• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.12-21
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• 2003

Purpose : In order to overcome limitations in the existing conventional spectrometer, a new spectrometer with advanced functionalities is designed and implemented. Materials and Methods : We designed a spectrometer using the TMS320C6701 DSP capable of 1 giga floating point operations per second (GFLOPS). The spectrometer can generate continuously varying complicate gradient waveforms by real-time calculation, and select image plane interactively. The designed spectrometer is composed of two parts: one is DSP-based digital control part, and the other is analog part generating gradient and RF waveforms, and performing demodulation of the received RF signal. Each recover board can measure 4 channel FID signals simultaneously for parallel imaging, and provides fast reconstruction using the high speed DSP. Results : The developed spectrometer was installed on a 1.5 Tesla whole body MRI system, and performance was tested by various methods. The accurate phase control required in digital modulation and demodulation was tested, and multi-channel acquisition was examined with phase-array coil imaging. Superior image quality is obtained by the developed spectrometer compared to existing commercial spectrometer especially in the fast spin echo images. Conclusion : Interactive control of the selection planes and real-time generation of gradient waveforms are important functions required for advanced imaging such as spiral scan cardiac imaging. Multi-channel acquisition is also highly demanding for parallel imaging. In this paper a spectrometer having such functionalities is designed and developed using the TMS320C6701 DSP having 1 GFLOPS computational power. Accurate phase control was achieved by the digital modulation and demodulation techniques. Superior image qualities are obtained by the developed spectrometer for various imaging techniques including FSE, GE, and angiography compared to those obtained by the existing commercial spectrometer.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.375-385
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• 2016

Recently, several implantable hearing aids such as cochlear implant, middle ear implant, etc., which have a module receiving power and signal from outside the body, are frequently used to treat the hearing impaired patients. Most of implantable hearing aids are adopted permanent magnet pairs to couple between internal and external devices for the enhancement of power transmission. Generally, the internal device which containing the magnet in the center of receiving coil is implanted under the skin of human temporal bone. In case of MRI scanning of a patient with the implantable hearing aid, however, homogeneous magnetic fields of the MRI might be interfered by the implanted magnet. For the above reasons, the MR image is degraded by large area of artifact, so that diagnostics are almost impossible in deteriorated region. In this paper, we proposed an external coil system that can reduce the artifact of MR image due to the internal coupling magnet. By finite element analysis estimating area of MR artifact according to varying current and shape of the external coil, optimal coil parameters were extracted. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed external coil system was verified by confirming the artifact at real MRI scan.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.69-77
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• 1989

A hologram scanner for POS bar code symb9ol readers has been developed. This system is composed of scanning optics, optical detector, video signal circuitary and preprocessor. In contrast to conventional scanners using polygonal mirrors, which complicate the scanning optics, the hologram scanner developed in this research was made up with simple optics and higher reading performance was achieved. And in order to read abar code symbol omnidirectionally with highdensity scan patterns, the new real time decoding technique was proposed. The advantage of this technique is less hardware and lower clock rate. High speed processing and improved readability for tilted symbol was confirmed experimentally.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.223-232
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• 2017

Purpose: To report the use of multiband accelerated echo-planar imaging (EPI) for resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) to achieve rapid high temporal resolution at 3T compared to conventional EPI. Materials and Methods: rs-fMRI data were acquired from 20 healthy right-handed volunteers by using three methods: conventional single-band gradient-echo EPI acquisition (Data 1), multiband gradient-echo EPI acquisition with 240 volumes (Data 2) and 480 volumes (Data 3). Temporal signal-to-noise ratio (tSNR) maps were obtained by dividing the mean of the time course of each voxel by its temporal standard deviation. The resting-state sensorimotor network (SMN) and default mode network (DMN) were estimated using independent component analysis (ICA) and a seed-based method. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed between the tSNR map, SMN, and DMN from the three data sets for between-group analysis. P < 0.05 with a family-wise error (FWE) correction for multiple comparisons was considered statistically significant. Results: One-way ANOVA and post-hoc two-sample t-tests showed that the tSNR was higher in Data 1 than Data 2 and 3 in white matter structures such as the striatum and medial and superior longitudinal fasciculus. One-way ANOVA revealed no differences in SMN or DMN across the three data sets. Conclusion: Within the adapted metrics estimated under specific imaging conditions employed in this study, multiband accelerated EPI, which substantially reduced scan times, provides the same quality image of functional connectivity as rs-fMRI by using conventional EPI at 3T. Under employed imaging conditions, this technique shows strong potential for clinical acceptance and translation of rs-fMRI protocols with potential advantages in spatial and/or temporal resolution. However, further study is warranted to evaluate whether the current findings can be generalized in diverse settings.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.46-53
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• 2008

Ultrasonic C-scan technique is one of very popular techniques being used for detection of flaws in polymer matrix composite(PMC). However, the application of this technique is very limited for evaluation of defects in PMC fabricated by the automated fiber placement process. The purpose of this study is to develop a novel ultrasonic hybrid system based on nondestructive and non-contact ultrasonic techniques for evaluation of delamination in carbon/epoxy and carbon/PPS composite laminates. It was shown that the newly developed ultrasonic hybrid system based on dual air-coupled pitch-catch technique with ultrasonic scattering reflection concept could provide excellent image with higher resolution of delamination in PMC compared with the conventional pitch-catch method. It is expected that this ultrasonic hybrid technique can be applied for on-line inspection of flaws in PMC during the fabrication process.

• Proceedings of the KSMRM Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.97-97
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• 2003

Contrast-enhanced MR angiography (CE-MRA) gradually occupies its position as a primary evaluation tool forsteno-occlusive disease of supra-aortic cervical arteries. It has several advantages over time-of-flight (TOF) technique such as shorter imaging time, less saturation effect, and less flow- and motion-related artifacts. Diverse methods of k-space sampling, imaging sequences, and strategies for image acquisitiontiming have been introduced since its early clinical application. Especially, methods of k-space sampling and image acquisition timing are very important to achieve maximal arterial enhancement and suppress venous signal while maintaining large scan coverage and high spatial resolution. In addition, regardless of several advantages over TOF technique, it still has a tendency to overestimate the degree of stenosis in patients with carotid or vertebralartery disease. In this exhibit, we will overview the current techniques of CE-MRA with special attention to methods of k-space sampling and image acquisition timing. We will also discuss diagnostic accuracy of CE-MRA in patients with supra-aortic cervical artery stenosis and artifacts frequently misinterpreted as steno-occlusive lesion on CE-MRA.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.642-652
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• 2010

Recently, DVC (Distributed Video Coding) techniques are drawing a lot of interests as one of the future research works to achieve low complexity encoding in various applications. But, due to the limited computational complexity, the performances of DVC algorithms are inferior to those of conventional international standard video coders, which use zig-zag scan, run length code, entropy code and skipped macroblock. In this paper, in order to overcome the performance limit of the DVC system, the distortion for every block is estimated when side information is found at the decoder and then we propose a new selective block encoding scheme which provides the encoder side with the motion information for the highly distorted blocks and then allows the sender to encode the motion compensated frame difference signal. Through computer simulations, it is shown that the coding efficiency of the proposed scheme reaches almost that of the conventional inter-frame coding scheme.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.186-192
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• 2017

The carbon paste electrode (CPE) was modified with the pristine bentonite and hybrid material (HDTMA-modified bentonite). The modified-CPEs are then employed as working electrode in an electrochemical detection of As(V) from aqueous solutions using the cyclic voltammetric measurements. Cyclic voltammograms revealed that As(V) showed reversible behavior onto the working electrode. The hybrid material-modified carbon paste electrode showed significantly enhanced electrochemical signal which was then utilized in the low level detection of As(V). Moreover, the studies were conducted at neutral pH conditions. The electrochemical studies were conducted with scan rates (20 to 200 mV/s) to deduce the mechanism of redox processes involved at the electrode surface. The anodic current was linearly increased, increasing the concentration of As(V) from 5.0 to $35.0{\mu}g/g$ using the hybrid material-modified electrode. This provided fairly a good calibration line for As(V) detection. The presence of varied concentrations of As(III) in the determination of total arsenic was studied. The influence of several cations and anions viz., Cu(II), Mn(II), Zn(II), Pb(II), Cd(II), Fe(III), $Cl^-$, $NO_3{^-}$, $PO_4{^{3-}}$, EDTA and glycine in the detection of As(V) from aqueous solution was also studied. Further, in an attempt to simulate the real matrix analysis, the tap water sample was spiked with As(V) and subjected for As(V) detection using the modified-CPE.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.295-301
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• 2023

In addition to protocol adjustments during CT examinations, the height of the CT table can also affect image quality. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the change in image quality depending on the height of the table in brain CT, which accounts for a large proportion of CT examinations, by measuring signal to contrast to noise ratio (CNR) and noise power spectrum (NPS) using the head phantom and evaluating them. The head phantom images were acquired using Philips Brilliance iCT 256. When the image was acquired, the table height was adjusted to 815, 865, 915, 965, 1015, and 1030 mm, respectively, and each scan was performed 3 times for each height. The CNR result showed the highest value at 965 mm, which is the height adjacent to the center of the head phantom. NPS showed the lowest NPS at 915 mm, the center of the head phantom in the low frequency region. From these results, it can be seen that the height of the table in CT examination is closely related to the image quality, and it can be seen the characteristics of image quality according to CT table through quantitative evaluation methods such as CNR and NPS.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.193-199
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• 2018

In this research, 15 patients were diagnosed with 1.5T and 3.0T MRI instruments (Philips, Medical System, Achieva) to minize Ferromagnetic artifact and find the optimized Tesla. Based on the theory that the 3.0T, when compared to 1.5T, show relatively high signal-to-ratio(SNR), Scan time can be shortened or adjust the image resolution. However, when using the 3.0T MRI instruments, various artifact due to the magnetic field difference can degrade the diagnostic information. For the analysis condition, area of interest is set at the background of the T1, T2 sagittal image followed by evaluation of L3, L4, L5 SNR, length of 3 parts with Ferromagnetic artifact, and Histogram. The validity evaluation was performed by using the independent t test. As a result, for the SNR evaluation, mere difference in value was observed for L3 between 1.5T and 3.0T, while big differences were observed for both L4, and L5(p<0.05). Shorter length was observed for the 1.5T when observing 3 parts with Ferromagnetic artifact, thus we can conclude that 3.0T can provide more information on about peripheral tissue diagnostic information(p<0.05). Finally, 1.5T showed higher counts values for the Histogram evaluation(p<0.05). As a result, when we have compared the 1.5T and 3.0T with SNR, length of Ferromagnetic artifact, Histogram, we believe that using a Low Tesla for Spine MRI test can achieve the optimal image information for patients with disk operation like PLIF, etc. in the past.