue depicted on conventional two-dimensional mammography (2DMMG) may create significant obstacles to detecting abnormalities, especially in dense or heterogeneously dense breasts. In three-dimensional digital breast tomosynthesis (3DBT), tomographic images of the breast are reconstructed from multiple projections acquired at different angles. It has reported that this technology allows the generation of 3D data, therefore overcoming the limitations of conventional 2DMMG for Western women. We assessed the detectability of lesions by conventional 2DMMG and 3DBT in diagnosis of breast cancer for Japanese women. Methods: The subjects were 195 breasts of 99 patients (median age of 48 years, range 34~82 years) that had been pathologically diagnosed with breast cancer from December 20, 2010 through March 31, 2011. Both conventional 2DMMG and 3DBT imaging were performed for all patients. Detectability of lesions was assessed based on differences in category class. Results: Of the affected breasts, 77 (75.5%) had lesions assigned to the same categories by 2DMMG and 3DBT. For 24 (23.5%) lesions, the category increased in 3DBT indicating improvement in diagnostic performance compared to 2DMMG. 3DBT improved diagnostic sensitivity for patients with mass, focal asymmetric density (FAD), and architectural distortion. However, 3DBT was not statistically superior in diagnosis of the presence or absence of calcification. Conclusions: In this study, 3DBT was superior in diagnosing lesions in form of mass, FAD, and/or architectural distortion. 3DBT is a novel technique that may provide a breakthrough in solving the difficulties of diagnosis caused by parenchyma overlap for Japanese women.

• Maxillofacial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
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• v.37
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• pp.33.1-33.9
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• 2015

Background: The porion (Po) is used to construct the Frankfort horizontal (FH) plane for cephalometrics, and the external auditory meatus (EAM) is to transfer and mount the dental model with facebow. The classical assumption is that EAM represents Po by the parallel positioning. However, we are sometimes questioning about the possible positional disparity between Po and EAM, when the occlusal cant or facial midline is different from our clinical understandings. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the positional parallelism of Po and EAM in facial asymmetries, and also to investigate their relationship with the maxillary occlusal cant. Methods: The 67 subjects were classified into three groups. Group I had normal subjects with facial symmetry ($1.05{\pm}0.52mm$ of average chin deviation) with minimal occlusal cant (<1.5 mm). Asymmetry group II-A had no maxillary occlusal cant (average $0.60{\pm}0.36$), while asymmetry group II-B had occlusal cant (average $3.72{\pm}1.47$). The distances of bilateral Po, EAM, and mesiobuccal cusp tips of the maxillary first molars (Mx) from the horizontal orbital plane (Orb) and the coronal plane were measured on the three-dimensional computed tomographic images. Their right and left side distance discrepancies were calculated and statistically compared. Results: EAM was located 10.3 mm below and 2.3 mm anterior to Po in group I. The vertical distances from Po to EAM of both sides were significantly different in group II-B (p=0.001), while other groups were not. Interside discrepancy of the vertical distances from EAM to Mx in group II-B also showed the significant differences, as compared with those from Po to Mx and from Orb to Mx. Conclusions: The subjects with facial asymmetry and prominent maxillary occlusal cant tend to have the symmetric position of Po but asymmetric EAM. Some caution or other measures will be helpful for them to be used during the clinical procedures.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Medical Physics Conference
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• 2005.04a
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• pp.59-63
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• 2005

Respiration motion causes movement of internal structures in the thorax and abdomen, making accurate delivery of radiation therapy to tumors in those areas a challenge. Accounting for such motion during treatment, therefore, has the potential to reduce margins drawn around the clinical target volume (CTV), resulting in a lower dose to normal tissues (e.g., lung and liver) and thus a lower risk of treatment induced complications. Among the techniques that explicitly account for intrafraction motion are breath-hold, respiration gating, and 4D or tumor-tracking techniques. Respiration gating methods periodically turn the beam on when the patient's respiration signal is in a certain part of the respiratory cycle (generally end-inhale or end-exhale). These techniques require acquisition of some form of respiration motion signal (infrared reflective markers, spirometry, strain gauge, thermistor, video tracking of chest outlines and fluoroscopic tracking of implanted markers are some of the techniques employed to date), which is assumed to be correlated with internal anatomy motion. In preliminary study for the respiratory gating radiation therapy, we performed to measurement of this respiration motion signal. In order to measure the respiratory motion signals of patient, respiration measurement system (RMS) was composed with three sensor (spirometer, thermistor, and belt transducer), 4 channel data acquisition system and mobile computer. For two patients, we performed to evaluation of respiratory cycle and shape with RMS. We observed under this system that respiratory cycle is generally periodic but asymmetric, with the majority of time spent. As expected, RMS traced patient's respiration each other well and be easily handled for application.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.323-332
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• 1996

Purpose : The wedge filter is the most commonly used beam modifying device during radiation therapy Recently dynamic wedge technique is available through the computer controlled asymmetric collimator, independent jaw. But dosimetric characteristics of dynamic wedge technique is not well known. Therefore we evaluate dosimetric characteristics of dynamic wedge compared to conventional fixed wedge. Materials and Methods : We evaluated dosimetric characteristics of dynamic wedge and fixed wedge by ion chamber, film dosimetry and TLD in phantoms such as water, polystyrene and average breast phantom. Six MV x-ray was used in $15{\times}15cm$ field with 15,30 and 45 degree wedge of dynamic/liked wedge system, Dosimeric characteristics are interpreted by Wellhofer Dosimetrie system WP700/WP700i and contralateral breast dose (CBD) with tangential technique was confirmed by TLD. Results : 1) Percent depth dose through the dynamic wedge technique in tissue equivalent phantom was similar to open field irradiation and there was no beam hardening effect compared to fixed wedge technique. 2) Isodose line composing wedge angle of dynamic wedge is more straight than hard wedge. And dynamic wedge technique was able to make any wedge angle on any depth and field size. 3) The contralateral breast dose in primary breast irradiation was reduced by dynamic wedge technique compared to fixed wedge. When the dynamic wedge technique was applied, the scatter dose was similar to that of open field irradiation. Conclusion : The dynamic wedge technique was superior to fixed wedge technique in dosimetric characteristics and may be more useful in the future.