Dongyoun Kim

Changes in heart rate variability after adenotonsillectomy in children with obstructive sleep apnea.

BACKGROUND Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) is associated with cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, and increased sympathetic activity is considered to be a causative link in this association. Higher levels of sympathetic activity have been reported in children with OSAS. Sympathetic predominance is indicated on heart rate variability (HRV) analysis by increased heart rate (HR) and a higher ratio of low-frequency to high-frequency band power (LF/HF). Improvement in OSAS after adenotonsillectomy (AT) in children with OSAS could, therefore, be associated with reduced HR and reduced LF/HF. METHODS Changes in HR and time and frequency components of HRV were retrospectively analyzed in 2-min epochs free of respiratory events during light, deep, and rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep in children with OSAS who underwent polysomnography before and after AT. RESULTS Eighteen children with OSAS, aged 4.9 ± 2.4 years (mean ± SD) were studied. After AT, the apnea-hypopnea index decreased from 31.9 ± 24.8 events/h to 4.1 ± 3.7 events/h. The HR decreased after AT in all stages of sleep (99.8 ± 16.9 beats/min to 80.7 ± 12.9 beats/min [light sleep]; 100.2 ± 15.4 beats/min to 80.5 ± 12.4 beats/min [deep sleep)]; and 106.9 ± 16.4 beats/min to 87.0 ± 12.1 beats/min [REM sleep]), as did the LF/HF (1.6 ± 2.7 to 0.6 ± 0.5 [light sleep]; 1.2 ± 1.6 to 0.5 ± 0.6 [deep sleep]; and 3.0 ± 5.4 to 1.4 ± 1.7 [REM sleep]). CONCLUSIONS The proportion of sympathetic activity of the autonomic nervous system declines in children with OSAS after AT in association with improvement in sleep-disordered breathing.

Lossless Compression of Volumetric Medical Images with Improved Three-Dimensional SPIHT Algorithm

This article presents a lossless compression of volumetric medical images with the improved three-dimensional (3-D) set partitioning in hierarchical tree (SPIHT) algorithm that searches on asymmetric trees. The tree structure links wavelet coefficients produced by 3-D reversible integer wavelet transforms. Experiments show that the lossless compression with the improved 3-D SPIHT gives improvement about 42% on average over two-dimensional techniques and is superior to those of prior results of 3-D techniques. In addition, we can easily apply different numbers of decomposition between the transaxial and axial dimensions, which is a desirable function when the coding unit of a group of slices is limited in size.

Regularization of DT-MR images using a successive Fermat median filtering method

Tractography using diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DT-MRI) is a method to determine the architecture of axonal fibers in the central nervous system by computing the direction of greatest diffusion in the white matter of the brain. To reduce the noise in DT-MRI measurements, a tensor-valued median filter, which is reported to be denoising and structure preserving in the tractography, is applied. In this paper, we proposed the successive Fermat (SF) method, successively using Fermat point theory for a triangle contained in the two-dimensional plane, as a median filtering method. We discussed the error analysis and numerical study about the SF method for phantom and experimental data. By considering the computing time and the image quality aspects of the numerical study simultaneously, we showed that the SF method is much more efficient than the simple median (SM) and gradient descents (GD) methods.

Cross-evaluation of facial hyperpigmented lesions based on fluorescence color image and cross-polarized color image.

Hyperpigmentation is a common skin problem that looks darker than normal skin regions. Accurate evaluation of a hyperpigmented lesion (HPL) is of clinical importance because proper choice of treatment can be dependent on it. This study aimed to differentiate between epidermal and dermal HPLs.

A Study on the Fiber Tracking Using a Vector Correlation Function in MR-DTI

Diffusion tensor tractography using the line propagation method with the brute force approach is very useful to study shapes and integrity of fiber bundles in white matter. Since the brute force approach uses only the fractional anisotropy(FA) values as a starting criterion for tractography many spurious fiber tracts are generated.

Regularization of DT-MRI Using 3D Median Filtering Methods

DT-MRI (diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging) tractography is a method to determine the architecture of axonal fibers in the central nervous system by computing the direction of the principal eigenvectors obtained from tensor matrix, which is different from the conventional isotropic MRI. Tractography based on DT-MRI is known to need many computations and is highly sensitive to noise. Hence, adequate regularization methods, such as image processing techniques, are in demand. Among many regularization methods we are interested in the median filtering method. In this paper, we extended two-dimensional median filters already developed to three-dimensional median filters. We compared four median filtering methods which are two-dimensional simple median method (SM2D), two-dimensional successive Fermat method (SF2D), three-dimensional simple median method (SM3D), and three-dimensional successive Fermat method (SF3D). Three kinds of synthetic data with different altitude angles from axial slices and one kind of human data from MR scanner are considered for numerical implementation by the four filtering methods.

Cross-evaluation of facial hyper-pigmentation using fluorescence and polarization color images

Optical imaging modalities have been utilized as important tools to evaluate skin lesions. Accurate analysis of hyper-pigmentation is important in the evaluation of sun damage, inflammation, and other skin disorders. In this study, both cross-polarization and fluorescent color images were obtained at identical facial skin region and hyper-pigmentation regions were extracted by applying a series of image processing. Cross-polarization image provides subsurface skin information without specular reflection and fluorescence image emphasizes pigmentation in epidermal region. The results were quantitatively evaluated and compared to investigate the difference between two imaging modalities in the evaluation of hyper-pigmentation regions.

A Study on the Comparison of Median Filter Regularization Methods in Diffusion Tensor MRI

Diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DT-MRI) is a method which makes it possible to study non-invasively the architecture of axonal fibers in the central nervous system. Since eigenvectors obtained from DT-MRI usually contain noise, the calculated vector directions may be deviated from the real fiber orientation. Therefore, noise errors can be accumulated as fiber tract becomes longer in tractography of DT-MRI. We used three algorithms for computing matrix medians which are the simple median method, the gradient descent method, and the successive Fermat method, because matrix-valued median filters show excellent capabilities for structure-preserving denoising. The results of the successive Fermat method give better than those of the simple median method and is faster and the performance is similar to those of the gradient descent method.

Development of a DICOM library

Object-oriented DICOM decoding library was developed as a type of DLL for MS-Windows environment development. It supports all DICOM standard Transfer Syntaxes, multi-frame images, RLE decoding and window level adjusting. Image library for medical application was also developed as a type of DLL and ActiveX Control using proposed DICOM library. It supports display of DICOM image, cine mode and basic manipulations. For an application of a proposed image library, a couple of DICOM viewers were developed. One can be used as an off-line DICOM Workstation, and the other can be used for browsing the local DICOM files.