• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.1408-1414
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• 2019

Deep artificial neural network with transfer learning is applied to compressed sensing cardiovascular MRI. Transfer learning is a method that utilizes structure, filter kernels, and weights of the network used in prior learning for current learning or application. The transfer learning is useful in accelerating learning speed, and in generalization of the neural network when learning data is limited. From a cardiac MRI experiment, with 8 healthy volunteers, the neural network with transfer learning was able to reduce learning time by a factor of more than five compared to that with standalone learning. Using test data set, reconstructed images with transfer learning showed lower normalized mean square error and better image quality compared to those without transfer learning.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.28 no.10
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• pp.885-891
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• 1995

In order to test the hypothesis that the pulmonic valve, when used to replace the aortic root as a pulmonary autograft, will remain a viable anatomical structure and will grow and develop normally along with the host, we performed aortic valve replacement with the pulmonary autograft in 15 neonatal piglets. The weight of the donor was 9.3 $\pm$ 0.2 kg, the recipient 9.6 $\pm$ 0.3 kg. Measured diameters of pulmonic annulus were 14 $\pm$ 0.2 mm for autograft and 14.2 $\pm$ 0.2 mm for pulmonary artery homograft. Operation was performed under cardiopulmonary bypass with deep hypothermia [20oC at low flow perfusion [70 ml/kg/min . The mean operation time was 227 $\pm$ 10 min., bypass time 152$\pm$ 7.6 min. and aortic cross clamp time 73$\pm$ 4.6 min.. 9 piglets survived more than 12 hours. One survived 12 days and died of pneumonia and the latest one survived in good condition and sacrificed at postoperative 6th week for cardiac catheterization and pathologic examination that revealed the viability and growing of the pulmonary autograft. Currently we are able to complete the operation with good preservation of cardiac function, and our postoperative care has evolved to the extent that we are now confident enough of having an acceptable percentage of long term survivors to undertake a definite study in this regard.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.227-237
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• 2021

Carbon monoxide (CO) is a cardioprotectant and potential cardiovascular therapeutic agent. Human cardiac fibroblasts (HCFs) are important determinants of myocardial structure and function. Large-conductance Ca2+-activated K+ (BK) channel is a potential therapeutic target for cardiovascular disease. We investigated whether CO modulates BK channels and the signaling pathways in HCFs using whole-cell mode patch-clamp recordings. CO-releasing molecules (CORMs; CORM-2 and CORM-3) significantly increased the amplitudes of BK currents (IBK). The CO-induced stimulating effects on IBK were blocked by pre-treatment with specific nitric oxide synthase (NOS) blockers (L-NG-monomethyl arginine citrate and L-NG-nitroarginine methyl ester). 8-bromo-cyclic GMP increased IBK. KT5823 (inhibits PKG) or ODQ (inhibits soluble guanylate cyclase) blocked the CO-stimulating effect on IBK. Moreover, 8-bromo-cyclic AMP also increased IBK, and pre-treatment with KT5720 (inhibits PKA) or SQ22536 (inhibits adenylate cyclase) blocked the CO effect. Pre-treatment with N-ethylmaleimide (a thiol-alkylating reagent) also blocked the CO effect on IBK, and DL-dithiothreitol (a reducing agent) reversed the CO effect. These data suggest that CO activates IBK through NO via the NOS and through the PKG, PKA, and S-nitrosylation pathways.

• Journal of Animal Reproduction and Biotechnology
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.176-182
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• 2022

Norflurazon is widely used on agricultural lands and has a high potential to pollute water sources. However, its effects on fish have not been fully elucidated. The purpose of our study was to determine whether norflurazon adversely affects the developmental stage of zebrafish, which are frequently used as a model system to evaluate the environmental impact of pollutants. Norflurazon interfered with the hatching of zebrafish embryos and induced several sublethal deformities including body length reduction, increased yolk sac volume, and enlargement of the pericardial region. We further examined the cardiotoxicity of norflurazon in the flk1:eGFP transgenic zebrafish line. The vascular network, mainly in the brain region, was significantly disrupted in norflurazon-exposed zebrafish. In addition, due to the failure of cardiac looping, norflurazon-exposed zebrafish had an abnormal cardiac structure. These developmental abnormalities were related to the apoptotic process triggered by norflurazon. Overall, the present study demonstrated the non-target toxicity of norflurazon by analyzing the hazardous effects of norflurazon on developing zebrafish.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.82 no.1
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• pp.219-224
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• 2021

Leiomyosarcoma (LMS) is a soft tissue sarcoma that originates from smooth muscle cells. It is commonly found in the uterus but can occur throughout the body, including the retroperitoneal space, abdominal cavity, and any vascular structure. Although there are many case reports of uterine or vascular LMS metastasizing to the heart, cardiac metastasis from nonvisceral lesions has only been reported in two cases. Herein we report a rare case of a patient presenting metastatic LMS from the left flank in the right ventricle observed with echocardiography and enhanced computed tomography.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.22 no.8
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• pp.585-589
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• 2016

Recently, the robotic assist system for cardiovascular intervention gets continuously growing interest. The robotic cardiovascular intervention systems are largely two folds, systems for cardiac ablation procedure assist and systems for vascular intervention assist. For the systems, the clinician controls the catheter inserted through blood vessel to the heart via a master console or master manipulator. Most of the current master manipulators have structure of joystick-like pivoting 2 degree of freedom (DOF) handle in the core, which is used in parallel with other sliding switches and input devices. It however is desirable to have customized and optimized design manipulator that can provide clinician with intuitive control of the catheter motion fully utilizing the advantage of the use of robotic structure. A 6 DOF kinematic mechanism that can capture the motion control intention of the clinician in translational 3 DOF and rotational 3 DOF is proposed in this paper. Also, a master-slave motion relationship specially designed for the cardiac catheter manipulation motion is proposed and implemented in an experimental prototype. Design revision for implementation of more efficient motion and experiment in combination with an experimental slave robot system for catheter manipulation are underway.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.291-296
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• 1998

A new mechanical heart valve prosthesis has been designed appling systematic design methodology. The function of the heart valve was defined, and search for design variation has been carried out according to the functional structure, Optimal model among the various variations was determined in view of the design specificationn. Proto type valve was fabricated and test has been carried out using a mock circulation system. It has been observed that the pressure profile, cardiac output and behavior characteristics are generally satisfactory.

• Journal of Veterinary Science
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.57.1-57.7
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• 2021

In a 3-year-old Samoyed, aortic bulging was found on radiography during a general check-up. On echocardiography, turbulent flow was found in left ventricular outflow tract (LVOT) with high velocity (6.1 m/s). A linear structure was attached to the interventricular septum and connected to the chordae tendineae reaching the papillary muscle. A part of the structure moved during cardiac cycle, similar to mitral motion. This dog was diagnosed with LVOT obstruction caused by accessory mitral valve tissue (AMVT). This is the first report of AMVT in veterinary medicine. AMVT should be considered as a possible cause of LVOT obstruction in dogs.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.389-399
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• 2008

Corrections of attenuation, scatter and resolution are important in order to improve the accuracy of single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) image reconstruction. Especially, the heart movement by respiration and beating cause the errors in the corrections. Myocardial phantom is used to verify the correction methods, but there are many different parts in the current phantoms in actual human body. Therefore the results using a phantom are often considered apart from the clinical data. We developed a new phantom that implements the human body structure around the thorax more faithfully. The new phantom has the small mediastinum which can simulate the structure in which the lung adjoins anterior, lateral and apex of myocardium. The container was made of acrylic and water-equivalent material was used for mediastinum. In addition, solidified polyurethane foam in epoxy resin was used for lung. Five different sizes of myocardium were developed for the quantitative gated SPECT (QGS). The septa of all different cardiac phantoms were designed so that they can be located at the same position. The proposed phantom was attached with liver and gallbladder, the adjustment was respectively possible for the height of them. The volumes of five cardiac ventricles were 150.0, 137.3, 83.1, 42.7 and 38.6ml respectively. The SPECT were performed for the new phantom, and the differences between the images were examined after the correction methods were applied. The three-dimensional tomography of myocardium was well reconstructed, and the subjective evaluations were done to show the difference among the various corrections. We developed the new cardiac and torso phantom, and the difference of various corrections was shown on SPECT images and QGS results.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.553-558
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• 1999

The ECG signal is very important information for diagnosis of patient and a cardiac disorder That signal is hard to filter the noise because that is mixed with a lot of noise, and the error of the filtering will distort the ECG signal. The existing method for the filtering of the ECG signal has structure that has many steps for filtering, so that structure is complex and the processing speed is slow. For the improvement of that problem, we propose the method of filtering that has simple structure using the RBF neural networks and have good results.