• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.24 no.10
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• pp.1006-1016
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• 2023

Objective: Computed tomography (CT) is an established method for the diagnosis, staging, and treatment of multiple myeloma. Here, we investigated the potential of photon-counting detector computed tomography (PCD-CT) in terms of image quality, diagnostic confidence, and radiation dose compared with energy-integrating detector CT (EID-CT). Materials and Methods: In this prospective study, patients with known multiple myeloma underwent clinically indicated whole-body PCD-CT. The image quality of PCD-CT was assessed qualitatively by three independent radiologists for overall image quality, edge sharpness, image noise, lesion conspicuity, and diagnostic confidence using a 5-point Likert scale (5 = excellent), and quantitatively for signal homogeneity using the coefficient of variation (CV) of Hounsfield Units (HU) values and modulation transfer function (MTF) via the full width at half maximum (FWHM) in the frequency space. The results were compared with those of the current clinical standard EID-CT protocols as controls. Additionally, the radiation dose (CTDIvol) was determined. Results: We enrolled 35 patients with multiple myeloma (mean age 69.8 ± 9.1 years; 18 [51%] males). Qualitative image analysis revealed superior scores (median [interquartile range]) for PCD-CT regarding overall image quality (4.0 [4.0-5.0] vs. 4.0 [3.0-4.0]), edge sharpness (4.0 [4.0-5.0] vs. 4.0 [3.0-4.0]), image noise (4.0 [4.0-4.0] vs. 3.0 [3.0-4.0]), lesion conspicuity (4.0 [4.0-5.0] vs. 4.0 [3.0-4.0]), and diagnostic confidence (4.0 [4.0-5.0] vs. 4.0 [3.0-4.0]) compared with EID-CT (P ≤ 0.004). In quantitative image analyses, PCD-CT compared with EID-CT revealed a substantially lower FWHM (2.89 vs. 25.68 cy/pixel) and a significantly more homogeneous signal (mean CV ± standard deviation [SD], 0.99 ± 0.65 vs. 1.66 ± 0.5; P < 0.001) at a significantly lower radiation dose (mean CTDIvol ± SD, 3.33 ± 0.82 vs. 7.19 ± 3.57 mGy; P < 0.001). Conclusion: Whole-body PCD-CT provides significantly higher subjective and objective image quality at significantly reduced radiation doses than the current clinical standard EID-CT protocols, along with readily available multi-spectral data, facilitating the potential for further advanced post-processing.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.41-47
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• 1995

Tc-99m-MIBI(Sestamibi) myocardial SPECT along with T1-201 tomographic imaging has demonstrated wide application and high image qualify sufficient for the diagnosis of myocardial perfusion defect, which consequently reflects regional myocardial blood flow, The qualitative values of myocardial SPECT with Tc-99m-MIBI as well as the quantitative cases depend in some degree on the reconstruction techniques of multiple projections. Filtered backprojection(FBP) is the common standard for reconstruction rather than the complicated and time-consuming arithmetic methods. In FBP it Is known that the distribution of radioactivity in reconstructed transverse slices varies with the selected filter parameters such as cutoff frequencies and order(Butterworth case). The cutoff frequencies basically remove and decrease the true radioactive distribution and alter the pixel counts, which lead to underestimation of true counts in specific myocardial regions. In this study, we have investigated the effect of cutoff frequencies of reconstruction filter on the artifactually induced perfusion defects, which are often demonstrated near inferior and/or inferoseptal cardiac walls due to the intense hepatic uptake of Tc-99m-MIBI. A computerized method for identifying the relative degree of artifactual perfusion defect and for comparing those degrees along with the relative amount of hepatic uptake to myocardium was developed and patient images were studied to observe the quantitative degree of underestimation of myocardial perfusion, and to propose some reasonable thresh-old of cutoff frequency in the diagnosis of perfusion defect quantitatively. We concluded that from the quantitative viewpoint cutoff frequencies may be used as high as possible with the sacrifice of homogeneity of image quality, and those frequencies lower than the common 0.3 Nyquist frequency would reveal severe degradation of radio-active distribution near inferior and/or Inferoseptal myocardium when applying Butterworth or low pass filter.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.110-118
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• 2018

We have designed a mid-infrared optical system for an airborne electro-optical targeting system. The mid-IR optical system is a dual-field-of-view (FOV) optics for an airborne electro-optical targeting system. The optics consists of a beam-reducer, a zoom lens group, a relay lens group, a cold stop conjugation optics, and an IR detector. The IR detector is an f/5.3 cooled detector with a resolution of $1280{\times}1024$ square pixels, with a pixel size of $15{\times}15{\mu}m$. The optics provides two stepwise FOVs ($1.50^{\circ}{\times}1.20^{\circ}$ and $5.40^{\circ}{\times}4.23^{\circ}$) by the insertion of two lenses into the zoom lens group. The IR optical system was designed in such a way that the working f-number (f/5.3) of the cold stop internally provided by the IR detector is maintained over the entire FOV when changing the zoom. We performed two analyses to investigate thermal effects on the image quality: athermalization analysis and Narcissus analysis. Athermalization analysis investigated the image focus shift and residual high-order wavefront aberrations as the working temperature changes from $-55^{\circ}C$ to $50^{\circ}C$. We first identified the best compensator for the thermal focus drift, using the Zernike polynomial decomposition method. With the selected compensator, the optics was shown to maintain the on-axis MTF at the Nyquist frequency of the detector over 10%, throughout the temperature range. Narcissus analysis investigated the existence of the thermal ghost images of the cold detector formed by the optics itself, which is quantified by the Narcissus Induced Temperature Difference (NITD). The reported design was shown to have an NITD of less than $1.5^{\circ}C$.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.19-26
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• 2017

Surface air temperature ($T_{air}$) is a key variable for the meteorology and climatology, and is a fundamental factor of the terrestrial ecosystem functions. Satellite remote sensing from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) provides an opportunity to monitor the $T_{air}$. However, the several problems such as frequent cloud cover and mountainous region can result in substantial retrieval error and signal loss in MODIS $T_{air}$. In this study, satellite-based $T_{air}$ was estimated under both clear and cloudy sky conditions in Gangwon Province using Aqua MODIS07 temperature profile product (MYD07_L2) and GCOM-W1 Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) brightness temperature ($T_b$) at 37 GHz frequency, and was compared with the measurements from the Automated Mountain Meteorology Stations (AMOS). The application of ambient temperature lapse rate was performed to improve the retrieval accuracy in mountainous region, which showed the improvement of estimation accuracy approximately 4% of RMSE. A simple pixel-wise regression method combining synergetic information from MYD07_L2 $T_{air}$ and AMSR2 $T_b$ was applied to estimate surface $T_{air}$ for all sky conditions. The $T_{air}$ retrievals showed favorable agreement in comparison with AMOS data (r=0.80, RMSE=7.9K), though the underestimation was appeared in winter season. Substantial $T_{air}$ retrievals were estimated 61.4% (n=2,657) for cloudy sky conditions. The results presented in this study indicate that the satellite remote sensing can produce the surface $T_{air}$ at the complex mountainous region for all sky conditions.