• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.585-593
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• 1998

In Fourier magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the number of phase encoded signals is often reduced to minimize the duration of the studies and maintain adequate signal-to-noise ratio. However, this results in the well-known truncation artifact, whose effect manifests itself as blurring and ringing in the image domain. In this paper, we propose a new regularization method in the context of a Bayesian framework to reduce truncation artifact. Since the truncation artifact appears in t도 phase direction only, the use of conventional piecewise-smoothness constraints with symmetric neighbors may result in the loss of small details and soft edge structures in the read direction. Here, we propose more elaborate forms of constraints than the conventional piecewise-smoothness constraints, which can capture actual spatial information about the MR images. Our experimental results indicate that the proposed method not only reduces the truncation artifact, but also improves tissue regularity and boundary definition without oversmoothing soft edge regions.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.21-26
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• 2016

Purpose Because of many advantages, PET-CT Scanners generally use CT Data for attenuation correction. By using CT based attenuation correction, we can get anatomical information, reduce scan time and make more accurate correction of attenuation. However in case metal artifact occurred during CT scan, CT-based attenuation correction can induce artifacts and quantitative errors that can affect the PET images. Therefore this study infers true SUV of metal artifact region from attenuation corrected image count -to- non attenuation corrected image count ratio. Materials and Methods Micro phantom inserted $^{18}F-FDG$ 4mCi was used for phantom test and Biograph mCT S(40) is used for medical test equipment. We generated metal artifact in micro phantom by using metal. Then we acquired both metal artifact region of correction factor and non metal artifact region of correction factor by using attenuation correction image count -to- non attenuation correction image count ratio. In case of clinical image, we reconstructed both attenuation corrected images and non attenuation corrected images of 10 normal patient($66{\pm}15age$) who examined PET-CT scan in SNUH. After that, we standardize several organs of correction factor by using attenuation corrected image count -to- non attenuation corrected count ratio. Then we figured out metal artifact region of correction factor by using metal artifact region of attenuation corrected image count -to- non attenuation corrected count ratio And we compared standard organs correction factor with metal artifact region correction factor. Results according to phantom test results, metal artifact induce overestimation of correction factor so metal artifact region of correction factors are 12% bigger than the non metal artifact region of correction factors. in case of clinical test, correction factor of organs with high CT number(>1000) is $8{\pm}0.5%$, correction factor of organs with CT number similar to soft tissue is $6{\pm}2%$ and correction factor of organs with low CT number(-100>) is $3{\pm}1%$. Also metal artifact correction factors are 20% bigger than soft tissue correction factors which didn't happened metal artifact. Conclusion metal artifact lead to overestimation of attenuation coefficient. because of that, SUV of metal artifact region is overestimated. Thus for more accurate quantitative evaluation, using attenuation correction image count -to-non attenuation correction image count ratio is one of the methods to reduce metal artifact affect.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.18
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• pp.8351-8358
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• 2016

Electronic cleansing is an image post processing technique in which the tagged colonic content is subtracted from colon using CTC images. There are post processing artefacts, like: 1) soft tissue degradation; 2) incomplete cleansing; 3) misclassification of polyp due to pseudo enhanced voxels; and 4) pseudo soft tissue structures. The objective of the study was to subtract the tagged colonic content without losing the soft tissue structures. This paper proposes a novel adaptive method to solve the first three problems using a multi-step algorithm. It uses a new edge model-based method which involves colon segmentation, priori information of Hounsfield units (HU) of different colonic contents at specific tube voltages, subtracting the tagging materials, restoring the soft tissue structures based on selective HU, removing boundary between air-contrast, and applying a filter to clean minute particles due to improperly tagged endoluminal fluids which appear as noise. The main finding of the study was submerged soft tissue structures were absolutely preserved and the pseudo enhanced intensities were corrected without any artifact. The method was implemented with multithreading for parallel processing in a high performance computer. The technique was applied on a fecal tagged dataset (30 patients) where the tagging agent was not completely removed from colon. The results were then qualitatively validated by radiologists for any image processing artifacts.

• The Journal of Korean Orthopaedic Ultrasound Society
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.91-96
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• 2010

The artifacts in sonography is not always harmful. Sometimes it is beneficial for the evaluation of the water contents of the soft tissue and estimating the degree of inflammation and character of the regenerated tissue indirectly using artifacts such as acoustic shadowing and the enhanced transmission. It can also be useful to evaluate the possibility of aspiration of the calcifies masses by knowing of the contents of the water among them. Unlike the MRI it is useful to get real time informations with low cost in diagnosis and treatment of the soft tissue disease usinf artifacts in sonography.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.24-32
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• 2012

Of many approaches to reduce motion analysis errors, the compensation method of anatomical landmarks estimates the position of anatomical landmarks during motion. The method models the position of anatomical landmarks with joint angle or skin marker displacement using the data of the so-called dynamic calibration in which anatomical landmark positions are calibrated in ad hoc motions. Then the anatomical landmark positions are calibrated in target motions using the model. This study applies the compensation methods with joint angle and skin marker displacement to three lower extremity motions (walking, sit-to-stand/stand-to-sit, and step up/down) in ten healthy males and compares their performance. To compare the performance of the methods, two sets of kinematic variables were calculated using different two marker clusters, and the difference was obtained. Results showed that the compensation method with skin marker displacement had less differences by 30~60% compared to without compensation. And, it had significantly less difference in some kinematic variables (7 of 18) by 25~40% compared to the compensation method with joint angle. This study supports that compensation with skin marker displacement reduced the motion analysis STA errors more reliably than with joint angle in lower extremity motion analysis.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.8
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• pp.2854-2863
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• 2023

Objective: To present a hybrid approach that incorporates a constrained beam-hardening estimator (CBHE) and deep learning (DL)-based post-refinement for metal artifact reduction in dental cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT). Methods: Constrained beam-hardening estimator (CBHE) is derived from a polychromatic X-ray attenuation model with respect to X-ray transmission length, which calculates associated parameters numerically. Deep-learning-based post-refinement with an artifact disentanglement network (ADN) is performed to mitigate the remaining dark shading regions around a metal. Artifact disentanglement network (ADN) supports an unsupervised learning approach, in which no paired CBCT images are required. The network consists of an encoder that separates artifacts and content and a decoder for the content. Additionally, ADN with data normalization replaces metal regions with values from bone or soft tissue regions. Finally, the metal regions obtained from the CBHE are blended into reconstructed images. The proposed approach is systematically assessed using a dental phantom with two types of metal objects for qualitative and quantitative comparisons. Results: The proposed hybrid scheme provides improved image quality in areas surrounding the metal while preserving native structures. Conclusion: This study may significantly improve the detection of areas of interest in many dentomaxillofacial applications.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.317-322
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• 1989

In this paper, brain CT images are automatically segmented to reconstruct the 3-D scene from consecutive CT sections. Contextual segmentation technique was applied to overcome the partial volume artifact and statistical fluctuation phenomenon of soft tissue images. Images are hierarchically analyzed by region growing and graph editing techniques. Segmented regions are discriptively decided to the final organs by using the semantic informations.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.468-473
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• 2010

A 6-year-old intact male Doberman pinscher presented with a thin soft stool and urinary signs. On radiography, three masses were observed in the caudal abdomen. One mass was described as a large, round, mineralized mass, with an "eggshell" appearance. The second mass was located caudal to the mineralized mass, and the third mass was located between the two masses. The second and the third masses had a soft tissue density. Ultrasonography was performed to identify the features and the origins of the masses. The first mass contained a large amount of anechoic fluid and had a thin wall; it was determined to be a cyst. Strong acoustic shadowing artifact was created by the mineralized cystic wall. Caudal to the cyst, the second mass was shown to be the prostate. A hypoechoic stalk connected the prostate and the cyst, which represented the cyst as a paraprostatic cyst with mineralization. The third mass was the normal urinary bladder. The cyst was removed surgically and confirmed by histopathologic examination. This report described typical clinical findings, diagnostic imaging, and treatment of a paraprostatic cyst.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2007

The obstacles for cardiac imaging are motion artifacts due to cardiac motion, respiration, and blood flow, and low signal due to small tissue volume of heart. To overcome these obstacles, fast imaging technique with ECG gating is utilized. Cardiac exam using MRI comprises of morphology, ventricular function, myocardial perfusion, metabolism, and coronary artery morphology. During cardiac morphology evaluation, double and triple inversion recovery techniques are used to depict myocardial fluidity and soft tissue structure such as fat tissue, respectively. By checking the first-pass enhancement of myocardium using contrast-enhanced fast gradient echo technique, myocardial blood flow can be evaluated. In addition, delayed imaging in 10 - 15 minutes can inform myocardial destruction such as chronic myocardial infarction. Ventricular function including regional and global wall motion can be checked by fast gradient echo cine imaging in quantitative way. MRI is acknowledged to be practical for integrated cardiac evaluation technique except coronary angiography. Especially delay imaging is the greatest merit of MRI in myocardial viability evaluation.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.49-61
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• 2014

Purpose: With the aging of the population, the attack rate of osteoporotic vertebral compression fracture is in the increasing trend, and percutaneous vertebroplasty (PVP) is the most commonly performed standardized treatment. Although there is a research report of the excellence of usefulness of the SPECT/CT examination in terns of the exact diagnosis before and after the procedure, the bone cement material used in the procedure influences the image quality by forming an artifact in the CT image. Therefore, the objective of the research lies on evaluating the effect the bone cement gives to a SPECT/CT image. Materials and Methods: The images were acquired by inserting a model cement to each cylinder, after setting the background (3.6 kBq/mL), hot cylinder (29.6 kBq/mL) and cold cylinder (water) to the NEMA-1994 phantom. It was reconstructed with Astonish (Iterative: 4 Subset: 16), and non attenuation correction (NAC), attenuation correction (AC+SC-) and attenuation and scatter correction (AC+SC+) were used for the CT correction method. The mean count by each correction method and the count change ratio by the existence of the cement material were compared and the contrast recovery coefficient (CRC) was obtained. Additionally, the bone/soft tissue ratio (B/S ratio) was obtained after measuring the mean count of the 4 places including the soft tissue(spine erector muscle) after dividing the vertebral body into fracture region, normal region and cement by selecting the 20 patients those have performed PVP from the 107 patients diagnosed of compression fracture. Results: The mean count by the existence of a cement material showed the rate of increase of 12.4%, 6.5%, 1.5% at the hot cylinder of the phantom by NAC, AC+SC- and AC+SC+ when cement existed, 75.2%, 85.4%, 102.9% at the cold cylinder, 13.6%, 18.2%, 9.1% at the background, 33.1%, 41.4%, 63.5% at the fracture region of the clinical image, 53.1%, 61.6%, 67.7% at the normal region and 10.0%, 4.7%, 3.6% at the soft tissue. Meanwhile, a relative count reduction could be verified at the cement adjacent part at the inside of the cylinder, and the phantom image on the lesion and the count increase ratio of the clinical image showed a contrary phase. CRC implying the contrast ratio and B/S ratio was improved in the order of NAC, AC+SC-, AC+SC+, and was constant without a big change in the cold cylinder of the phantom. AC+SC- for the quantitative count, and AC+SC+ for the contrast ratio was analyzed to be the highest. Conclusion: It is considered to be useful in a clinical diagnosis if the application of AC+SC+ that improves the contrast ratio is combined, as it increases the noise count of the soft tissue and the scatter region as well along with the effect of the bone cement in contrast to the fact that the use of AC+SC- in the spine SPECT/CT examination of a PVP performed patient drastically increases the image count and enables a high density of image of the lesion(fracture).