Panasonic Corporation

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Tanaka Kikinzoku Kogyo K.k.

Konica Minolta, Inc.

Yoshinobu Watanabe

Yoshinao Tannaka

Takao Suzuki

Hisashi Hagiwara

Toru Shoji

Kazuhiro Sunagawa

Soichi Hitomi

Yoshikazu Takagi

Makoto Kato

Yasuhiro Nakamura

Hiroshi Fukukita

Takao Seki

Yoshinao Tan-naka

Kazuhiko Kikuchi

Toshiyuki Sasahara

An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to the present invention includes: a transmitting section, which drives a probe that transmits an ultrasonic wave toward a subject; a receiving section, which receives an ultrasonic echo, produced by getting the ultrasonic wave reflected by the subject, through the probe, thereby generating a received signal; a property value calculating section for calculating property values of the subject based on the received signal over a period of time; a stability estimating section for sequentially estimating the degrees of stability of the property values that have been calculated over the period of time; and a presenting section for presenting the degrees of stability thereon.

Ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus

There are provided a transmission unit () and a reception unit () for transmitting and receiving an ultrasonic wave with respect to a subject, a tissue tracing unit () for analyzing a received signal to trace the movement of a tissue of the subject, and a property detection unit () for detecting a property concerning the movement of the tissue of the subject. The property detection unit () subjects either one of the received signal, a Doppler shift, and the movement of the tissue of the subject to signal processing, detects a property concerning the movement of the tissue of the subject that is in synchronization with a heartbeat, and generates an initializing pulse based on the detected property. The tissue tracing unit () is initialized by the initializing pulse. It is possible to obtain a distribution image of an elastic modulus of the tissue of the subject as well as a tomographic image of the subject with a simple operation of only applying a probe to the subject without the necessity for a special connection between the subject and the device.

An ultrasonic diagnosis device includes a diagnostic image generation unit () that generates an ultrasonic image from ultrasonic data obtained by transmission and reception of ultrasonic waves; an input unit () for receiving an input of a reference image, and hardware configuration and control parameter information data that is associated with the reference image, which are to be used by the diagnostic image generation unit; a parameter setting unit () that sets parameter information necessary for generating the ultrasonic image based on the input data that has been input; and a storage unit () that stores the ultrasonic image in association with the parameter information, and supplies ultrasonic image data with which the parameter information is associated, as a reference image. This enables easy setting of the parameters to be used in new diagnostic image acquisition so as to be set the same as the parameters used in reference image acquisition.

Ultrasonic diagnosis device and ultrasonic diagnosis system

An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to the present invention includes: a transmitting section for driving an ultrasonic probe to transmit an ultrasonic wave toward a measuring region of a subject, including an arterial vascular wall; a receiving section for receiving a reflected wave, produced by getting the ultrasonic wave reflected from the subject, at the probe, thereby generating a received signal; a displacement detecting section for calculating the magnitude of displacement of each measuring point in the measuring region on the wall by analyzing the received signal; a tissue-to-present determining section, which defines at least one boundary between tissues included in the measuring region on the wall and which selects one of at least two areas divided by the boundary defined; and a property value calculating section for calculating a property value of the subject based on the magnitude of displacement of each measuring point. The distribution of property values of the measuring points in the area selected by the tissue-to-present determining section is presented as a two-dimensional image.

Ultrasonograph

An image compression unit includes a block divider that divides image data into a plurality of blocks, a DCT portion that subjects the image data of each block to DCT, a quantization factor output portion that outputs a quantization factor as a numerical value indicative of fineness of quantization, a correction value computation portion that computes a correction value that is determined uniquely according to a position of a block of image data, a quantizer that quantizes the data having been subjected to DCT, based on a value obtained by multiplying the correction value by the quantization factor, and an encoder that encodes the quantized data and outputs compressed data. This configuration makes it possible to provide an image compression/decompression unit that is capable of varying a compression ratio in a frame, without encoding compression parameters of each block.

Image compression unit, image decompression unit, and ultrasonic diagnostic device

A subject-side apparatusA is provided with a cine memoryfor sequentially storing an ultrasonic signal that is received by an ultrasonic wave transmission/reception portionper each frame. Every time after freezing when moving a pointer for designating a frame to be reproduced in a hospital-side apparatusA, a communication line interfaceof the subject-side apparatus reproduces a frame that is required to be retransmitted by a consoleof the hospital-side apparatus from the cine memory, and retransmits it to a communication line interfaceof the hospital-side apparatus via a communication line. Then, an ultrasonic image of the retransmitted frame is displayed on a monitor. When an examiner performs a diagnosis with respect to a subject in a remote location via the communication line, an ultrasonic image can be displayed with sufficiently suppressed degradation of an image quality compared with an image quality of an original image, even at a low data rate of the communication line.

Remote ultrasonic diagnostic subject-side apparatus, remote ultrasonic diagnostic examiner-side apparatus and remote ultrasonic diagnostic system

An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus includes a transmission unit that transmits at least one ultrasonic pulse from a surface of a skin of a subject toward a blood vessel () thereof, a reception unit () that receives an ultrasonic echo reflected by the blood vessel and converts the same into an electric signal to obtain a signal of the ultrasonic echo along a depth direction from the surface of the skin, a movement detection unit () that analyzes a phase of the ultrasonic echo signal in a direction traversing the blood vessel so as to calculate a movement amount in each of a plurality of parts included in a blood vessel wall constituting the blood vessel and a vicinity of the blood vessel wall, and a boundary detection unit () that detects a boundary position between the blood vessel wall and a blood flow region () in a lumen of the blood vessel through which blood flows based on a variation in the calculated movement amount in each part. Instability occurring when a brightness signal in image data is used can be eliminated, so that a state of a blood vessel, such as an IMT value, can be measured correctly using ultrasonic waves.

Ultrasound diagnostic apparatus for calculating positions to determine IMT and lumen boundaries

There is provided an excellent biological signal monitor device that allows a living tissue moving in accordance with a body motion or a vibration to be observed as if it were standing still. A reverse correction processing unit () subjects a B-mode image to reverse correction based on a movement amount of the living tissue detected by a movement amount detection unit (), and outputs the B-mode image corresponding to the living tissue moving in accordance with a body motion as quasi-still image information. An arithmetic processing unit () subjects the quasi-still image information from the reverse correction processing unit () to arithmetic processing such as averaging and filter processing, so as to remove a random noise component. As a result, it is possible to display, for example, a contour portion of a blood vessel wall as the living tissue clearly.

Biological signal monitor device

There are provided transmission means () for transmitting an ultrasonic signal from a surface of a skin of a subject toward a blood vessel () of the subject, reception means () for receiving a reflected ultrasonic echo and converting the ultrasonic echo into an electric signal to obtain the ultrasonic echo signal in a depth direction from the surface of the skin, movement detection means () for analyzing a phase of the ultrasonic echo signal in a direction traversing the blood vessel to calculate a movement amount in each of a plurality of regions including a blood vessel wall and a vicinity of the blood vessel wall, analysis means () for analyzing a state of the blood vessel based on a variation in the calculated movement amount in each of the regions, boundary position detection means () for detecting a boundary position between the blood vessel wall and a blood flow region of the blood vessel based on a result of the analysis by the analysis means, and stability judgment means () for comparing the detected boundary position with a detection result in a previous cycle.

A tomographic image and a tissue characteristic image that are in conformity with each other in terms of time-phase and positional relationships can be displayed superimposedly, thereby providing an excellent ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus that enables an easy and detailed observation of a relationship between a structure and a characteristic of a subject tissue. During an operation of ultrasonic wave transmission/reception (in a live mode), a control part () allows a tomographic image to be renewed continuously, displayed on a monitor (), and stored in a tomographic image memory (), while allowing an elastic modulus image as a tissue characteristic image to be renewed per heartbeat, displayed on the monitor, and stored in an elastic-modulus-image memory () as a tissue characteristic image memory. During a suspension of ultrasonic wave transmission/reception (in a cine mode), the control part () allows the elastic modulus image to be read out from the elastic-modulus-image memory and the tomographic image that is in synchronization with the elastic modulus image to be read out from the tomographic image memory, and allows these images to be displayed on the monitor.

This invention aims to provide a process for producing an oxide-dispersion strengthened platinum material which allows zirconium oxide to be more finely dispersed in a platinum material, and to further improve creep strength in an oxide-dispersion strengthened platinum material. This invention provides a process for producing an oxide-dispersion strengthened platinum material where zirconium oxide is finely dispersed in platinum, wherein powdered platinum is poured into water to prepare a platinum suspension; a zirconium nitrate solution and an urea solution are added in the platinum suspension for adjusting the suspension to a given pH to precipitate zirconium hydroxide and thus to form a zirconium hydroxide carrying platinum; the zirconium hydroxide carrying platinum is collected, which is then formed into a molding; the molding is sintered and forged under the conditions whereby secondary recrystallization growth in a platinum crystal proceeds, to form a platinum ingot; and the platinum ingot is cold-rolled in a processing rate of at least 70% and then the product is thermally recrystallized.

Process for producing oxide-dispersion strengthened platinum material

Platinum material reinforced by oxide-dispersion and process for producing the same

In an ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus, the circuitry is divided into two parts, that is, first and second units which are connected with a cable. The first unit includes a trigger signal generation circuit for generating a trigger signal in response to a command signal, an ultrasonic wave transmitting and receiving circuit including a probe for transmitting ultrasonic waves in response to the trigger signal and receiving reflected ultrasonic waves to generate a reception signal. The cable transmits the reception signal and the trigger signal. The second unit includes a clock signal generation circuit for generating a clock signal in response to the trigger signal transmitted through the cable, and a/d converter for a/d converting the received reflected ultrasonic waves in response to the clock signal to output ultrasonic diagnosis data. A frequency difference detection circuit for detecting a frequency error between the clock signal and a reference frequency signal and a compensating circuit for compensating the ultrasonic diagnostic data to output compensated ultrasonic diagnostic data may be further provided.

Ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus

An apparatus for generating a trigger pulse signal to be used for transmitting an ultrasonic wave includes a reference signal generator for generating a reference signal as a reference to the generation of the trigger pulse signal, a pulse generator for generating the trigger pulse signal after the elapse of a delay time from the reference signal, and a delay time control circuit for controlling the delay time. The delay time control circuit includes a multi-phase clock generator for generating a plurality of clock signals of different phases from each other, a clock selector for selecting one or more of the clock signals, and a pulse generation start circuit for supplying a signal to start the generation of the trigger pulse signal by the pulse generator in accordance with a count derived by counting one of the clock signals selected by the clock selector.

Apparatus for generating a trigger signal used to transmit an ultrasonic

An ultrasonic Doppler blood flowmeter has a Doppler scanning mode of operation to obtain information about blood speed and a B mode of operation to obtain information for a tomogram. In order to produce supplementary Doppler shift data for use during a B-mode scanning period, Doppler shift data from a phase detector is treated as complex data, and the difference in argument between two consecutive, complex Doppler shift data is detected. The supplementary Doppler shift data can then be calculated by an arithmetic circuit on the basis of the difference in argument between the consecutive complex Doppler shift data.

Growing community of inventors

Kanagawa, Japan

Yoshinobu Watanabe