• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.38 no.5
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• pp.219-226
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• 2017

Penalized-likelihood (PL) reconstruction methods for transmission tomography are known to provide improved image quality for reduced dose level by efficiently smoothing out noise while preserving edges. Unfortunately, however, most of the edge-preserving penalty functions used in conventional PL methods contain at least one free parameter which controls the shape of a non-quadratic penalty function to adjust the sensitivity of edge preservation. In this work, to avoid difficulties in finding a proper value of the free parameter involved in a non-quadratic penalty function, we propose a new adaptive method of space-variant smoothing with a simple quadratic penalty function. In this method, the smoothing parameter is adaptively selected for each pixel location at each iteration by using the image roughness measured by a pixel-wise standard deviation image calculated from the previous iteration. The experimental results demonstrate that our new method not only preserves edges, but also suppresses noise well in monotonic regions without requiring additional processes to select free parameters that may otherwise be included in a non-quadratic penalty function.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.305-310
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• 2007

The x-ray transmission W-target tube was developed and its characteristics were evaluated. The continuous x-ray was emitted at the tube voltage less than 12kV, and the characteristic x-ray was emitted more than 12kV. From the measurement of the energy distribution and dose of x-ray, it was confirmed that our results are a good agreement with the blown ones. Moreover, in comparison with commercial x-ray tube, it was also found that the characteristics of our x-ray tube is better than the commercial one. Therefore we confirmed that the x-ray tube developed in this study is so good that it can be commercialized.

• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.240-244
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• 1996

The effects of chronic treatment with haloperidol on the binding capacities of dopamine(DA) $D_2$-like receptor were investigated in rat striatum and olfactory tubercle. The authors tried to confirm the dose-response effects with usual dose and low dose haloperidol. Rats were treated with haloperidol(0.05, 0.15, 0.5, 1.5mg/kg/day in drinking water) for four weeks. Saturation analysis of the binding of [$^3H$]spiperone to striatal membranes showed that the haloperidol treatment(0.05, 0.5, 1.5mg/kg) induced significant proliferation. The changes of dissociation constant(Kd) were not significant in striatum. The maximal binding density(Bmax) and Kd increased remarkably following the treatment with usual dose haloperidol (1.5mg/kg) in olfactory tubercle. Although there was increasing trend other the treatment with low dose haloperidol, the change of Bmax was not significant statistically. The present findings indicate that low dose haloperidol induces the proliferation of DA $D_2$-like receptor in striatum and interact with the dopaminergic transmission which might underlie the antipsychotic effect. This finding may support the recent clinical suggestion on the low dose strategy in the treatment of schizophrenia.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.295-301
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• 2003

Striatum plays a crucial role in the movement control and habitual learning. It receives an information from wide area of cerebral cortex as well as an extensive serotonergic (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) input from raphe nuclei. In the present study, the effects of 5-HT to modulate synaptic transmission were studied in the rat corticostriatal brain slice using in vitro extracellular recording technique. Synaptic responses were evoked by stimulation of cortical glutamatergic inputs on the corpus callosum and recorded in the dorsal striatum. 5-HT reversibly inhibited coticostriatal glutamatergic synaptic transmission in a dose-dependent fashion (5, 10, 50, and $10{\mu}M$), maximally reducing in the corticostriatal population spike (PS) amplitude to $40.1{\pm}5.0$% at a concentration of $50{\mu}M$ 5-HT. PSs mediated by non-NMDA glutamate receptors, which were isolated by bath application of the NMDA receptor antagonist, d,l-2-amino-5-phospohonovaleric acid (AP-V), were decreased by application of $50{\mu}M$ 5-HT. However, PSs mediated by NMDA receptors, that were activated by application of zero $Mg^{2+}$ aCSF, were not significantly affected by $50{\mu}M$ 5-HT. To test whether the corticostriatal synaptic inhibitions by 5-HT might involve a change in the probability of neurotransmitter release from presynaptic nerve terminals, we measured the paired-pulse ratio (PPR) evoked by 2 identical pulses (50 ms interpulse interval), and found that PPR was increased ($33.4{\pm}5.2$%) by 5-HT, reflecting decreased neurotransmitter releasing probability. These results suggest that 5-HT may decrease neurotransmitter release probability of glutamatergic corticostriatal synapse and may be able to selectively decrease non-NMDA glutamate receptor-mediated synaptic transmission.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.16-29
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• 2022

This paper presents a Doppler shift estimation method and signal processing schemes for Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) transmission to overcome the Doppler shift due to the moving of the underwater communication unit. The proposed method estimates a Doppler shift via 2 step procedures using the preamble with the two 64-length Frank sequences which has a good self-correlation characteristic and is insensitive to the Doppler shift. Furthermore, a packet of DSSS underwater mobile communication and a RAKE receiver are designed using the proposed Doppler shift estimation method. Due to the modulation scheme of the designed DSSS underwater mobile communication using Differential-Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (DQPSK) for the data symbol transmission, the RAKE receiver dose not need a phase tracking and easily makes coherent signals among the combining RAKE branches. The designed RAKE receiving scheme including the proposed Doppler shift estimation method successfully decides information data using the DSSS signal transmitted from the pseudo-moving transmitter with velocity upto about 17.5 m/s.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.39-48
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• 2023

Spinal nerve injury causes mechanical allodynia and structural imbalance of neurotransmission, which were typically associated with calcium overload. Storeoperated calcium entry (SOCE) is considered crucial elements-mediating intracellular calcium homeostasis, ion channel activity, and synaptic plasticity. However, the underlying mechanism of SOCE in mediating neuronal transmitter release and synaptic transmission remains ambiguous in neuropathic pain. Neuropathic rats were operated by spinal nerve ligations. Neurotransmissions were assessed by whole-cell recording in substantia gelatinosa. Immunofluorescence staining of STIM1 with neuronal and glial biomarkers in the spinal dorsal horn. The endoplasmic reticulum stress level was estimated from qRT-PCR. Intrathecal injection of SOCE antagonist SKF96365 dose-dependently alleviated mechanical allodynia in ipsilateral hind paws of neuropathic rats with ED₅₀ of 18 ㎍. Immunofluorescence staining demonstrated that STIM1 was specifically and significantly expressed in neurons but not astrocytes and microglia in the spinal dorsal horn. Bath application of SKF96365 inhibited enhanced miniature excitatory postsynaptic currents in a dosage-dependent manner without affecting miniature inhibitory postsynaptic currents. Mal-adaption of SOCE was commonly related to endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress in the central nervous system. SKF96365 markedly suppressed ER stress levels by alleviating mRNA expression of C/ EBP homologous protein and heat shock protein 70 in neuropathic rats. Our findings suggested that nerve injury might promote SOCE-mediated calcium levels, resulting in long-term imbalance of spinal synaptic transmission and behavioral sensitization, SKF96365 produces antinociception by alleviating glutamatergic transmission and ER stress. This work demonstrated the involvement of SOCE in neuropathic pain, implying that SOCE might be a potential target for pain management.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.111-116
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• 2016

This study is to evaluate the dosimetric impact of dosimetric leaf gap (DLG) and transmission factor (TF) at different measurement depths and field sizes for high definition multileaf collimator (HD MLC). Consequently, its clinical implication on dose calculation of treatment planning system was also investigated for pancreas stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT). The TF and DLG were measured at various depths (5, 8, 10, 12, and 15 cm) and field sizes ($6{\times}6$, $8{\times}8$, and $10{\times}10cm^2$) for various energies (6 MV, 6 MV FFF, 10 MV, 10 MV flattening filter free [FFF], and 15 MV). Fifteen pancreatic SBRT cases were enrolled in the study. For each case, the dose distribution was recomputed using a reconfigured beam model of which TF and DLG was the closest to the patient geometry, and then compared to the original plan using the results of dose-volume histograms (DVH). For 10 MV FFF photon beam, its maximum difference between 2 cm and 15 cm was within 0.9% and it is increased by 0.05% from $6{\times}6cm^2$ to $10{\times}10cm^2$ for depth of 15 cm. For 10 MV FFF photon beam, the difference in DLG between the depth of 5 cm and 15 cm is within 0.005 cm for all field sizes and its maximum difference between field size of $6{\times}6cm^2$ and $10{\times}10cm^2$ is 0.0025 cm at depth of 8 cm. TF and DLG values were dependent on the depth and field size. However, the dosimetric difference between the original and recomputed doses were found to be within an acceptable range (<0.5%). In conclusion, current beam modeling using single TF and DLG values is enough for accurate dose calculation.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.936-942
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• 2018

The diagnostic multi-leaf collimator preventing unnecessary dose from entering into patients during the diagnostic examination was made in this study. The movement of the entire 50 leaves was embodied with the group of 25 ones thereof configured in a pair facing each other on the left and right of the median line. Dimensions of the length, width, and height of each shielding leaf were $5{\times}0.5{\times}0.5cm^3$ resulting in the maximum boost field of $10{\times}10cm^2$. The material of multi-leaf collimator had the excellence on the machinability with the use of the SKD-11 alloy tool steel having the high wear resistance against frequent movement, and it was devised to control both-side's shielding leaves by moving 2 motors unlike existing remedial multi-leaf collimator that use as many motors as the number of 50 shielding leaves. Thereafter, the transmission dose of leaves, cross-leaf leakage dose, and inter-leaf leakage dose were measured by the developed multi-leaf collimator attached to X-ray equipment. An ionization chamber was used to detect doses there from, and the comparative analysis was carried out by means of the radiographic film that was easy to detect the dose leakage in between each leaf. Results obtained from the test conducted in comparative analysis yielded approximately 98%, 96%, and 94% of shielding efficiency realized at each level of energy of 80kV, 100kV, and 120kV it was confirmed there was no dose leakage resulted from the varied level of irradiation energy. Thus the multi-leaf collimator to be developed based on this study is thought that it could fully reduce the unnecessary dose to patients in the diagnostic test and the shielding efficiency thereof is expected to be increasing if it is made in a miniaturized form with a way of increasing the thickness of each leaf later for an extended application to general diagnostic purposes.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.791-799
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• 2019

We evaluated the physical properties that occur to dose enhancement and changes from secondary particle production resulting from the interaction between enhancement material. Geant4 was used to perform a Monte Carlo simulation, and the medical internal radiation dose (MIRD) head phantom were employed. X-rays of 4, 6, 10, 15, 18, and 25 MV were used. Aurum (Au) and gadolinium (Gd) were applied within the tumor volume at 10, 20, and 30 mg/g, and an experiment using soft tissue exclusively was concomitantly performed for comparison. Also, particle fluence and initial kinetic energy of secondary particle of interaction were measured to calculate equivalent doses using the radiation weight factor. The properties of physical interaction by the radiation enhancement material showed the great increased in photoelectric effect as compared to the compton scattering and pair production, occurred with the highest, in aurum and gadolinium it is shown in common. The photonuclear effect frequency increased as the energy increased, thereby increasing secondary particle production, including alpha particles, protons, and neutrons. During dose enhancement using aurum, a maximum 424.25-fold increase in the equivalent dose due to neutrons was observed. This study was Monte Carlo simulation corresponds to the physical process of energy transmission in dose enhancement. Its results may be used as a basis for future in vivo and in vitro experiments aiming to improve effects of dose enhancement.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.164-171
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• 2022

The number of facilities using radiation generators increases and related regulations are strengthened, the establishment of a shielding management and evaluation technology has become important. The characteristics of the radiation generator used in previous report differ from those of currently available high-frequency radiation generators. This study aimed to manufacture lead, iron, and concrete shielding materials for the re-verification of half-value layers, tenth-value layers, and attenuation curve. For a comparison of attenuation ratio, iron, lead, and concrete shields were manufactured in this study. The initial dose was measured without shielding materials, and doses measured under different types and thicknesses of shielding material were compared with the initial dose to calculate the transmission rate on 50-300 kVp X-ray. All the three shielding materials showed a tendency to require greater shielding thickness for higher energy. The attenuation graph showed an exponential shape as the thickness decreased and a straight line as the thickness increased. The difference between the measurement results and the previous study, except in extrapolated parts, may be due to the differences in the radiation generation characteristics between the generators used in the two studies. The attenuated graph measured in this study better reflects the characteristics of current radiation generators, which would be more effective for shield designing.