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This study aims to elucidate the foreign patient-specific factors associated with emergency department length of stay (EDLOS) in a regional core hospital emergency department (ED) in Japan.This retrospective observational study included non-Japanese patients who visited the ED in a Japanese regional core hospital between April 1, 2018, and March 31, 2020. The effects on EDLOS were assessed using multivariate linear regression analysis, which included factors such as age, sex, consultation language, interpreter usage, arrival time, day of visit, mode of arrival, underlying disease, triage level, diagnosis of injury/noninjury, diagnostic investigations, consultation with specialists, and treatments or procedures.Of 65,297 ED patients, there were 777 study patients, with a median age of 37 years (interquartile range [IQR], 24.0-50.0). The median EDLOS was 101 min (IQR, 63.0-153.0). Multivariate linear regression analysis indicated that an extended EDLOS was associated with: language apart from Japanese, Chinese, or English (51.7 min; 95% confidence interval [CI], 17.8-85.6), helicopter arrival (115.6 min; 95% CI, 48.8-182.5), blood testing (60.5 min; 95% CI, 34.6-86.4), computed tomography (23.8 min; 95% CI, 3.7-43.9), consultation with specialists (36.2 min; 95% CI, 11.8-60.6), intravenous fluid/medication (29.7 min; 95% CI, 3.3-56.1), and surgical procedure/reduction/fixation in the ED (38.8 min; 95% CI, 14.2-63.4).Consultation in a language other than Japanese, English, or Chinese was associated with a longer EDLOS in a regional core hospital in Japan. Devising ways to accommodate patients who speak various languages could be important.

Background This study aimed to clarify the effects of underlying diseases on clinical outcomes of patients aboard a world cruise ship. Methods This prospective cohort study included patients who sought physician consultations at an onboard clinic on a 105-day world cruise (September–December 201X) on a ship chartered by a Japanese travel agency. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was performed to ascertain whether any concurrent disease, such as hypertension, was associated with additional onboard treatment by the primary physician or serious events, including unexpected final disembarkation, temporary disembarkation for hospitalization ashore, shore-side referral, and onboard clinic admission. Results Of 313 patients, 182 (58%) had at least one underlying disease. Sixty-eight (22%) required additional treatment, and 24 (8%) experienced serious events. After adjusting for age, sex, and underlying diseases, the 60–69- and 70–74-year age groups had a lower risk of serious events than the ≤59-year age group (odds ratio [OR], 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.24, 0.069–0.81; p = 0.022 and 0.045, 0.0051–0.47; p = 0.0055). Underlying disease was associated with serious events (OR, 95% CI: 3.2, 1.1–9.5; p = 0.036). Conclusions Unexpected events can occur in patients on world cruises regardless of age. Preexisting diseases may confer higher risk of serious events.

Node localization obtained by estimating node positions is an essential technique for wireless multi-hop networks. In this paper, we present an optimized link state routing (OLSR)-based localization (ROULA) that satisfies the following key design requirements: (i) independency from anchor nodes, (ii) robustness for non-convex network topology, and(iii) compatibility with network protocol. ROULA is independent from anchor nodes and can obtain the correct node positions in non-convex network topology. In addition, ROULA is compatible with the OLSR network protocol, and it uses the inherent distance characteristic of multipoint relay (MPR) nodes. We reveal the characteristics of MPR selection and the farthest 2-hop node selection used in ROULA, and describe how these node selections contribute to reducing the distance error for a localization scheme without using ranging devices. We used a simulation to specify appropriate MPR_COVERAGE, which is defined to control the number of MPR nodes in OLSR, and give a comparative performance evaluation of ROULA for various scenarios including non-convex network topology and various deployment radii of anchor nodes. Our evaluation proves that ROULA achieves desirable performance in various network scenarios.

The above article, published online on 25 July 2012 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com), has been retracted by agreement between the authors, the journal Editor-in-Chief, Stefan Hildebrandt, and Wiley-VCH GmbH & Co. KGaA. The retraction has been agreed since the contents of the article have already been published by the corresponding author in Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 51, 061602 (2012) on 4 June 2012. The manuscript submitted to physica status solidi (c) was part of the E-MRS 2012 Spring Meeting, Symposium A, Proceedings. The authors regret the dual publication and express their sincere apologies to readers.

In an ad-hoc network where available bandwidth is limited, the amount of transmitted data needs to be reduced. Especially in mission-critical ad-hoc networks such as tactical or disaster rescue networks, the bandwidth constraints are much more severe than in commercial or general public networks. In order to decrease the data amount, flexibility of the transmitted information should be limited. In traditional information theory, the basic criterion for effectiveness of coding is entropy based on probability. In this paper, we propose a new measure, urgency index and urgency entropy, to evaluate the effectiveness of coding in urgent communication and discuss its usefulness for designs of bandwidth constrained, control-based ad-hoc networks from a viewpoint of utility functions and elasticity.

Determining the physical location of indoor objects is a key issue in ubiquitous computing. Although there have been many proposals to provide physical location, these have had several restrictions such as dependence on the type and size of objects and trade-offs between location accuracy and the number of sensing devices. We propose an approach to removing these restrictions using mobile detectors. This paper describes the design of a goods tracking system called MobiTra that estimates the locations of any indoor objects using detection histories sent by mobile detectors. MobiTra is separated by several components and two data flows. A prototype for MobiTra was developed using an active RF system and Cricket, which can obtain a high degree of accuracy. We evaluated how accurately MobiTra estimated location in an environment that generated MTR errors. The errors affected the size of the estimated area and its position. We propose a new method of estimating location to be used in environments that generate MTR errors.

Real-time monitoring of optical anisotropy during growth by the chemical mist deposition of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) films was carried out using spectroscopic ellipsometry. The microstructure of the grown films was found to be primarily determined by the DC bias applied to the mesh electrode. The ellipsometry results revealed that uniaxial anisotropy appeared for film thicknesses of about 5 nm and above, which corresponds to the average size of PEDOT crystallites. The extraordinary refractive index was found to be strongly correlated with the carrier mobility. Both the degree of optical anisotropy and the carrier mobility could be controlled during film growth by adjusting the DC bias.

The electrospray deposition (ESD) of poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) films for use in crystalline silicon/organic hybrid heterojunction solar cells on a crystalline silicon (c-Si) wafer was investigated using real-time characterization by spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE). In contrast to the nonuniform deposition of products frequently obtained by spin-coating, a uniform deposition of P3HT films was achieved on flat and textured hydrophobic c-Si wafers by adjusting the deposition conditions. Similar findings were also obtained for the deposition of conductive poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) on P3HT. The c-Si/P3HT/PEDOT:PSS heterojunction solar cells exhibited efficiencies of 4.1 and 6.3% on flat and textured c-Si wafers, respectively. These findings suggest that ESD is a promising method for the uniform deposition of P3HT and PEDOT:PSS films on flat and textured hydrophobic substrates.