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Introduction: Colonic diverticulosis increases with age, leading to a higher risk of colonic diverticular bleeding (CDB) in the elderly. As life expectancy continues to increase, the need for endoscopic hemostasis for CDB in the elderly can also be expected to increase. However, there have been no reports to date on the feasibility of endoscopic hemostasis for elderly CDB patients. Several recent studies have addressed the effectiveness of endoscopic band ligation (EBL) for CDB. In this study, we evaluate the safety and effectiveness of EBL in elderly CDB patients compared to younger CDB patients. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the medical records of consecutive patients treated with EBL for the first time at a tertiary referral center between March 2011 and November 2017. Patients were grouped according to age into those at least 75 years old (the Elderly) and those Results: EBL was performed in 153 patients during the study period (49 Elderly patients and 104 Nonelderly patients). Elderly patients were less likely to be male (p < 0.001) and had lower hemoglobin levels on admission (p < 0.001). Bleeding on the right side of the splenic flexure was observed more frequently in the Nonelderly (p = 0.002). Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) and use of antithrombotic agents were significantly higher in the Elderly (p < 0.001 and p < 0.001, respectively). Active bleeding tended to be observed more frequently in the Elderly (p = 0.054), while the difference was not significant. There were no significant differences in the shock index, procedure time, or units of packed red blood cells transfused between the 2 groups. No significant differences in the technical success rate (97.1 vs. 98%, p = 0.76), early rebleeding rate (10.2 vs. 14.4%, p = 0.47), or other complications (2 vs. 1%, p = 0.58) were observed. Perforation and abscess formation were not observed in either group. Female gender, left-sidedness, higher CCI, and lower hemoglobin level were all significantly more frequently observed in the Elderly on multiple logistic regression analysis. Discussion/Conclusion: EBL may be similarly safe and effective for the treatment of CDB in the elderly as in the nonelderly.

Background and Aims The identification of stigmata of recent hemorrhage (SRH) in colonic diverticular bleeding (CDB) enables an endoscopic treatment and can improve the clinical outcome. However, SRH identification rate remains low. This study aims to investigate whether NOBLADS and Strate scoring systems are useful for predicting SRH identification rate of CDB pre‐procedurally via colonoscopy. Methods In this single‐center retrospective observational study, 302 patients who experienced their first episode of CDB from April 2008 to March 2018 were included. Patients were classified into SRH‐positive and SRH‐negative groups. The primary outcome was SRH identification rate. The secondary outcomes were active bleeding in SRH and early rebleeding rates. The usefulness of the NOBLADS and Strate scores as predicted values of SRH identification was evaluated using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve. Results There were 126 and 176 patients in the SRH‐positive and SRH‐negative groups, respectively. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for SRH identification using the NOBLADS score was 0.74 (95% confidence interval, 0.69–0.80) and that using the Strate score was 0.74 (95% confidence interval, 0.68–0.79). Active bleeding and early rebleeding rates increased according to each score. By setting the cut‐off of the NOBLADS score to four points, treatment was possible in 70.2% (66/94) patients. Addition of extravasation at computed tomography to a NOBLADS score of ≧ 4 points allowed treatment of all patients (24/24). Conclusions Severity scoring in acute lower gastrointestinal bleeding was effective for predicting SRH identification in CDB. We suggest that combination of these scorings and CT findings could offer a new therapeutic strategy.

Amyloidosis is a syndrome involving amyloid protein deposition in various organs, resulting in organ dysfunction. Symptoms of gastrointestinal amyloidosis are usually nonspecific, such as diarrhea and body weight loss. We, here, report a patient who presented to the hospital with simultaneous hematemesis, melena, and intestinal pseudo-obstruction, leading to a diagnosis of primary gastrointestinal amyloidosis based on computed tomography (CT) and endoscopic findings. CT showed diffuse wall thickening from the duodenum to the jejunum, jejunal dilation, and fluid accumulation throughout the gastrointestinal tract. Upper gastrointestinal endoscopy revealed duodenal mucosal edema, jejunal dilation, and small hemorrhages from jejunal mucosal erosion. The definite diagnosis was done based on biopsy results. This report describes the early diagnosis of gastrointestinal amyloidosis based on CT and endoscopy findings.

Basaloid squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus is rare and generally detected at advanced stage, and its prognosis is poorer than that of conventional esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. Therefore, detection at the early stage is crucial for patient survival. We experienced an elevated esophageal basaloid squamous cell carcinoma presenting as a subepithelial tumor-like lesion. Although the lesion needed to be differentiated from subepithelial tumor, we diagnosed it as early stage and treated with endoscopic submucosal dissection. We report the macroscopic and microscopic findings of basaloid carcinoma through this case along with a review of the relevant literature.

BACKGROUND Tiotropium bromide, a long-acting muscarinic antagonist, reduces the frequency of exacerbation in patients with moderate to severe asthma, but its underlying mechanism is not clear. Asthma exacerbations are associated with exposure to external stimuli, and group 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2s) are considered to be involved in the pathophysiology of asthma exacerbation. We investigated whether tiotropium modulates airway inflammation through ILC2 functions. METHODS Mice were administered papain intranasally to induce innate-type airway inflammation with or without tiotropium pretreatment, and bronchoalveolar lavage fluids (BALF) and lung tissues were collected. Lung-derived ILC2s and bone marrow-derived basophils were stimulated in vitro with IL-33 in the presence or absence of tiotropium. Muscarinic M3 receptor (M3R) expression on immune cells was assessed by RNA sequence. RESULTS Papain induced airway eosinophilic inflammation, and tiotropium reduced the numbers of eosinophils in BALF. The concentrations of IL-4, IL-5, and IL-13, and the numbers of ILC2s in BALF were also reduced by tiotropium treatment. However, tiotropium did not affect IL-33-induced IL-5 and IL-13 production from ILC2s, suggesting that tiotropium regulates ILC2s indirectly. Gene-expression analysis showed that basophils predominantly expressed M3R mRNA among murine immune cells. Tiotropium reduced IL-4 production from basophils derived from mouse bone marrow and human basophils after stimulation with IL-33. CONCLUSIONS These findings suggest that tiotropium attenuates ILC2-dependent airway inflammation by suppressing IL-4 production from basophils and, subsequently, regulating ILC2 activation. The inhibitory effects of long-acting muscarinic antagonists on the innate response may contribute to reducing asthma exacerbation.

Background and Aim Endoscopic band ligation (EBL), used for the treatment of colonic diverticular bleeding, has a lower rebleeding rate than endoscopic clipping. However, different devices are used in Japan and the Western countries; no animal studies have been conducted to elucidate the safety of such devices. We compared two EBL devices, the first used in Japan and the second used in Western countries. Methods and Results The Japanese and Western EBL devices were compared by assessing the EBL safety at 40 sites in an animal model with a normal colon that is anatomically similar to the human colon. Macroscopic and pathological examinations were performed to evaluate the layer ligated by the band and the presence of perforation. The findings on day 1 and day 7 after EBL were compared. The ligated layer was the muscularis propria at 39 sites; the layer was not evaluated at one site where the band was unintentionally removed during the endoscopic procedure. Pathologically, there was no perforation at any of the assessed sites. There was no statistical difference in any of the pathological variables between the two devices or between days 1 and 7 after EBL. The total procedure time was significantly shorter with the Western EBL device. Conclusions In this animal study, both evaluated devices were safe for EBL, without differences in the macroscopic and pathological variables after EBL. Ligation of the muscularis propria layer did not result in perforation., We performed endoscopic band ligation (EBL) on colons of pigs using two different EBL devices and compared the macroscopic and pathological findings to evaluate the efficacy and safety of the two EBL devices, the first used in Japan and the second used in Western countries. Our results indicated that both evaluated devices were safe for EBL. A suitable device can be selected according to the patients' clinical condition.

A 64-year-old Japanese man with no significant medical history presented with epigastric discomfort of 2-weeks’ duration. He was diagnosed with metastatic HER2-positive gastric cancer. Chemotherapy with capecitabine, oxaliplatin, and trastuzumab was initiated. During the eighth cycle, he suddenly complained of electric shock-like pain in both legs upon neck flexion, consistent with Lhermitte’s sign. Oxaliplatin was discontinued, and Lhermitte’s sign resolved after 3 months. Neurotoxicity is commonly observed in platinum-based chemotherapy, but Lhermitte’s sign is rare. This is the first report of oxaliplatin-induced Lhermitte’s sign in a gastric cancer patient.

Endoscopic stenting with self-expandable metallic stents is widely accepted for the treatment of malignant colorectal obstruction. Generally, stenting is performed as a bridge-to-surgery for primary colorectal cancer (CRC). Furthermore, palliative colonic stenting is performed for extraparenteral malignant tumors (EPMTs). However, predictive factors for improving clinical outcomes after colonic stenting for EPMTs remain unclear. This study is aimed at evaluating patients with EPMTs who underwent colonic stenting and investigating factors influencing clinical improvement after the stenting procedure. Twenty-one patients with colorectal obstruction by EPMTs were treated using self-expandable metallic stents over a period of 8 years. We divided the enrolled patients into the clinically improved and nonimproved groups after colonic stenting. Variables, including age; sex; type of primary cancer; serum albumin level; location of the obstruction; stent type, length, and diameter; prior chemotherapy treatment; ascites; Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status (PS); technical and clinical success rates; stent-related adverse events; and mortality rates, were evaluated. Technical failure was not observed in all cases. Clinical success, defined as the passage of stool and improvement in the colorectal obstruction scoring system (CROSS) without adverse events, was observed in the 14 patients. Univariate analyses revealed no significant differences in factors other than PS before stenting (P=0.04) between the improved and nonimproved groups. Colonic stenting for EPMTs was effective. PS may be an independent risk factor of clinical outcomes after stenting.

The ingestion of raw seafood infected with nematode larvae of the Anisakidae family can lead to gastric anisakiasis. The majority of the infections involve a single larva, however, there have been instances of multiple infection. The incidence rate and the characteristics of multiple infection by Anisakis remain poorly understood. We herein present a case of parasitization by multiple Anisakis larvae and describe 14 cases of multiple parasitization representing the largest reported case series to date. Endoscopists should therefore be aware of the potential for multiple infection by Anisakis and the need for a thorough inspection of all parts of the stomach when encountering such cases.

Malignant strictures and fistulas of the esophagus adversely affect quality of life (QOL) and prognosis, and stenting is considered a useful therapy for improving QOL. However, the predictive factors for improving dysphagia after esophageal stenting are unclear. This retrospective cohort study aimed to evaluate patients with esophageal malignant strictures and fistulas who underwent stenting and investigate the factors for dysphagia improvement after stenting. Twenty-four patients with malignant esophageal strictures and fistulas were treated with a self-expandable metallic stent over a period of 5 years and 6 months. The main outcome was improvement in the dysphagia score. We divided the patients into dysphagia improved and non-improved groups after esophageal stenting. Sex, age, cause of stenting (primary or non-primary esophageal cancers), prior treatments, such as chemotherapy and radiation, type of esophageal stents (covered or non-covered), dysphagia score before stenting, and Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status (PS) of the patients before stenting were evaluated. Student’s t test and Fisher’s exact test were used for continuous and categorical variables, respectively. Factors with a P value

Background and study aims: Endoscopic band ligation (EBL) has been used for hemostasis of colonic diverticular hemorrhage. However, early rebleeding (

This paper reports the early beam commissioning of the KEK digital accelerator, which consists of novel accelerator components such as a permanent-magnet x-band electron cyclotron resonance ion source, an Einzel lens longitudinal chopper, an electrostatic injection kicker, and induction acceleration devices. The performance of the Einzel lens longitudinal chopper is described together with the results of beam commissioning, including the beam orbit correction, barrier bucket bunch capture, and induction acceleration.

Compared with the variceal rupture in the esophagus or stomach, rupture of ectopic varices including those in the jejunum is rare, and a definitive hemostatic method is not established. We report our case and review the literature regarding the pathophysiology and hemostatic methods of ectopic varices. A patient presented with hematemesis and cardiopulmonary arrest following hemorrhagic shock. After resuscitation, we performed emergency endoscopy and diagnosed ruptured jejunal varices that were subsequently treated by endoscopic band ligation.

We propose a technique called short-term principal component analysis (ST-PCA) to analyze motion capture (MoCap) data of realistic movements in a high dimensional time series. Our ST-PCA method is successfully applied to motion beat induction, which is an important aspect in human perception. ST-PCA performs PCA in a sliding window to locally extract the major variance of the movement into the coordinates of the first principal component, thus accurately determining the desired motion beats. Our approach differs from conventional methods in that we estimate the motion beats by analyzing the motion signals as a whole rather than individually in each channel. Moreover, our algorithm is carefully designed in terms of the three characteristics of MoCap data: hierarchical structure, spatial correlation, and temporal coherence. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method outputs much more accurate motion beats in a wide range of motion categories, including complicated dances, than current state-of-the-art alternatives.

We propose a digital video scrambling method for multi-level degrading of subjective image quality. Video scrambling methods are used to intentionally degrade image quality to control access for pay-per-view and other video delivery services. Furthermore, digital video scrambling methods that can be used to control the scrambling level have been studied in recent years. However, these conventional methods do not necessarily help in achieving multi-level degradation of subjective image quality. To satisfy this requirement, we introduce the concept of region of interest (ROI). We propose a digital video scrambling method for scrambling partial areas within the ROI and multi-level degrading of subjective image quality using simple scrambling level control while maintaining coding efficiency. Subjective assessment results showed the advantage of the proposed method over conventional methods and its usefulness for various kinds of images.

This paper proposes a novel MP3 watermarking method which is applicable to a mobile terminal with limited computational resources. Considering that in most cases the embedded information is copyright information or metadata, which should be extracted before playing back audio contents, the watermark detection process should be executed at high speed. However, when conventional methods are used with a mobile terminal, it takes a considerable amount of time to detect a digital watermark. This paper focuses on scalefactor manipulation to enable high speed watermark embedding/detection for MP3 audio and also proposes the manipulation method which minimizes audio quality degradation adaptively. Evaluation tests showed that the proposed method is capable of embedding 3 bits/frame information without degrading audio quality and detecting it at very high speed. Finally, this paper describes application examples for authentication with a digital signature.

Background and study aims: Long-term outcomes of endoscopic band ligation (EBL) for colonic diverticular hemorrhage have not been reported to date. The aim of this study was to determine the long-term outcomes of EBL and to retrospectively compare them with those of endoscopic clipping (EC) in the treatment of colonic diverticular hemorrhage. Patients and methods: The study included patients with colonic diverticular hemorrhage who were treated with EBL or EC from January 2004 to November 2014 and followed up more than 1 year (61 patients in the EBL group and 39 patients in the EC group). Time-to-event analysis of rebleeding was performed with the Kaplan-Meier method. A follow-up colonoscopy was performed to confirm the disappearance of the banded diverticula in the EBL group. Results: Rebleeding occurred in 21 patients in the EBL group and in 26 patients in the EC group. The cumulative incidence of rebleeding at 1, 12, 24, and 36 months after first treatments was 14 %, 23 %, 26 %, and 41 % in the EBL group and 38 %, 49 %, 59 %, and 68 % in the EC group, respectively. Time-to-event analysis revealed statistically significant data (Log-rank test, P = 0.0036). Scar formation with fold convergence at the previously banded site was observed in 11 of 24 patients who underwent follow-up colonoscopy (46 %). However, late rebleeding (rebleeding more than 30 days after EBL) occurred in five of these 11 cases. Conclusions: EBL was superior to EC in the treatment of colonic diverticular hemorrhage. However, the risk of rebleeding was not avoided even after the diverticula had been resolved using EBL.

Background and aims: Endoscopic band ligation (EBL) has been used to achieve hemostasis in patients with colonic diverticular bleeding. The safety and effectiveness of EBL when performed by non-expert endoscopists have not been sufficiently verified. This study aimed to elucidate the feasibility of the EBL technique when performed by non-expert endoscopists and of considering EBL as a standard treatment for colonic diverticular bleeding. Patients and methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted in a tertiary referral center in Tokyo, Japan, between June 2009 and October 2014. A total of 95 patients treated with EBL were included in the study and were divided into two groups according to whether they had been treated by expert or non-expert endoscopists. Comorbidities, medications, shock index, hemoglobin level on admission, location of the bleeding diverticula, rate of bowel preparation, procedure time, and EBL-associated adverse events were evaluated in each group. Multivariate linear regression analyses were used to investigate factors related to EBL procedure time, which is the time elapsed between marking the site of bleeding with hemoclips and completion of the band release. Results: A total of 47 (49.5 %) procedures were performed by expert endoscopists. In a bivariate analysis, the median EBL procedure times in the expert and non-expert groups were 15 minutes (range 4 – 45) and 11 minutes (range 4 – 36), respectively (P = 0.03). When a multivariate linear regression model was used, EBL for right-sided diverticula was the factor most significantly affecting EBL procedure time. No adverse events were encountered. Conclusion: EBL can be safely and effectively performed by non-expert endoscopists. A right-sided location of diverticula was the factor most significantly affecting EBL procedure time.

We propose a new voting strategy referred to as ratio voting to improve bag-of-visual words-based image retrieval. It limits the number of votes in proportion to the number of features in visual words, while conventional schemes use (estimated) distances or rank information as a filtering criterion. Ratio voting realizes adaptive thresholding that captures the density of feature vectors. In experiments, we adopt two different distance estimation methods in the post-filtering step and show that ratio voting achieves a considerable improvement in spite of its simplicity in both cases. Furthermore, we perform exhaustive experiments in combining ratio voting with multiple assignment approaches and show that choosing a multiple assignment approach also has a remarkable impact on accuracy.

In this paper, we propose a fast, accurate content-based video copy detection scheme based on bag-of-global visual features, which is characterized by (1) utilizing an efficient DCT-sign-based feature for fast detection; (2) performing multiple assignment in the temporal domain, in addition to the feature and spatial domain to ensure repeatability in segment-level matching; and (3) adopting an inverse document frequency weighting and temporal burstiness-aware scoring to emphasize distinctive visual words. Despite detection 95 times faster than real-time, the proposed system achieves a false negative rate of 0.2% against queries that are altered by non-geometric transformations without any false positives.

With the explosive growth of user-generated content (UGC) such as YouTube(R), computer animation that is synchronized with music has been in great demand as a new type of UGC. For example, it is popular to manually create such animation by a free software called MikuMikuDance in Japan. However, it usually takes much time to create a short piece of animation with requirement for necessary knowledge, which is a matter of considerable concern for UGC. On the other hand, several automatic systems are reported such as [Xu et al. 2011], where dancing animation is synchronized with the input music by rhythm and intensity features. However, the automatically generated animation cannot reflect a user intention to see a specific dance motion (called performance motion) for a specific part of music, thus user's unique aesthetic appreciation is not satisfied, which is essential for UGC.

In this paper, we present a practical and automatic comic-like image layout system for event photos or event movies. We focus on the comic-like layout with cropping. The comic-like layouts allow viewers to track events in time sequential order like comic books, in which event images are cropped and arranged in panels from top left to bottom right on a screen so that the resultant layout has variety of image shapes and gives a pleasant impression. The main drawback of the conventional method is that an important region such as a face or a salient object area is sometimes cropped. In order to avoid excessive cropping of important regions while maintaining the image order, our system achieves adaptive layout to input images by generating all possible templates suitable for comic and deciding appropriate templates based on our proposed layout evaluation. In the demo, we will show that our full automatic system generates comic-like layouts immediately. Furthermore, the system allows a user to select his/her favorite layout from the multiple ones with different looks.

Music and dance are two major forms of entertainment in our daily life. Moreover, the fact that people dance to music suggests the possibility of synchronizing human motion with music. In this paper, we present a novel system to automatically synthesize human motion that is synchronized with streaming music using both rhythm and intensity features. In our system, a motion capture database is re-organized into a novel graph-based representation with metadata (called metadata motion graphs) beforehand, which is specially designed for the streaming application. When receiving a certain amount of music data as a segment, our system will search a best path for the segment on a metadata motion graph. This approach, whose effectiveness is demonstrated in a user study, can compose motions segment by segment, which (1) are synchronized with the music at a beat level in a short enough period, (2) are connected seamlessly with the previous segment, and (3) have the necessary synchronization capacity for the remaining music no matter how long it is.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential of circulating tumor cells (CTC) as a surrogate marker of the clinical outcome in metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) patients in order to identify Japanese patients responsive to oxaliplatin-based chemotherapy. Between January 2007 and April 2008, 64 patients with mCRC were enrolled in this prospective study. The treatment regimen was oxaliplatin-based chemotherapy. Collection of CTC from whole blood was performed at baseline and at 2 and 8–12 weeks after initiation of chemotherapy. Isolation and enumeration of CTC was performed using immunomagnetics. Patients with ≥3 CTC at baseline and at 2 and 8–12 weeks had a shorter median progression-free survival (8.5, 7.3 and 1.9 months, respectively) than those with

This paper presents a novel tone mapping method for a natural image hiding scheme using halftone images, where a natural image can be visually decoded by overlaying two natural halftone images. In this scheme, there is a tradeoff between noise and contrast, and a generally applicable setting of tone mapping before halftoning is required. However, in a conventional method, the coefficients for the tone mapping cannot be found automatically. It is difficult even for experts to manipulate the tradeoff with the coefficients. To solve this problem, we propose a deterministic tone mapping method that can intuitively control the tradeoff. To realize this, we introduce a noise metric which can be understood intuitively instead of affine parameters used in the mapping system. To maximize the dynamic range at a given noise level and to make tone mapping deterministic, we clarify the condition and introduce the general functions to obtain coefficients from the geometric constraint of the tone mapping region. The proposed method enables any user to generate images with the highest possible contrast at a given noise level deterministically from any natural images such as own photos just by setting the noise level. Experimental results show the validity of the proposed noise metric and also show that the generally applicable tradeoff point through various images that are used as a guideline to set the noise level. By using the tradeoff point, the average dynamic range is expanded by a factor of 1.4 compared to the noiseless case.

This paper presents a novel approach to tracking articulated human motion with monocular video. In a conventional tracking system based on particle filters, it is very challenging to track a complex human pose with many degrees of freedom. A typical solution to this problem is to track the pose in a low dimensional latent space by manifold learning techniques, e.g., the Gaussian process dynamical model (GPDM model). In this paper, we extend the GPDM model into a graph structure (called GPDM graph) to better express the diverse dynamics of human motion, where multiple latent spaces are constructed and dynamically connected to each other appropriately by an unsupervised learning method. Basically, the proposed model has both intra-transitions (in each latent space) and inter-transitions (among latent spaces). Moreover, the probability of inter-transition is dynamic, depending on the current latent state. Using the proposed GPDM graph model, we can track human motion with monocular video, where the average tracking errors are improved from the state-of-the-art methods in our experiments.

The optimal regimen of chemotherapy for gastric cancer in a second-line setting remains to be clarified. The aim of this retrospective study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of second-line irinotecan treatment. A total of 134 patients with gastric cancer who had received prior chemotherapy with fluoropyrimidine-based regimens were treated with irinotecan (150 mg/m(2) on days 1 and 15) alone every 4 weeks (Arm I) or irinotecan (70 mg/m(2) on days 1 and 15) plus cisplatin (80 mg/m(2) on day 1) every 4 weeks (Arm IP) between April, 2004 and March, 2009. Patient characteristics, response rate, progression-free survival, overall survival and safety were investigated. Of 134 patients with recurrent or unresectable gastric cancer, 92 were treated in Arm I and 42 patients in Arm IP. Overall response rate in Arm I was 8.1%, compared with 20.0% in Arm IP (P=0.65). Median progression-free survival (Arm I vs. IP; 2.6 vs. 2.7 months, P=0.73) and median overall survival (Arm I vs. IP; 9.8 vs. 8.0 months, P=0.67) did not differ between the two treatment groups. Neutropenia, leukopenia and anorexia were the most common grade 3/4 adverse events, occurring significantly more frequently in Arm IP than in Arm I (P0.05). Irinotecan may be a key agent, and serial irinotecan monotherapy is more beneficial as compared to irinotecan plus cisplatin in the treatment of advanced gastric cancer in second-line settings. Irinotecan monotherapy is beneficial compared to irinotecan plus cisplatin in second-line settings for the treatment of advanced gastric cancer refractory to fluoropyrimidine-based regimens.

Optimal second-line chemotherapy may contribute to favorable survival in patients who receive first-line treatment for advanced gastric cancer. The aim of this retrospective study was to compare a second-line setting using irinotecan with paclitaxel in terms of survival benefit and safety. A total of 179 patients with recurrent or unresectable gastric cancer who had received prior chemotherapy with a fluoropyrimidine-based regimen were treated with irinotecan alone at 150 mg/m(2) on days 1 and 15 every 4 weeks (Cohort I) or weekly paclitaxel at 80 mg/m(2) on days 1, 8 and 15 every 4 weeks (Cohort P) between April, 2004 and March, 2009. Patient characteristics, overall response rate, disease control rate, progression-free survival, overall survival and safety were investigated. Of the 179 patients, 92 received irinotecan and 87 patients who were contraindicated for irinotecan received weekly paclitaxel. The overall response and disease control rates in Cohort I were 6.5 and 43.5%, respectively, as compared with 9.8 and 54.9%, respectively, in Cohort P. No variation was noted in median progression-free survival (Cohort I vs. P, 2.6 vs. 2.8 months; P=0.812), whereas median overall survival (Cohort I vs. P, 9.8 vs. 4.9 months; P

Standardized enumeration of CEC counts is required to minimize variability and allow cross-studies comparisons. The purpose of this paper is to identify CEC threshold proposal, by CellSearch system, for determining response to bevacizumab-based chemotherapy in metastatic colorectal cancer. From July 2007 to June 2008, 33 patients treated with FOLFOX4 plus bevacizumab were enrolled in a prospective study. From January 2007 to June 2007, before bevacizumab was approved by the government in Japan, 31 patients treated with FOLFOX4 as a control were enrolled. CECs of whole blood at the baseline, day 4, 2 weeks after initiation of chemotherapy were isolated and counted using CellSearch system. There was no correlation between CEC levels and the outcome in the FOLFOX4. In the bevacizumab-based chemotherapy, CEC levels at the baseline were significantly associated with the outcome. Patients with 65 or more CECs at the baseline had a shorter median PFS and OS, than the median PFS and OS of less than 65 CECs at the baseline in the bevacizumab-based chemotherapy (P = 0.003, P = 0.027, respectively). By univariate and multivariate Cox proportional-hazards regression, CEC levels (cut-off; 65) at the baseline indicated the strongest predictor for the outcome to bevacizumab-based chemotherapy. A threshold of lower than 65 CECs, by the CellSearch System, at the baseline was a significant predictor of the outcome for colorectal cancer patients treated with bevacizumab-based chemotherapy.

We propose a novel tool called short-term principal component analysis (ST-PCA) to analyze motion capture (MoCap) data, which records realistic movements in a high dimensional time series. Our ST-PCA is successfully applied to beat induction, which is an important perception of human motion especially in dances and is required by many applications such as music synchronization [Kim et al. 2003; Shiratori et al. 2006]. Following [Kim et al. 2003], motion beats are defined as the regular moments when the movement is changed significantly in direction or magnitude. Different from the previous approaches [Kim et al. 2003; Shiratori et al. 2006] that analyze MoCap data in each channel, we estimate the motion beats regarding MoCap data as a whole with the proposed ST-PCA, which performs PCA in a sliding window. Our experiments demonstrate that our method can estimate much more accurate beats in a wide range of motions including complicated dances.

Thymidylate synthase (TS) is a dNTP synthetic enzyme and is also a target enzyme of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU). 5-FU is one of the anticancer agents most frequently used for the treatment of colorectal cancers. However, the clinical rate of response to its use as a single agent is not exceptionally high. Therefore, various combination chemotherapies have been devised. The elevated expression of TS in cancer cells is a serious obstacle in the clinical use of 5-FU. In the present study, TS expression was up-regulated by the knockout of the p21 WAF1/C1P1 gene in human colorectal cancer HCT116 cells, suggesting that TS expression is mediated through the inhibition of cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK). Based on these findings, we tested whether the CDK inhibitor (CDKI) SU9516, acted as a suppressor of TS. SU9516 effectively reduced the expression of TS in a dose-dependent manner Furthermore, the reduction of TS expression resulted in enhancement of the sensitivity to 5-FU in human colon cancer DLD-1 cells. Thus, SU9516 might be a promising compound for combination chemotherapy with 5-FU.

This paper proposes a novel visual cryptography method that embeds a natural secret image into two natural carrier images with high quality at low computational complexity. The secret image is decoded visually by superposing the two carrier images. For some applications such as entertainment use, all three images should be high quality natural images and low computational complexity is also required. However, in the conventional methods, picture quality and processing speed have been tradeoff relations. To solve this problem, we propose a method which is based on conventional visual cryptography using error diffusion halftoning and introduce an additional feedback mechanism to embed the high quality natural image. Experimental results show that the proposed method can achieve higher quality natural images of a superposed image and carrier images while computational complexity is maintained low when compared with the conventional methods.

This paper proposes an MP3 watermarking method that is applicable to a mobile terminal with limited computational resources. Considering that the embedded information is copyright information and metadata, which should be extracted before playing back, the watermark detection process should be executed quickly. However, conventional methods cannot detect a digital watermark at high speed. Thus, this paper proposes that scalefactor values in MP3 data be altered so as not to spoil audio quality. Evaluation tests show that the proposed method is capable of embedding 3bits/frame information and detecting at very high speed without degrading audio quality. Finally, this paper describes an application example of our proposal for authentication with a digital signature.