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Introduction: While genetic aberrations are becoming increasingly critical in disease classification, morphological abnormalities defined by a 10% threshold in each lineage continue to play a significant role as a diagnostic tool for myelodysplastic neoplasms (MDS). However, erythroid lineage dysplasia has been reported in some cases of aplastic anemia (AA), a phenomenon noted as common in the UK guidelines. Methods: We assessed the impact of erythroid dysplasia on the survival in AA patients enrolled in an ongoing prospective registry, central morphological review (blinded), and follow-up study of AA and MDS conducted by the Japanese National Research Group on Idiopathic Bone Marrow Failure Syndromes. Furthermore, we compared the prognosis of AA patients with erythroid dysplasia with that of patients diagnosed in the same study with MDS presenting with single-lineage erythroid dysplasia (“MDS-SLED”). According to this study's definition, the criteria for excluding MDS are stringent, considering both bone marrow cellularity and megakaryocyte counts. Therefore, AA is not diagnosed when a decrease is not observed in the megakaryocyte count. Results: The study included a total of 32 cases of AA with erythroid dysplasia, 56 cases of AA without dysplasia, and 47 cases of MDS-SLED. The overall survival or leukemia-free survival showed no significant difference between AA patients with and without erythroid dysplasia (both p=0.14). Nevertheless, distinct differences were seen between AA with erythroid dysplasia and those diagnosed with MDS-SLED (both p

This study aims to generate test cases for scenario-based assessment of automated driving systems (ADS) when encounter a cut-out maneuver where the lead vehicle having changed lanes, revealing a new lead vehicle that, in some cases, is slower than the original lead (the cutting-out) vehicle. We extracted the cut-out scenarios from an established real-world traffic dataset recorded by instrumented vehicles on Japanese highways and then defined them using vehicle kinematic parameters (velocities and distances). The extracted scenarios were analyzed based on the direct correlation between every two consecutive vehicles: a rear part that describes the correlation between the following vehicle and the cutting-out vehicle; and a frontal part that describes the correlation between the cutting-out vehicle and the preceding vehicle. Parameter ranges were quantified with a regression model and determined based on the risk acceptance threshold applied in the field of Japanese high-speed trains and annual exposure by professional highway drivers to produce a scenario space with a reasonably foreseeable range in which ADS may not produce crashes lest it performs worse than human drivers. A multi-dimensional distribution analytical approach was used to derive a correlation between the following and preceding vehicles considering the initial longitudinal velocities. Results suggest that when the time headway between the following vehicle and the cutting-out vehicle is equal to or more than 2 s, there should not have collision risks between the following vehicle and the preceding vehicle. These findings can help to understand normative driver behavior during cut-out scenarios and to generate accident-free scenario space for which ADS must perform flawlessly.

Verification and validation of automated driving systems’ safety are some of the biggest challenges for the introduction of automated vehicles into the market. Scenario-based safety assessment is an efficient and repeatable method to test the systems’ safety before their deployment in the real world. However, even with limited traffic situations identified as critical to the system behavior, there is still an open range of parameters to describe each situation. Thus, defining specific parameter ranges is crucial to realize the scenario-based safety assessment approach. This study proposes a method to parameterize scenarios extracted from real-world traffic data, analyze their distribution and correlation, and incorporate them into the definition of reasonably foreseeable parameter ranges through the contextualization of resulting ranges with reasonable risk acceptance thresholds from different fields and international environments. Representative values can be selected from these specific parameter ranges to extract specific concrete scenarios applicable for the systems safety assessment. The applicability of the proposed method is demonstrated using parameter ranges obtained to define two sets of 960 cut-in and 6,442 deceleration scenarios extracted from a new set of traffic data collected from Japanese highways under the SAKURA initiative. The outcomes will enable comparisons with traffic data from other countries and inform automated driving system developers, standardization bodies, and policymakers to develop automated vehicle safety assessments applicable internationally.

Hard X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (HAXPES) has been utilized to study chemical state and kinetics of sulfur species in a rubber compound by examining thermally induced changes of S 1s core-level spectra. Two peaks at 2470 and 2472 eV together with the 2479 eV peak from SO42– are resolved in the S 1s spectrum. As the rubber compound is heated at 374, 412, and 440 K, the former two peaks show different thermal behaviors; the peak at 2472 eV is swiftly decreased in its intensity with heating time because of thermal desorption of the sulfur species, whereas the intensity of the 2470 eV peak shows a slight increase especially in the surface region of the rubber compound. On the basis of these thermal behaviors, the peaks at 2470 and 2472 eV are, respectively, associated with S atoms bonded directly to the C atoms and those bonded only to other S atoms. An Arrhenius plot analysis of the 2470 eV peak intensity variation reveals that the S–C bond formation and scission reactions compete with each other with a slightly smaller activation energy in the bond formation than in the bond scission.

Coherent double neutral-pion photoproduction on the deuteron, γd→π0π0d, has been experimentally studied at incident photon energies ranging from 0.75 to 1.15 GeV. The total cross section as a function of the γd center-of-mass energy shows resonance-like behavior, which peaks at approximately 2.47 and 2.63 GeV. The measured angular distribution of deuteron emission is rather flat, which cannot be reproduced by the kinematics of quasi-free π0π0 production with deuteron coalescence. In π0d invariant-mass distributions, a clear peak is observed at 2.14±0.01 GeV/c2 with a width of 0.09±0.01 GeV/c2. The spin-parity of this state is restricted to 1+, 2+ or 3− from the angular distributions of the two π0s. The present work shows strong evidence for the existence of an isovector dibaryon resonance with a mass of 2.14 GeV/c2. The 2+ assignment is consistent with the theoretically predicted D12 state, and also with the energy dependence of the πd partial-wave amplitude P23 for the π±d→π±d and π+d→pp reactions. Keywords: Coherent meson photoproduction, Dibaryon resonance

The total cross sections were measured for coherent double neutral-pion photoproduction on the deuteron at incident energies below 0.9 GeV for the first time. No clear resonance-like behavior is observed in the excitation function for Wγd=2.38–2.61 GeV, where the d⁎(2380) dibaryon resonance observed at COSY is expected to appear. The measured excitation function is consistent with the existing theoretical calculation for this reaction. The upper limit of the total cross section is found to be 0.034 μb for the dibaryon resonance at Wγd=2.37 GeV (90% confidence level) in the γd→π0π0d reaction.

The irradiation hardening and microstructures of pure W and W–3%Re for up to 5.0 dpa by self-ion irradiation were investigated in this work. The ion irradiation was conducted using 18 MeV W6+ at 500 and 800°C. A focused ion beam followed by electro-polishing was used to make thin foil specimens for transmission electron microscope observations. Dislocation loops were observed in all the irradiated samples. Voids were observed in all of the specimens except the W–3%Re irradiated to 0.2 dpa. The hardness was measured by using nanoindentation. The irradiation hardening was saturated at 1.0 dpa for pure W. In the case of W–3%Re, the irradiation hardening showed a peak at 1.0 dpa. The correlation between the microstructure and hardening was investigated.

We report a patient with primary anti-phospholipid syndrome (APS) who developed pulmonary edema following sudden-onset pain in the left, lower back of the chest. Radiological examinations demonstrated fresh infarction of the left adrenal gland but no obvious thrombi in pulmonary arteries. The patient quickly recovered from pulmonary edema with anti-coagulation therapy alone. Primary APS may have caused adrenal infarction in the patient, leading to transient pulmonary edema via microthrombosis and/or excessive release of catecholamine.