• Journal of Korean Academy of Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.197-207
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• 1987

This study was undertaken to investigate the relationships between film and processing solution at different processing temperatures. Three kinds of periapical film were used for this study. They included EP-2l film, DF-58, and A film Each film was processed by automatic film processor with RD-Ⅲ X-dol 90, and A processing solutions at 68° 74° 80° 86° and 92°F. Film density was measured with the densitometer, and base plus fog density, film relative speed, film contrast, and subject contrast were evaluated. The following results were obtained; 1. As the processing temperature was increased, base plus density was increased. Inadequate base plus fog densities were obtained with three films in combination with three processing solutions at 92°F. 2. Lowest base plus fog densities were obtained with A film, followed in ascending order by EP-21, and DF-58 film in combination with A or RD-Ⅲ processing solutions. The sequence of base plus fog densities was in ascending order by EP-21, A, and DF-58 film in combination with X-dol 90 processing solution. 3. The sequence of film relative speed values was in ascending order of EP-21, A, and DF-58 film in combination with A and RD-Ⅲ processing solutions, respectively. 4. As the processing temperature was increased, film contrast values was increased. The sequence of film contrast values was in descending order solution. The sequence of film contrast values was in descending order of EP-2l, DF-58, and A film in combination with RD-Ⅲ, X-dol 90 processing solution at 80°F. 5. As the processing temperature was increased, subject contrast was increased. The sequence of subject contrast was in descending order of A, X-dol 90, and RD-Ⅲ processing solution in combination with three films at 80°F. The sequence of subject contrast was in descending order of EP-21, A, and DF-58 film in combination with A processing solution at different processing temperatures.

• The Korean Journal of Pain
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.217-223
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• 2008

Background: Lumbar transforaminal epidural injections (LTEIs) have been utilized in the treatment of radicular pain, and LTEIs have the advantage of target-specificity. However, there have not been enough studies on the contrast patterns in LTEIs with using fluoroscopy. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the spreading epidural contrast patterns that are seen during real-time fluoroscopic guided LTEIs. Methods: A total of 131 patients who underwent fluoroscopic guided LTEIs were studied. The inclusion criteria were those patients with low back pain and/or lower extremity pain that was caused by a herniated nucleus pulposus, lumbar spinal stenosis, failed back surgery syndrome, and herpes zoster-associated pain. We classified the contrast patterns in regard to the contrast flow spreading to the nerve root and/or the unilateral, bilateral or cylinderic type of epidural spreading on the AP view of the fluoroscopy and the ventral or dorsal epidural filling on the lateral view. In addition to the pattern analysis, we evaluated the range of contrast spreading from the cranial to the caudal epidural filling and the incidence of an intravascular flow pattern. Results: Epidural spreading was seen in 126 cases (96.2%) of the total patients through the nerve root. Ventral spreading occurred in 120 cases (95.2%). On the AP view, a nerve root with unilateral, bilateral and cylinderic epidural filling was noted for 108 (85.7%), 9 (7.1%) and 9 (7.1%) cases, respectively. The contrast spreading to vertebral segments was smaller for the patients with lumbar spinal stenosis and failed back surgery syndrome than for the other groups (P < 0.0083). The incidence of intravascular injection was 11.1% (14/126). Conclusions: LTEIs using fluoroscopic visualization provided excellent assessment of the ventral epidural filling as well as nerve root filling. However, unilateral epidural spreading was prominent for the LTEIs.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.2521-2526
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• 2015

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate computed tomography (CT) virtual non-contrast (VNC) spectral imaging for gastric carcinoma. Materials and Methods: Fifty-two patients with histologically proven gastric carcinomas underwent gemstone spectral imaging (GSI) including non-contrast and contrast-enhanced hepatic arterial, portal venous, and equilibrium phase acquisitions prior to surgery. VNC arterial phase (VNCa), VNC venous phase (VNCv), and VNC equilibrium phase (VNCe) images were obtained by subtracting iodine from iodine/water images. Images were analyzed with respect to image quality, gastric carcinoma-intragastric water contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), gastric carcinoma-perigastric fat CNR, serosal invasion, and enlarged lymph nodes around the lesions. Results: Carcinoma-water CNR values were significantly higher in VNCa, VNCv, and VNCe images than in normal CT images (2.72, 2.60, 2.61, respectively, vs 2.35, $p{\leq}0.008$). Carcinoma-perigastric fat CNR values were significantly lower in VNCa, VNCv, and VNCe images than in normal CT images (7.63, 7.49, 7.32, respectively, vs 8.48, p< 0.001). There were no significant differences of carcinoma-water CNR and carcinoma-perigastric fat CNR among VNCa, VNCv, and VNCe images. There was no difference in the determination of invasion or enlarged lymph nodes between normal CT and VNCa images. Conclusions: VNC arterial phase images may be a surrogate for conventional non-contrast CT images in gastric carcinoma evaluation.

• Journal of Korean Ophthalmic Optics Society
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.549-554
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• 2013

Purpose: To determine the minimal illumination for visual acuity with the decimal vision chart and individual difference with varying contrast and illumination. Methods: Landolt's vision chart with 10 different grade of contrast was made. Minimal illumination was measured for 69 eyes using 100% contrast vision chart. Minimal contrast for identifying the chart was measured in conditions of the minimal illumination and 230 lx, respectively. Results: Minimal illumination was gradually increased with decrease of the chart size. Mean of minimal illumination to identify the 1.0 visual acuity was $74.39{\pm}25.90$ lx with range of 17~107 lx. In conditions of the minimal illumination and 230 lx, the minimal contrast for identifying the chart were gradually increased with decrease of the chart size in both conditions, the those deviation for 69 eyes was also increased. Conclusions: For refractive correction, examiners need to consider the individual difference for identifying the visual chart according to illumination and contrast.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.1609-1614
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• 2013

Objective: To evaluate the effect of intravenous contrast on dose calculation in radiation treatment planning for oesophageal cancer. Methods: A total of 22 intravein-contrasted patients with oesophageal cancer were included. The Hounsfield unit (HU) value of the enhanced blood stream in thoracic great vessels and heart was overridden with 45 HU to simulate the non-contrast CT image, and 145 HU, 245 HU, 345 HU, and 445 HU to model the different contrast-enhanced scenarios. 1000 HU and -1000 HU were used to evaluate two non-physiologic extreme scenarios. Variation in dose distribution of the different scenarios was calculated to quantify the effect of contrast enhancement. Results: In the contrast-enhanced scenarios, the mean variation in dose for planning target volume (PTV) was less than 1.0%, and those for the total lung and spinal cord were less than 0.5%. When the HU value of the blood stream exceeded 245 the average variation exceeded 1.0% for the heart V40. In the non-physiologic extreme scenarios, the dose variation of PTV was less than 1.0%, while the dose calculations of the organs at risk were greater than 2.0%. Conclusions: The use of contrast agent does not significantly influence dose calculation of PTV, lung and spinal cord. However, it does have influence on dose accuracy for heart.

• Physical Therapy Korea
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.49-54
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• 1996

The purposes of this study were to measure skin temperature and blood flow on the contralateral upper extremity when heat is applied to one upper extremity, were to compare the effect of contrast bath. The subjects were 38 healthy adults with no history of peripheral vascular disease. The subjects of contrast bath were 18 persons and the subjects of warm bath were 20 persons. The subjects of one group were seated with their right arm in water($42^{\circ}C$) up to the mid-forearm. The subjects of the other group were seated with their right arm up to the mid-forearm in water which was changed from warm to cold using the contrast bath technique. The continually changing temperatures and blood flow were measured by an independent observer at intervals of 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 minutes respectively after the start of the procedure. The results were as follows. The temperature of the warm bath group rose 4.28% over the pre-experimental temperatures and the temperature of the contrast bath group rose 3.41%. There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups. The blood flow of the warm bath group rose 8.31% over the pre-experimental blood flow and the blood flow of the contrast bath group rose 17.24%. There was a statistically significant between the two groups 20 minutes after the start of the procedure. Thus the contrast bath is a more effective method than the warm bath to increase blood flow.

• Journal of computational fluids engineering
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.37-42
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• 2017

Infrared signals are frequently used to detect objects exposed to wide variety of environmental conditions. Detection by infrared signature is accomplished by distinguishing objects by using the IR radiant contrast between objects and the background. There are several methods of estimating the IR radiant contrast. The inverse distance weighting method, which is one of the IR radiant contrast estimation method using the effect of distance from objects, is known to be an effective way to analyze radiant contrast for complex backgrounds. However this method has a disadvantage of requiring a long calculation time. In this study we propose a statistical method of estimating the IR radiant contrast by using randomly selected pixels of arbitrary number among background pixels to reduce calculation time. Some measured IR images in MWIR and LWIR regions are used to test the applicability of the method proposed and we found that the proposed method is very effective in determining the IR radiant contrast showing very rapid estimation with minar accuracy loss.

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.24-29
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• 2014

Digital mammography is the most common technique for the early detection of breast cancer. To diagnose the breast cancer in early stages and treat efficiently, many image enhancement methods have been developed. This paper presents a multi-scale contrast enhancement method in the Laplacian pyramid for the digital mammogram. The proposed method decomposes the image into the contrast measures by the Gaussian and Laplacian pyramid, and the pyramid coefficients of decomposed multi-resolution image are defined as the frequency limited local contrast measures by the ratio of high frequency components and low frequency components. The decomposed pyramid coefficients are modified by the contrast measure for enhancing the contrast, and the final enhanced image is obtained by the composition process of the pyramid using the modified coefficients. The proposed method is compared with other existing methods, and demonstrated to have quantitatively good performance in the contrast measure algorithm.

• Journal of Korean Ophthalmic Optics Society
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.119-125
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• 2007

The aim of the present study was to compare the contrast sensitivity of soft contact lens wearers, spectacle wearers or emmetropia. Seventy myopic eyes and thirty emmetropic eyes aged 19 to 26 years were collected. The myopic group included 48 eyes corrected with spectacle lenses and 22 eyes of them corrected with contact lenses, too: all had corrected vision acuity of 20/20 or better. Spatial contrast sensitivity was measured using the OPTEC 6500 contrast sensitivity view-in tester included the EyeView　 Functional Vision Analysis software at photopic or mesoopic condition. There was no significant difference in contrast sensitivity between spectacle lenses and emmetropes. Myopes corrected with soft contact lenses showed statistical sensitivity losses at 1.5, 12 cycle/degree spatial frequencies. In conclusion, our findings suggest that loss of contrast sensitivity in soft contact lens wearers might be interpreted as evidence for corneal disruption before corneal pathological events occur in contact lens wearers. Contrast sensitivity testing appears to be a useful method for evaluating soft contact lenses.

• The Korean Journal of Pain
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.211-216
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• 1994

Celiac plexus block is performed to relieve intractable upper abdominal cancer pain. Generally, celiac plexus blocks have been performed under control of X-ray fluoroscopy to determine the position of the needle tip and the spread of contrast media. During the period from March 1992 to February 1994, we have performed 21 cases of neurolytic celiac plexus block to alleviate pain of intra-abdominal malignancy. We retrospectively evaluated the location of the needle tip and the spread of contrast media. P-A views of simple abdomen demonstrated the locations of the needle tip: 66.7% of the left needle tips were in upper 3/1 of L1 (6 cases) and $T_{12}-L_1$ interspace (8 cases), 50% of the right needle tips were in upper 1/3 of $L_1$, (6 cases) and $T_{12}-L_1$ interspace (4 cases). Contrast media from the right needle spread upward to middle 1/3 of $T_{10}$ (5 cases) and middle 1/3 of $T_{11}$ (5 cases), downward to middle 1/3 of $L_1$ (6 cases) and lower 1/3 of $L_1$ (3 cases). Contrast media from the left needle were spread upward to middle 1/3 of $T_{10}$ (5 cases) and evenly to other spaces, downward to middle 1/3 of $L_1$, (4 cases) and $L_1-L_2$ interspace (6 cases). We analyze the spread of contrast media according to distance from needle tip by authors score system. Contrast media of right needle spread upward 6.1 and downward 3.4, that of left needle spread upward 6.5 and downward 3.7.