• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.25 no.7
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• pp.634-643
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• 2024

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the diagnostic efficacy and safety of low-contrast-dose, dual-source dual-energy CT before transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) in patients with compromised renal function. Materials and Methods: A total of 54 consecutive patients (female:male, 26:38; 81.9 ± 7.3 years) with reduced renal function underwent pre-TAVR dual-energy CT with a 30-mL contrast agent between June 2022 and March 2023. Monochromatic (40- and 50-keV) and conventional (120-kVp) images were reconstructed and analyzed. The subjective quality score, vascular attenuation, contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) were compared among the imaging techniques using the Friedman test and post-hoc analysis. Interobserver reliability for aortic annular measurement was assessed using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and Bland-Altman analysis. The procedural outcomes and incidence of post-contrast acute kidney injury (AKI) were assessed. Results: Monochromatic images achieved diagnostic quality in all patients. The 50-keV images achieved superior vascular attenuation and CNR (P < 0.001 in all) while maintaining a similar SNR compared to conventional CT. For aortic annular measurement, the 50-keV images showed higher interobserver reliability compared to conventional CT: ICC, 0.98 vs. 0.90 for area and 0.97 vs. 0.95 for perimeter; 95% limits of agreement width, 0.63 cm² vs. 0.92 cm² for area and 5.78 mm vs. 8.50 mm for perimeter. The size of the implanted device matched CT-measured values in all patients, achieving a procedural success rate of 92.6%. No patient experienced a serum creatinine increase of ≥ 1.5 times baseline in the 48-72 hours following CT. However, one patient had a procedural delay due to gradual renal function deterioration. Conclusion: Low-contrast-dose imaging with 50-keV reconstruction enables precise pre-TAVR evaluation with improved image quality and minimal risk of post-contrast AKI. This approach may be an effective and safe option for pre-TAVR evaluation in patients with compromised renal function.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Visualization
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.15-19
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• 2015

We developed a high-throughput microscopy (HTM) method which enabled us to replace a conventional phase contrast microscopy (PCM) method that has been used as a standard analytical method for airborne asbestos. We could obtain the concentration of airborne asbestos fibers under detection limit by automated image processing and analysis using HTM method. Here we propose an improved image processing algorithm with variable parameters to enhance the accuracy of the HTM analysis. Since the variable parameters that compensate the difference of the brightness are applied to the individual images in our new image processing method, it is possible to enhance the accuracy of the automatic image analysis method for sample slides with low asbestos concentration that caused errors in binary image processing. We demonstrated that enumeration of fibers by improved image processing algorithm remarkably enhanced the accuracy of HTM analysis in comparison with PCM. The improved HTM method can be a potential alternative to conventional PCM.

• Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.90-97
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• 2020

Background: To minimize damage to the ovarian reserve, it is necessary to evaluate the follicular density in the ovarian tissue surrounding endometriosis on preoperative imaging. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the usefulness of subtraction pelvic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to detect ovarian reserve. Methods: A subtracted T1-weighted image (^subT1WI) was obtained by subtracting unenhanced T1WI from contrast-enhanced T1WI (^ceT1WI) with similar parameters in 22 patients with ovarian endometriosis. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in ovarian endometriosis, which was classified into the high signal intensity and iso-to-low signal intensity groups on the T2-weighted image, was compared to that in normal ovarian tissue. To evaluate the effect of contrast enhancement, a standardization map was obtained by dividing ^subT1WI by ^ceT1WI. Results: On visual assessment of 22 patients with ovarian endometriosis, 16 patients showed a high signal intensity, and 6 patients showed an iso-to-low signal intensity on T1WI. Although SNR in endometriosis with a high signal intensity was higher than that with an iso-to-low signal intensity, there was no difference in SNR after the subtraction (13.72±77.55 vs. 63.03±43.90, p=0.126). The area of the affected ovary was smaller than that of the normal ovary (121.10±22.48 vs. 380.51±75.87 ㎟, p=0.002), but the mean number of pixels in the viable remaining tissue of the affected ovary was similar to that of the normal ovary (0.53±0.09 vs. 0.47±0.09, p=0.682). Conclusion: The subtraction technique used with pelvic MRI could reveal the extent of endometrial invasion of the normal ovarian tissue and viable remnant ovarian tissue.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.719-722
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• 2019

Gamma-ray images generally suffer from a lot of noise because of low photon detection in the gamma camera system. The purpose of this study is to improve the image quality in gamma-ray images using a gamma camera system with a fast nonlocal means (FNLM) noise reduction algorithm with an acceleration function. The designed FNLM algorithm is based on local region considerations, including the Euclidean distance in the gamma-ray image and use of the encoded information. To evaluate the noise characteristics, the normalized noise power spectrum (NNPS), contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), and coefficient of variation (COV) were used. According to the NNPS result, the lowest values can be obtained using the FNLM noise reduction algorithm. In addition, when the conventional methods and the FNLM noise reduction algorithm were compared, the average CNR and COV using the proposed algorithm were approximately 2.23 and 7.95 times better than those of the noisy image, respectively. In particular, the image-processing time of the FNLM noise reduction algorithm can achieve the fastest time compared with conventional noise reduction methods. The results of the image qualities related to noise characteristics demonstrated the superiority of the proposed FNLM noise reduction algorithm in a gamma camera system.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.22 no.9
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• pp.1000-1010
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• 2019

Image semantic segmentation and dehazing are key tasks in the computer vision. In recent years, researches in both tasks have achieved substantial improvements in performance with the development of Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). However, most of the previous works for semantic segmentation assume the images are captured in clear weather and show degraded performance under hazy images with low contrast and faded color. Meanwhile, dehazing aims to recover clear image given observed hazy image, which is an ill-posed problem and can be alleviated with additional information about the image. In this work, we propose a deep multi-task network for simultaneous semantic segmentation and dehazing. The proposed network takes single haze image as input and predicts dense semantic segmentation map and clear image. The visual information getting refined during the dehazing process can help the recognition task of semantic segmentation. On the other hand, semantic features obtained during the semantic segmentation process can provide cues for color priors for objects, which can help dehazing process. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed multi-task approach, showing improved performance compared to the separate networks.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.14 no.11
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• pp.4395-4412
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• 2020

The multisource image fusion has become an active topic in the last few years owing to its higher segmentation rate. To enhance the accuracy of multimodal pig-body feature segmentation, a multisource image fusion method was employed. Nevertheless, the conventional multisource image fusion methods can not extract superior contrast and abundant details of fused image. To superior segment shape feature and detect temperature feature, a new multisource image fusion method was presented and entitled as NSST-GF-IPCNN. Firstly, the multisource images were resolved into a range of multiscale and multidirectional subbands by Nonsubsampled Shearlet Transform (NSST). Then, to superior describe fine-scale texture and edge information, even-symmetrical Gabor filter and Improved Pulse Coupled Neural Network (IPCNN) were used to fuse low and high-frequency subbands, respectively. Next, the fused coefficients were reconstructed into a fusion image using inverse NSST. Finally, the shape feature was extracted using automatic threshold algorithm and optimized using morphological operation. Nevertheless, the highest temperature of pig-body was gained in view of segmentation results. Experiments revealed that the presented fusion algorithm was able to realize 2.102-4.066% higher average accuracy rate than the traditional algorithms and also enhanced efficiency.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.51-70
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• 1995

The purpose of this investigation was to compare the direct digital radiographic system with film-based digital imaging system using Ektaspeed and Ektaspeed Plus film with respect to image characteristics and detectability and evaluate the sensor noise with the use of subtraction method. Direct digital radiographic system which used was Sens-A-Ray system(Regam Medical Systems, Sundsvall, Sweden) and film-based digital imaging system was composed of Macintosh II ci computer, high resolution Sony XC-77 CCD camera and intraoral x-ray film(Kodak Ektaspeed film, Kodak Ektaspeed Plus film). Images were taken by using CCD sensor of Sens-A-Ray system, Ektaspeed film and Ektaspeed Plus film with variable exposure time(0.06s, 0.1s, 0.16s, 0.2s, 0.3s, 0.4s, 0.5s, 0.6s, O.8s, LOs), 5 times at each exposure time. And then ektaspeed films and ektaspeed plus films were digitized using CCD camera. Image groups were divided into 3 groups; Sens-A-Ray group(direct digital radiographic system), Ektaspeed group and Ektaspeed Plus group (film-based digital imaging system) They were assessed by the following three aspects; image density, image contrast and detectability and sensor noise of Sens-A-Ray system was also evaluated. The results were as follow : 1. S group showed higher density than E , EP group except at the low exposure time(p<0.01). 2. S group showed higher contrast than E,EP group except at the high exposure time(p<0.01). 3. All groups showed good detectability at the each proper exposure time. Lowest exposure time which shows maximum detectability in S,EP group(0.5s) was lower than that in E group(0.6s). 4. Sensor noise of Sens-A-Ray system generally increased according to exposure time. On the basis of the above results, it was considered that Sens-A-Ray system could show higher speed, higher contrast than Ektaspeed, Ektaspeed Plus film except at too high and low exposure time and the same detectability as the conventional intraoral film.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers D
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• v.50 no.7
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• pp.332-338
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• 2001

A visually adaptive quantization method of DCT-based images based on Human Visual System(HVS) is proposed. This approach uses the spatial masking in HVS characteristics to obtain higher compression ratio with relatively small degradation in the image quality. HVS is nonsensitive to an edge area, so a high complexity area is quantized coarsely in contrast to fine quantization of the low complexity area. The complexity of an area is estimated by the variance of DCT coefficients of the image. Experimental results demonstrate the performance of the proposed method and the resulting images show little difference from the original image in the subjective perception.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.148-154
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• 2009

In recent days, large-sized flat-panel display (FPD) has been increasingly applied to computer monitors and TVs. Mura defects, appearing as low contrast or non-uniform brightness region, sometimes occur in manufacturing of the Thin-Film Transistor Liquid-Crystal Displays (TFT-LCD). Implementation of automatic Mura inspection methods is necessary for TFT-LCD production. Various existing Mura detection methods based on regression diagnostics, surface fitting and data transformation have been presented with good performance. This paper proposes an efficient Mura detection method that is based on a regression diagnostics using studentized residuals for automatic Mura inspection of FPD. The input image is estimated by a linear model and then the studentized residuals are calculated for filtering Mura regions. After image dilation, the proposed threshold is determined for detecting the non-uniform brightness region in TFT-LCD by means of monitoring the every pixel in the image. The experimental results obtained from several test images are used to illustrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed method for Mura detection.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.51-55
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• 2013

When the X-ray energy is high, the X-ray penetrates the object and decrease the contrast of imaging, and when the X-ray energy is low, the X-ray increases the contrast of imaging but it is to be absorbed into the object, which in the long run increases patient's radiation exposure level. Therefore, appropriate X-ray energy is an essential element affecting the imaging quality and radiation exposure level. This study simulated the energy spectrums according to the target materials of mammography, and compared qualities of phantom imaging for the management of radiolographic quality and patient's radiation exposure level with the introduction of the mammography that employs diversified radiation quality by using new anode materials.