• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.8
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• pp.2935-2940
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• 2023

A polystyrene phantom was developed following the guidance of the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) for gamma knife (GK) quality assurance. Its performance was assessed by measuring the absorbed dose rate to water and dose distributions. The phantom was made of polystyrene, which has an electron density (1.0156) similar to that of water. The phantom included one outer phantom and four inner phantoms. Two inner phantoms held PTW T31010 and Exradin A16 ion chambers. One inner phantom held a film in the XY plane of the Leksell coordinate system, and another inner phantom held a film in the YZ or ZX planes. The absorbed dose rate to water and beam profiles of the machine-specific reference (msr) field, namely, the 16 mm collimator field of a GK Perfexion^TM or Icon^TM, were measured at seven GK sites. The measured results were compared to those of an IAEA-recommended solid water (SW) phantom. The radius of the polystyrene phantom was determined to be 7.88 cm by converting the electron density of the plastic, considering a water depth of 8 g/cm². The absorbed dose rates to water measured in both phantoms differed from the treatment planning program by less than 1.1%. Before msr correction, the PTW T31010 dose rates (PTW Freiberg GmbH, New York, NY, USA) in the polystyrene phantom were 0.70 (0.29)% higher on average than those in the SW phantom. The Exradin A16 (Standard Imaging, Middleton, WI, USA) dose rates were 0.76 (0.32)% higher in the polystyrene phantom. After msr correction factors were applied, there were no statistically significant differences in the A16 dose rates measured in the two phantoms; however, the T31010 dose rates were 0.72 (0.29)% higher in the polystyrene phantom. When the full widths at half maximum and penumbras of the msr field were compared, no significant differences between the two phantoms were observed, except for the penumbra in the Y-axis. However, the difference in the penumbra was smaller than variations among different sites. A polystyrene phantom developed for gamma knife dosimetry showed dosimetric performance comparable to that of a commercial SW phantom. In addition to its cost effectiveness, the polystyrene phantom removes air space around the detector. Additional simulations of the msr correction factors of the polystyrene phantom should be performed.

• Proceedings of the KSMRM Conference
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• 2004.09a
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• pp.20-20
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• 2004

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2013.04a
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• pp.768-769
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• 2013

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2012.10a
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• pp.135-136
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• 2012

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.215-223
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• 2016

Purpose: The management of metal-induced field inhomogeneities is one of the major concerns of distortion-free magnetic resonance images near metallic implants. The recently proposed method called "Slice Encoding for Metal Artifact Correction (SEMAC)" is an effective spin echo pulse sequence of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) near metallic implants. However, as SEMAC uses the noisy resolved data elements, SEMAC images can have a major problem for improving the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) without compromising the correction of metal artifacts. To address that issue, this paper presents a novel reconstruction technique for providing an improvement of the SNR in SEMAC images without sacrificing the correction of metal artifacts. Materials and Methods: Low-rank approximation in each coil image is first performed to suppress the noise in the slice direction, because the signal is highly correlated between SEMAC-encoded slices. Secondly, SEMAC images are reconstructed by the best linear unbiased estimator (BLUE), also known as Gauss-Markov or weighted least squares. Noise levels and correlation in the receiver channels are considered for the sake of SNR optimization. To this end, since distorted excitation profiles are sparse, $l_1$ minimization performs well in recovering the sparse distorted excitation profiles and the sparse modeling of our approach offers excellent correction of metal-induced distortions. Results: Three images reconstructed using SEMAC, SEMAC with the conventional two-step noise reduction, and the proposed image denoising for metal MRI exploiting sparsity and low rank approximation algorithm were compared. The proposed algorithm outperformed two methods and produced 119% SNR better than SEMAC and 89% SNR better than SEMAC with the conventional two-step noise reduction. Conclusion: We successfully demonstrated that the proposed, novel algorithm for SEMAC, if compared with conventional de-noising methods, substantially improves SNR and reduces artifacts.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.51 no.7
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• pp.575-584
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• 2018

An increase in heavy rainfall and floods have been observed over South Korea due to recent abnormal weather. In this perspective, the high-resolution weather forecasts have been widely used to facilitate flood management. However, these models are known to be biased due to initial conditions and topographical conditions in the process of model building. Theretofore, a bias correction scheme is largely applied for the practical use of the prediction to flood management. This study introduces a new mean field bias correction (MFBC) approach for the high-resolution numerical rainfall products, which is based on a Bayesian Kriging model to combine an interpolation technique and MFBC approach for spatial representation of the error. The results showed that the proposed method can reliably estimate the bias correction factor over ungauged area with an improvement in the reduction of errors. Moreover, it can be seen that the bias corrected rainfall forecasts could be used up to 72 hours ahead with a relatively high accuracy.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.133-140
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• 2001

The dose calculations for blocked fields were studied. The shielding block correction factors(K$_{b}$) as a function of collimator and blocked field size(r$_{c}$ and r$_{b}$) were measured. A simplified $K_{b}$ as a function of $A_{r}$ (the A/P ratio of r$_{b}$ to r$_{c}$) was determined by measured data and a fitting function for $K_{b}$ was obtained. We found that the corrections of $K_{b}$ for blocked fields in MU(monitor units) calculations need not take into account in common case of $A_{r}$ \ulcorner1 but the errors will be 3.5% in particular case such as $A_{r}$ = 0.5. These results imply that the shielding block correction for blocked fields in clinical dose calculations must be considered.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.90-96
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• 2016

Background: Knowledge on microclimate conditions under artificial shades in a ginseng field would facilitate climate-aware management of ginseng production. Methods: Weather data were measured under the shade and outside the shade at two fields located in Gochang-gun and Jeongeup-si, Korea, in 2011 and 2012 seasons to assess temperature and humidity conditions under the shade. An empirical approach was developed and validated for the estimation of leaf wetness duration (LWD) using weather measurements outside the shade as inputs to the model. Results: Air temperature and relative humidity were similar between under the shade and outside the shade. For example, temperature conditions favorable for ginseng growth, e.g., between $8^{\circ}C$ and $27^{\circ}C$, occurred slightly less frequently in hours during night times under the shade (91%) than outside (92%). Humidity conditions favorable for development of a foliar disease, e.g., relative humidity > 70%, occurred slightly more frequently under the shade (84%) than outside (82%). Effectiveness of correction schemes to an empirical LWD model differed by rainfall conditions for the estimation of LWD under the shade using weather measurements outside the shade as inputs to the model. During dew eligible days, a correction scheme to an empirical LWD model was slightly effective (10%) in reducing estimation errors under the shade. However, another correction approach during rainfall eligible days reduced errors of LWD estimation by 17%. Conclusion: Weather measurements outside the shade and LWD estimates derived from these measurements would be useful as inputs for decision support systems to predict ginseng growth and disease development.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.51 no.7
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• pp.169-179
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• 2014

In this paper, we propose a DOF (Depth of Field) correction technique by determining the values of the internal parameters of a 3-D camera which consists of stereoscopic cameras of different optical properties. If there is any difference in the size or the depth range of focused objects in the left and right stereoscopic images, it could cause visual fatigue to human viewers. The object size of in the stereoscopic image is corrected by the LUT of zoom lenses, and the forward and backward DOF are corrected by the object distance. Then the F-numbers are determined to adjust the optical properties of the camera for DOF correction. By applying the proposed technique to a main-sub type 3-D camera using a GUI-based DOF simulator, the DOF of the camera is automatically corrected.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2016.10a
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• pp.655-658
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• 2016

Xilinx 7-Series FPGA(Field Programmable Gate Array)s mainly used for the implementation of high-performance digital circuit have SRAM-type configuration memory and can malfunction when soft errors occur in their configuration memory. SEM(Soft Error Mitigation Controller) offered by Xilinx helps users mitigate the influence of soft errors in configuration memory. When soft errors occur, SEM Controller can recover the state of FPGA through partial reconfiguration if the soft errors are correctable by ECC(Error Correction Code) and CRC(Cyclic Redundancy Code). This paper presents the availability analysis of Xilinx 7-Series FPGAs against soft errors under the protection of the SEM Controller. Availability functions are derived and compared according to the correction capability of the SEM Controller. The result may help to estimate the reliability of SRAM-based FPGA running in an environment where soft errors may occur.