• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.163-169
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• 2010

Purpose: Spinal epidural hematoma (EDH) is a rare condition requiring an urgent diagnosis and management. We describe here the clinical features, magnetic resonance image (MRI) findings, and outcomes of surgery in six patients with spinal EDH. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed six patients who underwent surgery for spinal EDH between April 2004 and May 2010. Preoperative MRI findings within 48 hours of symptom occurrence were analyzed for cord compression, extent of EDH, and presence of vascular abnormalities. Pre- and postoperative neurological status was also assessed comparatively. Results: Our six patients consisted of three men and three women, with a mean age of 70 years (range: 54-88 years), who presented with the back pain or motor weakness. The mean follow-up period was 34 months (range: 2-72 months). Two patients had cardiovascular disease and were taking warfarin, but the others had no history of medical comorbidity. Those two patients taking warfarin had a history of trauma, another one experienced symptoms during a strenuous effort, and the others developed spontaneously. Before surgery, motor power was grade III in three patients, grade 0 in two patients, and normal in one patient. Preoperative MRI showed no vascular abnormalities except for the EDH in any patient. At the last follow-up, all those five patients with motor weakness showed neurological improvement compared to their preoperative status. There were no complications related to surgery. All six patients were able to ambulate with or without an assistive device. Conclusion: Spinal EDH can occur in patients without trauma, bleeding diathesis, or combined vascular pathology. The surgical outcomes of spinal EDH seem to be satisfactory, even in quadriplegic patients.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.13 no.12
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• pp.2586-2594
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• 2009

A digital watermarking technique used as a protection and certifying mechanism of copyrighted creations including music, still images, and videos in terms of finding any loss in data, reproduction and pursuit. This study suggests using a selected geometric invariant point through the whole processing procedure of an image and inserting and extracting based on the invariant point so that it will be robust in a geometric transformation attack. The introduced algorithm here is based on a watershed splitting method in order to make medical images strong against RST(Rotation Scale, Translation) transformation and other processing. It also helps to maintain the watermark in images that are compressed and stored for a period of time. This algorithm also proved that is has robustness against not only JPEG compression attack, but also RST attack and filtering attack.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.52-59
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• 2010

To examine among patients with vertebral compression fracture the extent to which signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and Apparent Diffusion Coefficient (ADC) values at the lumbar vertebral compression fracture site vary on diffusion-weighted MR images according to varying b values on the 1.5T MR device. Diffusion-weighted MR images of 30 patients with compression fracture due to chronic osteoporosis who underwent vertebral MRI from Jan. 2008 to Nov. 2009 were respectively obtained using a 1.5-T MR scanner with the b values increased from 400, 600, 800, 1,000 to $1,200\;s/mm^2$. For diffusion-weighted MR images with different b values, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) was assessed at three sites: the site of compression fracture of the lumbar vertebral body at L1 to L5, and both the upper and lower discs of the said fracture site, while for ADC map images with different b values, the SNR and ADC were respectively assessed at those three sites. As a quantitative analysis, diffusion-weighted MR images and ADC map images with b value of $400\;s/mm^2$ (the base b values) were respectively compared with the corresponding images with each different b value. As far as qualitative analysis is concerned, for both diffusion-weighted MR and ADC map images with b value of $400\;s/mm^2$, the extent to which signal intensity values obtained at the site of compression fracture of the lumbar vertebral body at L1 to L5 vary according to the increasing b values were examined. The quantitative analysis found that for both diffusion-weighted MR and ADC map images, as the b values increased, the SNR were relatively lowered at all the three sites, compared to the base b value. Also, it was found that as the b values increased, ADC valueswere relatively lowered at all the three sites on ADC map images. On the other hand, the qualitative analysis found that as the b values increased to more than $400\;s/mm^2$, the signal intensity gradually decreased at all the sites, while at the levels of more than $1,000\;s/mm^2$, severe image noises appeared at all of the three sites. In addition, higher signal intensity was found at the site of compression fracture of the lumbar vertebral body than at the discs. Findings showed that with the b value being increased, both the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and Apparent Diffusion Coefficient (ADC) values gradually decreased at all the sites of the lumbar vertebral compression fracture and both the upper and lower discs of the fracture site, suggesting that there is a possibility of a wider range of applications to assessment of various vertebral pathologies by utilizing multi b values in the diffusion-weighted MRI examination.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.61-72
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• 2002

In this parer, a new harmonic imaging technique is Proposed and evaluated experimentally. In the Proposed method. a weighted chirp signal with a hanning window is transmitted. The RF samples obtained on each array element are individually compressed by correlating with the reference signal defined as the 2nd harmonic component($2f_0$) of a transmitted chirp signal generated in a square-law system. The correlator output will then consist of the compressed version of the $2f_0$ component generated in tissue and the crosscorrelation sequence of the fundamental($f_0$) and 2f$_{0}$components. The Proposed method uses the compressed $2f_0$ component to form an image. for which the crosscorrelation term should be suppressed below at least -50dB. The Proposed method has two process, 2f$_{0}$-correlation and $2f_0$-correlation(PI) . $2f_0$-correlation can successfully eliminate the $f_0$ component with a single transmit-receive events and therefore is more efficient than the conventional Pulse inversion method in terms of the frame rate. 2i)-correlation(Pl) Performs pulse compression after applying pulse inversion method for the 2nd harmonic image with high resolution and SNR. Another advantage of the proposed method is that the SNR of 2nd harmonic imaging can be improved without limitation by increasing the duration of the chirp signal. The proposed method was verified through both the computer simulations and actual experiments .ts .

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.49-61
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• 2014

Purpose: With the aging of the population, the attack rate of osteoporotic vertebral compression fracture is in the increasing trend, and percutaneous vertebroplasty (PVP) is the most commonly performed standardized treatment. Although there is a research report of the excellence of usefulness of the SPECT/CT examination in terns of the exact diagnosis before and after the procedure, the bone cement material used in the procedure influences the image quality by forming an artifact in the CT image. Therefore, the objective of the research lies on evaluating the effect the bone cement gives to a SPECT/CT image. Materials and Methods: The images were acquired by inserting a model cement to each cylinder, after setting the background (3.6 kBq/mL), hot cylinder (29.6 kBq/mL) and cold cylinder (water) to the NEMA-1994 phantom. It was reconstructed with Astonish (Iterative: 4 Subset: 16), and non attenuation correction (NAC), attenuation correction (AC+SC-) and attenuation and scatter correction (AC+SC+) were used for the CT correction method. The mean count by each correction method and the count change ratio by the existence of the cement material were compared and the contrast recovery coefficient (CRC) was obtained. Additionally, the bone/soft tissue ratio (B/S ratio) was obtained after measuring the mean count of the 4 places including the soft tissue(spine erector muscle) after dividing the vertebral body into fracture region, normal region and cement by selecting the 20 patients those have performed PVP from the 107 patients diagnosed of compression fracture. Results: The mean count by the existence of a cement material showed the rate of increase of 12.4%, 6.5%, 1.5% at the hot cylinder of the phantom by NAC, AC+SC- and AC+SC+ when cement existed, 75.2%, 85.4%, 102.9% at the cold cylinder, 13.6%, 18.2%, 9.1% at the background, 33.1%, 41.4%, 63.5% at the fracture region of the clinical image, 53.1%, 61.6%, 67.7% at the normal region and 10.0%, 4.7%, 3.6% at the soft tissue. Meanwhile, a relative count reduction could be verified at the cement adjacent part at the inside of the cylinder, and the phantom image on the lesion and the count increase ratio of the clinical image showed a contrary phase. CRC implying the contrast ratio and B/S ratio was improved in the order of NAC, AC+SC-, AC+SC+, and was constant without a big change in the cold cylinder of the phantom. AC+SC- for the quantitative count, and AC+SC+ for the contrast ratio was analyzed to be the highest. Conclusion: It is considered to be useful in a clinical diagnosis if the application of AC+SC+ that improves the contrast ratio is combined, as it increases the noise count of the soft tissue and the scatter region as well along with the effect of the bone cement in contrast to the fact that the use of AC+SC- in the spine SPECT/CT examination of a PVP performed patient drastically increases the image count and enables a high density of image of the lesion(fracture).

• The KIPS Transactions:PartB
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• v.10B no.5
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• pp.503-508
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• 2003

Since surgical treatment of the spine should overcome neurological compromises, the operative procedures need to be carefully planned and carried out with high degree of precision. Percutaneous vertebroplasty is a surgical procedure that was introduced for the treatment of compression fracture of the vertebrae. This procedure includes puncturing vertebrae and filling with polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA). Recent studies have shown that the procedure could provide structural reinforcement for the osteoporotic vertebrae while being minimally invasive and safe with immediate relief of pain. However, failures of treatment due to excessive PMMA volume injection have been reported as one of complications in vertebroplasty. It is believed that the control of PMMA volume is one of the most critical factors that can reduce the incidence of complications. Therefore, clinical success of vertebroplasty can be dependent on the volume of PMMA injection for a given patient. In this study, the optimal volume of PMMA injection for vertebroplasty was predicted based on the image analysis of a given patient.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.18 no.10
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• pp.1205-1215
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• 2015

Efficient multi-view coding techniques are needed to reduce the complexity of multi-view video which increases in proportion to the number of cameras. To reduce the complexity and maintain image quality and bit-rates, an motion estimation method and temporal prediction structure are proposed in this paper. The proposed motion estimation method exploits the characteristic of motion vector distribution and the motion direction and motion size of the block to place search points and decide the search patten adaptively. And the proposed prediction structure divides every GOP to decide the maximum index of hierarchical B layer and the number of pictures of each B layer. Experiment results show that the complexity reduction of the proposed temporal prediction structure and motion estimation method over hierarchical B pictures prediction structure and TZ search method which are used in JMVC(Joint Multi-view Video Coding) reference model can be up to 45∼70% while maintaining similar video quality and bit rates.

• Proceedings of the Korea Information Processing Society Conference
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• 2003.05a
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• pp.595-598
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• 2003

본 논문에서는 방사선투영영상을 기존 압축방법인 JPEG 압축과 새로운 표준으로 채택중인 JPEG2000을 적용하여 압축율 및 영상의 품질을 비교 실험하였다. 기존의 의료영상압축 표준의 하나인 JPEG 압축은 압축비율이 높아짐에 따라 블륵킹 현상의 발생으로 원 영상이 회손되는 압축의 한계를 인식하고 있다. 따라서 원 영상의 보호와 압축율 증가의 두 가지 면을 만족시키기 위해 Wavelet 을 사용하는 JPEG2000을 실험 평가하여 의료영상압축에 적용하고자 한다. 실험대상으로 환자 10명 정상인 10명의 투영영상을 사용하였으며, 영상의 품질, 손상도 등을 평가하기 위해 PSNR( Peak Signal to Noise Ratio )과 판독의에 의한 ROC( Receiver Operating Characteristic )분석을 실행하였다. 실험결과, 영상의 품질, 손상도를 평가하기 위한 PSNR 은 15:1 압축에서 $46.05{\pm}1.1dB$의 값을 얻었으며, JPEG의 같은 압축비율에 비해 $1.78{\pm}0.1dB$의 값이 높음을 알 수 있었다. 종합적으로 3명의 판독의에 의해 ROC 분석을 실행한 결과 15:1의 압축비율에서 압축비율과 품질을 종합하였을 때 진단에 적합한 최적 압축비율임을 보였다.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.805-813
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• 2012

In this paper, we have designed and developed a middleware for an effectively approaching database to the existed brain disease clinical research system. The brain disease clinical research system was consisted of two parts i.e., a register and an analyzer. Since the register collects the registration data the analyzer yields a statistical data which based on the diverse variables. The middleware has designed to database management and a large data query processing of clients. By separating the function of each feature as a module, the module which was weakened connectivity between functionalities has been implemented the re-use module. And image data module used a new compression method from image to text for an effective management and storage in database. We tested the middleware system using 700 actual clinical medical data. As a result, the total data transmission time was improved maximum 115 times faster than the existing one. Through the improved module structures, it is possible to provide a robust and reliable system operation and enhanced security functionality. In the future, these middleware importances should be increased to the large medical database constructions.

• International Journal of Fuzzy Logic and Intelligent Systems
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.137-142
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• 2012

The temporal subtraction technique as one of computer aided diagnosis has been introduced in medical fields to enhance the interval changes such as formation of new lesions and changes in existing abnormalities on deference image. With the temporal subtraction technique radiologists can easily detect lung nodules on visual screening. Until now, two-dimensional temporal subtraction imaging technique has been introduced for the clinical test. We have developed new temporal subtraction method to remove the subtraction artifacts which is caused by mis-registration on temporal subtraction images of lungs on MDCT images. In this paper, we propose a new computer aided diagnosis scheme for automatic enhancing the lung nodules from the temporal subtraction of thoracic MDCT images. At first, the candidates regions included nodules are detected by the multiple threshold technique in terms of the pixel value on the temporal subtraction images. Then, a rule-base method and artificial neural networks is utilized to remove the false positives of nodule candidates which is obtained temporal subtraction images. We have applied our detection of lung nodules to 30 thoracic MDCT image sets including lung nodules. With the detection method, satisfactory experimental results are obtained. Some experimental results are shown with discussion.