• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.11-19
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• 2010

Most of deblocking filters assumes that the block boundaries are accurately known and the coding information like quantization parameters are available. In some applications such as commercial television, however, many external video inputs without known block boundary and coding information arc given. If a decompressed video sequence heavily degraded with blocking artifacts is given through the external video port, it is absolutely necessary to detect block boundaries and control the strength of deblocking filtering by analysing the given images. This paper presents an efficient method to find the block boundaries and estimate the strength of the blocking artifacts without the knowledge of coding information. In addition, the confidence of the estimated blocking artifact information is also evaluated to control the adaptive deblocking filter robustly. Experiment results show that the estimated block boundary locations and strength relative strength and confidence information are practically good enough to reduce the blocking artifacts without prior knowledge.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.144-150
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• 2012

A microphone for fully implantable hearing device was generally implanted under the skin of the temporal bone. So, the implanted microphone's characteristics can be affected by the accompanying noise due to masticatory movement. In this paper, the implantable microphone with 2-channels structure was designed for reduction of the generated noise signal by masticatory movement. And an experimental model for generation of the noise by masticatory movement was developed with considering the characteristics of human temporal bone and skin. Using the model, the speech signal by a speaker and the artificial noise by a vibrator were supplied simultaneously into the experimental model, the electrical signals were measured at the proposed microphone. The collected signals were processed using a general adaptive filter with least mean square(LMS) algorithm. To confirm performance of the proposed methods, the correlation coefficient and the signal to noise ratio(SNR) before and after the signal processing were calculated. Finally, the results were compared each other.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.279-284
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• 2016

Single-shot echo planar imaging(SS-EPI) is well established as high sensitivity for ischemic stroke. However, it is prone to susceptibility artifact in brain stem that diminish the image quality. single-shot turbo spin echo(SS-TSE) is a new DWI technique that can reduce susceptibility artifact. Thus, this research was conducted so as to reduce geometric distortion in brain stem by using single-shot turbo spin echo technique. Thirty patients without brain disease underwent diffusion MR on a 3T scanner with SS-EPI and SS-TSE. Obtained images with both sequences were analyzed for geometric distortion and error percentage as well. Image quality in terms of geometric distortion of SS-TSE were found to be significantly better than those for SS-EPI. And error percentage was considerably reduced for 2.4% of b0 image(from 11.1% to 8.7%), 1.2% of b1000 image(from 11.4% to 10.1%), respectively. In summary, diffusion MR using SS-TSE significantly reduce geometric distortion compared to SS-EPI in brain stem and may provide improved diagnostic performance.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.84 no.1
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• pp.240-252
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• 2023

Purpose To assess the effect of deep learning image reconstruction (DLIR) for head CT in pediatric patients. Materials and Methods We collected 126 pediatric head CT images, which were reconstructed using filtered back projection, iterative reconstruction using adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction (ASiR)-V, and all three levels of DLIR (TrueFidelity; GE Healthcare). Each image set group was divided into four subgroups according to the patients' ages. Clinical and dose-related data were reviewed. Quantitative parameters, including the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), and qualitative parameters, including noise, gray matter-white matter (GM-WM) differentiation, sharpness, artifact, acceptability, and unfamiliar texture change were evaluated and compared. Results The SNR and CNR of each level in each age group increased among strength levels of DLIR. High-level DLIR showed a significantly improved SNR and CNR (p < 0.05). Sequential reduction of noise, improvement of GM-WM differentiation, and improvement of sharpness was noted among strength levels of DLIR. Those of high-level DLIR showed a similar value as that with ASiR-V. Artifact and acceptability did not show a significant difference among the adapted levels of DLIR. Conclusion Adaptation of high-level DLIR for the pediatric head CT can significantly reduce image noise. Modification is needed while processing artifacts.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.137-144
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• 2004

ECG signals are often contaminated with high-frequency noise such as muscle artifact, power line interference, and others. In the ECG signal processing, especially during a pre-processing stage, numerous noise removal techniques have been used to reduce these high-frequency noise without much distorting the original signal. This paper proposes a new type of digital filter with a continuously variable cutoff frequency to improve the signal quality This filter consists of a cutoff frequency controller (CFC) and variable cutoff frequency lowpass filter (VCF-LPF). From the noisy input ECG signal, CFC produces a cutoff frequency control signal using the signal slew rate. We implemented VCF-LPF based on two new filter design methods called convex combination filter (CCF) and weight interpolation fille. (WIF). These two methods allow us to change the cutoff frequency of a lowpass filter In an arbitrary fine step. VCF-LPF shows an excellent noise reduction capability for the entire time segment of ECG excluding the rising and falling edge of a very sharp QRS complex. We found VCF-LPF very useful and practical for better signal visualization and probably for better ECG interpretation. We expect this new digital filter will find its applications especially in a home health management system where the measured ECG signals are easily contaminated with high-frequency noises .

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.36 no.11C
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• pp.662-672
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• 2011

This paper presents a new edge-preserving algorithm and its VLSI architecture for block artifact reduction. Unlike previous approaches using block classification, our algorithm utilizes pixel classification to categorize each pixel into one of two classes, namely smooth region and edge region, which are described by the edge-preserving maps. Based on these maps, a two-step adaptive filter which includes offset filtering and edge-preserving filtering is used to remove block artifacts. A pipelined VLSI architecture of the proposed deblocking algorithm for HD video processing is also presented in this paper. A memory-reduced architecture for a block buffer is used to optimize memory usage. The architecture of the proposed deblocking filter is prototyped on FPGA Cyclone II, and then we estimated performance when the filter is synthesized on ANAM 0.25 ${\mu}m$ CMOS cell library using Synopsys Design Compiler. Our experimental results show that our proposed algorithm effectively reduces block artifacts while preserving the details.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.1299-1309
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• 1998

In this paper, we propose a new approach for reducing the blocking artifact that is one of drawbacks of the block-based Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) without introducing additional information or significant blurring. We modify the inter-block discontinuity minimization technique to preserve edges within a block as well as to reduce visible block boundaries. The homogeneity of each block is decided by the threshold value reated to Q-factor, which is included in a JPEG as well as MPEG streams. The quantization error is estimated by minimizing the discontinuity, which is weighted in proportion to block discontinuity and added to each pixel in the block to compensate block artifacts. The proposed algorithm reconstructs images which have less noticeable block boundaries from a subjective viewpoit without anyconstraints.

• Journal of Conservation Science
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• v.18 s.18
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• pp.33-50
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• 2006

Around Yeongsan river basin, there are Yeongkwang Gundong, Muan Inpyeong Tombs, Muu Gusan-ri Tombs and Hampyeong Guksan remain from which a lot of iron artifacts were excavated. Among them, 6 iron artifacts were chosen, and their microstructures were analyzed. As a result, Iron artifacts were produced sponge iron by the low temperature reduction process and a part of microstructure have the possibility that steel made by decarburizing. And also, by tempering the parts which need high strength, the iron artifacts had high strength and by distributing the weakness of the tempered structure to the nearby untempered parts, their breaking was prevented and they had the durability. These skills were used then. Especially these skills were found to be used in the 2nd century by high skilled people because an iron axe excavated at Yeongkwang Gundong of 2nd century by the historical record showed that the skill was used. Also microstructures were found to show the possibility that the iron technology was inherited to the late 5th century. When producing iron artifacts made of sponge iron containing small amount of carbon, that was made by the production process repeating molding, carburizing, heat treatment and hammering.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.121-129
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• 2018

The university museum is working to discover, research, and exhibit cultural artifacts as well as use them as resources of education and academic researches as one of the important organizations of the university. Current, however, university museums have the low-level usability caused by the reduction of financial and administrative supports of the university. One approach to solve this problem may be the design of mobile docent app for improving the accessibility of the museum. The app enables users get artifacts and education programs without the restriction and learn artifact-related knowledge easily. In this paper, we design and implement a new mobile docent app according to the analysis of content of the Chosun university museum as a real case study. In addition, we evaluate the functionality and usability of the proposed app by affordance-based questionnaire.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.503-509
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• 2009

The development of technology has led to ubiquitous health care service, which enables many patients to receive medical services anytime and anywhere. For the ubiquitous health care environment, real-time measurement of biomedical signals is very important, and the medical instruments must be small and portable or wearable. So, such devices have been developed to measure biomedical signals. In this study, we develop the biomedical monitoring device which is sensing the PPG signal, one of the useful signal in the field of ubiquitous healthcare. We design a watch-like biomedical signal monitoring system without a finger probe to prevent the user's inconvenience. This system obtains the PPG from the radial artery using a sensor in the wrist band. But, new device developed in this paper is easy to get the motion artifacts. So, we proposed new algorithm removing the motion artifacts from the PPG signal. The method detects motion artifacts by changing the degree of brightness of the light source. If the brightness of the light source is reduced, the PPG pulses will disappear. When the PPG pulses have disappeared completely, the remaining signal is not the signal that results from the changing blood flow. We believe that this signal is the motion artifact and call it the noise reference signal. The motion artifacts are removed by subtracting the noise reference signal from the input signal. We apply this algorithm to the system, so we can stabilize the biomedical monitoring system we designed.