• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• 제14권5호
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• pp.669-676
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• 2020

The purpose of this study was to analyze the changes in the values of Hounsfield Unit (HU) according to the changes in monoenergy (keV) and dilution ratio of the contrast agent, using the spectral CT. Spectral CT was used as the testing device, while 20 cc syringe phantom was used to set a total of six dilution ratios of the contrast agent: 8:2, 7:3, 6:4, 5:5, 4:6, and 3:7. Here, the non-ionic iodine solution (350 mg/ml) was used as a contrast agent. The syringe axial image was reconstructed by adjusting the obtained data on nine MonoE levels; 40 keV, 45 keV, 50 keV, 55 keV, 60 keV, 65 keV, 70 keV, 75 keV, and 80 keV. The HU values were measured at the three points of the reconstructed syringe axial image. The measurements were taken 1,620 times in total. In the analysis of the HU values according to the changes in keV and dilution ratio of the contrast agent, the highest and lowest HU values were obtained from dilution ratio 8:2 and dilution ratio 3:7, respectively, across every MonoE in the comparison of HU according to dilution ratio per MonoE (p<0.05), while the highest and lowest HU values were obtained from 40 keV and 80 keV, respectively, across all dilution ratios in the comparison of HU according to MonoE per dilution ratio (p<0.05). For the correlation per each parameter, a negative correlation of -15.014 ± 0.298 was found for HU per keV (R²=0.519) and a negative correlation of -61.372 ± 3.608 was found for HU per dilution ratio (R²=0.152) (p<0.05). To conclude, an increase in keV or dilution ratio of the contrast agent was shown to decrease the HU, and the findings in this study are anticipated to serve as the basic data in the research of HU-related parameters in Spectral CT.

• IEIE Transactions on Smart Processing and Computing
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• 제4권5호
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• pp.311-317
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• 2015

The aim of this study is to develop a 3D registration algorithm for positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) and magnetic resonance (MR) images acquired from independent PET/CT and MR imaging systems. Combined PET/CT images provide anatomic and functional information, and MR images have high resolution for soft tissue. With the registration technique, the strengths of each modality image can be combined to achieve higher performance in diagnosis and radiotherapy planning. The proposed method consists of two stages: normalized mutual information (NMI)-based global matching and independent component analysis (ICA)-based refinement. In global matching, the field of view of the CT and MR images are adjusted to the same size in the preprocessing step. Then, the target image is geometrically transformed, and the similarities between the two images are measured with NMI. The optimization step updates the transformation parameters to efficiently find the best matched parameter set. In the refinement stage, ICA planes from the windowed image slices are extracted and the similarity between the images is measured to determine the transformation parameters of the control points. B-spline. based freeform deformation is performed for the geometric transformation. The results show good agreement between PET/CT and MR images.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• 제34권3호
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• pp.117-122
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• 2013

Hyaluronic acid(HA) microbeads were synthesized by dropping the sodium hyaluronate(Streptococcus) solutions in NaOH into a solution mixture of divinyl sulfone(DVS) in 2-methyl-1-propanol, followed by stirring, cleaning and drying process at room temperature. The initial experimental conditions are crosslinking time(CLTi) of 5 h, crosslinking temperature(CLTe) of room temperature, injection air pressure(IAPr) of 5 psi, and DVS concentration( DVSc) of 0.2 vol%, respectively. Then, parametric studies were performed by varying the parameters to investigate the morphology, the porosity, the swelling ratio and the size of the beads. The microbead size pattern was not regular to function of the degree of crosslink. It was observed that the swelling ratio, the degree of crosslink, and the pore size can be controlled by adjusting the CLTi, CLTe and DVSc. Among the parameters investigated, the smallest bead size can be achieved by varying the CLTi parameter. The lowest swelling ratio, as an indication of the highest degree of crosslink, can be obtained by varying CLTe.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• 제29권1호
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• pp.41-48
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• 2004

A safety assessment code, called SAGE (Safety Assessment Groundwater Evaluation), has been developed to describe post-closure radionuclide releases and potential radiological doses for low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste (LILW) disposal in an engineered vault facility in Korea. The conceptual model implemented in the code is focused on the release of radionuclide from a gradually degrading engineered barrier system to an underlying unsaturated zone, thence to a saturated groundwater zone. The radionuclide transport equations are solved by spatially discretizing the disposal system into a series of compartments. Mass transfer between compartments is by diffusion/dispersion and advection. In all compartments, radionuclides ate decayed either as a single-member chain or as multi-member chains. The biosphere is represented as a set of steady-state, radionuclide-specific pathway dose conversion factors that are multiplied by the appropriate release rate from the far field for each pathway. The code has the capability to treat input parameters either deterministically or probabilistically. Parameter input is achieved through a user-friendly Graphical User Interface. An application is presented, which is compared against safety assessment results from the other computer codes, to benchmark the reliability of system-level conceptual modeling of the code.

• Clinics in Shoulder and Elbow
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• 제19권3호
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• pp.119-124
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• 2016

Background: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the functional outcomes of reverse total shoulder arthroplasty (RTSA) and to assess factors affecting the patients' subjective satisfaction after RTSA. Methods: Forty-three patients (mean age, $75.0{\pm}5.2years$) who underwent RTSA for cuff tear arthropathy or irreparable cuff tears with preoperative magnetic resonance imaging and pre- and postoperative radiographs at 1 year, and whose various functional outcomes including pain visual analogue scale (VAS), simple shoulder test, Constant score, American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons score, and active range of motion were evaluated preoperatively and at the last follow-up (>12 months) were enrolled. The outcome parameter was set as a satisfaction scale. Various clinical and radiographic factors were analyzed, and their correlations with postoperative satisfaction were evaluated. Results: All functional scores, VAS pain score, and active forward flexion showed significant improvement after surgery (all p<0.001). Twenty-nine patients were satisfied with the results and 14 were dissatisfied. The presence of pseudoparalysis (p=0.028) and worse preoperative function (all p<0.05) were related with higher satisfaction. Any radiologic parameters did not affect patients' postoperative satisfaction. Conclusions: All patients showed a good functional outcome after RTSA, however the patients' subjective postoperative satisfaction was affected by preoperative functional status (higher satisfaction in poor preoperative function), not by radiological findings.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제28권3호
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• pp.274-279
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• 1996

Diffusion coefficient is a critical parameter for predicting radiological source term(migration rate and flux of radionuclide) through given near field conditions in spent fuel or high level waste repository. The effect of exchangeable cation-$Na^+$ and $Ca^{2+} - on the diffusion of $I^- \;and^3H$ (as HTO) in compacted bentonite was examined using a through-diffusion method. Bentonite material used here was compacted to a density of 1.3 Mg/m$^3$, and Na-bentonite was saturated with a solution of 100 mol NaCl/m$^3$ and Ca-bentonite with 50 $mol\;CaCl_2$/m$^3$. The results show that effective diffusion coefficients are generally higher by a factor of two to five in Ca-than Na-clay. This is attributed to the larger particle size of Ca-compared to Na-bentonite; hence, Ca-bentonite has a greater proportion of relatively large pores, which make a greater contribution to mass transport than small pores. Although the nature of the exchangeable cation affects mass diffusion in compacted bentonite, the effect is small and not likely to influence performance assessment modeling of compacted bentonite-based barriers.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• 제13권1호
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• pp.81-86
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• 2019

In X-ray image, the role of filtration through the filter is to reduce the exposure of the patient by using photon which is useful in formation of the image, and at the same time, enhance the contrast of the image. During interaction between photon and object, low energy X-rays are absorbed from the site of a few cm of the first patient's tissue, and high energy X-rays are the one which form the image. Therefore, the radiation filter absorbs low energy X-ray in order to lower the exposure of the patient and improve the quality of the image. The purpose of this study is to compare the effect on the image quality by differences of added filter through simulation image and actual radiation image. For that purpose, we used Geant4 Application for Tomographic Emission (GATE) as a tool for Monte Carlo simulation. We set actual size, shape and material of Polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) Phantom on GATE and differentiated the parameter of added filter. Also, we took image of PMMA phantom with same parameter of added filter by digital radiography (DR). Than we performed contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) evaluation on both simulation image and actual DR image by Image J. Finally, we observed the effect on image quality due to different thickness of added filter, and compared two images' CNR evaluation's transitions of change. The result of this experiment showed decreasing in the progress of CNR on both DR and simulation image. It is ultimately caused by decreasing in contrast on image. In theory, contrast decrease with kVp increased. Given that condition, this study found out that filter makes not only decreasing total dose by absorbing low energy of X-ray, but also increasing average energy of X-ray.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• 제22권5호
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• pp.250-256
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• 2013

It is described that the proton beam induces micro-size defects and electronic deep levels in luminescence Thin Film. Coincidence Doppler Broadening Positron Annihilation Spectroscopy (CDBPAS) and Positron lifetime Spectroscopy were applied to study of characteristics of a poly crystal samples. In this investigation the numerical analysis of the Doppler spectra was employed to the determination of the shape parameter, S-parameter value. The samples were exposed by 3.0 MeV proton beams with the intensities ranging between 0 to ${\sim}10^{14}$ particles. The S-parameter values decreased as increased the proton beam, that indicates the protons trapped in vacancies. Lifetime ${\tau}_1$ shows that positrons are trapped in mono vacancies. Lifetime ${\tau}_2$ is not changed according to proton irradiation that indicate the cluster vacancies of the grain structure.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• 제32권1호
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• pp.95-99
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• 2009

The purpose of this research is to seek SPAIR's reversal time (TI) which satisfies two conditions ; maintaining the suppression ability of fat tissue and simultaneously minimizing the inhomogeneity of fat tissue in T2 high-speed spin echo 3.0T magnetic resonance image (MRI) of the brain, and to compare SPAIR with STIR which is fat-suppression technique. The reversal times (TI) of SPAIR protocol are set to 1/2, 1/3, 1/6 and 1/12 of SPAIR TR (420 msec), namely 210 msec (8 people), 140 msec (26 people), 70 msec (26 people) and 35 msec (18 people) and STIR TI is set with 250 msec (26 people). With these parameter sets, we acquired the axis direction 104 images of the brain. In ROI ($50\;mm^2$) of output image, signal intensities of the fatty tissue, the muscular tissue, and the background were measured and the CNRs of fatty tissue and the muscular tissue were calculated. The inhomogeneity of the fatty tissue is SD/mean, where SD is the standard deviation and 'mean' is a average fatty tissue signal. Consequently, SPAIR TI is determined on either 1/3 or 1/6 of TR (420 ms) ; 140 ms or 70 ms. Because the difference of statistics in fat-suppression ability and inhomogeneity of fatty tissue is very small (p < 0.001), Selecting 140 ms seems to be better choice for the image quality. Meanwhile, Comparing SPAIR (TI : 140 ms) with STIR, the fat-suppression is not able to be considered statistically (p < 0.252), but the image quality is able to be considered statistically (p < 0.01). In conclusion, SPAIR is better than STIR in the image quality.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• 제29권1호
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• pp.1-6
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• 2006

Purpose: Renal stones are common and typically arise within the collecting system. The renal sinus are contains the collection system, the renal vessels, lymphatcs, fat, and fibrous tissue. Because of the compression of all the large echoes in signal processing, the echo from the renal stone generally cannot be distinguished from large echoes emanating from normal structures of the renal sinus. Use of ultrasonography has been difficult for detecting small renal stone without posterior shadowing and chemical composition of stone. The aim of study was measuring for posterior acoustic shadowing to a stone for various scan parameter and it examines a help in renal stone diagnosis. Material & Methods: The stone was place on sponge examined in a water bath with a 3.5MHz or 7.5MHz transducer(LOGIQ 400, USA). First, tested a variety of gain. Second, tested a variety of dynamic range. Third, tested a variety of focal zone. Fourth, measuring of the echo level for low and high frequency for depth. Results: 1) Average echo level was 98 for low total gain(10 dB) and was 142 for high total gain(40 dB). Posterior acoustic shadowing of renal stone was clear for low gain. 2) Average echo level was 129 for low dynamic range(42 dB) and was 101 for high dynamic range(72 dB). Posterior acoustic shadowing of renal stone was clear for high dynamic range. 3) When stone is in focal zone of transducer, definite posterior acoustic shadow is identified. 4) Stone was clear appeared for high frequency(7.5 MHz) than low frequency(3.5 MHz) and it is not distorted. Conclusion: The demonstration of an posterior acoustic shadow of renal stone dependents on several technical factors such as gain, dynamic range, focus, and frequency. This various factors are a help in renal stone diagnosis.