• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.71-81
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• 2017

Purpose: To compare three, motion-resistant, T1-weighted MR sequences on the hepatobiliary phase for gadoxetic acid-enhanced MR imaging of the liver. Materials and Methods: In this retrospective study, 79 patients underwent gadoxetic acid-enhanced, 3T liver MR imaging. Fifty-nine were examined using a standard protocol, and 20 were examined using a motion-resistant protocol. During the hepatocyte-specific phase, three MR sequences were acquired: 1) gradient recalled echo (GRE) with controlled aliasing in parallel imaging results in higher acceleration (CAIPIRINHA); 2) radial GRE with the interleaved angle-bisection scheme (ILAB); and 3) radial GRE with golden-angle scheme (GA). Two readers independently assessed images with motion artifacts, streaking artifacts, liver-edge sharpness, hepatic vessel clarity, lesion conspicuity, and overall image quality, using a 5-point scale. The images were assessed by measurement of liver signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and tumor-to-liver contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR). The results were compared, using repeated post-hoc, paired t-tests with Bonferroni correction and the Wilcoxon signed rank test with Bonferroni correction. Results: In the qualitative analysis of cooperative patients, the results for CAIPIRINHA had significantly higher ratings for streak artifacts, liver-edge sharpness, hepatic vessel clarity, and overall image quality as compared to, radial GRE, (P < 0.016). In the imaging of uncooperative patients, higher scores were recorded for ILAB and GA with respect to all of the qualitative assessments, except for streak artifact, compared with CAIPIRINHA (P < 0.016). However, no significant differences were found between ILAB and GA. For quantitative analysis in uncooperative patients, the mean liver SNR and lesion-to-liver CNR with radial GRE were significantly higher than those of CAIPIRINHA (P < 0.016). Conclusion: In uncooperative patients, the use of the radial GRE sequence can improve the image quality compared to GRE imaging with CAIPIRINHA, despite the data acquisition methods used. The GRE imaging with CAIPIRINHA is applicable for patients without breath-holding difficulties.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.11 no.10
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• pp.3873-3879
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• 2010

Home service robot are not working in the fixed task such as industrial robot, because they are together with human in the same indoor space, but have to do in much more flexible and various environments. Most of them are developed on the base of the wheel-base mobile robot in the same method as a vehicle robot for factory automation. In these days, for holonomic system characteristics, omni-directional wheels are used in the mobile robot. A holonomicrobot, using omni-directional wheels, is capable of driving in any direction. But trajectory control for omni-directional mobile robot is not easy. Especially, azimuth control which sensor uncertainty problem is included is much more difficult. This paper develops trajectory controller of 3-wheels omni-directional mobile robot using fuzzy azimuth estimator. A trajectory controller for an omni-directional mobile robot, which each motor is controlled by an individual PID law to follow the speed command from inverse kinematics, needs a precise sensing data of its azimuth and exact estimation of reference azimuth value. It has imprecision and uncertainty inherent to perception sensors for azimuth. In this paper, they are solved by using fuzzy logic inference which can be used straightforward to perform the control of the mobile robot by means of the fuzzy behavior-based scheme already existent in literature. Finally, the good performance of the developed mobile robot is confirmed through live tests of path control task.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea CI
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• v.43 no.4 s.310
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• pp.1-14
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• 2006

The indirect branch instruction is a most substantial obstacle in utilizing ILP of modem high performance processors. The target address of an indirect branch has the polymorphic characteristic varied dynamically, so it is very difficult to predict the accurate target address. Therefore the performance of a processor with speculative methodology is reduced significantly due to the many execution cycle delays in occurring the misprediction. We proposed the very accurate and novel indirect branch prediction scheme so called data-dependence based prediction. The predictor results in the prediction accuracy of 98.92% using 1K entries, and. 99.95% using 8K But, all of the proposed indirect predictor including our predictor has a large hardware overhead for restoring expected target addresses as well as tags for alleviating an aliasing. Hence, we propose the scheme minimizing the hardware overhead without sacrificing the prediction accuracy. Our experiment results show that the hardware is reduced about 60% without the performance loss, and about 80% sacrificing only the performance loss of 0.1% in aspect of the tag overhead. Also, in aspect of the overhead of storing target addresses, it can save the hardware about 35% without the performance loss, and about 45% sacrificing only the performance loss of 1.11%.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea TC
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• v.44 no.10
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• pp.185-190
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• 2007

In this paper, minimum sampling rates and method of nonlinear characterization were suggested for low power, quasi-memoryless PAs. So far, the Nyquist rate of the input signal has been used for nonlinear PA modeling, and it is burdening Analog-to-digital converters for wideband signals. This paper shows that the input Nyquist rate sampling is not a necessary condition for successful modeling of quasi-memoryless PAs. Since this sampling requirement relives the bandwidth requirements for Analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) for feedback paths in digital pre-distortion systems, relatively low-cost ADcs can be used to identify nonlinear PAs for wideband signal transmission, even at severe aliasing conditions. Simulation results show that a generic memoryless nonlinear RF power amplifier with AMAM and AMPM distortion can be successfully identified at any sampling rates. Measurement results show the modeling error variation is less than 0.8dB over any sampling rates.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.112-124
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• 2018

Ocean-bottom seismic survey is a seismic acquisition technique which measures data by installing 4-component receiver on the sea floor. It can produce more improved data in quality than any other acquisition techniques. In the ocean-bottom seismic survey, however, the number of receivers is limited due to high cost. Since only a small number of receivers are used for acquisition, ocean-bottom seismic data may suffer from discontinuities of events over traces, which can result in spatial aliasing. In this paper, we implemented Kirchhoff migration using mirror-imaging algorithm to improve the quality of ocean-bottom seismic image. In order to implement the mirror imaging algorithm, the seismograms should be separated into up-going and down-going wavefields and the down-going wavefield should be used for migration. In this paper, we use the P-Z summation method to separate the wavefield. Numerical examples show that the migration results using mirror imaging algorithm have wider illumination than the conventional migration, especially in the shallow layers.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.78-87
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• 2017

For efficient data processing, trace interpolation and regularization techniques should be antecedently applied to the seismic data which were irregularly sampled with missing traces. Among many interpolation techniques, MWNI (Minimum Weighted Norm Interpolation) technique is one of the most versatile techniques and widely used to regularize seismic data because of easy extension to the high-order module and low computational cost. However, since it is difficult to interpolate spatially aliased data using this technique, model-constrained MWNI was suggested to compensate for this problem. In this paper, conventional MWNI and model-constrained MWNI modules have been developed in order to analyze their performance using synthetic data and validate the applicability to the field data. The result by using model-constrained MWNI was better in spatially aliased data. In order to verify the applicability to the field data, interpolation and regularization were performed for two field data sets, respectively. Firstly, the seismic data acquired in Ulleung Basin gas hydrate field was interpolated. Even though the data has very chaotic feature and complex structure due to the chimney, the developed module showed fairly good interpolation result. Secondly, very irregularly sampled and widely missing seismic data was regularized and the connectivity of events was quite improved. According to these experiments, we can confirm that the developed module can successfully interpolate and regularize the irregularly sampled field data.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.77-85
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• 2001

This paper proposes a method of time-scale modification of polyphonic audio signals based on a sinusoidal model. The signals are modeled with sinusoidal component and noise component. A multiresolution filter bank is designed which splits the input signal into six octave-spaced subbands without aliasing and sinusoidal modeling is applied to each subband signal. To alleviate smearing of transients in time-scale modification a dynamic segmentation method is applied to subbands which determines the analysis-synthesis frame size adaptively to fit time-frequency characteristics of the subband signal. For extracting sinusoidal components and calculating their parameters matching pursuit algorithm is applied to each analysis frame of subband signal. In accordance with spectrum analysis a psychoacoustic model implementing the effect of frequency masking is incorporated with matching pursuit to provide a resonable stop condition of iteration and reduce the number of sinusoids. The noise component obtained by subtracting the synthesized signal with sinusoidal components from the original signal is modeled by line-segment model of short time spectrum envelope. For various polyphonic audio signals the result of simulation shows suggested sinusoidal modeling can synthesize original signal without loss of perceptual quality and do more robust and high quality time-scale modification for large scale factor because of representing transients without any perceptual loss.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Navigation and Port Research Conference
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• v.2
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• pp.385-390
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• 2006

This paper examines the sampling and jitter specifications and considerations for Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) software receivers. Software radio (SWR) technologies are being used in the implementation of communication receivers in general and GNSS receivers in particular. With the advent of new GPS signals, and a range of new Galileo and GLONASS signals soon becoming available, GNSS is an application where SWR and software-defined radio (SDR) are likely to have an impact. The sampling process is critical for SWR receivers, where it occurs as close to the antenna as possible. One way to achieve this is by BandPass Sampling (BPS), which is an undersampling technique that exploits aliasing to perform downconversion. BPS enables removal of the IF stage in the radio receiver. The sampling frequency is a very important factor since it influences both receiver performance and implementation efficiency. However, the design of BPS can result in degradation of Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) due to the out-of-band noise being aliased. Important to the specification of both the ADC and its clocking Phase- Locked Loop (PLL) is jitter. Contributing to the system jitter are the aperture jitter of the sample-and-hold switch at the input of ADC and the sampling-clock jitter. Aperture jitter effects have usually been modeled as additive noise, based on a sinusoidal input signal, and limits the achievable Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR). Jitter in the sampled signal has several sources: phase noise in the Voltage-Controlled Oscillator (VCO) within the sampling PLL, jitter introduced by variations in the period of the frequency divider used in the sampling PLL and cross-talk from the lock line running parallel to signal lines. Jitter in the sampling process directly acts to degrade the noise floor and selectivity of receiver. Choosing an appropriate VCO for a SWR system is not as simple as finding one with right oscillator frequency. Similarly, it is important to specify the right jitter performance for the ADC. In this paper, the allowable sampling frequencies are calculated and analyzed for the multiple frequency BPS software radio GNSS receivers. The SNR degradation due to jitter in a BPSK system is calculated and required jitter standard deviation allowable for each GNSS band of interest is evaluated. Furthermore, in this paper we have investigated the sources of jitter and a basic jitter budget is calculated that could assist in the design of multiple frequency SWR GNSS receivers. We examine different ADCs and PLLs available in the market and compare known performance with the calculated budget. The results obtained are therefore directly applicable to SWR GNSS receiver design.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2018

Purpose: This study was designed to optimize the flip angle (FA) and scan timing of the hepatobiliary phase (HBP) using the 3D T1-weighted, gradient-echo (GRE) imaging with controlled aliasing in parallel imaging results in higher acceleration (CAIPIRINHA) technique on gadoxetic acid-enhanced 3T liver MR imaging. Materials and Methods: Sixty-two patients who underwent gadoxetic acid-enhanced 3T liver MR imaging were included in this study. Four 3D T1-weighted GRE imaging studies using the CAIPIRINHA technique and FAs of $9^{\circ}$ and $13^{\circ}$ were acquired during HBP at 15 and 20 min after intravenous injection of gadoxetic acid. Two abdominal radiologists, who were blinded to the FA and the timing of image acquisition, assessed the sharpness of liver edge, hepatic vessel clarity, lesion conspicuity, artifact severity, and overall image quality using a five-point scale. Quantitative analysis was performed by another radiologist to estimate the relative liver enhancement (RLE) and the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Statistical analyses were performed using the Wilcoxon signed rank test and one-way analysis of variance. Results: The scores of the HBP with an FA of $13^{\circ}$ during the same delayed time were significantly higher than those of the HBP with an FA of $9^{\circ}$ in all the assessment items (P < 0.01). In terms of the delay time, images at the same FA obtained with a 20-min-HBP showed better quality than those obtained with a 15-min-HBP. There was no significant difference in qualitative scores between the 20-min-HBP and the 15-min-HBP images in the non-liver cirrhosis (LC) group except for the hepatic vessel clarity score with $9^{\circ}$ FA. In the quantitative analysis, a statistically significant difference was found in the degree of RLE in the four HBP images (P = 0.012). However, in the subgroup analysis, no significant difference in RLE was found in the four HBP images in either the LC or the non-LC groups. The SNR did not differ significantly in the four HBP images. In the subgroup analysis, 20-min-HBP imaging with a $13^{\circ}$ FA showed the highest SNR value in the LC-group, whereas 15-min-HBP imaging with a $13^{\circ}$ FA showed the best value of SNR in the non-LC group. Conclusion: The use of a moderately high FA improves the image quality and lesion conspicuity on 3D, T1-weighted GRE imaging using the CAIPIRINHA technique on gadoxetic acid, 3T liver MR imaging. In patients with normal liver function, the 15-min-HBP with a $13^{\circ}$ FA represents a feasible option without a significant decrease in image quality.