• Korean Journal of Oriental Medicine
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.119-124
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• 2007

Introduction: In Oriental medicine, the status of tongue is the important indicator to diagnose one's health, because it represents physiological and clinicopathological changes of inner parts of the body. The method of tongue diagnosis is not only convenient but also non-invasive, so tongue diagnosis is most widely used in Oriental medicine. By the way, since tongue diagnosis is affected by examination circumstances a lot, its performance depends on a light source, degrees of an angle, a medical doctor's condition etc. Therefore, it is not easy to make an objective and standardized tongue diagnosis. In order to solve this problem, in this study, we tried to design a discriminant function for thick and thin coating with color vectors of preprocessed image. Method: 52 subjects, who were diagnosed as white-coated tongue, were involved. Among them, 45 subjects diagnosed as thin coating and 7 subjects diagnosed as thick coating by oriental medical doctors, and then their tongue images were obtained from a digital tongue diagnosis system. Using those acquired tongue images, we implemented two steps: Preprocessing and image analyzing. The preprocessing part of this method includes histogram equalization and histogram stretching at each color component, especially, intensity and saturation. It makes the difference between tongue substance and tongue coating was more visible, so that we can separate tongue coating easily. Next part, we analyzed the characteristic of color values and found the threshold to divide tongue area into coating area. Then, from tongue coating image, it is possible to extract the variables that were important to classify thick and thin coating. Result : By statistical analysis, two significant vectors, associated with G, were found, which were able to describe the difference between thick and thin coating very well. Using these two variables, we designed the discriminant function for coating classification and examined its performance. As a result, the overall accuracy of thick and thin coating classification was 92.3%. Discussion : From the result, we can expect that the discriminant function is applicable to other coatings in a similar way. Also, it can be used to make an objective and standardized diagnosis.

• The Journal of Pediatrics of Korean Medicine
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.23-37
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• 2002

We have plenty of study of adults diseases, but not much has been said about children. 79 children who had visited in the weak children of Dongeui Oriental Medical Hospital from March, 2002 to October, 2002, were the respondents of the Weak Child Questionnaire. The results obtained were as follows: 1. Their symptoms have been observed with sequences of respiratory diseases, Digestive diseases, Psycho-neurological diseases. 2. Distribution of sex and ages : male 38 cases, female 41 cases. $0{\sim}6$ years 60 cases, $7{\sim}12$ years 17 cases, $13{\sim}18$ years 2 cases. 3. The texture of complexion was resulted in face color and the region of the face : whitish-2/ cases. yellowish-27 cases, darkish-22 cases, blue-2 cases, flushed face-l case. Sangeun(山根)-blue : 59 cases, a lower eyelid- dark or light brown : 54 cases. the rests of color on face region didn't mean. 4. The texture of tongue was ended in tongue state : tongue form-not plump not haggard patten(57 cases), a pricky patten(12), a map patten(7), a fissured patten(3). tongue color- pink (57 cases), red(16), light white(6). coating color- thin white(61 cases), thin yellow(l0), lack(6), deep and white(2). tongue coating substance-thin(72 cases), moisten(5), dry(1), deep(1).

• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.806-812
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• 2009

Objective : The aim of this study was to provide basic background information on stroke by evaluation various etiological factors on the basis that the Tongue fur color of acute stroke patients. Method : We studied patients hospitalized within 4 weeks after their ictus who were admitted at Kyunghee University Oriental Medical Center, Dongguk University Oriental Medical Center, Kyungwon University Songpa Oriental Medical Center, and Kyungwon University Incheon Oriental Medical Center from April 2008 to August 2009. We compared the general characteristics of acute stroke patients according to tongue fur color. Result : Tongue fur color showed significant difference for past history of hypertension, hyperlipidemia, stroke, HDL-chol, BUN, Hg, and pulse pattern. Conclusion : The above results show that the overall tendency of acute stage cerebral infarction patients varies according to their tongue fur color. Further studies will be needed to better understand the difference between yellow fur group and white fur among acute stroke patients.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.27 no.2 s.66
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• pp.134-144
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• 2006

Tongue diagnosis is an important diagnostic method in traditional Oriental medicine. It has been especially accepted that quantitative analysis of tongue images allows the accurate diagnosis of the exterior-interior and cold-heat patterns of a patient. However, to ensure stable and reliable results, the color reproduction of such images must first be error-tree. Moreover, tongue diagnosis is much influenced by the surrounding illumination and subjective color recognition, so it has to be performed objectively and quantitatively using a digital diagnostic machine. In this study, 457 tongue images of outpatients were collected using the Digital Tongue Inspection System. Through statistical analysis, the result shows that the heat and cold patterns can be distinguished clearly based on the hue value of the tongue images. The average hue value (1.00) of the tongue's image in the cold pattern is higher than that in the heat pattern (0.99).

• Korean Journal of Oriental Medicine
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• v.13 no.2 s.20
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• pp.47-52
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• 2007

In Oriental medicine, the status of tongue is the important indicator to diagnose one's health, because it represents physiological and clinicopathological changes of inner parts of the body. The method of tongue diagnosis is not only convenient but also non-invasive, therefore, tongue diagnosis is one of the most widely used in Oriental medicine. But tongue diagnosis is affected by examination circumstances a lot. It depends on a light source, degrees of an angle, doctor's condition and so on. So it is not easy to make an objective and standardized tongue diagnosis. As part of way to solve this problem, in this study, we tried to design a discriminant function for white and yellow coating with multi-dimensional color vectors. There were 62 subjects involved in this study, among them 48 subjects diagnosed as white-coated tongue and 14 subjects diagnosed as yellow-coated tongue by oriental doctors. And their tongue images were acquired by a well-made Digital Tongue Diagnosis System. From those acquired tongue images, each coating section were extracted by oriental doctors, and then mean values of multi -dimensional color vectors in each coating section were calculated. By statistical analysis, two significant vectors, R in RGB space and H in HSV space, were found that they were able to describe the difference between white coating section and yellow coating section very well. Using these two values, we designed the discriminant function for coating classification and examined how good it works. As a result, the overall accuracy of coating classification was 98.4%. We can expect that the discriminant function for other coatings can be obtained in a similar way. Furthermore, if an automated segmentation algorithm of tongue coating is combined with these discriminant functions, an automated tongue coating diagnosis can be accomplished.

• The Journal of the Society of Korean Medicine Diagnostics
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.225-232
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• 2013

Objectives The aim of this study is to design a part in contact with the face of computerized tongue diagnosis system (CTDS), so that external light is effectively shielded even if the facial appearance and degree of protrusion differ when a patient opens or closes his/her jaws. Methods Each of the 4 researchers manually produced clay models of the part in contact with the face of CTDS. Shielding and contact feeling of the clay models were evaluated by 20 assessors. Based on the evaluation, we selected the appropriate model and produced the final silicon model. Then we evaluated the performance of the shielding of the completed silicon model. We took tongue pictures of 60 participants with a CTDS applying the silicon model in condition with external light and without it. The color values in RGB color model and gray scale of the tongue pictures in condition with external light were compared with those without external light. Results There was no significant difference between the color values of the picture taken in condition with external light and those without external light. Conclusions We concluded that the produced part in contact with the face of CTDS can effectively block out the external light.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2013.05a
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• pp.801-804
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• 2013

We propose a new tongue examination model according to the taste division of tongue. The proposed sytem consists of image acquisition, region segmentation, color distribution analysis and abnormality decision of tongue. Tongue DB which is classified into abnormality is constructed with tongue images captured from oriental medicine hospital inpatients. We divided 4 basic taste(bitter, sweet, salty and sour) regions and performed color distribution analysis targeting each region under HSI(Hue Saturation Intensity) color model. To minimize the influence of illumination, the histograms of H and S components only except I are utilized. The abnormality of taste regions each by comparing the proposed diagnosis model with diagnosis results by a doctor of oriental medicine. We confirmed the 87.5% of classification results of abnormality by proposed algorithm is coincide with the doctor's results.

• Korean Journal of Oriental Medicine
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.89-95
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• 2008

A tongue shows physiological and clinicopathological changes of inner organs. Visual inspection of a tongue is not only convenient but also non-invasive. To develop an automat ic tongue diagnosis system for an objective and standardized diagnosis, the separation of the tongue are a from a facial image and the detection of coatings, spots and cracks are inevitable but difficult since the colors of a tongue, lips, and skin in a mouth as well as those of tongue furs and body are similar. The propose d method includes preprocessing with down-sampling and edge enhancement, over-segmentation, detecting positions with a local minimum over shading from the structure of a tongue, and correcting local minima or detecting edge with color difference. The proposed method produces the region of a segmented tongue, and then decomposes the color components of the region into hue, saturation and brightness, resulting in classifying the regions of tongue furs(coatings) into kinds of coatings and substance and segmenting them. Spots are detected by using local maxima and the variation of saturation, and cracks are searched by using local minima and the directivity of dark areas in brightness. The results illustrate the segmented region with effective information, excluding a non-tongue region and also give us accurate discrimination of coatings and the precise detection of spots and cracks. It can be used to make an objective and standardized diagnosis for an u-Healthcare system as well as a home care system.

• Journal of Korean Medical classics
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.421-426
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• 2006

Objective To learn if there were different characteristics of tongue demonstration between diseases caused by exogenous pathogenic factor and disorder of internal organs. Methods Choosing 3059 cases from 51 medical records of Qing Dynasty, in which 1397 cases were diagnosed as diseases caused by exogenous pathogenic factor and 1110 were disorder of internal organs. Contrasting the constituent ratio of tongue demonstration using chi-square test. Results There were significant deviation between diseases caused by exogenous pathogenic factor and disorder of internal organs in color of tongue, color of fur and quality of fur (p<0.01). Conclusions the characteristics of tongue demonstration in diseases caused by exogenous pathogenic factor were high frequency of bright red tongue, yellow fur, blank fur and dry fur; and which in disorder of internal organs were high frequency of white tongue, thin fur, greasy fur and exfoliative fur.

• The Journal of the Society of Korean Medicine Diagnostics
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2015

Objectives The purpose of this study was to survey the status of clinical use of a computerized tongue diagnosis system (CTDS) Methods We searched domestic/international articles using the CTDS from online medical databases including OASIS, NDSL and pubmed. We selected articles on clinical application or reliability of CTDS but excluded articles on mechanical design or software programming for developing a new CTDS. Finally we found 15 articles and classified the articles according to the study purpose. Results Out of the 15 articles, 8 were focused on the clinical application including halitosis, cold/heat syndrome, lung cancer, xerostomia etc. Other 5 articles were aimed at evaluating and improving reliability of CTDS. The other 2 articles were studied for development of differential diagnostic criteria on tongue coating thickness. Conclusion We found out that until now the researches on clinical application of CTDS mainly had been performed for producing a variety of CTDSs. Considering the importance of the tongue color in the traditional Korean medicine, we suggest that at first standard operating procedure for CTDS be developed and researches to develop differential diagnostic criteria on tongue body/coating color be performed and then explore its applications.