• Progress in Medical Physics
• /
• v.19 no.3
• /
• pp.178-185
• /
• 2008

Living donor liver transplantation is increasingly performed as an alternative to cadaveric transplantation. Preoperative screening of the donor candidates is very important. The quality, size, and vascular and biliary anatomy of the liver are best assessed with magnetic resonance (MR) imaging or computed tomography (CT). In particular, the volume of the potential graft must be measured to ensure sufficient liver function after surgery. Preoperative liver segmentation has proved useful for measuring the graft volume before living donor liver transplantations in previous studies. In these studies, the liver segments were manually delineated on each image section. The delineated areas were multiplied by the section thickness to obtain volumes and summed to obtain the total volume of the liver segments. This process is tedious and time consuming. To compensate for this problem, automatic segmentation techniques have been proposed with multiplanar CT images. These methods involve the use of sequences of thresholding, morphologic operations (ie, mathematic operations, such as image dilation, erosion, opening, and closing, that are based on shape), and 3D region growing methods. These techniques are complex but require a few computation times. We made a phantom for volume measurement with pig and evaluated actual volume of spleen and liver of phantom. The results represent that our semiautomatic volume measurement algorithm shows a good accuracy and repeatability with actual volume of phantom and possibility for clinical use to assist physician as a measuring tool.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
• /
• v.26 no.6
• /
• pp.439-445
• /
• 2013

The soil-structure interaction(SSI) effect should be considered to accurately assess the seismic response of structure constructed on soft soil site other than the hard bedrock. Recently, the demand of SSI analysis has increased due to strengthening of the regulatory guidelines of nuclear power plant such as the USNRC SRP 3.7.2. In this study an accuracy and running time of the KIESSI-3D program for large-scale 3D SSI analysis were investigated. The seismic SSI analysis using the KIESSI-3D program was performed for several examples of large-scale three-dimensional soil-structure interaction system. The analysis results were compared with those of the ACS/SASSI program. Good agreements in transfer functions at selected locations showd that KIESSI-3D yields accurate solution for large-scale SSI problem. Moreover, it was found that running speed of the KIESSI-3D for large-scale 3D SSI analysis is much faster than that of the ACS/SASSI about 30~2000 times.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.28 no.2
• /
• pp.175-184
• /
• 1996

A nuclide transfer by utilizing mass transfer coefficient and barrier response function defined for each barrier is proposed, by which the final nuclide transfer rate into the sea water can be evaluated. When simple and immediate quantification of the nuclide release is necessary in the conservative aspect, using this kind of approach may be advantageous since each layered barrier can be treated separately from other media in series in the repository system, making it possible to apply separate solutions in succession to other various media. Although one disadvantage is that while flux continuity can be maintained at the interface by using the exit nuclide flux from the first medium as the source flux for the next one, there may be no guarantee for concentration continuity, this problem could be eliminated assuming that there is no boundary resistance to mass transfer across the interface. Mass transfer coefficient can be determined by the assumption that the nuclide concentration gradient at the interface between adjacent barriers remains constant and barrier response function is obtained from an analytical expression for nuclide flow rate out of each barrier in response to a unit impulse into the barrier multiplied by mass transfer coefficient. Total time-dependent nuclide transfer rate from the barrier can then be obtained by convoluting the response function for the barrier with a previously calculated set of time-varying input of nuclide flow rate for the previous barrier.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.28 no.2
• /
• pp.129-136
• /
• 1996

Influence diagram method is applied to containment performance analysis of Young-Gwang 3&4 in an effort to overcome some drawbacks of current containment performance analysis method. Event tee methodology has been adopted as a containment performance analysis method. There are, however, some drawbacks on event tree methodology. This study is to overcome three major drawbacks of the current containment performance analysis method : 1) Event tree cannot express dependency between events explicitly. 2) Accident Progression Event Tree (APET) cannot represent entire containment system. 3) It is difficult to consider decision making problem. To resolve these problems, influence diagrams, is proposed. In the present ok, the applicability of the influence diagrams has been demonstrated for YGN 3&4 containment performance analysis and accident management strategy assessments of this study are in good agreement with those of YGN 3&4 IPE. Sensitivity analysis has been peformed to identify relative important variables for each early containment failure, late containment and basemat melt-though. In addition, influence diagrams are used to assess two accident management strategies : 1) RCS depressurization, 2) cavity flooding. It is shown that influence diagrams can be applied to the containment performance analysis.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
• /
• v.33 no.3
• /
• pp.269-276
• /
• 2010

This study attempts to propose ways to optimize and improve the period of hospitalization for the radioiodine treatment by calculating the dose rate of patients treated with high-dose radioiodine by distance and time slot. As a result, 24 hours after the patient was treated with 100 mCi high-dose iodine, the dose rate was attenuated to $1,035{\mu}Sv/hr$ at the navel, to $109{\mu}Sv/hr$ at 50 cm, and to $33{\mu}Sv/hr$ at 100 cm. 24 hours after the patient was treated with 150 mCi high-dose iodine, the dose rate was attenuated to $637{\mu}Sv/hr$ at the navel, to $100{\mu}Sv/hr$ at 50 cm, and to $40{\mu}Sv/hr$ at 100 cm. 24 hours after the patient was treated with 180 mCi high-dose iodine, the dose rate was attenuated to $1,251{\mu}Sv/hr$ at the navel, $140{\mu}Sv/hr$ at 50 cm, and to $56{\mu}Sv/hr$ at 100 cm. In light of the current criterion for discharge recommended by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission being $70.4{\mu}Sv/hr$, the present study indicates earlier discharge is feasible by applying a new scheme. This suggests that the proposed scheme in this study will help to solve the problem of shortage of treatment beds with the increasing trend of patients with thyroid cancer taken into consideration.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
• /
• v.33 no.4
• /
• pp.368-375
• /
• 2013

Failure of small bore piping welds is a recurring problem at nuclear power plants. And the socket weld cracking in small bore piping has caused unplanned plant shutdowns for repair and high economic impact on the plants. Consequently, early crack detection, including the detection of manufacturing defects, is of the utmost importance. Until now, the surface inspection methods has been applied according to ASME Section XI requirements. But the ultrasonic inspection as a volumetric method is also applying to enforce the inspection requirement. However, the conventional manual ultrasonic inspection techniques are used to detect service induced fatigue cracks. And there was uncertainty on manual ultrasonic inspection because of limited access to the welds and difficulties with contact between the ultrasonic probe and the OD(outer diameter) surface of small bore piping. In this study, phased array ultrasonic inspection technique is applied to increase inspection speed and reliability. To achieve this object, the 3.5 MHz phased array ultrasonic transducer are designed and fabricated. The manually encoded scanner was also developed to enhance contact conditions and maintain constant signal quality. Additionally inspection system is configured and inspection procedure is developed.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
• /
• v.24 no.2
• /
• pp.73-86
• /
• 1999

The ion-exchange method for the purification of primary coolant has been used broadly in PWR(pressurized water reactor)-type nuclear power plants due to its high decontamination efficiency, simple system, and easy operation. However, its non-selective removal of metal and non-radionuclides shortens its life, resulting in the generation of a large amount of waste ion-exchange resin. In this study, the feasibility of electrodeionization (EDI) was investigated for the purification of primary cooling water using synthetic solutions under various experimental conditions as an alternative method for the ion exchange. The results shows that as the feed flow-rate increased, the removal efficiency increased and the power consumption decreased. The removal rate was observed as a 1000 decontamination factor(DF) at a nearly constant level. For the synthetic solution of 3 ppm TDS (Total Dissolved Solid), the power consumption was 40.3 mWh/L at 2.0 L/min of feed flow rate. The higher removal rate of metal species and lower power consumption were obtained with greater resin volume per diluting compartment. However, the flow rate of the EDI process decreased with the elapsed time because of the hydrodynamic resistivity of resin itself and resin fouling by suspended solids. Thus, the ion-exchange resin was replaced by an ion-conducting spacer in order to overcome the drawback. The system equipped with the ion-conducting spacer resolved the problem of the decreasing flow rate but showed a lower efficiency in terms of the power consumption, the removal rate of metal species and current efficiency. In the repeated batch operation, it was found that the removal efficiency of metal species was stably maintained at DF 1000.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
• /
• v.25 no.3
• /
• pp.516-520
• /
• 2011

Osteoporosis is social problem around the world, because fracture of old age may lead to critical medical condition. Osteoclast is a main target for prevention and treatment of osteoporosis due to their responsibility for bone resorption. Saussureae Radix has been known that has gastro-protective, bronchodilatory effect and has a anti-biotic effect. Saussureae Radix has been widely used in Oriental medicine. However, the effect of extract of Saussureae Radix in osteoclast differentiation remains unknown. Thus, we examined the effect of Saussureae Radix in receptor activator of nuclear factor-${\kappa}$B ligand (RANKL)-induced osteoclast differentiation. From the results of our study, Here we found that Saussureae Radix significantly inhibited osteoclast differentiation induced by RANKL. Saussureae Radix suppressed the activation of NF${\kappa}$B in bone marrow macrophages (BMMs) treated with RANKL. Also, Saussureae Radix significantly inhibited the mRNA expression of c-Fos, tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase (TRAP), osteoclast-associated receptor (OSCAR), nuclear factor of activated T cells (NFAT)c1 and cathepsin K in BMMs treated with RANKL. Particularly, Saussureae Radix greatly inhibited the protein expression of c-fos and NFATc1. especially in the case of NFATc1 expression, a master transcription factor of the differentiation of osteoclasts is very important step for osteoclastogenesis. These results demonstrate that Saussureae Radix may be useful treatment option of bone-related disease such as osteoporosis and rheumatoid arthritis.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
• /
• v.29 no.1
• /
• pp.22-30
• /
• 1995

To predict preoperatively the safety of permanent occlusion of an internal carotid artery with $^{99m}Tc$-HMPAO brain single photon emission computed tomography(SPECT) from an objective point of view, Twenty-four patients underwent balloon test occlusion (BTO) of the internal carotid arteries because of neck and skull base tumors. The authors assessed the uptake of both middle cerebral artery territories before and during BTO with $^{99m}Tc$-HMPAO brain SPECT using semiquantitative analysis method and compared the results with other factors(neurologic examination, arterial stump pressure and electroenceph-alogram). Nineteen patients had not experienced neurological deteriorating or any problem during BTO. Their comparative uptakes of the middle cerebral artery territories were 95 to 101% of the pre-BTO state. The remaining five patients showed severe neurologic symptoms such as transient hemiplegia and unconsciousness. Their comparative uptake of the middle cerebral artery territories were 77 to 85% of the pre-BTO state, and were well matched with other factors. $^{99m}Tc$-HMPAO brain SPECT before and during BTO seems to be a simple and objective method for prediction of permanent neurologic deficits when the comparative uptake of middle cerebral artery territories during BTO is lower than 85% of that before BTO.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
• /
• v.30 no.1
• /
• pp.17-25
• /
• 2005

Since the safety of nuclear power plant has been becoming a big social issue the exposure dose of radiation for workers has been one of the important factors concerning the safety problem. The existing calculation methods of radiation dose used in the planning of radiation work assume that dose rate does not depend on the location within a work space thus the variation of exposure dose by different work path is not considered. In this study, a modified numerical method was presented to estimate the exposure dose during radiation work in radwaste storage considering the effects of the distance between a worker and sources. And a new numerical algorithm was suggested to search the optimal work path minimizing the exposure dose in pre-defined work space with given radiation sources. Finally, a virtual work simulation program was developed to visualize the exposure dose of radiation doting radiation works in radwaste storage and provide the capability of simulation for work planning. As a numerical example, a test radiation work was simulated under given space and two radiation sources, and the suggested optimal work path was compared with three predefined work paths. The optimal work path obtained in the study could reduce the exposure dose for the given test work. Based on the results, tile developed numerical method and simulation program could be useful tools in the planning of radiation work.