• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.32-38
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• 2012

Recently, several ultrasound imaging techniques for tissue characterization have been developed. Among them, ultrasound elastography is regarded as the most promising modality and has been rapidly developed. One of ultrasound elastography techniques is shear modulus imaging. Normal and cancerous tissues show big difference of shear moduli and they have good image contrast. However shear wave elastography requires more complicated hardware and more computations for image reconstruction algorithm. Therefore new efficient techniques are being developed. In this paper, we have developed a very flexible ultrasound system for elastography experiments. The developed system has capabilities to acquire ultrasound RF data of all channels and generate arbitrary ultrasound pulse sequences. It has a huge amount of memories for RF data acquisition and a simple and flexible pulse generator. We have verified the performance of the system showing conventional B-mode images and preliminary results of elastography. The developed system will be used to verify our own reconstruction algorithm and to develop more efficient elastography techniques.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.217-232
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• 1999

The ability to see the internal organs of the human body in a noninvasive way is a powerful diagnostic tool of modern medicine. Among these imaging modalities such as X-ray, MRI, and ultrasound. MRI and ultrasound are presenting much less risk of undesirable damage of both patient and examiner. In fact, no deleterious effects have been reported as a result of clinical examination by using MRI and ultrasound diagnostic equipment. As a result. their market volume has been rapidly increased. MRI has a good resolution. but there are a few disadvantages such as high price. non-real-time imaging capability. and expensive diagnostic cost. On the other hand, the ultrasound imaging system has inherently poor resolution as compared with X-ray and MRI. In spite of its poor resolution, the ultrasound diagnostic equipment is lower in price and has an ability of real-time imaging as compared with the others. As a result. the ultrasound imaging system has become general and essential modality for imaging the internal organs of human body. In this review various researches and developments to enhance the resolution of the ultrasound images are explained and future trends of the ultrasound imaging technology are described.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.33-42
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• 1996

A multimedia remote ultrasound image transfer system for tole-medical services was implemented. The image data of the ultrasound scanner system of the slave is compressed using image compression system. It is transferred to the master PC via ISDN UNI(User-Network Interface) and decompressd by image decompression system. The total system is composed of three parts; first, the image capture card which transfers bidirection- al data between ultrasound scanner system and PC, second, image compression and decompression card, finally, ISDN TA(Terminal Adaptor) card for transferring the image. This system has a easy user interface because it is executed on the basis of MS-WINDOWS. So it is capable of serving medical services at a remote place.

• Journal of International Society for Simulation Surgery
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.40-42
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• 2015

Purpose Usability is an important factor in our life. This paper presents an approach to design the clinical work-flow for ultrasound system. And, we tried to apply this work-flow in diagnosis ultrasound system. Materials and Methods For user learnability, we follow international standard IEC 60601-1-1 and IEC 62366 which describes usability of medical instrument. User requirement are applied by 10 clinicians who are well aware of usability. We considered user environment and designed clinical work-flow into two types: general use and emergency use. The designed clinical work-flow was evaluated by 10 clinicians and results derived from the evaluation were analyzed. Results We could successfully design optimized clinical workflow of ultrasound system. Conclusion This paper suggests usability testing for optimized ultrasound clinical workflow. Using this clinical work flow, users can enhance their clinical performance and reduce operation time.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.40-47
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• 2017

The effects of ultrasound in heterogeneous system were investigated in three kinds of ultrasonic systems including a bath-type system (System #1), a double-bath-type system (System #2), and a double-bath-type system partly filled with glass beads (System #3). The ultrasound energy and its attenuation were quantified using calorimetry and the sound pressure measurement method. The sonochemical effects mainly involved in radical oxidation reactions were quantified using KI dosimetry. It was found that ultrasound energy was significantly attenuated in System #2 and #3 due to the presence of solid materials such as a submerged stainless steel reactor and glass beads. However, in spite of low ultrasound energy status, sonochemical oxidation reactions occurred more violently due to the presence of glass beads in System #3. In addition, calorimetry was more adequate to estimate the total energy status of ultrasound in sonoreactors compared to the sound pressure measurement method.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.06b
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• pp.53-58
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• 2001

In this paper, a low price ultrasound image processing system is developed using DSP and PC. Ultrasound for image is generated by the 32-channel transducer. Ultrasound image is captured by DSP instead of the private image grabber board. Display of image and image processing algorithms are performed by PC. The image processing algorithms based on GUI are realized by software. So users without knowledge of image processing can perform the image enhancement more easily.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.294-299
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• 2007

For efficient and accurate diagnosis of ultrasound images, appropriate time gain compensation(TGC) and dynamic range(DR) control of ultrasound echo signals are important. TGC is used for compensating the attenuation of ultrasound echo signals along the depth, and DR controls the image contrast. In recent ultrasound systems, these two factors are automatically set by a system and/or manually adjusted by an operator to obtain the desired image quality on the screen. In this paper, we propose an algorithm to find the optimized parameter values far TGC and DR automatically. In TGC optimization, we determine the degree of attenuation compensation along the depth by dividing an image into vertical strips and reliably estimating the attenuation characteristic of ultrasound signals. For DR optimization, we define a novel cost function by properly using the characteristics of ultrasound images. We obtain experimental results by applying the proposed algorithm to a real ultrasound(US) imaging system. The results verify that the proposed algorithm automatically sets values of TGC and DR in real-time such that the subjective quality of the enhanced ultrasound images may be sufficiently high for efficient and accurate diagnosis.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.43 no.5
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• pp.367-374
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to understand the infection prevention system and infection management perception of Ultrasound diagnostic room in medical institutions by sonographer's in general practitioner, semi and general hospitals. As a research method, a statistical analysis was conducted by surveying a total of 20 items in four category to determine the infection perception of sonographer's according to gender, age, working institution, and working period. As a result of infection awareness, males were in the ultrasound gel management category, women were in the transducer management category, all age groups were in the transducer management system category, and the General Practitioner, semi and general hospitals. were in the transducer management system category, and general hospitals showed a high degree of infection awareness in the category of disinfection and sterilization, and in the category of transducer management in the entire working period. In the results of the analysis of the correlation between the sub-factors of the perception of infection control in the Ultrasound diagnostic room the degree of correlation between each category showed a middle degree correlation(r>0.5) and a significant difference by category(p<.01). In conclusion, the prevention of infection in the ultrasound diagnostic room, which sonographer's firms think, was found to be the most efficient ultrasound diagnostic room infection control to implement transducer and gel management in accordance with the principles of disinfection and sterilization.

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.64-69
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• 2014

Ultrasound system is one of the complex wireless signal processing systems that are widely used in the fields of modern industry such as medical diagnostics, underwater communications, and sensor-networks. Miniaturization of ultrasound system has been raging recently. In this paper, a hybrid LNA that is suitable for miniaturization and mobile diagnostic ultrasound system has been developed. The proposed LNA has low noise figure of less than 5dB, and the feedback resistor is designed to be electrically adjusted in order to attain the impedance-matching for various ultrasound transducers. It supports the whole ultrasound frequencies from 10KHz to 150MHz frequency band and also provides sleep modes. A gain from -18.8 to -29.5 dB is achieved by adjusting each transducer to fit the system character. Power consumption can be reduced up to 90% in similar performance as compared to the existing LNA.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.408-414
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• 2011

This study was carried out to analyze the utilization of ultrasound machines in animal hospitals and focused on surveying the present condition of diagnostic ultrasound on veterinary medicine in South Korea. Total 279 veterinary hospitals were surveyed with e-mail questionnaires or telephone survey. E-mail questionnaires consist of 17 items of questions including existence of ultrasound machine, types of ultrasound machine, ultrasound examination costs, frequency, purposes, other diagnostic imaging equipments, and referring system of ultrasound. Telephone surveys asked about the existence of the ultrasound machine and types of the ultrasound machine to 279 animal hospitals. Two hundred and seventy-one out of 279 animal hospitals holds ultrasound machine. Seventy-two percents clinics purchased used ultrasonographic machines and mean years after the date of manufacture is 7.5 years and the proportion of superannuated machines are relatively high. Also many clinicians prefer single organ scanning rather than general scan technique and more than 60% of clinics perform ultrasonographic examination less than 5 times a week. Clinics located in Seoul area tend to have more expensive and brand-new ultrasonographic machines and the distribution of radiology specialist are higher in this area. Problems associated with the present condition were oversupply of machines, unequal distribution of the medical equipment in different localities, ineffective use of the medical equipment, and high percentage of old poor-quality medical equipments. There should be a viable alternative proposal to control amount and quality of the ultrasound machines. Also, the improved management system for the ultrasound machine is required.