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This study clarified the features of fatal truck-pedestrian and truck-cyclist accidents by a comparison with sedans. Fatal accident data from the Japanese Institute Traffic Accident Research and Data Analysis (ITARDA) database were analyzed for the years 2012 ∼ 2016. The trucks were classified into three categories: heavy-, medium-, and light-duty. All three categories had higher percentages of pedestrians as fatal collision partners as opposed to cyclists. Every truck category had significantiy higher percentages of pedestrian fatalities due to daytime right turns than sedans. Heavy-duty trucks had significantly higher percentages of cyclist fatalities due to daytime and nighttime left turns than sedans. These results show that the design specifications for new sensing technology to avoid collisions with pedestrians and cyclists should differ among vehicle types. The knowledge obtained in this study will be useful to develop new technology or systems that are effective in dangerous situations between trucks and pedestrians or cyclists.

宮本輝の「アルコール兄弟」は、会社の組合活動をめぐって反目していた「私」と島田が、偽の和解をして、翌日には敵対するという物語である。彼らの思い―「優しくなればいい」―と、現実の行動での乖離を彼らの言動から押さえ、最終場面での敵対行動に注目し、この作品の特徴と限界を考える。

Oxaliplatin (OXL) therapy often causes side effects including chronic peripheral neuropathy. We investigated the pain-relieving effects of recombinant human lactoferrin (rhLf) as well as a long-acting IgG-Fc fused rhLf (rhLf-Fc) on OXL-induced neuropathic pain. We used the hLf in this study, because the homology between mouse Lf and hLf is higher than that of bovine Lf. In addition, rhLf-Fc is expected to enhance the analgesic effect due to the life extension effect in the body. We administered OXL (2 mg/kg, i.v.) to mice twice weekly for 4 weeks. Phosphate buffered saline (PBS), rhLf (100 mg/kg, i.p.) or rhLf-Fc (100 mg/kg, i.p.) was administered once a week from day 15 to 32. We also assessed the continuous infusion of same drugs (10 mg/kg/day) into the external jugular vein by using an osmotic pump. Both of rhLf and rhLf-Fc significantly reduced the hypersensitivity to mechanical stimulation when they were administered intraperitoneally. The continuous infusion of rhLf resulted in a more pronounced effect. Histopathological analysis of sciatic nerve showed that both rhLf and rhLf-Fc tended to reduce nerve fiber damage, but no significant difference was observed in nerve fiber cross-sectional area. Therefore, it was suggested that rhLf or rhLf-Fc injection could be an option for controlling neuropathic pain, which are side effects of OXL.

宮本輝の「暑い道」は、語り手である「私」の回想や友人のゲン（尾杉源太郎）との会話で成り立っている。「私」たちは大阪のスラム街出身であり、当時の貧しい生活を背景として、マドンナであった「さつき」との交流や、四人の仲間との友情や葛藤などが描かれている。さつきの美しさや「愛情」が印象的であり、その思い出が「私」たちの青春への郷愁を醸し出している。

「夢見通りの人々」の九章と十章は、それまでの章を受けて、シリーズの世界の終わりを描いている。本稿では、春太の光子へのアプローチや竜一の刺青を巡る出来事、春太の美鈴と森との交流、そして別離などを通じて、彼らの思いや成長を、そして、〈夢見通り〉がどこにでもあり、人々はここで、または別の地で、それぞれに生きて行くことを論じた。

「夢見通りの人々」第四章は、タツミ精肉店の竜一と娼婦・明美の交流が描かれている。竜一は幼いときの母の死から孤独であり、粗暴さから女たちに愛されない。だが、明美は彼に愛情を抱き、身をもって彼に彼自身を見せる。その結果、竜一は自分が廃墟との実感を持ち、明美と別れる。この章は、淫蕩にして他者から理解されない孤独な男（竜一）と、そんな彼を愛する女（明美）の出会いと別れの物語である。

「真夏の犬」は、語り手「ぼく」の一夏の異常な体験談である。父親から与えられたバイト（見張り）中の酷暑の苦しみや、押し寄せる野良犬たちとの闘い、そして、自殺した女性の死体などが語られる。「ぼく」は、生きることと死ぬこと、そして、父親たちとの関係を考える。それは成長のためのつらい「通過儀礼」かもしれない。

We study fuel layering for the Fast Ignition Realization EXperiment (FIREX) cryogenic target with a foam shell. A void free solid fuel layer within a porous foam material must be formed ideally. We have demonstrated the residual void fraction of ∼1% in a foam wedge with temperature controlled solidification. ANSYS simulations have shown that the residual void reduction technique will be applicable to the FIREX target. We examined each step in the simulated solidification process using a dummy foam shell target. In several attempts, solid fuel formation with a reduced void fraction in the foam shell succeeded.

This study aimed to clarify the relationship between truck-cyclist collision impact velocity and the serious-injury and fatality risks to cyclists, and to investigate the effects of road type and driving scenario on the frequency of cyclist fatalities due to collisions with vehicles. We used micro and macro truck-cyclist collision data from the Japanese Institute for Traffic Accident Research and Data Analysis (ITARDA) database. We classified vehicle type into five categories: heavy-duty trucks (gross vehicle weight [GVW] ≥11 × 103 kg [11 tons (t)], medium-duty trucks (5 × 103 kg [5 t] ≤ GVW < 11 × 103 kg [11 t]), light-duty trucks (GVW

Peritoneal carcinomatosis (PC) is the most frequent metastatic pattern of gastric cancer and its prognosis is extremely poor. PC is characterized by rich fibrosis and the development of obstructive disorders such as ileus, jaundice and hydronephrosis. Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is one of the major causes of tissue fibrosis and transforming growth factor β (TGF-β) has a pivotal function in the progression of EMT. Protein-bound polysaccharide K (PSK) is a biological response modifier that can modulate the TGF-β/Smad signaling pathway in vitro. In the present study, we established a fibrotic tumor model using human peritoneal mesothelial cells (HPMCs) and a human gastric cancer cell line to evaluate whether PSK attenuates tumor fibrosis. HPMCs exposed to PSK did not undergo the morphological change from a cobblestone-like pattern to a spindle-shape pattern normally induced by treatment with TGF-β. Immunofluorescence further demonstrated that PSK suppressed TGF-β-induced overexpression of α-SMA in the HPMCs. We further showed that HPMCs contributed to the proliferation of tumor fibrosis by using a mouse xenograft model. Additionally, PSK treatment of these mice significantly reduced the area of observable tumor fibrosis. These results suggest that seeded cancer cells transformed HPMCs into myofibroblast-like cells through their release of TGF-β in the microenvironment, facilitating the development of fibrous tumors in organs covered with HPMCs. Therefore, our study indicates that PSK has potential utility as an anti-fibrotic agent in the treatment of gastric cancer patients with PC.

This study aimed to clarify the relationship between truck-pedestrian crash impact velocity and the risks of serious injury and fatality to pedestrians. We used micro and macro truck-pedestrian accident data from the Japanese Institute for Traffic Accident Research and Data Analysis (ITARDA) database. We classified vehicle type into five categories: heavy-duty trucks (gross vehicle weight [GVW] ≥11 × 103 kg [11 tons (t)], medium-duty trucks (5 × 103 kg [5 t] ≤ GVW < 11 × 103 kg [11 t]), light-duty trucks (GVW

When a link or node fails in a network, the affected flows are automatically rerouted. This increases the hop counts of the flows, which can drastically degrade network performance. Keeping the hop lengths as stable as possible, i.e., minimizing the difference in hop length between the original flow and the rerouted flow is important for network reliability. Therefore, network service providers need a method for designing networks that stabilizes the flow hop length and maintains connectivity during a link or node failure with limited investment cost. First, we formulate the network design problem used for determining the set of links to be added that satisfies the required constraints on flow hop length stability, connectivity, and node degree. Next, we prove that this problem is NP-complete and present two approximation algorithms for the optimization problem so as to minimize the number of links added. Evaluation of the performance of these algorithms by using 39 backbone networks of commercial ISPs and networks generated by two well-known models showed that the proposed algorithms provide effective solutions in sufficiently short computation time.

Fuel layering of a cryogenic target with a conical laser guide such as the FIREX target is complicated because of its non-spherical symmetry appearance. To simplify the layering, a foam layer is pl...

Recently multi-car elevator (MCE) consisting of several elevator cars in a single elevator shaft received great interest as transportation systems for high-rise buildings. Algorithms for efficiently controlling elevator cars are necessary to put MCEs to practical use. We propose an algorithm for controlling MCEs to reduce passenger-waiting time. A feature of our algorithm is the introduction of a simple function estimating efficiency of passenger transport and a procedure checking assignability of a car. We evaluate the performance of our algorithm using a simulation and show that it performs better compared with a previous algorithm.

An ultrasonic motor using two bolt-clamped Langevin-type transducers was described. A rigorous optimization of the motor’s structure was conducted and its results are reported in regard to various motor parameters. Based on FEM analysis and experimental results it was established that symmetric and anti-symmetric resonance frequencies could be matched by adjusting the mass of the tip of the motor’s head block. The driving voltage of the motor was reduced by using stacked multi-layered piezo-elements. The velocity of the motor fabricated in this study was more than 1.5 m/s and 25 N in a condition. However, a velocity of less than 100 mm/s could not be achieved using conventional resonance driving. In the case of a velocity lower than 1 mm/s, driving was achieved by “inertial driving.” 1.5 nm resolution was observed using DC driving.

Measurement techniques have been developed to characterize form shell targets for the Fast Iginition Realization Experiment (FIREX) project. Interferometry has been adopted to determine the volume of hydrogen fuel in the form shell. A preliminary experiment has been conducted to evaluate the aplicability of interferometry. The paper describes the measurement techniques and discuesses its accuracies.

A V-shaped, two bolt-clamped Langevin-type transducer, ultrasonic linear motor VSM was developed. In this study, the low speed controllability of the VSM was improved by the development of a new driving principle in which a feedback control was applied. The speed of the VSM was more than 1500mm/sec and the velocity error was approximately 0.2% when driven at 1000mm/sec. Ten nm step driving also could be obtained, and lnm resolution was observed. In the combination of a fast mode and a micro-motion mode, the stage was settled to a target position of plusmnlnm.

A way to make a hole in a resorcinol-formaldehyde (RF) foam shell target is described. A target used in fast ignition (FI) experiments consists of an RF foam shell and a guide cone. The fragile RF foam cannot accept conventional mechanical drilling or laser machining. We used the second harmonics of a Nd:YAG laser (532nm) to bore a hole for the cone by utilizing thermal decomposition of the RF foam.To optimize the cutting condition, the thermal characteristic and absorption spectrum of the RF foam were measured with a thermo-gravimetric meter and a spectrometer, respectively. Then, using these results, relationships between the laser power and cutting speed were optimized for RF foams with several densities.

The fuel layering process of a cryogenic target for the Fast Ignition Realization EXperiment (FIREX) project has been studied. A foam shell method is proposed as a fuel layering technique for this target design. The difficulty of the fuel layering comes from the aspherical target symmetry. In the case of the foam shell method, liquid fuel is directly infiltrated into a foam shell though a fuel feeder and is soaked up into the foam layer by capillarity. The fuel is then solidified and an ideal cryogenic target is formed. To date, the cryogenic system for the demonstration of the fuel layering was fabricated and subsequently modified to improve its cool-down performance. A dummy foam target has been utilized to study the fuel layering process using H 2 instead of D 2 and DT fuels. Liquid H 2 is supplied into the shell through a feeder with a 20 μm inner tip diameter. The solid H 2 quantity remaining in the shell was controlled by regulating both H 2 pressure and target temperature during solidification.

In this report, we describe fuel (deuterium and tritium) capsule preparation for the fast-ignition realization experiment (FIREX) in laser fusion research. The required diameter and thickness of the capsule are 500 and 20 µm, respectively. The material should be plastics with low-density foam. We have prepared such a capsule using (1) a new material of (phloroglucinolcarboxylic acid)/formalin resin to control the kinematic viscosity of the precursor, (2) the phase-transfer-catalyzed gelation process to maintain the density matching of the emulsion. The obtained foam capsule had a fine structure of 180 nm (outer surface) to 220 nm (inner surface) size and a uniform thickness reaching the resolution limit of optical analysis (~0.5 µm).

Recent developments of several key issues for fabrication techniques of cone and shell target for the first phase of the Fast Ignition Realization Experiment (FIREX-I) project at the Institute of Laser Engineering, Osaka University, are described in this paper. The most important modification of the target design is a double cone, and a new fabrication technique has been developed. Although the error of assembling the cones is still several microns, the first prototype of a double-cone target with a vacuum gap of 20 μm was successfully provided for the preliminary experiment. Additionally, Ti:sapphire laser machining was used to bore a hole in the polystyrene shell.

High reliability and performance are needed as the Internet becomes an important social infrastructure. Network delay is one of measures of performance of network. As delay between two nodes correlates roughly with the distance between them, the diameter of the network which is the maximum distance of all two nodes must be small. In addition, it is necessary to keep small network delay against network failures. Therefore, critical links whose failures significantly degrade the performance must be protected by rapid recovery so that failures cannot be detected over the IP layer. The number of these protected links must be small to restrict investment cost of facilities and operational cost for Internet service providers. Consequently, it is important to find the smallest number of links to be protected so that the diameter of a network is not more than a given integer even if a limited number of non-protected links fail. It was proved by the authors that this problem is NP-hard when the number of the simultaneous link failures, k, is more than or equal to three, and it can be solved in polynomial time when k is restricted to one. However, it was not known whether the problem is NP-hard or not when k = 2. Furthermore, no approximation algorithm was known for the NP-hard cases. In this paper, we solve these unsolved issues of this problem. First, we prove that the problem is NP-hard even if k = 2. Second, we present approximation algorithms with the approximation ratio of a fixed constant for the NP-hard cases. These results make clear the computational complexity of this problem theoretically and give the useful network design algorithms also from the practical viewpoints.

Network reliability is needed as the Internet becomes an important social infrastructure. However, we face risks of failure and congestion on many links or routers, therefore, a network should be robust enough to avoid failure and congestion. As the route of a path between two nodes is automatically determined by a routing protocol, many paths may be included in a same link and it may cause congestion. Especially, when a link fails, the routes of the paths included in the link are automatically changed, and eventually congestion may occur. If there are critical links whose failures cause congestion, they must be protected by the function that a failed link is rapidly switched to its backup link in the lower layer and the failure is not detected over the IP layer. However, such a link protection increases investment cost for facilities and operational cost. In this paper, we formulate the problem to find links to be protected so that no congestion occurs even if any non-protected links fails. We prove that this problem is NP-hard. In addition, we present a polynomial-time algorithm to solve the problem that the number of simultaneously failed links is restricted to one.

The critical links whose failures significantly deteriorate the performance in a network must be protected not to fail or to be rapidly switched to their backup links. The number of these links should be small to restrict the investment cost of facilities and the operational cost for Internet service providers. Therefore, it is important to find the smallest number of links to be protected such that the diameter of the resulting graph by the failures of non-protected links is less than or equal to a given value. In this paper, we formulate this new link protection problem and prove that the problem is NP-hard. In addition, we propose a polynomial-time algorithm to solve the problem that the number of the simultaneous link failures is restricted to one. As about 70% of unintentional failures, excluding ones caused by maintenance, are single link failures, our algorithm for the restricted problem is not only theoretically important but also actually useful.

A telecommunication network should be reliable. However, in many actual networks, there exists the risk that the quality of service drastically deteriorates when the length of paths increases due to a link failure. To get rid of this risk, it is necessary to design a stable network that the maximum increasing ratio of the length of all paths in case of a link failure is small. We proposed the approximation algorithm for the network design problem that constructs such a network by adding some links to a network before. On the other hand, a network design method to construct a network from scratch is also needed. For that purpose, in this paper, we deal with the network design problem that determines a graph with the limited degree, diameter, and maximum increasing ratio of the lengths of all paths in case of an edge deletion. First, we prove that this problem is NP-complete. Next, we propose a heuristic algorithm for this problem and evaluate its performance by the comparison with some actual ISP backbone networks. Our experimental results show that the proposed algorithm worked well on a set of network structures.

When a link or node failure occurs in a network, flows are detoured and therefore the hop counts of the flows increase. This increase could drastically deteriorate the quality of a network. The flow hop length stability as well as network connectivity is important for network reliability. We investigate a network design method that improves stability and connectivity of a network during a failure with a limited investment cost. We formalize a network design problem, prove that this problem is NP-complete, and propose an approximation algorithm. In addition, we evaluate the performance of the algorithm by using publicly available data for 39 backbone networks of commercial ISPs and networks generated by two well-known models. The results show that the proposed algorithm provides effective solutions from a practical viewpoint in sufficiently small computation time.

Technologies recreating piano performance in the form of CG animation are eagerly anticipated by people working in various fields, such as content production, music education, etc. Nonetheless, much of the past research has dealt with the mechanical finger movements in piano practice support systems and performance support GUIs, etc. and there has been little research recreating the reality of finger movements. We are promoting research into the analysis and CG expression of realistic and natural piano fingering. This paper describes the following aspects of this research program: (i) measurement of piano fingering using motion capture technology, (ii) generation of a CG animation of fingering using offline/realtime rendering, and (iii) automatic generation of fingering using optimized algorithms. And finally we will introduce examples in which the fingering data created in (i) is used in TV animation.

To examine the clinical efficacy and the mechanism of action of polysaccharide K (PSK), a protein-bound polysaccharide extracted from a Basidiomycetes fungus, a randomized double-blind trial was performed by administering PSK to 56 patients and a placebo to another group of 55 patients after surgical operations on their colorectal cancers. The rate of patients in remission (or disease-free) was significantly higher in the PSK group than in the placebo group; the difference between both groups was statistically significant at P less than 0.05 by the log-rank test. The survival rate of patients was also significantly (P less than 0.05) higher in the PSK group than in the control group. The most significant laboratory finding was that polymorphonuclear leukocytes from PSK-treated patients showed remarkable enhancement in their activities, such as random and/or chemotactic locomotion, and phagocytic activity, when compared with those in the control group. In conclusion, PSK was useful as a maintenance therapy for patients after their curative surgical operations for colorectal cancer. The beneficial effects were probably due to the activation of leukocyte functions as one of the many biological-response-modifying (activities induced by PSK).

The purpose of the present study was to develop a three-dimensional (3D) non-radiographic cephalometric system based on Simon's three planes. In pursuit of cephalometry without irradiation of patients, readiness of data and simplicity of the system, a portable 3D computer-aided, contact-method cephalometric system, equipped with newly developed cephalometric software for chairside use, was developed. The feasibility of its clinical use was examined based on comparison of the measurements obtained with those from conventional radiographic cephalometry on a human dry skull, as well as on three living subjects. From a total of nine measurements, a statistically significant difference was seen in six measurements: FMPA, U1/FH, FMIA, ANB, IMPA, and A-Np for the dry skull; in four measurements: FPA, FMPA, U1/FH, and Pog-Np for subject A; in five measurements: FMPA, U1/FH, FMIA, AN/FH, and A-Np for subject B; and in seven measurements: FMA, FMPA, U1/FH, FMIA, ANB, IMPA, and AN/FH for subject C. A clinically significant difference was found only in one measurement, U1/FH for the dry skull, in four measurements FPA, FMPA, U1/FH, and Pog-Np for subject A, in one measurement AN/FH for subject B, and in three measurements U1/FH, FMIA, and AN/FH for subject C. While demonstrating workability as a chairside tool and whilst there is a need for further refinement in measurement accuracy, this newly developed cephalometric system shows potential applicability, not only in the clinic as an auxiliary to or as a substitute for existing radiographic cephalometry, but also outside the clinic as an epidemiological tool.