• Imaging Science in Dentistry
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• 제42권3호
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• pp.183-190
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• 2012

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the level of clinical image quality of panoramic radiographs and to analyze the parameters that influence the overall image quality. Materials and Methods: Korean dental clinics were asked to provide three randomly selected panoramic radiographs. An oral and maxillofacial radiology specialist evaluated those images using our self-developed Clinical Image Quality Evaluation Chart. Three evaluators classified the overall image quality of the panoramic radiographs and evaluated the causes of imaging errors. Results: A total of 297 panoramic radiographs were collected from 99 dental hospitals and clinics. The mean of the scores according to the Clinical Image Quality Evaluation Chart was 79.9. In the classification of the overall image quality, 17 images were deemed 'optimal for obtaining diagnostic information,' 153 were 'adequate for diagnosis,' 109 were 'poor but diagnosable,' and nine were 'unrecognizable and too poor for diagnosis'. The results of the analysis of the causes of the errors in all the images are as follows: 139 errors in the positioning, 135 in the processing, 50 from the radiographic unit, and 13 due to anatomic abnormality. Conclusion: Panoramic radiographs taken at local dental clinics generally have a normal or higher-level image quality. Principal factors affecting image quality were positioning of the patient and image density, sharpness, and contrast. Therefore, when images are taken, the patient position should be adjusted with great care. Also, standardizing objective criteria of image density, sharpness, and contrast is required to evaluate image quality effectively.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• 제36권4호
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• pp.216-222
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• 2011

CR(computed radiography)시스템의 영상획득 과정에서 영상판의 외부 방사선 영향을 효과적으로 보완하고 임상적용시 효율적 활용을 목적으로 본 연구를 실시하였다. 이를 위하여 영상판의 보관 장소와 기간으로 분류하여 미소한 흑점 차이를 비교 분석하고 영상의 경계면에서 농도 분포를 평가하였다. 영상판의 보관 장소에 따른 명실과 암실에서 흑점수를 비교 측정한 결과, 명실에 보관한 영상판에서 1일과 2일에서 미약하게 흑점 수가 증가하였으며, 4일, 6일, 8일, 10일로 보관 기간이 길어질수록 비례하여 증가하였다. 하지만 암실 보관의 경우 명실과 비교시 흑점 수가 현저하게 줄어들었다. 영상판의 위치에 따른 화질의 변화에서는 가장자리 보다 중앙에 관심영역을 위치시키는 것이 화질의 손상을 줄일 수 있었다. 피사체의 두께 변화에 따른 선예도 차이는 가능한 피사체 두께를 작게 하는 것이 산란선 발생을 줄이고 선예도를 향상시키는 것으로 나타났다. 따라서 우수한 화질의 의료영상을 얻기 위해서는 영상판의 효율적 정도 관리가 필요하며 영상판을 암박스에 보관하여 외부 방사선에 장시간 방치하지 않도록 하는 것이 바람직하다.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• 제24권10호
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• pp.1006-1016
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• 2023

Objective: Computed tomography (CT) is an established method for the diagnosis, staging, and treatment of multiple myeloma. Here, we investigated the potential of photon-counting detector computed tomography (PCD-CT) in terms of image quality, diagnostic confidence, and radiation dose compared with energy-integrating detector CT (EID-CT). Materials and Methods: In this prospective study, patients with known multiple myeloma underwent clinically indicated whole-body PCD-CT. The image quality of PCD-CT was assessed qualitatively by three independent radiologists for overall image quality, edge sharpness, image noise, lesion conspicuity, and diagnostic confidence using a 5-point Likert scale (5 = excellent), and quantitatively for signal homogeneity using the coefficient of variation (CV) of Hounsfield Units (HU) values and modulation transfer function (MTF) via the full width at half maximum (FWHM) in the frequency space. The results were compared with those of the current clinical standard EID-CT protocols as controls. Additionally, the radiation dose (CTDIvol) was determined. Results: We enrolled 35 patients with multiple myeloma (mean age 69.8 ± 9.1 years; 18 [51%] males). Qualitative image analysis revealed superior scores (median [interquartile range]) for PCD-CT regarding overall image quality (4.0 [4.0-5.0] vs. 4.0 [3.0-4.0]), edge sharpness (4.0 [4.0-5.0] vs. 4.0 [3.0-4.0]), image noise (4.0 [4.0-4.0] vs. 3.0 [3.0-4.0]), lesion conspicuity (4.0 [4.0-5.0] vs. 4.0 [3.0-4.0]), and diagnostic confidence (4.0 [4.0-5.0] vs. 4.0 [3.0-4.0]) compared with EID-CT (P ≤ 0.004). In quantitative image analyses, PCD-CT compared with EID-CT revealed a substantially lower FWHM (2.89 vs. 25.68 cy/pixel) and a significantly more homogeneous signal (mean CV ± standard deviation [SD], 0.99 ± 0.65 vs. 1.66 ± 0.5; P < 0.001) at a significantly lower radiation dose (mean CTDIvol ± SD, 3.33 ± 0.82 vs. 7.19 ± 3.57 mGy; P < 0.001). Conclusion: Whole-body PCD-CT provides significantly higher subjective and objective image quality at significantly reduced radiation doses than the current clinical standard EID-CT protocols, along with readily available multi-spectral data, facilitating the potential for further advanced post-processing.

• 대한수학회지
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• 제55권3호
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• pp.719-734
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• 2018

An image restoration problem with Poisson noise arises in many applications of medical imaging, astronomy, and microscopy. To overcome ill-posedness, Total Variation (TV) model is commonly used owing to edge preserving property. Since staircase artifacts are observed in restored smooth regions, higher-order TV regularization is introduced. However, sharpness of edges in the image is also attenuated. To compromise benefits of TV and higher-order TV, the weighted sum of the non-convex TV and non-convex higher order TV is used as a regularizer in the proposed variational model. The proposed model is non-convex and non-smooth, and so it is very challenging to solve the model. We propose an iterative reweighted algorithm with the proximal linearized alternating direction method of multipliers to solve the proposed model and study convergence properties of the algorithm.

• Journal of information and communication convergence engineering
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• 제15권1호
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• pp.49-52
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• 2017

Ganglion cysts are benign soft tissues usually encountered in the wrist. In this paper, we propose a method to extract a ganglion cyst region from ultrasonography images by using image segmentation. The proposed method using the possibilistic c-means (PCM) clustering method is applicable to ganglion cyst extraction. The methods considered in this thesis are fuzzy stretching, median filter, PCM clustering, and connected component labeling. Fuzzy stretching performs well on ultrasonography images and improves the original image. Median filter reduces the speckle noise without decreasing the image sharpness. PCM clustering is used for categorizing pixels into the given cluster centers. Connected component labeling is used for labeling the objects in an image and extracting the cyst region. Further, PCM clustering is more robust in the case of noisy data, and the proposed method can extract a ganglion cyst area with an accuracy of 80% (16 out of 20 images).

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국정보디스플레이학회 2009년도 9th International Meeting on Information Display
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• pp.1224-1227
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• 2009

When evaluating the quality of images and displays, it is important to combine the characteristics as perceived by the human visual system and measured by equipment using subjective and objective methods, respectively. In the case of objective methods, the quality of a display is measured using colorimetric or radiometric devices according to existing standards covering the color temperature, gamut size, gamma characteristic, and device characterization. Meanwhile, subjective methods assess the quality of an image using the human visual system based on a comparison with a reference or counterpart using such metrics as the sharpness, noise, contrast, saturation, and color accuracy. Objective and subjective methods are usually used together in comparison, as ultimately it is observers watching images on a display. In addition to existing objective methods, a new image quality metric is also introduced as regards the JPEG compression ratio that is reflected in the relationship between the gamut size and the color fidelity in CIELAB color space.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국정보디스플레이학회 2009년도 9th International Meeting on Information Display
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• pp.1228-1231
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• 2009

This paper presented an automatic system for display quality measurement by image processing. The goal is to replace human eyes for display quality evaluation by computer vision and get the objective quality review for consumer to make purchase of monitor or TV. Color, contrast, brightness, sharpness and motion blur are the main five factors to affect display quality that could be measured by supplying patterns and analyzing the corresponding images captured from webcam. The scores are calculated by image processing techniques. Linear regression model is then adopted to find the relation between human score and the measured display performance.

• 한국콘텐츠학회논문지
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• 제9권11호
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• pp.225-230
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• 2009

영상처리 분야에서 필터링은 특정 목적에 따른 영상의 화질 개선을 위해 사용되고 있으며, 자기공명영상 분야에서도 여러 가지 필터들이 영상의 질적 향상을 위해 사용되고 있다. 본 논문에서는 최근 연구되어진 변형된 Fermi-Direc 필터를 여러 가지 형태로 다시 변형해 보고 가장 최적화된 형태를 도출해 보았다. 또한 이렇게 제작된 필터를 현재 병원에서 사용되고 있는 MR장비로 환자를 통해서 얻어진 임상 영상(original image)에 적용하였다. 그 결과 임상 영상(original image)들이 필터를 통과한 후 육안으로 보았을 때 화질이 개선되어진 것을 알 수 있었으며, 이들의 정량적인 평가를 위해 각 영상들의 R, G. B 채널의 히스토그램을 구하였다. 결론적으로, 질환에 따른 차이는 다소 있었으나 original image에 비해 필터를 적용한 후 얻어진 영상의 명암비와 선명도가 더 우수한 결과를 보였다. 따라서 변형된 Fermi-Filter의 사용이 실제 환자의 질병을 정확히 진단하여 치료하는데 기여할 수 있음을 알 수 있었다.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• 제30권4호
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• pp.321-326
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• 2013

The modulation transfer function (MTF) is a widely used indicator in assessments of remote-sensing image quality. This MTF method is also used to restore information to a standard value to compensate for image degradation caused by atmospheric or satellite jitter effects. In this study, we evaluated MTF values as an image quality indicator for the Geostationary Ocean Color Imager (GOCI). GOCI was launched in 2010 to monitor the ocean and coastal areas of the Korean peninsula. We evaluated in-orbit MTF value based on the GOCI image having a 500-m spatial resolution in the first time. The pulse method was selected to estimate a point spread function (PSF) with an optimal natural target such as a Seamangeum Seawall. Finally, image restoration was performed with a Wiener filter (WF) to calculate the PSF value required for the optimal regularization parameter. After application of the WF to the target image, MTF value is improved 35.06%, and the compensated image shows more sharpness comparing with the original image.

• 대한영상의학회지
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• 제84권1호
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• pp.240-252
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• 2023

목적 소아 환자에서 두부 컴퓨터단층촬영(이하 CT)에 대한 딥러닝 이미지 재구성(deep learning image reconstruction; 이하 DLIR; TrueFidelity; GE Healthcare, Milwaukee, WI, USA)의 효과를 평가하고자 한다. 대상과 방법 총 126개의 소아 두부 CT 이미지를 수집했으며, adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction (이하 ASiR)-V를 사용한 반복적 재구성 및 세 가지 수준의 DLIR을 사용한 재구성을 시행하였다. 각 이미지 세트 그룹은 환자의 연령에 따라 4개의 그룹으로 구분하였으며 각 연령군의 임상 및 방사선량 관련 데이터를 검토하였다. 양적 매개 변수에는 signal to noise ratio (이하 SNR) 및 contrast to noise ratio (이하 CNR)가 포함되었으며 질적 매개 변수로 영상의 잡음(noise), 회백질의 구분 정도, 선명도, 인공물 및 수용 가능성(acceptability), 영상의 질감이 포함되었고 이에 대한 평가와 비교를 시행하였다. 결과 모든 연령 그룹의 모든 수준의 SNR 및 CNR은 높은 수준의 DLIR 사용 시 증가하였다. ASiR-V와 비교했을 때 높은 수준의 DLIR은 SNR 및 CNR이 개선되었다(p < 0.05). 그리고 DLIR의 수준이 증가될수록 순차적인 잡음 감소, 회백질 구분 개선, 선명도 개선이 나타났다. 이러한 변수들에서 높은 수준의 DLIR 사용 시 ASiR-V와 유사한 정도의 수치가 측정되었다. 인공물과 수용 가능성의 경우에 적용된 DLIR 수준 간에 큰 차이를 보이지 않았다. 결론 소아 두부 CT에 고수준 DLIR을 적용하면 영상의 노이즈를 줄일 수 있으나 인공물 처리에 대한 개선이 필요하다.