• KIPS Transactions on Software and Data Engineering
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.69-76
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• 2020

In this paper, we introduce a method to visualize the contrast diffusion patterns and the dynamic vascular patterns in a contrast-enhanced ultrasound image sequence. We present an imaging technique to visualize parameters such as contrast arrival time, peak intensity time, and contrast decay time in contrast-enhanced ultrasound data. The contrast flow pattern and its velocity are important for characterizing focal liver lesions. We propose a method for representing the contrast diffusion patterns as an image. In the methods, respiratory motion may degrade the accuracy of the parametric images. Therefore, we present a respiratory motion tracking technique that uses dynamic weights and a momentum factor with respect to the respiration cycle. Through the experiment using 72 CEUS data sets, we show that the proposed method makes it possible to overcome the limitation of analysis by the naked eye and improves the reliability of the parametric images by compensating for respiratory motion in contrast-enhanced ultrasonography.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.11 no.12
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• pp.2398-2405
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• 2007

This paper proposes a contrast enhancement technique which stretches the intensity surfaces of image to improve the quality of the digital photos. The proposed method enhances the contrast of image by stretching the intensity surface of the original image to the maximum range of the output image in proportion to the distances between the original intensity surface and upper, lower intensity surface, respectively. The upper and lower intensity surfaces are generated from the original intensity surface by gaussian smoothing. In the experiments, digital color images in a variety of illumination conditions were used and the proposed method was compared with other several existed image enhancement algorithms, which are histogram stretching, surface stretching, histogram equalization, gamma correction and retinex. It was proved that the experimental results were more natural visually without deterioration of gradation.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.96-108
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• 2014

In case of contrast of the image enhancement by using the conventional histogram equalization, over-enhancement, false contouring and distortion such as the details disappearance of the image occurs due to the excessive brightness change. Especially, these distortion appears when the brightness distribution is concentrated in a particular brightness level. In order to solve these problems, improved histogram equalization methods to transform the input histogram by clipping using threshold have been proposed, but contrast enhancement effect is reduced because it does not consider the characteristics of the input image's histogram to apply the same threshold for the entire histogram, and unnatural image is obtained because it does not retain the characteristics of the image. In this paper, to solve the problems of existing methods, we propose new equalization method that suppress excessive brightness changes by applying to the differential compression according to the histogram frequency, and maintain the characteristics of the input image. In addition, we propose a more effectively method to improve contrast by controlling the strength of the compression ratio depending on the characteristics of the input image.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.27-34
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• 2011

In this paper, the novel approach for image contrast enhancement is introduced. The method is based on the unsharp mask and directional information of images. Since the unsharp mask techniques give better visual quality than the conventional sharpening mask, there are much works on image enhancement using unsharp masks. The proposed algorithm decomposes the image to several blocks and extracts directional information using DCT. From the geometric properties of the block, each block is labeled as appropriate type and processed by adaptive unsharp mask. The masking process is skipped at the flat area to reduce the noise artifact, but at the texture and edge area, the adaptive unsharp mask is applied to enhance the image contrast based on the edge direction. Experiments show that the proposed algorithm produces the contrast enhanced images with superior visual quality, suppressing the noise effects and enhancing edge at the same time.

• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.86-90
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• 2013

Various methods have been proposed for enhancing the contrast of laser speckle contrast image (LSCI) in subcutaneous blood flow measurements. However, the LSCI still suffers from low image contrast due to tissue turbidity. Herein, a physicochemical tissue optical clearing (PCTOC) method was employed to enhance the contrast of LSCI. Ex vivo and in vivo experiments were performed with porcine skin samples and male ICR mice, respectively. The ex vivo LSCIs were obtained before and 90 min after the application of the PCTOC and in vivo LSCIs were obtained for 60 min after the application of the PCTOC. In order to obtain the skin recovery images, saline was applied for 30 min after the application of the PCTOC was completed. The visible appearance of the tubing under ex vivo samples and the in vivo vasculature gradually enhanced over time. The LSCI increased as a function of time after the application of the PCTOC in both ex vivo and in vivo experiments, and properly recovered to initial conditions after the application of saline in the in vivo experiment. The LSCI combined with the PCTOC was greatly enhanced even in deep vasculature. It is expected that similar results will be obtained in in vivo human studies.

• Journal of Information Display
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.13-21
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• 2001

We propose a universal image processor for a-Si TFT LCD of UXGA class that can display the full screen on the LCD panel with low resolution of video sources such as NTSC, VGA, SVGA, XGA, and SXGA by using the proposed interpolation filter. In addition, we propose a real-time contrast controller for image improvement of multi-gray scale image. The operation of the proposed methods has been verified using Synopsys VHDL and computer simulation. Results show that the proposed methods might be suitable for a UXGA LCD controller for real-time image improvement.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.103-113
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• 2022

In this paper, a combined ¹⁸F-FDG(fluorodeoxyglucose) and MNP(magnetic nanoparticles) contrast agent was synthesized using N-(p-maleimidophenyl) isocyanate as the crosslinker for use in simultaneous PET-MRI scans. PET-MRI images were acquired and evaluated before and after injection of the combined contrast imaging agent (¹⁸F-FDG labeled MNP) from a glioma stem cell mouse model. After setting the region of interest (ROI) on each acquired image, the area of the lesion was calculated by segmentation. As a result, the PET image was larger than the MRI. In particular, the simultaneous PET-MRI images showed accurate lesions along with the surrounding soft tissue. The mean and standard deviation values were higher in the MRI images alone than in the PET images or the simultaneous PET-MRI images, regardless of whether the contrast agent was injected. In addition, the simultaneous PET-MRI image values were higher than for the PET images. For PSNR experiments, the original image was PET Image using 18F-FDG, MRI using MNPs, and MRI without contrast medium, and the target image was simultaneous PET-MRI image using 18F-FDG labeled MNPs contrast medium. As a result, all of them appeared significantly, suggesting that the 18F-FDG labeled MNPs contrast medium is useful. Future research is needed to develop an agent that can simultaneously diagnose and treat through SPECT-MRI imaging research that can use various nuclides.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.1205-1223
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• 2018

Image enhancement is an emerging method for analyzing the images clearer for interpretation and analysis in the spatial domain. The goal of image enhancement is to serve an input image so that the resultant image is more suited to the particular application. In this paper, a novel method is proposed based on Mamdani fuzzy inference system (FIS) using multiple fuzzy membership functions. It is observed that the shape of membership function while converting the input image into the fuzzy domain is the essential important selection. Then, a set of fuzzy If-Then rule base in fuzzy domain gives the best result in image contrast enhancement. Based on a different combination of membership function shapes, a best predictive solution can be determined which can be suitable for different types of the input image as per application requirements. Our result analysis shows that the quality attributes such as PSNR, Index of Fuzziness (IOF) parameters give different performances with a selection of numbers and different sized membership function in the fuzzy domain. To get more insight, an optimization algorithm is proposed to identify the best combination of the fuzzy membership function for best image contrast enhancement.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.12 no.7
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• pp.3401-3420
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• 2018

Pixel expansion and contrast are two major performance parameters for visual cryptography scheme (VCS), which is a type of secret image sharing. Random Grid (RG) is an alternative approach to solve the pixel expansion problem. Chen and Tsao proposed the first (k, n) RG-based VCS, and then Guo et al., Wu et al., Shyu, and Yan et al. significantly improved the contrast in recent years. However, the investigations on improving the contrast of threshold RG-based VCS are not sufficient. In this paper, we develop a contrast-improved algorithm for (k, n) RG-based VCS. Theoretical analysis and experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm outperformers the previous threshold algorithms with better visual quality and a higher accuracy of contrast.

• Journal of Magnetics
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.281-285
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• 2016

The purpose of study was to evaluate SNR and CNR with different contrast agent contents (1.0 mmol/mL gadobutrol and 0.5 mmol/mL gadoterate meglumine) for spin echo (SE) and 3-dimension contrast-enhanced fast field echo (3D CE-FFE) pulse sequences. In this study, we compared the SNR and the CNR between 0.5 mmol/mL gadoterate meglumine and 1.0 mmol/mL gadobutrol according to the concentration of contrast agent in brain MRI. When we compared between SE and 3D CE-FFE pulse sequences, the higher SNR and CNR using 3D CE-FFE pulse sequence can be acquire regardless of contrast agent contents. Also, a statistically significant difference was found for SNR and CNR between all protocols. In conclusion, our results demonstrated that the SNR and CNR have not risen proportionately with contrast agent contents. We hope that these results presented in this paper will contribute to decide contrast agent contents for brain MRI.