• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.2 no.3
• /
• pp.1-15
• /
• 2002

A noel automated brain region extraction method in single channel MR images for visualization and analysis of a human brain is presented. The method generates a volume of brain masks by automatic thresholding using a dual curve fitting technique and by 3D morphological operations. The dual curve fitting can reduce an error in clue fitting to the histogram of MR images. The 3D morphological operations, including erosion, labeling of connected-components, max-feature operation, and dilation, are applied to the cubic volume of masks reconstructed from the thresholded Drain masks. This method can automatically extract a brain region in any displayed type of sequences, including extreme slices, of SPGR, T1-, T2-, and PD-weighted MR image data sets which are not required to contain the entire brain. In the experiments, the algorithm was applied to 20 sets of MR images and showed over 0.97 of similarity index in comparison with manual drawing.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
• /
• v.45 no.4
• /
• pp.171-177
• /
• 2020

Background: This study aims to determine the effective atomic number (Zeff) from dual-energy image sets obtained using a conventional computed tomography (CT) simulator. The estimated Zeff can be used for deriving the stopping power and material decomposition of CT images, thereby improving dose calculations in radiation therapy. Materials and Methods: An electron-density phantom was scanned using Philips Brilliance CT Big Bore at 80 and 140 kVp. The estimated Zeff values were compared with those obtained using the calibration phantom by applying the Rutherford, Schneider, and Joshi methods. The fitting parameters were optimized using the nonlinear least squares regression algorithm. The fitting curve and mass attenuation data were obtained from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The fitting parameters obtained from stopping power and material decomposition of CT images, were validated by estimating the residual errors between the reference and calculated Zeff values. Next, the calculation accuracy of Zeff was evaluated by comparing the calculated values with the reference Zeff values of insert plugs. The exposure levels of patients under additional CT scanning at 80, 120, and 140 kVp were evaluated by measuring the weighted CT dose index (CTDIw). Results and Discussion: The residual errors of the fitting parameters were lower than 2%. The best and worst Zeff values were obtained using the Schneider and Joshi methods, respectively. The maximum differences between the reference and calculated values were 11.3% (for lung during inhalation), 4.7% (for adipose tissue), and 9.8% (for lung during inhalation) when applying the Rutherford, Schneider, and Joshi methods, respectively. Under dual-energy scanning (80 and 140 kVp), the patient exposure level was approximately twice that in general single-energy scanning (120 kVp). Conclusion: Zeff was calculated from two image sets scanned by conventional single-energy CT simulator. The results obtained using three different methods were compared. The Zeff calculation based on single-energy exhibited appropriate feasibility.

• Current Optics and Photonics
• /
• v.5 no.3
• /
• pp.243-249
• /
• 2021

In this paper, the sensing characteristics of a double cladding fiber (DCF) long-period fiber grating (LPFG) to the surrounding refractive index (SRI) are studied. The outer cladding of the DCF plays the role of the overlay, thus, the mode transition (MT) phenomenon of DCF can be induced by etching the outer cladding radius instead of coating overlays. The response characteristics of the effective refractive index (ERI) of the cladding mode to the outer cladding radius are analyzed. It is found that in the MT range, the change rate of ERIs of cladding modes is relatively larger than that for other ranges. Further, based on the features of the mode transition region (MTR), the phase-matching curve of the 11^th cladding mode is investigated, and the response of the DCF-LPFG to the SRI is characterized by the change of wavelength intervals between the dual peaks under different outer cladding radii. The numerical simulation results show that the SRI sensitivity is greatly improved, which is available to 3484.0 nm/RIU with the fitting degree 0.998 in the SRI range of 1.33-1.37. The proposed DCF-LPFG can provide new theoretical support for designing the DCF-LPFG refractive index sensor with excellent performances of sensitivity, linearity and structure.