• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.27-31
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• 2009

Now a days, the Medical X-ray equipments has become digitalized from analog type such as film, cassette to CR, DR. And many scientists are still researching and developing the Medical X-ray equipment. In this study, we used the Bismuth tri-iodide to conversion material for digital X-ray equipments and we couldn't get the satisfying result than previous study, but it opened new possibility to cover the disadvantage of a-Se is high voltage aplly and difficultness of make. In this paper, we use $BiI_3$ powder(99.99%) as x-ray conversion material and make films that have thickness of 200um and the film size is $3cm{\times}3cm$. Also, we deposited an ITO(Indium Tin Oxide) electrode as top electrode and bottom electrode using a Magnetron Sputtering System. To evaluate a characteristics of the produced films, an electrical and structural properties are performed. Through a SEM analysis, we confirmed a surface and component part. And to analyze the electrical properties, darkcurrent, sensitivity and SNR(Signal to Noise Ratio) are measured. Darkcurrent is $1.6nA/cm^2$ and sensitivity is $0.629nC/cm^2$ and this study shows that the electrical properties of x-ray conversion material that made by screen printing method are similar to PVD method or better than that. This results suggest that $BiI_3$ is suitable for a replacement of a-Se because of the reduced manufacture processing and improved yield.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.101-106
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• 2009

Purpose of this study is to compare the signal intensity (SI) and CNR with T1 weighted image using FLASH at 3T abdominal MRI by varying flip angle (FA). Totally 20 patients (male : 12, female : 8, Age : $28{\sim}63$ years with mean : 51) were examined by 3 Tesla MR scanner (Magnetom Tim Trio, SIEMENS, Germany) with 8 channel body array coil between september and October 2008. Imaging parameters were as follows : FLASH sequence, TR : 120 ms, TE : minimum, FOV (field of view) : $360{\times}300\;mm$, Matrix : $256{\times}224$, slice : 6 mm, scan time : 15 sec and Breath-hold technique. Abdominal image, with a 50 ml syringe filled with water placed in the FOV measuring the water signal, were acquired with varying FA through $10^{\circ}$ to $90^{\circ}$ with $10^{\circ}$ interval. SI's were measured three times at liver parenchyme, water, spleen and background and averaged. The CNR's were measured between the ROIs (region of interest). Statistic analysis was performed with ANOVA test using SPSS software (version 17.0). Less than FA $30^{\circ}$, abdominal images were severely inhomogeneity. Especially, T1 effect of water signal was weak. As the flip angle increased, the signal intensity decreased at all the regions. Especially, flip angle of the highest signal intensity was observed with $40^{\circ}$ at the liver parenchyme, $20^{\circ}$ at water, $30^{\circ}$ at the spleen, respectively. The CNR between liver and water was -60.92 at FA $10^{\circ}$ and 15.16 at FA $80^{\circ}$. The CNR between liver and spleen was -3.18 at FA $10^{\circ}$ and 9.65 at $80^{\circ}$. In conclusion, FA $80^{\circ}$ is optimal for T1 weighted effect using FLASH pulse sequence at 3.0 T abdominal MRI.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.62-69
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• 2012

The dose re-calculation process using Megavoltage cone-beam CT images is inevitable process to perform the Adaptive Radiation Therapy (ART). The purpose of this study is to improve dose re-calculation accuracy using MVCBCT images by applying intensity calibration method and three dimensional rigid body transform and filtering process. The three dimensional rigid body transform and Gaussian smoothing filtering process to MVCBCT Rando phantom images was applied to reduce image orientation error and the noise of the MVCBCT images. Then, to obtain the predefined modification level for intensity calibration, the cheese phantom images from kilo-voltage CT (kV CT), MVCBCT was acquired. From these cheese phantom images, the calibration table for MVCBCT images was defined from the relationship between Hounsfield Units (HUs) of kV CT and MVCBCT images at the same electron density plugs. The intensity of MVCBCT images from Rando phantom was calibrated using the predefined modification level as discussed above to have the intensity of the kV CT images to make the two images have the same intensity range as if they were obtained from the same modality. Finally, the dose calculation using kV CT, MVCBCT with/without intensity calibration was applied using radiation treatment planning system. As a result, the percentage difference of dose distributions between dose calculation based on kVCT and MVCBCT with intensity calibration was reduced comparing to the percentage difference of dose distribution between dose calculation based on kVCT and MVCBCT without intensity calibration. For head and neck, lung images, the percentage difference between kV CT and non-calibrated MVCBCT images was 1.08%, 2.44%, respectively. In summary, our method has quantitatively improved the accuracy of dose calculation and could be a useful solution to enhance the dose calculation accuracy using MVCBCT images.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.43 no.11 s.353
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• pp.48-57
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• 2006

This work describes a 12b 200KHz 0.52mA $0.47mm^2$ algorithmic ADC for sensor applications such as motor controls, 3-phase power controls, and CMOS image sensors simultaneously requiring ultra-low power and small size. The proposed ADC is based on the conventional algorithmic architecture with recycling techniques to optimize sampling rate, resolution, chip area, and power consumption. The input SHA with eight input channels for high integration employs a folded-cascode architecture to achieve a required DC gain and a sufficient phase margin. A signal insensitive 3-D fully symmetrical layout with critical signal lines shielded reduces the capacitor and device mismatch of the MDAC. The improved switched bias power-reduction techniques reduce the power consumption of analog amplifiers. Current and voltage references are integrated on the chip with optional off-chip voltage references for low glitch noise. The employed down-sampling clock signal selects the sampling rate of 200KS/s or 10KS/s with a reduced power depending on applications. The prototype ADC in a 0.18um n-well 1P6M CMOS technology demonstrates the measured DNL and INL within 0.76LSB and 2.47LSB. The ADC shows a maximum SNDR and SFDR of 55dB and 70dB at all sampling frequencies up to 200KS/s, respectively. The active die area is $0.47mm^2$ and the chip consumes 0.94mW at 200KS/s and 0.63mW at 10KS/s at a 1.8V supply.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.193-200
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• 2015

The aim of this study is to present commissioning results of the ViewRay system. We verified safety functions of the ViewRay system. For imaging system, we acquired signal to noise ratio (SNR) and image uniformity. In addition, we checked spatial integrity of the image. Couch movement accuracy and coincidence of isocenters (radiation therapy system, imaging system and virtual isocneter) was verified. Accuracy of MLC positioing was checked. We performed reference dosimetry according to American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) Task Group 51 (TG-51) in water phantom for head 1 and 3. The deviations between measurements and calculation of percent depth dose (PDD) and output factor were evaluated. Finally, we performed gamma evaluations with a total of 8 IMRT plans as an end-to-end (E2E) test of the system. Every safety system of ViewRay operated properly. The values of SNR and Uniformity met the tolerance level. Every point within 10 cm and 17.5 cm radii about the isocenter showed deviations less than 1 mm and 2 mm, respectively. The average couch movement errors in transverse (x), longitudinal (y) and vertical (z) directions were 0.2 mm, 0.1 mm and 0.2 mm, respectively. The deviations between radiation isocenter and virtual isocenter in x, y and z directions were 0 mm, 0 mm and 0.3 mm, respectively. Those between virtual isocenter and imaging isocenter were 0.6 mm, 0.5 mm and 0.2 mm, respectively. The average MLC positioning errors were less than 0.6 mm. The deviations of output, PDDs between mesured vs. BJR supplement 25, PDDs between measured and calculated and output factors of each head were less than 0.5%, 1%, 1% and 2%, respectively. For E2E test, average gamma passing rate with 3%/3 mm criterion was $99.9%{\pm}0.1%$.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.11 no.7
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• pp.671-677
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• 2017

In this study, scattering factors affecting the quality of medical images were quantitatively analyzed and investigated. MCNPX simulation was conducted by using ANSI phantom, made of tissue equivalent materials, to calculate the scattering ratio occurred by the increase of the object thickness. Then, the result of the simulation was compared with the result of actual radiation measurement. In addition, we evaluated the image quality by the RMS evaluation, RSD and NPS analysis using X-ray images acquired with increasing object thickness. Furthermore, the scattering ratio was analyzed by increasing the thickness of acrylic phantom on chest phantom. The result showed that the scattering ratio was increased to 57.2%, 62.4%, and 66.8% from 48.9%, respectively, when the acrylic phantom thickness was increased by 1 inch from 6.1 inches. The results of MCNPX simulation and the actual measured scattering dose showed similar results. Also, as a result of RMS measurement from acquired x-ray images, the standard deviation decreased as the object thickness increased. However, in the RSD analysis considering the average incident dose, the results were increased from 0.028 to 0.039, 0.051, 0.062 as the acrylic phantom thickness was increased from 6.1 inches to 7.1 inch, 8.1 inch, and 9.1 inch, respectively. It can be seen that the increase of the scattering effect due to the increase of the object thickness reduces the SNR. Also, the NPS results obtained by measuring scattered radiation incident on the detector resulted in the increase of the noise as the object thickness increased.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.253-261
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• 2002

A spatially adaptive falter was formulated to imrove PET image qualify and the Performance of the filter was evaluated using simulation and phantom and human PET studies. In the proposed filter. if a pixel was identified as the edge Pixel, the Pixel value was Preserved. Otherwise a Pixel was replaced by the mean of the pixel values weighted by 2:7: 2. A Pixel was identified as the edge Pixel. if it satisfies the following conditions : the number of ADs (absolute difference between center and neighborhood pixels) which is smaller than THl (($pix_max{\times}0.1/log_2(NPM)$, NPM : mean of 6 neighborhood pixels excluding minimum and maximum) is 8-k and the number of ADs which is lager than TH2 ($NPM{\times}0.1$) is k. where k : 2, 3, …, 6. The results of this study demonstrate the superior performance of the Proposed titter compared to Gaussian fitter, weight median filter and subset averaged median filter. The proposed tittering method is simple but effective in increasing uniformity and contrast with minimal degradation of spatial resolution of PET images and thus. is expected to Provide improved diagnositc quality PET images .

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.453-462
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• 2021

A lot of license plate data is required for car number recognition. License plate data needs to be balanced from past license plates to the latest license plates. However, it is difficult to obtain data from the actual past license plate to the latest ones. In order to solve this problem, a license plate recognition study through deep learning is being conducted by creating a synthetic license plates. Since the synthetic data have differences from real data, and various data augmentation techniques are used to solve these problems. Existing data augmentation simply used methods such as brightness, rotation, affine transformation, blur, and noise. In this paper, we apply a style transformation method that transforms synthetic data into real-world data styles with data augmentation methods. In addition, real license plate data are noisy when it is captured from a distance and under the dark environment. If we simply recognize characters with input data, chances of misrecognition are high. To improve character recognition, in this paper, we applied the DeblurGANv2 method as a quality improvement method for character recognition, increasing the accuracy of license plate recognition. The method of deep learning for license plate detection and license plate number recognition used YOLO-V5. To determine the performance of the synthetic license plate data, we construct a test set by collecting our own secured license plates. License plate detection without style conversion recorded 0.614 mAP. As a result of applying the style transformation, we confirm that the license plate detection performance was improved by recording 0.679mAP. In addition, the successul detection rate without image enhancement was 0.872, and the detection rate was 0.915 after image enhancement, confirming that the performance improved.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.89-114
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• 2008

Most of the extant studies on communication effects have been devoted to the typical issue, "what types of communication activities are more effective for brand awareness or brand attitudes?" However, little research has addressed another question on communication decisions, "what makes communication activities less effective?" Our study focuses on factors negatively influenced on the efficiency of communication activities, especially of Advertising. Some studies have introduced concepts closely related to our topic such as consumer confusion, brand confusion, or belief confusion. Studies on product belief confusion have found some factors misleading consumers to misunderstand the physical features of products. Studies on brand confusion have uncovered factors making consumers confused on brand names. Studies on advertising confusion have tested the effects of ad models' employed by many other firms for different products on communication efficiency. We address a new concept, Ad noises, which are any factors interfering with consumers exposed to a particular advertisement in understanding messages provided by advertisements. The objective of this study is to understand the effects of ad noises caused by ad models on brand awareness and brand attitude. There are many different types of AD noises. Particularly, we study the effects of AD noises generated from ad model selection decision. Many companies want to employ celebrities as AD models while the number of celebrities who command a high degree of public and media attention are limited. Inevitably, several firms have been adopting the same celebrities as their AD models for different products. If the same AD model is adopted for TV commercials for different products, consumers exposed to those TV commercials are likely to fail to be aware of the target brand due to interference of TV commercials, for other products, employing the same AD model. This is an ad noise caused by employing ad models who have been exposed to consumers in other advertisements, which is the first type of ad noises studied in this research. Another type of AD noises is related to the decision of AD model replacement for the same product advertising. Firms sometimes launch another TV commercial for the same products. Some firms employ the same AD model for the new TV commercial for the same product and other firms employ new AD models for the new TV commercials for the same product. The typical problem with the replacement of AD models is the possibility of interfering with consumers in understanding messages of the TV commercial due to the dissimilarity of the old and new AD models. We studied the effects of these two types of ad noises, which are the typical factors influencing on the effect of communication: (1) ad noises caused by employing ad models who have been exposed to consumers in other advertisements and (2) ad noises caused by changing ad models with different images for same products. First, we measure the negative influence of AD noises on brand awareness and attitudes, in order to provide the importance of studying AD noises. Furthermore, our study unveiled the mediating conditions(variables) which can increase or decrease the effects of ad noises on brand awareness and attitudes. We study the effects of three mediating variables for ad noises caused by employing ad models who have been exposed to consumers in other advertisements: (1) the fit between product image and AD model image, (2) similarity between AD model images in multiple TV commercials employing the same AD model, and (3) similarity between products of which TV commercial employed the same AD model. We analyze the effects of another three mediating variables for ad noises caused by changing ad models with different images for same products: (1) the fit of old and new AD models for the same product, (2) similarity between AD model images in old and new TV commercials for the same product, and (3) concept similarity between old and new TV commercials for the same product. We summarized the empirical results from a field survey as follows. The employment of ad models who have been used in advertisements for other products has negative effects on both brand awareness and attitudes. our empirical study shows that it is possible to reduce the negative effects of ad models used for other products by choosing ad models whose images are relevant to the images of target products for the advertisement, by requiring ad models of images which are different from those of ad models in other advertisements, or by choosing ad models who have been shown in advertisements for other products which are not similar to the target product. The change of ad models for the same product advertisement can positively influence on brand awareness but positively on brand attitudes. Furthermore, the effects of ad model change can be weakened or strengthened depending on the relevancy of new ad models, the similarity of previous and current ad models, and the consistency of the previous and current ad messages.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.27-35
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• 2017

The purpose of this study was to investigate the features of CsI:Tl and $Gd_2O_2S$ detectors with an indirect conversion method using phantom in the DR (digital radiography) system by obtaining images of thick chest phantom, medium thickness thigh phantom, and thin hand phantom and by analyzing the SNR and CNR. As a result of measuring the SNR and CNR according to the thickness change of the subject, the SNR and CNR were higher in CsI:Tl detector than in $Gd_2O_2S$ detector when the medium thickness thigh phantom and thin hand phantom were scanned. However, when the thick chest phantom was used, for the SNR at 80~125 kVp and the CNR at 80~110 kVp in the $Gd_2O_2S$ detector, the values were higher than those of CsI:Tl detector. The SNR and CNR both increased as the tube voltage increased. The SNR and CNR of CsI:Tl detector in the medium thickness thigh phantom increased at 40~50 kVp and decreased as the tube voltage increased. The SNR and CNR of $Gd_2O_2S$ detector increased at 40~60 kVp and decreased as the tube voltage increased. The SNR and CNR of CsI:Tl detctor in the thin hand phantom decreased at the low tube voltage and increased as the tube voltage increased, but they decreased again at 100~110 kVp, while the SNR and CNR of $Gd_2O_2S$ detector were found to decrease as the tube voltage increased. The MTF of CsI:Tl detector was 6.02~90.90% higher than that of $Gd_2O_2S$ detector at 0.5~3 lp/mm. The DQE of CsI:Tl detector was 66.67~233.33% higher than that of $Gd_2O_2S$ detector. In conclusion, although the values of CsI:Tl detector were higher than those of $Gd_2O_2S$ detector in the comparison of MTF and DQE, the cheaper $Gd_2O_2S$ detector had higher SNR and CNR than the expensive CsI:Tl detector at a certain tube voltage range in the thick check phantom. At chest X-ray, if the $Gd_2O_2S$ detector is used rather than the CsI:Tl detector, chest images with excellent quality can be obtained, which will be useful for examination. Moreover, price/performance should be considered when determining the detector type from the viewpoint of the user.