• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.110-118
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• 2007

Purpose: The objective of this work to construct eigenvalue maps that have information of magnitude of three primary diffusion directions using diffusion tensor images. Materials and Methods: To construct eigenvalue maps, we used a 3.0T MRI scanner. We also compared the Moore-Penrose pseudo-inverse matrix method and the SVD (single value decomposition) method to calculate magnitude of three primary diffusion directions. Eigenvalue maps were constructed by calculating of magnitude of three primary diffusion directions. We did investigate the relationship between eigenvalue maps and fractional anisotropy map. Results: Using Diffusion Tensor Images by diffusion tensor imaging sequence, we did construct eigenvalue maps of three primary diffusion directions. Comparison between eigenvalue maps and Fractional Anisotropy map shows what is difference of Fractional Anisotropy value in brain anatomy. Furthermore, through the simulation of variable eigenvalues, we confirmed changes of Fractional Anisotropy values by variable eigenvalues. And Fractional anisotropy was not determined by magnitude of each primary diffusion direction, but it was determined by combination of each primary diffusion direction. Conclusion: By construction of eigenvalue maps, we can confirm what is the reason of fractional anisotropy variation by measurement the magnitude of three primary diffusion directions on lesion of brain white matter, using eigenvalue maps and fractional anisotropy map.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.71-81
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• 2017

Purpose: To compare three, motion-resistant, T1-weighted MR sequences on the hepatobiliary phase for gadoxetic acid-enhanced MR imaging of the liver. Materials and Methods: In this retrospective study, 79 patients underwent gadoxetic acid-enhanced, 3T liver MR imaging. Fifty-nine were examined using a standard protocol, and 20 were examined using a motion-resistant protocol. During the hepatocyte-specific phase, three MR sequences were acquired: 1) gradient recalled echo (GRE) with controlled aliasing in parallel imaging results in higher acceleration (CAIPIRINHA); 2) radial GRE with the interleaved angle-bisection scheme (ILAB); and 3) radial GRE with golden-angle scheme (GA). Two readers independently assessed images with motion artifacts, streaking artifacts, liver-edge sharpness, hepatic vessel clarity, lesion conspicuity, and overall image quality, using a 5-point scale. The images were assessed by measurement of liver signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and tumor-to-liver contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR). The results were compared, using repeated post-hoc, paired t-tests with Bonferroni correction and the Wilcoxon signed rank test with Bonferroni correction. Results: In the qualitative analysis of cooperative patients, the results for CAIPIRINHA had significantly higher ratings for streak artifacts, liver-edge sharpness, hepatic vessel clarity, and overall image quality as compared to, radial GRE, (P < 0.016). In the imaging of uncooperative patients, higher scores were recorded for ILAB and GA with respect to all of the qualitative assessments, except for streak artifact, compared with CAIPIRINHA (P < 0.016). However, no significant differences were found between ILAB and GA. For quantitative analysis in uncooperative patients, the mean liver SNR and lesion-to-liver CNR with radial GRE were significantly higher than those of CAIPIRINHA (P < 0.016). Conclusion: In uncooperative patients, the use of the radial GRE sequence can improve the image quality compared to GRE imaging with CAIPIRINHA, despite the data acquisition methods used. The GRE imaging with CAIPIRINHA is applicable for patients without breath-holding difficulties.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.475-480
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• 2018

In lower abdominal MRI scan, patients have been tested by physically contacting with the body array coil. In this study, we have designed the acrylic assistant equipment (ACR) which allows the contactless scan of the patient to the coil and evaluated the feasibility by comparing the acquired images with ACR to those obtained without ACR. We tested 10 cases (F: 5, m: 5) by using the Ingenia $3.0T^{TM}$ MR system and dStreamTM torso coil (Philips Healthcare, Netherlands). We implemented T1 AX TSE and eTHRIVE (GRE) techniques. The scanned images were quantitatively and qualitatively assessed. In qualitatively, the TSE shows 4.44 and 4.56 mean values with and without the ACR and 4.34 and 4.28 at the GRE, respectively. In quantitatively, the TSE shows 12.15 CNR, 17.95 SNR and 12.71 CNR, 18.96 SNR with and without the ACR. And GRE shows 17.72 CNR, 22.59 SNR and 18.26 CNR, 24.47 SNR with and without the ACR, respectively. We have designed and implemented the acrylic assistant equipment to lower abdominal patients. Our data indicate that it is possible to obtain similar image qualities to current lower abdominal MRI scan without the physical contact to the patient.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.13 no.8
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• pp.284-291
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• 2013

The importance of ultrasound examination in the field of medical imaging has been emphasized and the interest in sonographic image evaluation is growing. However image evaluations by the non-standardized criteria and methods, so establishment of legal provisions and objective evaluation criteria are needed. In this study, we used SNR to find out more quantitative way and supplement the limitations of the existing phantom image evaluation. The results of acquired 8 images using ATS-539 multipurpose phantom were compared in SNR of sensitivity and gray-scale dynamic range. In the result of the experiment, excellent equipment of existing phantom images are G1, S1 and G2 in regular sequence. In SNR of sensitivity, G1, S1 and G2 and in SNR of gray-scale dynamic range, S1 G1 and G2 in order. In the conclusion, all the experiment results did not show big difference and regular pattern neither. Therefore, the new evaluation measures should be used with the existing phantom image evaluation method for more objective and quantitative evaluation of the ultrasound imaging device.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.37-58
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• 2011

In general, testing DB applications is much more difficult than testing other types of software. The fact that the DB states as much as the input data influence and determine the procedures and results of program testing is one of the decisive reasons for the difficulties. In order to create and maintain proper DB states for testing, it not only takes a lot of time and efforts, but also requires extensive IT expertise and business knowledge. Despite the difficulties, there are not enough research and tools for the needed help. This article reports the result of research on automatic creation and maintenance of DB states for testing DB applications. As its core, this investigation develops an automation tool which collects relevant information from a variety of sources such as log, schema, tables and messages, combines collected information intelligently, and creates pre- and post-Images of database tables proper for application tests. The proposed procedures and tool are expected to be greatly helpful for overcoming inefficiencies and difficulties in not just unit and integration tests but including regression tests. Practically, the tool and procedures proposed in this research allows developers to improve their productivity by reducing time and effort required for creating and maintaining appropriate DB sates, and enhances the quality of DB applications since they are conducive to a wider variety of test cases and support regression tests. Academically, this research deepens our understanding and introduces new approach to testing enterprise systems by analyzing patterns of SQL usages and defining a grammar to express and process the patterns.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.13 no.7
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• pp.1000-1015
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• 2010

In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm for hand gesture recognition. The hand detection method is based on human skin color, and we use the boundary energy information to locate the hand region accurately, then the moment method will be employed to locate the hand palm center. Hand gesture recognition can be separated into 2 step: firstly, the hand posture recognition: we employ the parallel NNs to deal with problem of hand posture recognition, pattern of a hand posture can be extracted by utilize the fitting ellipses method, which separates the detected hand region by 12 ellipses and calculates the white pixels rate in ellipse line. the pattern will be input to the NNs with 12 input nodes, the NNs contains 4 output nodes, each output node out a value within 0~1, the posture is then represented by composed of the 4 output codes. Secondly, the hand gesture tracking and recognition: we employed the Kalman filter to predict the position information of gesture to create the position sequence, distance relationship between positions will be used to confirm the gesture. The simulation have been performed on Windows XP to evaluate the efficiency of the algorithm, for recognizing the hand posture, we used 300 training images to train the recognizing machine and used 200 images to test the machine, the correct number is up to 194. And for testing the hand tracking recognition part, we make 1200 times gesture (each gesture 400 times), the total correct number is 1002 times. These results shows that the proposed gesture recognition algorithm can achieve an endurable job for detecting the hand and its' gesture.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea CI
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.1-8
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• 2001

In this paper, we propose an algorithm which estimates the displacements and velocities of objects in the soccer field from the soccer image sequences. Assuming the time interval of an object movement is given, we transform the object positions into those in the soccer field model and compute the distance and the velocity. When four corresponding pairs of the feature points, such as the crossing points of the lines in the soccer field, exist and three of them are not on a line, we transform the object positions in the soccer image into those in the soccer field by using the perspective displacement field model. In addition, when the soccer image has less than four feature points, we first transform the object positions into those in the image which has more than four feature points, and then transform the positions into those in the soccer field again. To find the coordinate transformation between two images, we estimate the panning and zooming for consecutive images in the sequence. In the experimental results, we quantitatively evaluated the estimation accuracy by applying our algorithm to the synthetic. soccer image sequences generated by graphic tools, and applied it to the real soccer image sequences for broadcasting to show its usefulness.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.142-147
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• 2008

Purpose : By using the micro-imaging unit modified from NMR spectrometer, the high resolution MRI protocols of finer than 100 micron in 5 minutes, is sought for mouse, which plays a central role in animal studies Materials and Methods : C57BL/6 mouse, lighter than 50 gram, is used for the experiments. The superconducting magnet is vertical type with 89 mm inner diameter at 4.9 Tesla. The diameter of rf-coil is 30 mm. Mostly used techniques are the fast spin echo and the gradient echo pulse sequence. Results : For 2D images, proton density and T2 weighted images are obtained and their optimum experimental variables were sought. Minute structure of mouse brain can be recognized and 3D brain image is also obtained additionally. 3D image will be useful particularly for the dynamic contrast study using various contrast agents. Conclusion : Like the case of human and other small animals, the high resolution of mouse brain is enough to recognize the minute structure of it. Recently, similar studies are reported domestically, but it seems only a beginning stage. Due to easiness of breeding/control, mouse MRI study will soon play a vital part in brain study.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.430-437
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• 2010

It is essential for living donor liver transplantation that surgeon must understand the hepatic vessel structure to improve the success rate of operation. In this paper, we extract the liver boundary without other surrounding structures such as heart, stomach, and spleen using the contrast enhanced MDCT liver image sequence. After that, we extract the major hepatic veins (left, middle, right hepatic vein) with morphological filter after review the basic structure of hepatic vessel which reside in segmented liver image region. The purpose of this study is provide the overall status of transplantation operation with size estimation of resection part which is dissected along with the middle hepatic vein. The method of liver extraction is as follows: firstly, we get rid of background and muscle layer with gray level distribution ratio from sampling process. secondly, the coincident images match with unit mesh image are unified with resulted image using the corse coordinate of liver and body. thirdly, we extract the final liver image after expanding and region filling. Using the segmented liver images, we extract the hepatic vessels with morphological filter and reversed the major hepatic vessels only with a results of ascending order of vessel size. The 3D reconstructed views of hepatic vessel are generated after applying the interpolation to provide the smooth view. These 3D view are used to estimate the dissection line after identify the middle hepatic vein. Finally, the volume of resection region is calculated and we can identify the possibility of successful transplantation operation.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.35-44
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• 2012

Most recent infrared (IR) sensors have a focal-plane array (FPA) structure. Spatial non-uniformity of a FPA structure, however, introduces unwanted fixed pattern noise (FPN) to images. This non-uniformity correction (NUC) of a FPA can be categorized into target-based and scene-based approaches. In a target-based approach, FPN can be separated by using a uniform target such as a black body. Since the detector response randomly drifts along the time axis, however, several scene-based algorithms on the basis of a video sequence have been proposed. Among those algorithms, the state-of-the-art one based on Kalman filter uses one-directional warping for motion compensation and only compensates for offset non-uniformity of IR camera detectors. The system model using one-directional warping cannot correct the boundary region where a new scene is being introduced in the next video frame. Furthermore, offset-only correction approaches may not completely remove the FPN in images if it is considerably affected by gain non-uniformity. Therefore, for FPN reduction in IR videos, we propose a joint correction algorithm of gain and offset based on bi-directional warping. Experiment results using simulated and real IR videos show that the proposed scheme can provide better performance compared with the state-of-the art in FPN reduction.