Search

Background: Medial elbow injury is common in baseball pitchers, with evidence of elbow valgus instability after only 60 consecutive pitches. However, the tissue-specific effects of repetitive pitching on medial elbow stabilizers are largely unknown. Purpose/Hypothesis: This study aimed to investigate changes in the ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) and forearm flexor-pronator muscles (FPMs) during repetitive pitching and factors that relate to identified change. We hypothesized that repetitive pitching would increase elasticity of the medial elbow stabilizers and therefore induce laxity. Study Design: Descriptive laboratory study. Methods: A total of 30 high school baseball pitchers participated (mean ± SD age, 16.6 ± 0.5 years). Each participant pitched 100 times (5 blocks of 20 pitches). The strain ratio, indicating elasticity in the UCL and FPMs, was measured using ultrasound before pitching and after every 20-pitch block. Data for each pitch block were compared using analysis of variance. Multiple regression analysis was used to investigate factors related to the change rate of the strain ratio. Results: The strain ratio of the UCL after 100 pitches was significantly less than that before pitching (before pitching, 4.83 ± 1.70; after 100 pitches, 3.59 ± 1.35; P = .013), but this was not the case for the FPMs (before pitching, 0.57 ± 0.24; after 100 pitches, 0.43 ± 0.18; P = .07). The ratio of the strain ratio in the UCL and FPMs (UCL/FPMs) before pitching (β = −0.385; P = .031) and the elbow flexion range of motion before pitching (β = −0.352; P = .046) were significantly and independently correlated with the change rate of the UCL. Conclusion: Elasticity significantly increased for the UCL, indicating laxity, but not for the FPMs after 100 pitches. Furthermore, the ratio of elasticity (UCL/FPMs) and the elbow flexion range of motion before pitching were significantly related to the change rate of UCL elasticity. Clinical Relevance: To reduce laxity of the UCL, pitchers should be limited to

Background: Pitching induces elbow valgus stress, which can lead to an increase in medial elbow joint-space gapping when repeated. Previous basic research on the medial elbow joint shows that the contraction associated with gripping reduces medial elbow joint-space gapping. However, no studies have investigated the relationship between grip strength and increased medial elbow joint-space gapping during repetitive pitching. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether grip strength is related to medial elbow joint-space gapping during repetitive pitching. Our hypothesis was that increased grip strength would correlate with a reduction in medial elbow joint-space gapping. Methods: A total of 25 high school baseball players participated in this study. Each subject pitched 100 times. The medial elbow joint-space gapping and grip strength were measured before and after pitching. Correlation analysis was used to identify the relationship between medial elbow joint-space gapping and grip strength. Results: Medial elbow joint-space gapping (mm) increased by 25.5% ± 8.0% after 100 pitches (gapping before, 5.0 ± 0.9; gapping after, 6.2 ± 1.1; P < .001). Grip strength (kg) after 100 pitches decreased by 2.8% ± 7.4% to that before pitching (before, 40.4 ± 5.5; after 39.2 ± 5.6; P < .05). There was no significant correlation between the change rate of medial elbow joint gapping and grip strength at any time (grip strength: before pitching, P = .74; after pitching, P = .40; change rate from before to after pitching, P = .24). Conclusions: Grip strength is not related to increased medial elbow joint-space gapping induced by repetitive pitching. This indicates that physical ability expressed by grip strength is not associated with preventing increases in medial elbow joint-space gapping during repetitive pitching. Further studies are required to investigate the stabilization mechanism of the medial elbow joint during pitching.

Background Medial elbow injuries are common in baseball pitchers. This study investigated the reliability of medial elbow elastography measurement and the characteristics of the medial elbow stabilizers. Methods Medial elbow joint space gapping and the strain ratios of the ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) and the forearm flexor-pronator muscle (FPM) were measured at rest and during gripping in 29 healthy college students. The intraclass correlation coefficients of elastography were calculated. The data were compared between tissues and between rest and gripping. Results The intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC1,3) of the elastography measurements were 0.91 and 0.83 for the UCL and 0.80 and 0.85 for the FPM for each examiner. Medial elbow joint space gapping during gripping (3.1 ± 0.6 mm) was significantly less than that at rest (3.8 ± 0.8 mm, P Conclusions Elastography measurements of the UCL and FPM have almost perfect reliability. Gripping reduces medial elbow joint space gapping compared with rest. For both tissues, gripping reduces their elasticity compared with rest. The elasticity of the UCL is less than that of the FPM both at rest and during gripping.

Background: In recent years, the functional movement screen (FMS) and FMS training have attracted attention as a means of preventing injury, but no studies have examined the effect of such training in high-school baseball players. The aim of this study was to clarify the effect of FMS training on FMS score, physical function and baseball performance in high-school baseball players. Methods: Subjects in this randomized controlled clinical trial were high-school male baseball players assigned to either an FMS training group (intervention group) or a control group. The intervention group performed FMS training 4 times per week for 12 weeks. FMS ability, physical function, and baseball performance were measured prior to the intervention, 8, 12, and 24 weeks after the intervention in the subjects’ school environment. Results: A total of 71 baseball players aged 15 to 17 years were recruited and assigned to either an intervention group (n = 37) or control group (n = 34). There was no significant difference in the characteristics of participants between the 2 groups. Most FMS scores improved to 12 weeks after continued training. In the intervention group compared with the control group, deep squat, hurdle step, inline lunge, active straight leg raise, trunk stability push-up and rotary stability FMS score, total FMS score and eyes closed single leg stance time significantly increased after 8 weeks of training. While hurdle step, inline lunge, active straight leg raise, trunk stability push-up, total FMS score, and eyes closed single leg stance time significantly increased, pitching ball speed significantly decreased at the end of the 12 week training period. Eyes closed single leg stance time and feeling of fatigue significantly improved 12 weeks after training. The number of subjects who scored less than 14 for the total FMS score in the intervention group compared with control group were significantly less after 8 and 12 weeks of FMS training. Conclusion: FMS training for 8 weeks contributes to improving FMS scores for high-school baseball players, but FMS scores go down if FMS training is not continued. Trial registration: University Hospital Medical Information Network Center, Tokyo, Japan: UMIN000027553. Registered on May 30, 2017.

To prevent elbow injury in baseball players, various methods have been used to measure medial elbow joint stability with valgus stress. However, no studies have investigated higher levels of elbow valgus stress. This study investigated medial elbow joint space gapping measured ultrasonically resulting from a 30 N valgus stress vs. gravitational valgus stress after a repetitive throwing task.The study included 25 high school baseball players. Each subject pitched 100 times. The ulnohumeral joint space was measured ultrasonographically, before pitching and after each successive block of 20 pitches, with gravity stress or 30 N valgus stress. Two-way repeated measures analysis of variance and Pearson correlation coefficient analysis were used.The 30 N valgus stress produced significantly greater ulnohumeral joint space gapping than gravity stress before pitching and at each successive 20-pitch block (P .01). For the 2 stress methods, ulnohumeral joint space gapping increased significantly from baseline after 60 pitches (P .01). Strong significant correlations were found between the 2 methods for measurement of medial elbow joint space gapping (r = 0.727-0.859, P .01).Gravity stress and 30 N valgus stress may produce different effects with respect to medial elbow joint space gapping before pitching; however, 30 N valgus stress appears to induce greater mechanical stress, which may be preferable when assessing joint instability but also has the potential to be more aggressive. The present results may indicate that constraining factors to medial elbow joint valgus stress matched typical viscoelastic properties of cyclic creep.

BACKGROUND Repetitive pitching induces an increase in medial elbow joint space gapping and may consequently lead to local tissue stress and injury. Use of an elbow brace may prevent this from occurring by preventing an increase of medial elbow joint space gapping. However, an elbow brace adds weight to the limb and may increase the burden on the throwing arm. OBJECTIVE To investigate whether use of an elbow brace during repetitive pitching reduces shoulder and arm range of motion and grip strength. DESIGN Prospective crossover study. SETTING University campus. PARTICIPANTS Twenty-five healthy high school baseball players. METHODS Each participant pitched 100 times under two conditions: without an elbow brace (control) and wearing an elbow brace. MAIN OUTCOME MEASUREMENTS Shoulder and elbow range of motion (ROM) before pitching and after every block of 20 pitches. Grip strength before pitching and after 100 pitches. RESULTS There was no significant main effect and interaction for ROM between the two conditions and between pitching sets. In both conditions, grip strength after 100 pitches was significantly lower than that before pitching (P

Objective. The study used a 3D digitizer to determine three-dimensional motion analysis of the 2nd cervical (C2) spinous process at end range cervical rotation with the scapula in different positions. Methods. 30 healthy adults participated in this study. Different scapula positions were adopted bilaterally and positioned passively at normal resting, depression, adduction, and abduction. Under each scapula position, bilateral end range cervical rotation and displacement of the C2 spinous process were analyzed by a 3D digitizer. Results. Displacement of the C2 spinous process relative to the occiput was significantly correlated with range of cervical rotation under all scapular positions (p Conclusion. These results suggest that measurement of upper cervical mobility using the 3D digitizer is a reliable method that holds promise in the evaluation of people with cervical spine disorders.

This paper presents a unique study of Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) for the maintenance decision making about a real life movable bridge. The mechanical components of movable bridges are maintained on a scheduled basis. However, it is desired to have a condition-based maintenance by taking advantage of SHM. The main objective is to track the operation of a gearbox and a rack-pinion/open gear assembly, which are critical parts of bascule type movable bridges. Maintenance needs that may lead to major damage to these components needs to be identified and diagnosed timely since an early detection of faults may help avoid unexpected bridge closures or costly repairs. The fault prediction of the gearbox and rack-pinion/open gear is carried out using two types of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs): 1) Multi-Layer Perceptron Neural Networks (MLP-NNs) and 2) Fuzzy Neural Networks (FNNs). Monitoring data is collected during regular opening and closing of the bridge as well as during artificially induced reversible damage conditions. Several statistical parameters are extracted from the time-domain vibration signals as characteristic features to be fed to the ANNs for constructing the MLP-NNs and FNNs independently. The required training and testing sets are obtained by processing the acceleration data for both damaged and undamaged condition of the aforementioned mechanical components. The performances of the developed ANNs are first evaluated using unseen test sets. Second, the selected networks are used for long-term condition evaluation of the rack-pinion/open gear of the movable bridge. It is shown that the vibration monitoring data with selected statistical parameters and particular network architectures give successful results to predict the undamaged and damaged condition of the bridge. It is also observed that the MLP-NNs performed better than the FNNs in the presented case. The successful results indicate that ANNs are promising tools for maintenance monitoring of movable bridge components and it is also shown that the ANN results can be employed in simple approach for day-to-day operation and maintenance of movable bridges.

T-817MA [1-{3-[2-(1-benzothiophen-5-yl)ethoxy]propyl}azetidin-3-ol maleate] is a newly synthesized neuroprotective agent for the treatment of psychiatric disorders characterized by cognitive disturbances, such as Alzheimer's disease. Cognitive impairment has also been suggested to be a cardinal feature of schizophrenia. We sought to determine whether T-817MA would ameliorate sensorimotor gating deficits and loss of parvalbumin (PV)-positive γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) neurons in the brain of rats transiently exposed to MK-801, an N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor blocker, in the neonatal stage, as an animal model of schizophrenia. Prepulse inhibition (PPI) was examined in rats treated neonatally with MK-801 (postnatal day; PD 7-10, 0.2 mg/kg/day, s.c.) or vehicle at PD 35 and PD 63. The number of PV-positive GABAergic neurons in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the hippocampus was measured after the behavioral assessments. T-817MA (10 or 20 mg/kg) or vehicle was administered for 14 days (on PD 49-62). Administration of T-817MA at 20 mg/kg, but not 10 mg/kg, ameliorated PPI deficits and completely reversed the decrease in the number of PV-positive GABAergic neurons in rats given MK-801. These results indicate that T-817MA may provide a novel therapeutic approach for the treatment of cognitive deficits of schizophrenia.

Tau pathology is implicated in mechanisms of neurodegenerative tauopathies, including Alzheimer's disease (AD) and hereditary frontotemporal dementia and parkinsonism linked to chromosome 17 (FTDP-17). It has been reported that transgenic mice expressing FTDP-17 mutation P301L of human tau (P301L mice) display extensive tau pathology and exhibit behavioral deficits with aging. In this study, we investigated the effects of T-817MA, a neuroprotective agent, on the motor and cognitive impairments associated with neuronal degeneration in P301L mice. T-817MA prevented the progression of motor deficit and the loss of spinal cord motor neurons in P301L mice. Furthermore, T-817MA significantly attenuated the spatial memory impairment and the reduction in synaptic terminal density in the hippocampal dentate gyrus of P301L mice. These results indicate that T-817MA improved the motor and cognitive impairments as a result of inhibiting neuronal degeneration derived from tau pathology in the P301L mice. Therefore, it is expected that T-817MA has a therapeutic potential for tau-related neurodegenerative diseases such as AD.

To improve the quality of wireless communication, transmit/receive diversity techniques in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system have been investigated vigorously. In this paper, we consider an asymmetric MIMO orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) system, in which the number of transmit antennas is larger than that of receive antennas. In this system, there is a need to achieve the high quality of communication in both low and high mobility scenarios by a single transmit diversity scheme. Recently, as for the advanced diversity schemes based on space time block coding (STBC)/space frequency block coding (SFBC), STBC/STBC-phase shift diversity (PSD) and SFBC-frequency switched transmit diversity (FSTD) have been proposed. However, in these schemes, it is possible that time diversity gain can not be sufficiently obtained especially in the low mobility scenario. Therefore, in this paper, the joint use of grouped phase rotation in time/frequency domain and STBC (GPR-STBC) is proposed to get the larger channel coding gains than other schemes. In this paper, we evaluate the average bit error rate (BER) performance by computer simulation in a comparison with the conventional transmit diversity schemes and discuss the relationship from the viewpoints of BER performance and computational complexity.

Introduction/Background The Nordic Hamstring Exercise (NHE) has been used for the prevention of hamstring injury among soccer players. Many studies have shown the effect of NHE among professional soccer players but there are a few studies for adolescent amateur soccer players. The purpose of this study was to clarify the effect of the NHE on preventing hamstrings injury by calculating hamstring injury rate and time-loss injury rate in adolescent amateur soccer players. Material and method The subjects were high school soccer players in Japan. They were clustered as a team and randomly assigned into two groups; 156 in the NHE group and 103 in the control group. All of the subjects were measured by physical function, practice and game hour per day, injury detail if happened and time-loss hour for soccer. Hamstring injury rate and time-loss injury rate were calculated. Two groups were compared by unpaired t test at significant level of 5%. Results Hamstring injuries occurred in 7 cases; 4 in the NHE group and 3 in the control group. Hamstring injury rate was 0.09 per 1000 athlete-hours in the NHE group while 0.10 in the control group. The relative risk of hamstring injury rate was 1.14. Time-loss hamstring injury rate was 0.11 per 1000 athlete-hours in the NHE group while 0.52 in the control group. The relative risk of time-loss hamstring injury rate was 4.54. Conclusion As an effect of the NHE in high school soccer players, time-loss injury rate had stronger impact than the hamstring injury rate. These results indicated that the NHE in high school soccer players may had reduced the severity of hamstrings injury without changing injury rate. It is suggested that importance of investigating hamstrings injury prevention in adolescent amateur soccer players using time-loss injury rate in future.

Introduction/Background In recent years, neuromuscular training (NMT) using a balance board has become a common form of exercise to prevent ankle sprain. Previous studies of effectiveness of this approach have focused on adults, and there are few studies investigating junior high school students. The purpose of this study was to clarify the effect of the NMT using a balance board upon ankle injury in junior high school basketball players. Material and method Hundred and six junior high school basketball players without concurrent injuries were recruited. All players were randomly assigned with 40 allocated to a control group and 66 to a NME group. Subjects in the NME group completed an ankle injury prevention program including single calf rising, single leg squat, dribble with single leg, handling with single leg and pass with single leg on the floor for 2 weeks and those on the balance board for the following 6 weeks. Ankle injury rates were calculated and compared by occurrence of injury's per 1000 practice hours in the control and NME groups. Results The number of ankle inversion injuries were 17 in the control group and 13 in the NME group. Ankle injury rate per 1,000 hours revealed 4.43 in the control and 1.99 in NME group, respectively. Serious injuries, judged by single calf raise, where time loss to sport exceeded 1-week were 4 in the control group and 1 in the NME group. Average time loss in days in the control group (1.98 ± 0.59) was significantly greater than that in the NME group (1.37 ± 0.17). Conclusion Our study showed that NMT using a balance board reduced the occurrence of ankle sprain in junior high school basketball players. In addition, NMT may have contributed to a reduction in the severity of ankle injury.

Movable bridges are unique structures due to the complex interaction between their structural, mechanical, and electrical systems with an intricate interrelation creating several challenges related to operation and maintenance. Continuous monitoring of the critical parts of these structures is essential to track and evaluate their performance for improving maintenance operations and reducing the associated costs. Open gears are one of the most critical components of movable bridges. Proper and regular maintenance of these gears is vitally important to ensure a safe, reliable, and cost-effective operation. In this study, a practical and low-cost monitoring approach is presented to track the lubrication level in an open gear of a movable bridge by using video cameras. Two unique indices are developed for monitoring of the open gear by investigating two different image processing methods in a comparative fashion. The first methodology is based on an edge detection algorithm that utilizes a Sobel grad...

A night-vision system has been developed to help reduce vehicle-pedestrian accidents occurring at night. High-temperature objects assumed to be pedestrians are detected by processing the images from infrared stereo cameras mounted on the. vehicle, and the possibility of a collision is judged by calculating the position and relative moving vectors of the pedestrian. In addition, voice guidance is provided and a highlighted infrared image of the pedestrian is displayed at the bottom of the front windshield using a head-up display (HUD). It was determined that the system could judge the possibility of collisions with pedestrians on the road or crossing the road.

Background:Throwing athletes risk medial elbow injury from extreme valgus stress generated across the medial elbow during throwing. Braces have been developed to protect the elbow joint; however, no previous study has investigated the effects of elbow bracing on medial elbow joint space gapping associated with repetitive throwing.Hypothesis/Purpose:The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of elbow bracing on medial elbow joint space gapping during repetitive throwing. Our hypothesis was that an elbow brace may reduce mechanical stress on the elbow by reducing medial elbow joint space gapping.Study Design:Controlled laboratory study.Methods:Twenty-five high school baseball players participated in this study. Each subject pitched 100 times under 2 conditions: control (without elbow brace) and elbow brace. The ulnohumeral joint space was measured ultrasonically before pitching and after every block of 20 pitches. Measurement of the ulnohumeral joint space was carried out using ultrasound with the forearm hanging by the side. Two-way repeated-measures analysis of variance and post hoc tests were used to compare ulnohumeral joint space with repeated pitching and between the elbow brace and control conditions.Results:In the control condition, ulnohumeral joint space after 60 pitches was significantly greater than that before pitching ( P < .01). In contrast, in the elbow brace condition, ulnohumeral joint space was not significantly different after repeated pitching. When comparing these 2 conditions, ulnohumeral joint space in the control condition was significantly greater than that in the elbow brace condition after 60 pitches ( P < .01).Conclusion:An elbow brace has the effect of preventing medial elbow joint space gapping with repeated throwing when determined ultrasonically by measuring the ulnohumeral joint space under gravity load.Clinical Relevance:An elbow brace worn during baseball pitching practice may help reduce mechanical stress on the elbow by reducing medial elbow joint space gapping.

Cylinder insertion into an elastic hose accompanies with large and changing deformation. Precise analytical method is hard, in caIculation load, to deal with the large deformation A learning method needs large volume of teacher data and is limited to the field of the data. Authors propose a method where human understanding makes a qualitative model that meets with the phenomena of the objective job. Skill is expressed as a rule of motion that is functioned by sensor information. Based on the qualitative understamling model, the motion rule is designed with state variables of the model. Using some experiences, cylinder insertion skill of a walking type is modeled, and slip of the cylinder in the elastic hose is sensed. Operation based on the motion rule is designed as trajectories on the state variable space. The skill of walking type is succeeded for a few kinds of hoses.

The primary goal of this study was to verify the incidence and degree of hearing deterioration of JBSNDUE with a prospective long-term clinical follow-up.Of 173 JBSNDUE cases, 54 were followed up untill their ages reached 25-39 (average 30.7) years. In 23 cases (42.6%) hearing deterioration was confirmed. In 16 cases, discrimination scores for nonsense syllables were as low as 0%.The criteria of the “deterioration” of pure tones were irreversible average hearing level greater than 15dB at three adjoining frequencies between 0.25 and 4kHz.Except 25 of 173 cases, either binaural or monaural amplification was used. However, the incidence of hearing deterioration showed no significant difference between aided and unaided ears.The clinical features of JBSNDUE were summerized.The communication ability of those with deteriorated hearing was discussed.

Novel MgSe/ZnCdSe superlattice quasi-quaternaries (SL-QQs) lattice-matched to (1 0 0) InP substrates were grown by molecular beam epitaxy for the first time. From the X-ray diffraction measurements of the SL-QQs, it was made sure that the designed superlattice periods were actually obtained. While, the equivalent Mg composition of the SL-QQs was controlled from 0.12 to 0.60 by changing the MgSe layer thickness ratio to the superlattice period. Optical properties of the SL-QQs were investigated by photoluminescence (PL) and reflectance measurements at 15 K. As a result, the PL peak energies of the SL-QQs monotonically increased from 2.24 to 2.91 eV with increasing the Mg composition from 0.12 to 0.60 like MgZnCdSe bulk compounds.

ZnCdSe/MgZnCdSe multiple quantum well (MQW) devices were fabricated on InP substrates by molecular beam epitaxy, and quantum-confined Stark effect (QCSE) in the devices were investigated by measurements of reflectance variations at the top surface and absorption coefficient variations in the MQW region with changing applied voltage at room temperature. As a result, remarkable reflectance variations were observed near 587 nm wavelength, accompanied by red shifts of the transition wavelength with increasing applied voltage. A maximum reflectance variation of 5.2% was obtained under the applied voltage of − 7.5 V (the electric field of 1.9 × 10 5 V/cm). From the electromagnetic analysis of the device structure, the refractive index variation of 2.4% per well in the MQW was theoretically estimated for the maximum reflectance variation.

Pedestrian detection is a difficult task for the following reasons. Firstly, pedestrians have many variations of size, pose, clothing, and motion. Secondly, the background tends to be crowded. Thirdly, many pedestrian-like patterns are observed in real environments. As a result, even if state-of-the-art pattern recognition method is used, a frame-by-frame detection has many false positives and negatives. This article presents a method of temporal integration for stereo-based pedestrian detection for improving the detection performance. In our method, a pedestrian is detected by evaluating consistency of the extracted pedestrian candidate for a short period of time. In order to get the consistency, the pedestrian candidate at each frame is combined with temporally corresponded ones through a hypothesis selection process. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method by checking a recall and false positive number with 20,000 frames recorded in complex urban environments and public data sets. The proposed method reduces the number of false detection to one hundredth with holding recall.

The aim of the present study was to examine the effects of formaldehyde solution on rat left ventricular function and compare it with those in hypertrophic hearts treated with isoproterenol by pressure-volume measurements with the catheter method. After 20-30 min. of intravenous infusion of 3.7% formaldehyde solution (FA) at 10 μl (3.7 mg)/kg/min, normal and hypertrophic hearts showed significant decreases in left ventricle end-systolic pressure (ESP), heart rate and cardiac out-put per minute, indicating an acute pumping failure. Hypertrophic hearts showed significantly smaller ESP, stroke volumes and cardiac output than those in normal hearts. Systolic pressure-volume area at midrange left ventricular volume (PVA mLVV : a mechanical work capability index) was significantly smaller than that in normal hearts and per cent of mean PVA mLVV versus pre-infusion mean value in hypertrophic hearts was significantly decreased compared to normal hearts 30 min. after FA infusion. The marked decrease in pH, base excess and no changes in PaO 2 and PaCO 2 suggest metabolic acidosis. The correction of metabolic acidosis with 9% NaHCO 3 did not influence on the acute pumping failure, indicating that metabolic acidosis did not cause it. Ultrastructural observations revealed marked dilation of the sarcoplasmic reticulum with intact sarcolemmal membranes and no disintegration of muscle myofibrils. Ryanodine receptors and calcium (Ca 2+ ) pumps (SERCA2A) located in the sarcoplasmic reticulum have major roles in the cytosolic Ca 2+ handling. Taken together, acute pumping failure by FA may derive from the impairment of Ca 2+ handling in the cardiac excitation-contraction coupling.

Detecting pedestrians from a moving vehicle is a challenging problem since the essence of the task is to search non-rigid moving objects with various appearances in a dynamic and outdoor environment. In order to alleviate these difficulties, we propose a new human detection framework which makes the most use of stereo vision. While the conventional stereo-based detection methods initially generate regions of interest or ROIs on one of stereo images, the proposed one defines the ROIs on both left and right images. This paper presents two different ways for utilizing the stereo ROIs. Thefirst one is to classify the stereo ROIs individually and integrate the classification scores to obtain the final decision. The second one is to extend gradient-based local descriptors [1, 14] to multiple views and present new feature descriptors which we call Stereo HOG and Stereo CoHOG. Through experiments we show that both methods significantly reduce the false alarm rate while keeping the detection rate comparing with monocular-based methods.

Novel MgSe/ZnSeTe II–VI compound superlattice quasi-quaternaries (SL-QQs) were grown on InP substrates by molecular beam epitaxy with p-type doping using a RF-radical nitrogen source. The SL-QQs with various equivalent Mg compositions ( x Mg ) were prepared by changing the MgSe layer composition in the superlattice. The photoluminescence peak energy at 15 K increased from 2.11 to 2.68 eV with increasing x Mg from 0 to 0.76. A hole concentration over 2×10 18 cm −3 was obtained for x Mg of 0.14, and the doping level monotonically decreased with increasing x Mg . By changing the doping process, the doping property was improved, and a hole concentration of about 3×10 17 cm −3 was realized even for x Mg of 0.4. ZnCdSe/MgZnCdSe(Te) light emitting diodes were fabricated on InP substrates using MgSe/ZnSeTe SL-QQs as p-side cladding layers. Yellow light emissions around 577 nm were observed under a pulsed current injection at 77 K.

In this paper, we propose a method for robust and real-time estimation of 3D motion. In our method, we use multiple sample points that are on an object before and after moving. Point correspondences between frames are not necessary. 3D motion is reliably estimated by using sample points with image positions, image features and 3D spatial positions, from both images. Our method achieves real-time performance due to usage of just sample points. We present the effectiveness of our method by means of experimental results and compare its performance with that of other methods.

This paper presents the Golem Group/UCLA entry to the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge competition. We describe the main design principles behind the development of Golem 2, the race vehicle. The subsystems devoted to obstacle detection, avoidance, and state estimation are discussed in more detail. An overview of the vehicle performance in the field is provided, including successes together with an analysis of the reasons leading to failures.

In order to establish a rational management program for bridge structures, it is necessary to evaluate the structural damage of existing bridges in a quantitative manner. However, it is difficult to avoid the subjectivity of inspectors when visual data are used for the evaluation of damage or deterioration. In this paper, an attempt is made to develop an optimal bridge maintenance system by using a health monitoring technique. The damage of Reinforced Concrete (RC) bridge decks is evaluated with the aid of digital photos and pattern recognition. So far, neural networks have been applied to judge the damage state of RC bridge decks. However, there are still some problems that learning data are not enough and recognition accuracy is not satisfactory. In order to solve these problems, TAM network is applied here, which is an optical system. Though the numerical examples using actual data, it is shown that the recognition rate is increased.

This paper presents a new method for automatically separating the motion of multiple independently moving objects in a sequence of images based on the notion of illumination subspace. We show that intensities of observed trajectories of image features on a single body lie on a linearly independent frame space with three, or fewer, dimensions. We then argue that it is possible in theory to determine the grouping of the feature points by way of separating the illumination subspaces. As a clue for practical separation, we also introduce the surface interaction matrix which is valid for Lambertian reflectance surface. Recently, several authors have presented different algorithms on this task of grouping by factorization-based procedures using the coordinates of image features. While the challenges in their approaches are to realize the robust performance in the presence of noise, we propose to incorporate the above photometric analysis available at given feature points in the conventional schemes of motion segmentation, and show that the performance is indeed stabilized through experiments on real and synthetic image sequences.

We propose a new stereo method for 2D navigation in a dynamic environment such as roads without depth search and metric camera calibration. Conventionally, there is an effective stereo method based on the constraint that an observer moves on the ground plane, namely the GP constraint. Although the GP constraint is often violated in an outdoor environment due to the movement of the observer, i.e., camera vibrations and inclination, it can be updated using some features on the ground plane only if the stereo cameras are weakly calibrated. However, the conventional stereo method has several drawbacks. First, it is rather difficult to solve for the general epipolar geometry summarized in the fundamental matrix. Second, although the updated GP constraint often becomes imperfect, it lacks an effective contrivance for the noise reduction. Third, there is no measure to assess the danger of detected obstacles. To solve these problems, we develop a domain-specific stereo method which utilizes various attributes of roads. We introduce the "pseudo-projective camera model" that provides a good approximation to the projective camera in road scenes and accordingly define the linear epipolar geometry for a pair of pseudo-projective cameras. Furthermore, we show that extraction of two parallel lines lying on the road is effective to update the GP constraint, overcome the noise issue and even to estimate the degree of danger. Through experiments we demonstrate that our method is efficient and applicable to a variety of outdoor scenes.

BACKGROUND It has already been shown that the production of fucosylceramide, an aberrant glycolipid, is associated with neoplastic changes in human tissues. The authors of this study designed a sandwich radioimmunoassay (RIA) using a mouse monoclonal anti-fucosylceramide antibody, PC47H, designated as PC/PC RIA, and measured the level of u-FCC, an antigen of PC47H, in the urine of cancer patients. METHODS The cohort comprised 41 patients with gastric carcinoma, 35 with colorectal carcinoma, 34 with other malignancies, 14 with cholelithiasis, 18 with gastric ulcer, and 110 healthy individuals. The u-FCC was quantified by PC/PC RIA. The cutoff value of u-FCC was obtained from the 110 healthy individuals, and the rates of positivity for gastric and colorectal carcinoma patients were evaluated. RESULTS The rates of u-FCC positivity were 63% for patients with gastric carcinoma and 69% for colorectal carcinoma patients. The rate was only 1% (1/110) for the healthy individuals. The u-FCC value did not correlate with the values of either CA 19-9 or carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA). In a combination assay of u-FCC with CA 19-9 and CEA, the positivity rates were 84% for gastric carcinoma patients and 85% for colorectal carcinoma patients. CONCLUSIONS Gastric and colorectal carcinoma patients have significantly high levels of u-FCC in their urine compared with normal individuals. Cancer 1998;83:660-665. © 1998 American Cancer Society.

We propose a new stereo matching algorithm which computes the depth and surface orientation simultaneously. While area-based stereo matching is an essential technique in the recovery of the dense 3D shape, conventionally it uses square windows based on the implicit assumption that intensity patterns surrounding corresponding points have no deformations between images from different views. In practice, however, the local surface orientations deform the intensity patterns and such deformations often give rise to poor estimation of the 3D shape. To solve this problem, we formulate a new algorithm that allows a matching window to locally deform according to the surface orientation, which we propose to compute directly from intensity gradients within the window. Through experiments we demonstrate that our algorithm indeed realizes more precise recovery of the 3D shape than do conventional ones while being applicable to various images.

Amebiasis caused by Entamoeba histolytica at an institution for mentally retarded in Shizuoka Prefecture is reported. Five of the 50 patients showed E. histolytica cysts in their stools and 4 were positive serologically. The polymerase chain reaction and restriction fragment length polymorphism revealed that the isolates were pathogenic-type E. histolytica. Epidemiological analysis revealed that the amebic infection was caused by the abnormal behavior of mentally retarded patients. Administration of diloxanide furoate and metronidazole for cyst-carriers eliminated cysts from the stool and lowered the antibody titer.

Superlattice quasi-quaternaries (SL-QQs), consisting of MgSe/ZnSeTe short-period superlattices, were grown on InP substrates by molecular beam epitaxy with nitrogen p-doping. By changing the Mg composition (i.e., the layer thickness ratio of MgSe in the superlattice) from 0 to 0.76, the photoluminescence peak energy at 15 K increased from 2.11 to 2.68 eV. The N-doping of MgSe/ZnSeTe SL-QQs was performed by two processes, that is by the modulation-doping into ZnSeTe and by the all-doping. For the modulation-doping, a hole concentration of over 1×1018 cm-3 was obtained for Mg composition of less than 0.14, with decreased monotonically with increasing Mg composition. The hole concentration increased by changing the doping process from the modulation-doping to the all-doping. For example, the hole concentration increased from 1×1015 to 3×1017 cm-3 for Mg composition of 0.4. ZnCdSe/MgZnCdSe(Te) light emitting diodes (LEDs) were fabricated using MgSe/ZnSeTe SL-QQs as p-cladding layers having yellow emissions around 577 nm at 77 K.

The ability to locate broad band noise (0.1-10 kHz) in the horizontal plane was measured in an anechoic room with binaural In-the-Ear Aids in normal adults. There was a definite advantage in angular localization with In-the-Ear Aids over body worn and/or Behind-the-Ear Aids. This advantage is probably lost in patients with severe high tone loss.

Since the Silverstein's first report(1966) on elevated protein concentration in the perilymph of the patients with acoustic tumor, it appears that "diagnostic labyrinthotomy" can be useful and worthwhile in certain cases of unilateral sensorineural hearing loss where acoustic neurinoma or Meniere's disease is suspected. The objective of the present clinical study is to appraise the correlation between the clinical pictures of 8 cases of acoustic tumor suspect and of 2 cases of Meniere's disease suspect and pictures of 8 cases of acoustic tumor suspect and of 2 cases of Meniere's disease suspect and the results of microchemical analysis of the inner ear fluid. Increase in perilymph protein concentration was confirmed in 5 cases of cerebellopontine angle tumor who underwent craniotomy, while one false negative case of acoustic tumor was observed. In normal subjects, the level of inner ear fluid protein was substantially less than that in acoustic tumor cases.Two cases of Meniere''s disease and one case of acoustic tumor suspects were judged as negative.However, one false positive result was obtained in the case of ac-oustic tumor suspect, in which no internal auditory cannal lesion was present on posterior fossa myelography. On the basis of the present clinical evidence, it seems likely that any condition which causes blockage of the internal auditory canal such as cerebellopontine angle tumor and/or arachnoiditis results in elevated perilymph protein concentration. High potassium concentration in the inner ear fluid was found in one patient with Meniere's disease and was considered to indicate the etiology of vertiginous episodes of this patient.The result would also suggest that "Diagnostic labyrinthotomy" is applicable for the diagnosis of Meniere's disease.