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We developed a noncontact measurement system for monitoring the respiration of multiple people using millimeter-wave array radar. To separate the radar echoes of multiple people, conventional techniques cluster the radar echoes in the time, frequency, or spatial domain. Focusing on the measurement of the respiratory signals of multiple people, we propose a method called respiratory-space clustering, in which individual differences in the respiratory rate are effectively exploited to accurately resolve the echoes from human bodies. The proposed respiratory-space clustering can separate echoes, even when people are located close to each other. In addition, the proposed method can be applied when the number of targets is unknown and can accurately estimate the number and positions of people. We perform multiple experiments involving five or seven participants to verify the performance of the proposed method, and quantitatively evaluate the estimation accuracy for the number of people and the respiratory intervals. The experimental results show that the average root-mean-square error in estimating the respiratory interval is 196 ms using the proposed method. The use of the proposed method, rather the conventional method, improves the accuracy of the estimation of the number of people by 85.0%, which indicates the effectiveness of the proposed method for the measurement of the respiration of multiple people.

We aimed to evaluate the compliance of physicians with the 2014 guidelines of the Japanese Society for Bone and Mineral Research, for the prevention and treatment of glucocorticoid (GC) induced osteoporosis (GIO) and to investigate the risk of fracture and other associated risk factors in bisphosphonate-treated patients. We evaluated 90 female patients with nonrheumatoid arthritis autoimmune diseases who received long-term GC treatment (≥12 months). Clinical characteristics, including age, GC dose, history of fragility fractures, osteoporosis treatments, as well as lumbar (L2–L4) and femoral neck bone mineral density, were collected from the patients’ medical charts. New vertebral fractures during the study period were evaluated using thoracic and lumbar spine radiographs by quantitative measurements. The GIO score was calculated for each patient according to 2014 Japanese guidelines. Of the 90 patients evaluated, 60 were indicated for osteoporosis treatment, based on the 2014 guidelines of Japan. We observed a high compliance rate, with 93% of patients receiving osteoporosis treatment and 50% receiving bisphosphonates. In total, eight patients developed new vertebral fractures during the study, six of whom received bisphosphonates. In bisphosphonate-treated patients, fracture risk was associated with GC treatment and a lack of active vitamin D3 supplementation. The compliance rate with the updated Japanese 2014 guidelines at our institution was very high. Large randomized controlled trials are needed to confirm our findings that suggest that active vitamin D3 should be used in combination with bisphosphonates for the treatment of GIO to reduce fracture risk.

Chronic left ventricular (LV) pressure overload causes relative ischemia with resultant LV dysfunction. We have recently demonstrated that low-intensity pulsed ultrasound (LIPUS) improves myocardial ischemia in a pig model of chronic myocardial ischemia through enhanced myocardial angiogenesis. In the present study, we thus examined whether LIPUS also ameliorates contractile dysfunction in LV pressure-overloaded hearts.Chronic LV pressure overload was induced with transverse aortic constriction (TAC) in mice. LIPUS was applied to the whole heart three times in the first week after TAC and was repeated once a week for 7 weeks thereafter (n = 22). Animals in the control groups received the sham treatment without LIPUS (n = 23). At 8 weeks after TAC, LV fractional shortening was depressed in the TAC-Control group, which was significantly ameliorated in the TAC-LIPUS group (30.4±0.5 vs. 36.2±3.8%, P

Quantitative ultrasound techniques for assessment of bone quality have been attracting significant research attention. The axial transmission technique, which involves analysis of ultrasonic guided waves propagating along cortical bone, has been proposed for assessment of cortical bone quality. Because the frequency-dependent wavenumbers reflect the elastic parameters of the medium, high-resolution estimation of the wavenumbers is required at each frequency with low computational cost. We use an adaptive array signal processing method and propose a technique that can be used to estimate the numbers of propagation modes that exist at each frequency without the need for time-consuming calculations. An experimental study of 4-mm-thick copper and bone-mimicking plates showed that the proposed method estimated the wavenumbers accurately with estimation errors of less than 4% and a calculation time of less than 0.5 s when using a laptop computer.

Ultrasound signals that pass through cancellous bone may be considered to consist of two longitudinal waves, which are called fast and slow waves. Accurate decomposition of these fast and slow waves is considered to be highly beneficial in determination of the characteristics of cancellous bone. In the present study, a fast decomposition method using a wave transfer function with a phase rotation parameter was applied to received signals that have passed through bovine bone specimens with various bone volume to total volume (BV/TV) ratios in a simulation study, where the elastic finite-difference time-domain method is used and the ultrasound wave propagated parallel to the bone axes. The proposed method succeeded to decompose both fast and slow waves accurately; the normalized residual intensity was less than -19.5 dB when the specimen thickness ranged from 4 to 7mm and the BV/TV value ranged from 0.144 to 0.226. There was a strong relationship between the phase rotation value and the BV/TV value. The ratio of the peak envelope amplitude of the decomposed fast wave to that of the slow wave increased monotonically with increasing BV/TV ratio, indicating the high performance of the proposed method in estimation of the BV/TV value in cancellous bone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The received signal in through-transmission ultrasound measurements of cancellous bone consists of two longitudinal waves, called the fast and slow waves. Analysis of these fast and slow waves may reveal characteristics of the cancellous bone that would be good indicators of osteoporosis. Because the two waves often overlap, decomposition of the received signal is an important problem in the characterization of bone quality. This study proposes a fast and accurate decomposition method based on the frequency domain interferometry imaging method with a modified wave transfer function that uses a phase rotation parameter. The proposed method accurately characterized the fast and slow waves in the experimental study, and the residual intensity, which was normalized with respect to the received signal intensity, was less than -20 dB over the bone specimen thickness range from 6 to 15mm. In the simulation study, the residual intensity was less than -20 dB over the specimen thickness range from 3 to 8mm. Decomposition of a single received signal takes only 5 s using a lap- top personal computer with a single central processing unit. The proposed method has great potential to provide accurate and rapid measurements of indicators of osteoporosis in cancellous bone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon nanocoil (CNC), which is synthesized by a catalytic chemical vapor deposition (CCVD) method, has a coil diameter of 300–900 nm and a length of several tens of μm. Although it is very small, CNC is predicted to have a high mechanical strength and hence is expected to have a use in nanodevices such as electromagnetic wave absorbers and field emitters. For nanodevice applications, it is necessary to synthesize CNC in high yield and purity. In this study, we improved the conditions of catalytic layer formation and CCVD. Using optimized CVD conditions, a CNC layer with a thickness of >40 μm was grown from a SnO2/Fe2O3/SnO2 catalyst on a substrate, and its purity increased to 81% ± 2%.

Ultrasonic integrated backscatter (IB) from the heart wall, which has been employed for quantitative tissue characterization of the myocardium, is known to have cyclic variation-a decrease in systole and an increase in diastole. In the present study, by tracking the measurement position of the myocardium and compensating for the movement due to the heartbeat, IB and its temporal variation were obtained from the same site with a high temporal resolution of 1.73 ms. In an in vivo study on a healthy subject, the temporal variation of IB values homogeneously changed across the heart wall, especially during the slow filling and the atrial systole phases. This new finding shows that the IB value reflects a small movement of the myocardium of about 5 mm/s. Thus, the proposed measurement has a potential for quantitative and accurate evaluation of the contraction and relaxation of the myocardium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Epidural anesthesia is a common technique for perioperative analgesia and chronic pain treatment. Since ultrasonography is insufficient for depicting the human vertebral surface, most examiners apply epidural puncture by body surface landmarks on the back such as the spinous process and scapulae without any imaging, including ultrasonography. The puncture route to the epidural space at thoracic vertebrae is much narrower than that at lumber vertebrae, and therefore, epidural anesthesia at thoracic vertebrae is difficult, especially for a beginner. Herein, a novel imaging method is proposed based on a bi-static imaging technique by making use of the transmit beam width and direction. In an in vivo experimental study on human thoracic vertebrae, the proposed method succeeded in depicting the vertebral surface clearly as compared with conventional B-mode imaging and the conventional envelope method. This indicates the potential of the proposed method in visualizing the vertebral surface for the proper and safe execution of epidural anesthesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In most current methods for evaluating the cardiac function by ultrasound, the heart wall area is identified manually by an examiner. To eliminate examiner dependence and to improve usability, an automatic heart wall identification method is desirable. Identification based on only echogenicity often fails because of low echogenicity of some areas of the heart wall. In the present study, to determine more essential features, we focused on the relative temporal change of ultrasonic scatterer distribution and proposed three features for identification of the heart wall and the chamber: cross-correlation of RF signals, that of envelopes, and spatial dispersion of movement vectors in small regions. In an in vivo experiment, using echogenicity and the three features, we identified the heart wall and the chamber in the left ventricular long-axis view, resulting in criteria of separability J of 1.69, 1.40, and 3.02 using these features compared with the result of 0.979 using echogenicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The axial transmission technique, which is used to estimate the phase velocity of an ultrasonic guided wave propagating along cortical bone is a promising tool for bone quality assessment. Lamb waves are ultrasonic guided waves that consist of multiple modes. The number of existing modes and the signal-to-noise ratio required for phase velocity estimation depend on the frequency of the signal. Hence, we employ an adaptive beamforming technique with spatial averaging to control signal-to-noise ratio and resolution by situating subarrays within the full array. Because the determination of the optimal size for spatial averaging is difficult, we propose a new algorithm that does not require a specific size with a new false-phase-velocity rejection technique. Using a 2.0-mm-thick copper plate, the proposed method accurately estimates phase velocity with fitting errors of 0.26 and 1.3%, as shown by simulation and experimental results, respectively. The measurement frequency ranges are more than twice wider than those measured by the conventional method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-invasive identification of ischemic regions is important for diagnosis and treatment of myocardial infarction. In the present study, ultrasound measurement was applied to the interventricular septum of three open-chest swine hearts. The properties of the myocardial contraction response of the septum were compared between normal and acute ischemic conditions, where the acute ischemic condition of the septum originated from direct avascularization of the left anterior descending (LAD) coronary artery. The result showed that the contraction response propagated from the basal side to the apical side along the septum. The estimated propagation velocities in the normal and acute ischemic conditions were 3.6 and 1.9 m/s, respectively. This finding indicates that acute ischemia which occurred 5 s after the avascularization of the LAD promptly suppressed the propagation velocity through the ventricular septum to about half the normal velocity. It was suggested that the myocardial ischemic region could be identified using the difference in the propagation velocity of the myocardial response to contraction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In our previous study, the viscoelasticity of the radial artery wall was estimated to diagnose endothelial dysfunction using a high-frequency (22 MHz) ultrasound device. In the present study, we employed a commercial ultrasound device (7.5 MHz) and estimated the viscoelasticity using arterial pressure and diameter, both of which were measured at the same position. In a phantom experiment, the proposed method successfully estimated the elasticity and viscosity of the phantom with errors of 1.8 and 30.3%, respectively. In an in vivo measurement, the transient change in the viscoelasticity was measured for three healthy subjects during flow-mediated dilation (FMD). The proposed method revealed the softening of the arterial wall originating from the FMD reaction within 100 s after avascularization. These results indicate the high performance of the proposed method in evaluating vascular endothelial function just after avascularization, where the function is difficult to be estimated by a conventional FMD measurement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An elastic property of biological soft tissue is an important indicator of the tissue status. Therefore, quantitative and noninvasive methods for elasticity evaluation have been proposed. Our group previously proposed a method using acoustic radiation pressure irradiated from two directions for elastic property evaluation, in which by measuring the propagation velocity of the shear wave generated by the acoustic radiation pressure inside the object, the elastic properties of the object were successfully evaluated. In the present study, we visualized the propagation of the shear wave in a three-dimensional space by the synchronization of signals received at various probe positions. The proposed method succeeded in visualizing the shear wave propagation clearly in the three-dimensional space of 35 × 41 × 4 mm3. These results show the high potential of the proposed method to estimate the elastic properties of the object in the three-dimensional space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The beam-space (BS) Capon method is an adaptive beamforming technique that reduces computational complexity. However, the complexity is not low enough for real-time imaging. Reducing the number of time-delay and transformation processes from element-space to BS signal processing is required. We propose a technique that replaces the time-delay processes by the multiplication of steering vectors and covariance matrices. In addition, we propose a compensation technique for estimating the intensity accurately. In an experimental study using a 2.0 MHz transmission frequency on a 15 × 10.4 mm2 region of interest, the first side-lobe level, the −6 dB beam width, the intensity’s estimation error, and the calculation time of the conventional method were −15 dB, 0.70 mm, 3.2 dB, and 656 ms. Those of the proposed method were −17 dB, 0.36 mm, 1.6 dB, and 81 ms, respectively. Using our method on three CPUs achieves imaging of 37 frames/s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a method for assessment of the degree of red blood cell (RBC) aggregation using the backscattering property of high-frequency ultrasound. In this method, the scattering property of RBCs is extracted from the power spectrum of RBC echoes normalized by that from the posterior wall of a vein. In an experimental study using a phantom, employing the proposed method, the sizes of microspheres 5 and 20 µm in diameter were estimated to have mean values of 4.7 and 17.3 µm and standard deviations of 1.9 and 1.4 µm, respectively. In an in vivo experimental study, we compared the results between three healthy subjects and four diabetic patients. The average estimated scatterer diameters in healthy subjects at rest and during avascularization were 7 and 28 µm, respectively. In contrast, those in diabetic patients receiving both antithrombotic therapy and insulin therapy were 11 and 46 µm, respectively. These results show that the proposed method has high potential for clinical application to assess RBC aggregation, which may be related to the progress of diabetes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-accuracy ultrasound motion estimation has become an essential technique in blood flow imaging, elastography, and motion imaging of the heart wall. Speckle tracking has been one of the best motion estimators; however, conventional speckle-tracking methods neglect the effect of out-of-plane motion and deformation. Our proposed method assumes that the cross-correlation between a reference signal and a comparison signal depends on the spatio-temporal distance between the two signals. The proposed method uses the decrease in the cross-correlation value in a reference frame to compensate for the intrinsic error caused by out-of-plane motion and deformation without a priori information. The root-mean-square error of the estimated lateral tissue motion velocity calculated by the proposed method ranged from 6.4 to 34% of that using a conventional speckle-tracking method. This study demonstrates the high potential of the proposed method for improving the estimation of tissue motion using an ultrasound speckle-tracking method in medical diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present study, we employed two techniques to acquire high-range-resolution images of human carotid arteries in vivo using frequency domain interferometry and the Capon method. One technique ensures the robust depiction of artery interfaces; the other suppresses the deterioration of the imaging performance due to variation of the echo waveform. We applied the proposed method to raw data obtained using a commercial ultrasonographic device with a 7.5 MHz linear array probe. Our method succeeded to depict a horizontal 0.15-mm-thick agar membrane stably, and the standard deviation of the estimated depth was suppressed to 26.7% of that obtained using the conventional method. Our method also succeeded in acquiring high-range-resolution images of six human carotid arteries in vivo. Requiring 0.06 s on a desktop PC with a single CPU for a 1 × 2 cm region of interest, our method is suitable for real-time imaging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]