• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.530-538
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• 2007

Magnetocardiography (MCG) is a device to measure the magnetic field from the heart. It is a noninvasive device and takes only few minutes to record magnetocardiogram from a subject. In this study, we compared the difference of MCG data recorded from 56 normal subjects in early twenties (28 males and 28 females, mean $age=21.0{\pm}1.6$ years) and 36 elderly subjects (20 males and 16 females, mean $age=61.9{\pm}6.9$ years) for the analysis of the age and gender difference. A total of 24 parameters used in the analysis were derived from QRS complex, R-wave, T-wave, and ST-T period. As a result, seven parameters including maximum current angle and map angle showed the significant difference (p<0.01 and p<0.05, respectively) between young males and young females. Significant difference (p<0.05) between elderly males and elderly females was found from a parameter, pole distance at T-wave peak. In the comparison of age difference, seven parameters regarding current moment, pole distance, and dynamics showed the significant difference between young and elderly males. Eight parameters also showed significant difference (p<0.05) between two younger and elderly female groups. Results showed that parameters regarding current moment, pole distance, and dynamics might be changed when people get older. In conclusion, gender and age difference should be considered when MCG data are analyzed for certain parameters.

• Progress in Superconductivity
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.46-51
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• 2005

We have developed control electronics to operate flux-locked loop (FLL), and analog signal filters to process FLL outputs for 64-channel Double Relaxation Oscillation SQUID (DROS) magnetocardiography (MCG) system. Control electronics consisting of a preamplifier, an integrator, and a feedback, is compact and low-cost due to larger swing voltage and flux-to-voltage transfer coefficients of DROS than those of dc SQUIDs. Analog signal filter (ASF) serially chained with a high-pass filter having a cut-off frequency of 0.1 Hz, an amplifier having a gain of 100, a low-pass filter of 100 Hz, and a notch filter of 60 Hz makes FLL output suitable for MCG. The noise of a preamplifier in FLL control electronics is $7\;nV/{\surd}\;Hz$ at 1 Hz, $1.5\;nV/{\surd}\;Hz$ at 100 Hz that contributes $6\;fT/{\surd}\;Hz$ at 1 Hz, $1.3\;fT/{\surd}\;Hz$ at 100 Hz in readout electronics, and the noise of ASF electronics is $150\;{\mu}V/{\surd}\;Hz$ equivalent to $0.13\;fT/{\surd}\;Hz$ within the range of $1{\sim}100\;Hz$. When DROSs are connected to readout electronics inside a magnetically shielded room, the noise of 64-channel DROS system is $10\;fT/{\surd}\;Hz$ at 1 Hz, $5\;fT/{\surd}\;Hz$ at 100 Hz on the average, low enough to measure human MCG.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.59-63
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• 2006

Magnetocardiogram (MCG) topography is a useful diagnostic technique that employs multi-channel magnetocardiograms. Measurement of artifact-free MCG signals is essenctial to obtain MCG topography or map for a diagnosis of human heart. Principal component analysis (PCA) combined with an artificial neural network (ANN) is proposed to remove a pulse-type artifact in the MCG signals. The algorithm is composed of a PCA module which decomposes the obtained signal into its principal components, followed by an ANN module for the classification of the components automatically. In the experiments with volunteer subjects, 97% of the decisions that were made by the ANN were identical to those by the human experts. Using the proposed technique, the MCG topography was successfully obtained without the artifact.

• 순환기질환의공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.10a
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• pp.38-39
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• 2006

• 한국초전도학회:학술대회논문집
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• v.16
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• pp.8-8
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• 2006

• Progress in Superconductivity
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.46-53
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• 2006

Magnetocardiography(MCG) has been proposed as a novel and non-invasive diagnostic tool for the detection of cardiac electrical abnormality associated with myocardial ischemia. In our previous study, we have proposed a new classification method of MCG parameters, based on the different populations of the parameters between coronary artery disease(CAD) patients, symptomatic patients and healthy volunteers. We used four parameters, representing the directional changes of the electrical activity in the period of an R-ST-T interval. In patients with chest pain and without ST-segment elevation, who were selected consecutively from all patients admitted to the hospital in 2004, the patients with CAD could be classified with a higher sensitivity than conventional methods, showing that the proposed method can be useful for the diagnosis of CAD with MCG. In this study, we examined the validity of the algorithm with the prior probability distribution in diagnosis of new patients admitted to the hospital in 2005. In the results, presence of CAD could be found with sensitivity and specificity of 81.3% and 71.4%, respectively, in patients with chest pain and non-diagnostic ECG findings.

• Progress in Superconductivity
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2011

Measurement of magnetic signals generated from electric activity of myocardium provides useful information for the functional diagnosis of heart diseases. Key technical component of the magnetocardiography (MCG) technology is SQUID. To measure MCG signals with high signal-to-noise ratio, sensitive SQUID magnetic field sensors are needed. Present magnetic field sensors based on Nb SQUIDs have field sensitivity good enough to measure most of MCG signals. However, for accurate measurement of fine signal pattern or detection of local atrial fibrillation signals, we may need higher field sensitivity. In addition to field sensitivity, economic aspect of the SQUID system is also important. To simplify the SQUID readout electronics, the output voltage or flux-to-voltage transfer of SQUID should be large enough so that direct measurement of SQUID output can be done using room-temperature preamplifiers. Double relaxation oscillation SQUID (DROS), having about 10 times larger flux-to-voltage transfers than those of DC-SQUIDs, was shown to be a good choice to make the electronics compact. For effective cancellation of external noise inside a thin economic shielded room, first-order axial gradiometer with high balance, simple structure and long-baseline is needed. We developed a technology to make the axial gradiometer compact using direct bonding of superconductive wires between pickup coil and input coil. Conventional insert has mechanical support to hold the gradiometer array, and the dewar neck has equal diameter with the dewar bottom. Boiling of the liquid He can generate mechanical vibrations in the gradiometer array due to mechanical connection structure. Elimination of the mechanical support, and direct mounting of the gradiometer array into the dewar bottom can reduce the dewar neck diameter, resulting in the reduction of liquid He consumption.

• Progress in Superconductivity
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.41-45
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• 2005

The diagnostic management of patients with chest pain remains a clinical challenge. Magnetocardiography (MCG) has been proposed as a new non-invasive method for detection of myocardial ischemia. To date, however, MCG technique is not intensively introduced for clinical use. One of the main reasons might be the absence of statistically valid and diagnostically clean criteria, which can determine the presence of certain heart disease. In this work, we suggested a new method to classify the diagnostic value of MCG for the detection of coronary artery disease (CAD) in patients with chest pain. MCG was recorded for three groups (healthy subjects and patients without and with CAD) by means of the 64 channel SQUID gradiometer system installed at a hospital. Using four parameters, which were found to be significantly different between groups, we evaluated a probability, in which parameters can be classified into each group based on the distribution function of the parameter in each group. For all parameters, sum of probabilities was compared between groups to determine the presence of CAD. Our classification method shows that the MCG can be a useful tool to predict the presence of CAD with sensitivity and specificity of higher than $80\%$ each.

• Progress in Superconductivity
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.35-39
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• 2007

Myocardial ischemia causes heterogeneity of ventricular repolarization and sometimes produces changes of the ST-T wave in ECG. Therefore, morphological changes of ST-T waveform in ECG have a clinical significance in diagnosing myocardial ischemia. In this study, we investigated the ST-T changes caused by myocardial ischemia in magnetocardiography (MCG). We analyzed MCG patterns of biphasic T, ST segment deviations from baseline, main current angle of $T_{peak}$ and $T_{peak}$ dispersion in 300 CAD patients without ST elevation in ECG, 122 symptomatic patients and 48 normal subjects. MCGs were recorded by multichannel SQUID system in a magnetically shielded room. As results, we found that appearances of the abnormality were strongly correlated with the severity of myocardial ischemia. Also we found that the percentage of the patients showing MCG changes were higher than those in ECG. These results show that morphological changes of ST-T waveform in MCG can be used as a marker of myocardial ischemia.

• Progress in Superconductivity
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.152-157
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• 2010

We have fabricated the low noise liquid helium(LHe) dewar with a different shape of thermal shield to apply the 64-channel SQUID(Superconducting Quantum Interference Device) gradiometer. The first shape of thermal shield was made of an aluminum plate with a wide width of 100 mm slit and the other shape was modified with a narrow width of 20 mm slit. The two types of dewars were estimated by comparing the thermal noise and the signal-to-noise ratio(SNR) of magnetocardiography(MCG) using the $1^{st}$ order SQUID gradiometer system cooled each dewar. The white noise was different as a point of the dewar. The noise was increased as close as the edge of dewar, and also increased at the thermal shield with the more wide width slit. The white noise of the dewar with thermal shield of 100 mm slit was 6.5 fT/$Hz^{1/2}$ at the center of dewar and 25 fT/$Hz^{1/2}$ at the edge, and the white noise of the other one was 3.5 - 7 fT/$Hz^{1/2}$. We measured the MCG using 64-channel SQUID gradiometer cooled at each LHe dewar and compared the SNR of MCG signal. The SNR was improved of 10 times at the LHe dewar with a modified thermal shield.