The job competency of radiological technologists in Korea based on specialists opinion and questionnaire survey.

Purpose: Although there are over 40,000 licensed radiological technologists (RTs) in Korea, job competency standards have yet to be defined. This study aims to clarify the job competency of Korean RTs.

Methods: A task force team of 11 professional RTs were recruited in order to analyze the job competency of domestic and international RTs.

A mirror for lab-based quasi-monochromatic parallel x-rays.

A multilayered parabolic mirror with six W/Al bilayers was designed and fabricated to generate monochromatic parallel x-rays using a lab-based x-ray source. Using this mirror, curved bright bands were obtained in x-ray images as reflected x-rays. The parallelism of the reflected x-rays was investigated using the shape of the bands.

Discussion on the alteration of 18F-FDG uptake by the breast according to the menstrual cycle in PET imaging.

18F-FDG PET/CT is a useful modality for identifying high-glucose-consuming cells, such as cancer cells by the glucose metabolism of FDG. FDG is taken up by cancer and inflammatory cells but occasionally, there is some FDG uptake on normal tissues as a result of their individual physiological characteristics. In particular, in fertile females, unusual FDG uptake in the breast changes according to the stages in the menstrual cycle, which can adversely affect a diagnosis.

A study on the artifacts generated by dental materials in PET/CT image.

PET/CT system reduces the scanning time and provides an anatomical image because it realizes a CT-based attenuation corrected image without using an isotope, such as 68 Ge or 137Cs, in the attenuation correcting method due to the recent technological development. On the other hand, artifacts are generated in a CT image by dental materials, which affect the attenuation corrected PET image. Against this backdrop, this study performed a clinical experiment and a phantom experiment.

Note: A simple-structured anode exchangeable X-ray tube.

An anode exchangeable X-ray tube of very simple structure was developed. Aluminum, chromium, and copper anode targets were prepared and used to investigate X-ray spectra. X-ray images of a thin wood plate were taken using those targets.

Performance of optically stimulated luminescence Al₂O₃ dosimeter for low doses of diagnostic energy X-rays.

Personal dosimeters measure the radiation dose from exposure to hazardous sources outside the body. The present manuscript evaluates the performance of a commercially available optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) Al₂O₃ dosimeter using diagnostic energy X-rays. The OSL system satisfies the ANSI N13.

Inter-comparison of 18F-FDG PET/CT standardized uptake values in Korea.

The number of PET/CT tests for diagnosing and treating tumors are increasing every year, and thus it is considered necessary to compare PET/CT images among medical institutions or among different PET/CT systems within the same medical institution. We present to get the variation of standardized uptake values (SUV) among PET/CT systems, to derive an SUV calibration table that enables quantitative comparison of PET/CT systems, and to test the usefulness of the calibration table through comparing patient's SUV with the SUV calibration table. The correlation coefficients that inter-compared the calibration constants of normal patients and the calibration constants of the mean standardized uptake value with the calibration constants of the standardized uptake value of phantom are 0.

Context awareness of human motion states using accelerometer.

The proposed context awareness system is composed of acceleration data acquisition part and fuzzy inference system that processes acquired data, distinguishes user motion states and recognizes emergency situations. Two-axial accelerometer embedded in SenseWear PRO2 Armband (BodyMedia) on the right upper arm collects input data containing the longitudinal acceleration average (LAA), the transverse acceleration average (TAA), the longitudinal acceleration-mean of absolute difference (L-MAD), and transverse acceleration mean of absolute difference (T-MAD). Fuzzy inference system is a tool imitating the human ability of decision making.

Electrical stimulation of isolated rabbit retina.

Several research groups in the world are trying to restore useful vision for the patients of degenerate retina, such as retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and age related macular degeneration (ARMD) with retinal prosthesis. Recently Korean consortium launched for developing retinal prosthesis and as part of Korean retinal prosthesis project we provide preliminary experimental results regarding voltage parameters for the stimulation of isolated retina. Voltage stimulus was delivered via one of the channel of microelectrode array (MEA) and ganglion cell activities were recorded with remained 59 channels.