• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.539-547
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• 2022

Objective: To investigate the association between functional tumor burden of peritoneal carcinomatosis (PC) derived from diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) and overall survival in patients with advanced ovarian carcinoma (OC). Materials and Methods: This prospective study was approved by the local research ethics committee, and informed consent was obtained. Fifty patients (mean age ± standard deviation, 57 ± 12 years) with stage III-IV OC scheduled for primary or interval debulking surgery (IDS) were recruited between June 2016 and December 2021. DWI (b values: 0, 400, and 800 s/mm²) was acquired with a 16-channel phased-array torso coil. The functional PC burden on DWI was derived based on K-means clustering to discard fat, air, and normal tissue. A score similar to the surgical peritoneal cancer index was assigned to each abdominopelvic region, with additional scores assigned to the involvement of critical sites, denoted as the functional peritoneal cancer index (fPCI). The apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) of the largest lesion was calculated. Patients were dichotomized by immediate surgical outcome into high- and low-risk groups (with and without residual disease, respectively) with subsequent survival analysis using the Kaplan-Meier curve and log-rank test. Multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression was used to evaluate the association between DWI-derived results and overall survival. Results: Fifteen (30.0%) patients underwent primary debulking surgery, and 35 (70.0%) patients received neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by IDS. Complete tumor debulking was achieved in 32 patients. Patients with residual disease after debulking surgery had reduced overall survival (p = 0.043). The fPCI/ADC was negatively associated with overall survival when accounted for clinicopathological information with a hazard ratio of 1.254 for high fPCI/ADC (95% confidence interval, 1.007-1.560; p = 0.043). Conclusion: A high DWI-derived functional tumor burden was associated with decreased overall survival in patients with advanced OC.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.505-516
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• 2022

Objective: To evaluate whether artificial intelligence (AI) for detecting breast cancer on mammography can improve the performance and time efficiency of radiologists reading mammograms. Materials and Methods: A commercial deep learning-based software for mammography was validated using external data collected from 200 patients, 100 each with and without breast cancer (40 with benign lesions and 60 without lesions) from one hospital. Ten readers, including five breast specialist radiologists (BSRs) and five general radiologists (GRs), assessed all mammography images using a seven-point scale to rate the likelihood of malignancy in two sessions, with and without the aid of the AI-based software, and the reading time was automatically recorded using a web-based reporting system. Two reading sessions were conducted with a two-month washout period in between. Differences in the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC), sensitivity, specificity, and reading time between reading with and without AI were analyzed, accounting for data clustering by readers when indicated. Results: The AUROC of the AI alone, BSR (average across five readers), and GR (average across five readers) groups was 0.915 (95% confidence interval, 0.876-0.954), 0.813 (0.756-0.870), and 0.684 (0.616-0.752), respectively. With AI assistance, the AUROC significantly increased to 0.884 (0.840-0.928) and 0.833 (0.779-0.887) in the BSR and GR groups, respectively (p = 0.007 and p < 0.001, respectively). Sensitivity was improved by AI assistance in both groups (74.6% vs. 88.6% in BSR, p < 0.001; 52.1% vs. 79.4% in GR, p < 0.001), but the specificity did not differ significantly (66.6% vs. 66.4% in BSR, p = 0.238; 70.8% vs. 70.0% in GR, p = 0.689). The average reading time pooled across readers was significantly decreased by AI assistance for BSRs (82.73 vs. 73.04 seconds, p < 0.001) but increased in GRs (35.44 vs. 42.52 seconds, p < 0.001). Conclusion: AI-based software improved the performance of radiologists regardless of their experience and affected the reading time.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.53 no.2
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• pp.107-119
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• 2020

This study analyzed past drought characteristics based on the observed rainfall data and performed a long-term outlook for future extreme droughts using Representative Concentration Pathways 8.5 (RCP 8.5) climate change scenarios. Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) used duration of 1, 3, 6, 9 and 12 months, a meteorological drought index, was applied for quantitative drought analysis. A single long-term time series was constructed by combining daily rainfall observation data and RCP scenario. The constructed data was used as SPI input factors for each different duration. For the analysis of meteorological drought observed relatively long-term since 1954 in Korea, 12 rainfall stations were selected and applied 10 general circulation models (GCM) at the same point. In order to analyze drought characteristics according to climate change, trend analysis and clustering were performed. For non-stationary frequency analysis using sampling technique, we adopted the technique DEMC that combines Bayesian-based differential evolution ("DE") and Markov chain Monte Carlo ("MCMC"). A non-stationary drought frequency analysis was used to derive Severity-Duration-Frequency (SDF) curves for the 12 locations. A quantitative outlook for future droughts was carried out by deriving SDF curves with long-term hydrologic data assuming non-stationarity, and by quantitatively identifying potential drought risks. As a result of performing cluster analysis to identify the spatial characteristics, it was analyzed that there is a high risk of drought in the future in Jeonju, Gwangju, Yeosun, Mokpo, and Chupyeongryeong except Jeju corresponding to Zone 1-2, 2, and 3-2. They could be efficiently utilized in future drought management policies.