• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.43 no.1 s.307
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• pp.9-16
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• 2006

This Paper proposes an adaptive error diffusioThis paper proposes an adaptive error diffusion algorithm for text enhancement followed by an efficient text segmentation that uses the maximum gradient difference (MGD). The gradients are calculated along with scan lines, and the MGD values are filled within a local window to merge the potential text segments. Isolated segments are then eliminated in the non-text region filtering process. After the left segmentation, a conventional error diffusion method is applied to the background, while the edge enhancement error diffusion is used for the text. Since it is inevitable that visually objectionable artifacts are generated when using two different halftoning algorithms, the gradual dilation is proposed to minimize the boundary artifacts in the segmented text blocks before halftoning. Sharpening based on the gradually dilated text region (GDTR) prevents the printing of successive dots around the text region boundaries. The error diffusion algorithm with edge enhancement is extended to halftone color images to sharpen the tort regions. The proposed adaptive error diffusion algorithm involves color halftoning that controls the amount of edge enhancement using a general error filter. The multiplicative edge enhancement parameters are selected based on the amount of edge sharpening and color difference. Plus, the additional error factor is introduced to reduce the dot elimination artifact generated by the edge enhancement error diffusion. By using the proposed algorithm, the text of a scanned image is sharper than that with a conventional error diffusion without changing background.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Bioinformatics Conference
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.61-86
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• 2001

All cancers are caused by abnormalities in DNA sequence. Throughout life, the DNA in human cells is exposed to mutagens and suffers mistakes in replication, resulting in progressive, subtle changes in the DNA sequence in each cell. Since the development of conventional and molecular cytogenetic methods to the analysis of chromosomal aberrations in cancers, more than 1,800 recurring chromosomal breakpoints have been identified. These breakpoints and regions of nonrandom copy number changes typically point to the location of genes involved in cancer initiation and progression. With the introduction of molecular cytogenetic methodologies based on fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), namely, comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) and multicolor FISH (m-FISH) in carcinomas become susceptible to analysis. Conventional CGH has been widely applied for the detection of genomic imbalances in tumor cells, and used normal metaphase chromosomes as targets for the mapping of copy number changes. However, this limits the mapping of such imbalances to the resolution limit of metaphase chromosomes (usually 10 to 20 Mb). Efforts to increase this resolution have led to the "new"concept of genomic DNA chip (1 to 2 Mb), whereby the chromosomal target is replaced with cloned DNA immobilized on such as glass slides. The resulting resolution then depends on the size of the immobilized DNA fragments. We have completed the first draft of its Korean Genome Project. The project proceeded by end sequencing inserts from a library of 96,768 bacterial artificial chromosomes (BACs) containing genomic DNA fragments from Korean ethnicity. The sequenced BAC ends were then compared to the Human Genome Project′s publicly available sequence database and aligned according to known cancer gene sequences. These BAC clones were biotinylated by nick translation, hybridized to cytogenetic preparations of metaphase cells, and detected with fluorescein-conjugated avidin. Only locations of unique or low-copy Portions of the clone are identified, because high-copy interspersed repetitive sequences in the probe were suppressed by the addition of unlabelled Cotl DNA. Banding patterns were produced using DAPI. By this means, every BAC fragment has been matched to its appropriate chromosomal location. We have placed 86 (156 BAC clones) cytogenetically defined landmarks to help with the characterization of known cancer genes. Microarray techniques would be applied in CGH by replacement of metaphase chromosome to arrayed BAC confirming in oncogene and tumor suppressor gene: and an array BAC clones from the collection is used to perform a genome-wide scan for segmental aneuploidy by array-CGH. Therefore, the genomic DNA chip (arrayed BAC) will be undoubtedly provide accurate diagnosis of deletions, duplication, insertions and rearrangements of genomic material related to various human phenotypes, including neoplasias. And our tumor markers based on genetic abnormalities of cancer would be identified and contribute to the screening of the stage of cancers and/or hereditary diseases

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.87-106
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• 2014

Purpose : To describe how a robust implementation of a radial 3D gradient-echo sequence with stack-of-stars sampling can be achieved, to review the imaging properties of radial acquisitions, and to share the experience from more than 5000 clinical patient scans. Materials and Methods: A radial stack-of-stars sequence was implemented and installed on 9 clinical MR systems operating at 1.5 and 3 Tesla. Protocols were designed for various applications in which motion artifacts frequently pose a problem with conventional Cartesian techniques. Radial scans were added to routine examinations without selection of specific patient cohorts. Results: Radial acquisitions show significantly lower sensitivity to motion and allow examinations during free breathing. Elimination of breath-holding reduces failure rates for non-compliant patients and enables imaging at higher resolution. Residual artifacts appear as streaks, which are easy to identify and rarely obscure diagnostic information. The improved robustness comes at the expense of longer scan durations, the requirement for fat suppression, and the nonexistence of a time-to-center value. Care needs to be taken during the configuration of receive coils. Conclusion: Routine clinical use of radial stack-of-stars sequences is feasible with current MR systems and may serve as substitute for conventional fat-suppressed T1-weighted protocols in applications where motion is likely to degrade the image quality.

• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.15-24
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• 2013

Purpose: In Asan Medical Center, Two parallel opposite beams are employed for total body irradiation. Patients are required to be in supine position where two arms are attached to mid axillary line. Normally, physical compensators are required to compensate the large dose difference for different parts of body due to the different thicknesses compared to the umbilicus separation. There was the maximum dose difference up to 30% in lung and chest wall compared to the prescription dose. In order to resolve the dose discrepancy occurring on different body regions, the feasibility of using Fieid-in-Field Technique is investigated in this study. Materials and Methods: CT scan was performed to The RANDO Phantom with fabricated two arms and sent to Eclipse treatment planning system (version 10.0, Varian, USA). Conventional plan with physical lead compensator and new plan using Field-in-Field Technique were established on TPS. AAA (Anisotropic Analytical Algorithm) dose calculation algorithm was employed for two parallel opposite beams attenuation. Results: The dose difference between two methods was compared with the prescription dose. The dose distribution of chest and anterior chest wall uncovered by patient arms was 114~124% for physical lead compensator while Field-in-Field Technique gave 106~107% of the dose distribution. In-vivo dosimetry result using TLD showed that the dose distribution to the same region was 110~117% for conventional physical compensator and 104~107% for Field-in-Field Technique. Conclusion: In this study, the feasibility of using FIF technique has been investigated with fabricated arms attached Rando phantom. The dose difference was up to 17% due to the attached arms. It is shown that the dose homogeneity is within ${\pm}10%$ with the CT based 3-dimensional 4 step FIF technique. The in-vivo dosimetry result using TLD was showed that 95~107% dose distribution compared to prescription dose. It is considered that CT based 3-dimensional Field-in-Field Technique for the total body irradiation gives much homogeneous dose distribution for different body parts than the conventional physical compensator method and might be useful to evaluate the dose on each part of patient body.

• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
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• v.34
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• pp.61-72
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• 2022

Purpose: Conventional CBCT(Cone-beam Computed-tomography) caused an error in the target volume due to organ movement in the area affected by respiratory movement. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the usefulness of accuracy and time spent using the Gated CBCT function, which reduces errors when performing RGRT(respiratory gated radiation therapy), and to examine the appropriateness of phase. Materials and methods: To evaluate the usefulness of Gated CBCT, the QUASAR^TM respiratory motion phantom was used in the Truebeam STx^TM. Using lead marker inserts, Gated CBCT was scaned 5 times for every 20~80% phase, 30~70% phase, and 40~60% phase to measure the blurring length of the lead marker, and the distance the lead marker moves from the top phase to the end of the phase was measured 5 times. Using Cedar Solid Tumor Inserts, 4DCT was scanned for every phase, 20-80%, 30-70%, and 40-60%, and the target volume was contoured and the length was measured five times in the axial direction (S-I direction). Result: In Gated CBCT scaned using lead marker inserts, the axial moving distance of the lead marker on average was measured to be 4.46cm in the full phase, 3.11cm in the 20-80% phase, 1.94cm in the 30-70% phase, 0.90cm in the 40-60% phase. In Fluoroscopy, the axial moving distance of the lead marker on average was 4.38cm and the distance on average from the top phase to the beam off phase was 3.342cm in the 20-80% phase, 3.342cm in the 30-70% phase, and 0.84cm in the 40-60% phase. Comparing the results, the difference in the full phase was 0.08cm, the 20~80% phase was 0.23cm, the 30~70% phase was 0.10cm, and the 40~60% phase was 0.07cm. The axial lengths of ITV(Internal Target Volume) and PTV(Planning Target Volume) contoured by 4DCT taken using cedar solid tumor inserts were measured to be 6.40cm and 7.40cm in the full phase, 4.96cm and 5.96cm in the 20~80% phase, 4.42cm and 5.42cm in the 30~70% phase, and 2.95cm and 3.95cm in the 40~60% phase. In the Gated CBCT, the axial lengths on average was measured to be 6.35 cm in the full phase, 5.25 cm in the 20-80% phase, 4.04 cm in the 30-70% phase, and 3.08 cm in the 40-60% phase. Comparing the results, it was confirmed that the error was within ±8.5% of ITV Conclusion: Conventional CBCT had a problem that errors occurred due to organ movement in areas affected by respiratory movement, but through this study, obtained an image similar to the target volume of the setting phase using Gated CBCT and verified its usefulness. However, as the setting phase decreases, the scan time was increases. Therefore, considering the scan time and the error in setting phase, It is recommended to apply it to patients with respiratory coordinated stereotactic radiation therapy using a wide phase of 30-70% or more.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.7-14
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• 1992

Between August 1988 and December 1991, 24 patients with intracranial tumors were treated with stereotactic radiosurgery(RS) using a 10 MV linear accelerator at Severance Hospital, Yonsei University College of Medicine. There were 5 meningiomas, 3 craniopharyngiomas, 9 glial tumors, 2 solitary metastases, 2 acoustic neurinomas, 2 pineal tumors, and 1 non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Ten patients were treated as primary treatment after diagnosis with stereotactic biopsy or neuroimaging study. Nine patients underwent RS for post-op. residual tumors and three patients as a salvage treatment for recurrence after external irradiation. Two patients received RS as a boost followed by fractionated conventional radiotherapy. Among sixteen patients who were followed more than 6 months with neuroimage, seven patients (2 meningiomas, 4 benign glial tumors, one non-Hodgkin's lymphoma) showed complete response on neuroimage after RS and nine patients showed decreased tumor size. There was no acute treatment related side reaction. Late complications include three patients with symptomatic peritumoral brain edema and one craniopharyngioma with optic chiasmal injury. Through this early experience, we conclude that stereotactically directed single high doses of irradiation to the small intracranial tumors is effective for tumor control. However, in order to define the role of radiosurgery in the management of intracraniai tumors, we should get the long-term results available to demonstrate the benefits versus potential complications of this therapeutic modality.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.74-79
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• 2017

Purpose Proton therapy can deliver an optimal dose to tumor while reducing unnecessary dose to normal tissue as compared the conventional photon therapy. As proton beams are irradiated into tissue, various positron emitters are produced via nuclear fragmentation reactions. These positron emitters could be used for the dose verification by using PET. However, the short half-life of the radioisotopes makes it hard to obtain the enough amounts of events. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of off-line PET imaging scan time on the PET image quality. Materials and Methods The various diameters of spheres (D=37, 28, 22 mm) filled with distilled water were inserted in a 2001 IEC body phantom. Then proton beams (100 MU) were irradiated into the center of the each sphere using the wobbling technique with the gantry angle of $0^{\circ}$. The modulation widths of the spread out bragg peak were 16.4, 14.7 and 9.3 cm for the spheres of 37, 28 and 22 mm in diameters respectively. After 5 min of the proton irradiation, the PET images of the IEC body phantom were obtained for 50 min. The PET images with different time courses (0-10 min, 11-20 min, 21-30 min, 31-40 min and 41-50 min) were obtained by dividing the frame with a duration of 10 min. In order to evaluate the off-line PET image quality with the different time courses, the contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) of the PET image calculated for each sphere. Results The CNRs of the sphere (D=37 mm) were 0.43, 0.42, 0.40, 0.31 and 0.21 for the time courses of 0-10 min, 11-20 min, 21-30 min, 31-40 min and 41-50 min respectively. The CNRs of the sphere (D=28 mm) were 0.36, 0.32, 0.27, 0.19 and 0.09 for the time courses of 0-10 min, 11-20 min, 21-30 min, 31-40 min and 41-50 min respectively. The CNR of 37 mm sphere was decreased rapidly after 30 min of the proton irradiation. In case of the spheres of 28 mm and 22 mm, the CNR was decreased drastically after 20 min of the irradiation. Conclusion The off-line PET imaging time is an important factor for the monitoring of the proton therapy. In case of the lesion diameter of 22 mm, the off-line PET image should be obtained within 25 min after the proton irradiation. When it comes to small size of tumor, the long PET imaging time will be beneficial for the proton therapy treatment monitoring.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.174-182
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• 2010

In this study, we evaluated feasibility of applying MTV (Metabolic Target Volume) to respiratory gated radiotherapy for more accurate treatment using various SUV (Standard Uptake Value) from PET images. We compared VOI (Volume of Interest) images from 50%, 30% and 5% SUV (standard uptake volume) from PET scan of an artificial target with GTV (Gross Tumor Volume) images defined by percentage of respiratory phase from 4D-CT scan for respiratory gated radiotherapy. It is found that the difference of VOI of 30% SUV is reduced noticeably comparing with that of 50% SUV in longitudinal direction with respect to total GTV of 4D-CT image. Difference of VOI of 30% SUV from 4D-PET image defined by respiratory phase from 25% inhalation to 25% exhalation, and GTV from 4D-CT with the same phase is shown below 0.6 cm in maximum. Thus, it is better to use 4D-PET images than conventional PET images for applying MTV to gated RT. From the result that VOI of 5% SUV from 4D-PET agrees well with reference image of 4D-CT in all direction, and the recommendation from department of nuclear medicine that 30% SUV be advised for defining tumor range, it is found that using less than 30%SUV will be more accurate and practical to apply MTV for respiratory gated radiotherapy.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.29-37
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• 2019

Purpose DMIDR(Discovery Molecular Imaging Digital Ready, General Electric Healthcare, USA) is a PET/CT scanner designed to allow application of PSF(Point Spread Function), TOF(Time of Flight) and Q.Clear algorithm. Especially, Q.Clear is a reconstruction algorithm which can overcome the limitation of OSEM(Ordered Subset Expectation Maximization) and reduce the image noise based on voxel unit. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the performance of reconstruction algorithms and optimize the algorithm combination to improve the accurate SUV(Standardized Uptake Value) measurement and lesion detectability. Materials and Methods PET phantom was filled with $^{18}F-FDG$ radioactivity concentration ratio of hot to background was in a ratio of 2:1, 4:1 and 8:1. Scan was performed using the NEMA protocols. Scan data was reconstructed using combination of (1)VPFX(VUE point FX(TOF)), (2)VPHD-S(VUE Point HD+PSF), (3)VPFX-S (TOF+PSF), (4)QCHD-S-400((VUE Point HD+Q.Clear(${\beta}-strength$ 400)+PSF), (5)QCFX-S-400(TOF +Q.Clear(${\beta}-strength$ 400)+PSF), (6)QCHD-S-50(VUE Point HD+Q.Clear(${\beta}-strength$ 50)+PSF) and (7)QCFX-S-50(TOF+Q.Clear(${\beta}-strength$ 50)+PSF). CR(Contrast Recovery) and BV(Background Variability) were compared. Also, SNR(Signal to Noise Ratio) and RC(Recovery Coefficient) of counts and SUV were compared respectively. Results VPFX-S showed the highest CR value in sphere size of 10 and 13 mm, and QCFX-S-50 showed the highest value in spheres greater than 17 mm. In comparison of BV and SNR, QCFX-S-400 and QCHD-S-400 showed good results. The results of SUV measurement were proportional to the H/B ratio. RC for SUV is in inverse proportion to the H/B ratio and QCFX-S-50 showed highest value. In addition, reconstruction algorithm of Q.Clear using 400 of ${\beta}-strength$ showed lower value. Conclusion When higher ${\beta}-strength$ was applied Q.Clear showed better image quality by reducing the noise. On the contrary, lower ${\beta}-strength$ was applied Q.Clear showed that sharpness increase and PVE(Partial Volume Effect) decrease, so it is possible to measure SUV based on high RC comparing to conventional reconstruction conditions. An appropriate choice of these reconstruction algorithm can improve the accuracy and lesion detectability. In this reason, it is necessary to optimize the algorithm parameter according to the purpose.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.374-384
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• 2021

In this study, we propose a new approach for automatic fracture detection in CT scan images of rock specimens. This approach is built on top of two-stage object detection deep learning algorithm called Faster R-CNN with a major modification of using rotated bounding box. The use of rotated bounding box plays a key role in the future work to overcome several inherent difficulties of fracture segmentation relating to the heterogeneity of uninterested background (i.e., minerals) and the variation in size and shape of fracture. Comparing to the commonly used bounding box (i.e., axis-align bounding box), rotated bounding box shows a greater adaptability to fit with the elongated shape of fracture, such that minimizing the ratio of background within the bounding box. Besides, an additional benefit of rotated bounding box is that it can provide relative information on the orientation and length of fracture without the further segmentation and measurement step. To validate the applicability of the proposed approach, we train and test our approach with a number of CT image sets of fractured granite specimens with highly heterogeneous background and other rocks such as sandstone and shale. The result demonstrates that our approach can lead to the encouraging results on fracture detection with the mean average precision (mAP) up to 0.89 and also outperform the conventional approach in terms of background-to-object ratio within the bounding box.