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Wassel VI radial polydactyly is associated with metacarpal adduction and radial deviation of the metacarpophalangeal joint of the ulnar duplicate. The soft tissue abnormalities responsible for these deformities were characterized using preoperative multi-planar three-dimensional ultrasound and intraoperative observation in four patients. In all patients, the abductor pollicis brevis and superficial head of the flexor pollicis brevis inserted into the radial first metacarpal, whereas the adductor pollicis and deep head of the flexor pollicis brevis inserted into the ulnar thumb. Aberrant location of the flexor pollicis longus and absence of the A1 pulley system was associated with severe radial deviation. An additional superficial thenar muscle along the ulnar metacarpal was associated with minimal metacarpal adduction. Uneven forces on the ulnar duplicate could be associated with these characteristic deformities and joint instability. Knowledge of these abnormalities allows better planning of surgery and further insight into this rare radial polydactyly configuration. Level of evidence: II

A solar energetic particle (SEP) event generates a shower of secondary generated particles in the Earth’s atmosphere down to lower altitudes to cause an atmospheric radiation storm (ARS). The high-energy secondary particles cause additional radiation dose at altitudes where aircraft flies. The space weather information provided by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) designated space weather centers includes advisories on the solar radiation storm. The Warning System for AVIation Exposure to Solar energetic particle (WASAVIES), we can estimate the effective dose rate (EDR) along the flight path of the aircraft. However, it has not been well established how the operators of aircraft should react with the space weather advisories on the solar radiation storm. By using a flight trajectory generation algorithm and the global EDR distribution, the economic impacts of ARS associated with SEP events on aircraft operation, namely the flight path length, flight time, and fuel consumption, are estimated. The conditions of the peak of the ARS event on 20 January 2005 are used. The economic impacts for a flight route from New York, US to Tokyo, Japan, are estimated with constraints in flight routes to avoid the hazard of radiation and compared with those of the reference case without the ARS effects. The fuel consumption is shown to increase by 39–69 tons (33–58%) for a twin-engine, wide-body jet passenger aircraft, when a constraint is imposed on the flight altitude only. When the constraints are set on the aircraft altitude and the latitude, the flight time and the fuel consumption are both increased by 2.2–2.8 h (17–20%) and 32–48 tons (27–41%), respectively. If the ARS event duration is limited for 3 h, the increase in the fuel consumption is about 7.6–14 tons (6.4–12%). This economic impact may be reduced, if the space weather nowcast and forecast for the ARS and an optimal flight trajectory generation algorithm are used together. Setting more flexible constraints on the flight route and generating optimal flight trajectories with minimal economic impacts by fully utilizing the global EDR distribution is the next step.

We introduce a network observation of anomalous long-distance propagation of aeronautical navigation (NAV) very high-frequency (VHF) radio waves due to sporadic E layer (Es). The system has been operative since May 2019 at 6 stations in Japan. The receiver consists of a log-periodic antenna, air-band filter, software-defined radio and small computer which is capable of recording the strength of radio signals in the frequency band from 98 to 118 MHz with a temporal resolution of 2 s. The receiver covers not only the NAV band including VHF omnidirectional radio range (VOR), instrument landing system localizer (ILS LOC) and ground-based augmentation system VHF data broadcast (GBAS VDB) from 108 to 118 MHz, but also broadcasting channels from 98 to 108 MHz. Soon after the start of the full operation of the network observation, a strong Es event was detected by an ionosonde in Tokyo during the daytime on July 4, 2019, in which foEs (critical frequency of Es) was sometimes higher than 15 MHz. The VHF radio wave monitoring system detected multiple signatures of Es anomalous propagation (EsAP) at all the stations extending from Okinawa to Hokkaido. At some stations, the EsAP signatures continued for a few hours with some brief intervals of disappearance. The observed correspondence between the enhancement of foEs and the occurrence of anomalous propagation confirmed that an extreme electron density enhancement within Es caused the anomalous long-distance propagation of VHF NAV signals. The data from this network observation can be browsed at http://gwave.cei.uec.ac.jp/cgi-bin/vor/vhf.cgi in near real-time basis. This near real-time monitoring capability allows people in the aeronautical operation community such as air navigation service providers, pilots, and airline engineers to check the propagation environment of VHF NAV signals online, which contributes to a mitigation of ionospheric space weather impacts on the aeronautical navigation systems. Not only that the current method for detecting Es in a wide area can be used to visualize the spatial distribution of Es in two-dimensional fashion through a combination of other observation techniques such as ionosondes and total electron content (TEC) measurements using Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals.

Crowd workers struggle to earn adequate wages. Given the limited task-related information provided on crowd platforms, workers often fail to estimate how long it would take to complete certain microtasks. Although there exist a few third-party tools and online communities that provide estimates of working times, such information is limited to microtasks that have been previously completed by other workers, and such tasks are usually booked immediately by experienced workers. This paper presents a computational technique for predicting microtask working times (i.e., how much time it takes to complete microtasks) based on past experiences of workers regarding similar tasks. The following two challenges were addressed during development of the proposed predictive model --- (i) collection of sufficient training data labeled with accurate working times, and (ii) evaluation and optimization of the prediction model. The paper first describes how 7,303 microtask submission data records were collected using a web browser extension --- installed by 83 Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) workers --- created for characterization of the diversity of worker behavior to facilitate accurate recording of working times. Next, challenges encountered in defining evaluation and/or objective functions have been described based on the tolerance demonstrated by workers with regard to prediction errors. To this end, surveys were conducted in AMT asking workers how they felt regarding prediction errors in working times pertaining to microtasks simulated using an "imaginary" AI system. Based on 91,060 survey responses submitted by 875 workers, objective/evaluation functions were derived for use in the prediction model to reflect whether or not the calculated prediction errors would be tolerated by workers. Evaluation results based on worker perceptions of prediction errors revealed that the proposed model was capable of predicting worker-tolerable working times in 73.6% of all tested microtask cases. Further, the derived objective function contributed to realization of accurate predictions across microtasks with more diverse durations.

Plasma bubbles can affect ground-based augmentation system (GBAS) performance by posing large spatial ionospheric gradients between the aircraft and the airport, which makes it important to detect plasma bubbles effectively. In this study, we investigate the use of VHF radar to detect plasma bubbles and mitigate their potential impact on GBAS through a simulation. When the line-of-sight of a certain GPS satellite is determined to be passing through an area of plasma bubbles as detected by EAR, such GPS satellite shall be removed from the positioning calculation on board the aircraft. We set up different simulation scenarios by varying the satellite geometry, and airport coordinate. Results are described in the form of vertical protection level (VPL) and vertical position error (VPE), which we then analyse as a function of zonal and meridional distance. The results show that such a radar-based monitoring system can be used to mitigate the effects of plasma bubbles on GBAS to cover surrounding airports within a certain range, especially in the meridional direction.

BACKGROUND Photoacoustic tomography (PAT) is a noninvasive vascular imaging modality that uses near-infrared pulse laser beams and ultrasound (US) to visualize vessels. We previously demonstrated the utility of PAT for visualizing anterolateral thigh (ALT) perforators in a clinical study of 10 thighs in 5 healthy adults. Evaluation of the correlation between PAT and US findings showed that PAT had comparable diagnostic potential but was superior in visualizing subcutaneous microvessels; however, there was no comparison with intraoperative findings. In this study, we used a newly developed technique to transfer a PAT image to a body-attachable transparent sheet to compare PAT and intraoperative findings. METHODS Eight patients were recruited in this prospective study. Patient age ranged from 32 to 79 years (average 60). Seven ALT flaps were applied in head and neck reconstruction. One flap was elevated in chest wall reconstruction. Each PAT scan of an 18 cm × 13.5 cm region took approximately 5 min. Acquired data were processed three-dimensionally using a novel imaging software program. Perforator vessel data from PAT imaging were traced and corrected for projection onto medical film sheets. The correlation between the perforator stem portions predicted by PAT and the intraoperative findings at the level of the fascia-penetrating points was evaluated, and distal branching patterns were analyzed. RESULTS PAT imaging showed 16 perforators in 8 thighs. Intraoperative surgical findings revealed that all the perforator penetrating points at the deep fascia level matched the PAT findings within 10 mm. None of the eight ALT flaps demonstrated postoperative complications. The perforator complexes were classified as type I in three cases (19%), type II in eight cases (50%), and type III in five cases (31%). CONCLUSIONS PAT imaging matched the intraoperative findings within 10 mm. Preoperative vascular evaluation allows for the creation of a vascular map for facilitating ALT flap surgeries.

Cosmic-ray exposure to flight crews and passengers, which is called aviation radiation exposure, is an important topic in radiological protection, particularly for solar energetic particles (SEP). We therefore assessed the risks associated with the countermeasure costs to reduce SEP doses and dose rates for eight flight routes during five ground level enhancements (GLE). A four-dimensional dose-rate database developed by the Warning System for Aviation Exposure to Solar Energetic Particles, WASAVIES, was employed in the SEP dose evaluation. As for the cost estimation, we considered two countermeasures; one is the cancellation of the flight, and the other is the reduction of flight altitudes. Then, we estimated the annual occurrence frequency of significant GLE events that would bring the maximum flight route dose and dose rate over 1.0 mSv and 80 μSv/h, respectively, based on past records of GLE as well as historically large events observed by the cosmogenic nuclide concentrations in tree rings and ice cores. Our calculations suggest that GLE events of a magnitude sufficient to exceed the above dose and dose rate thresholds, requiring a change in flight conditions, occur once every 47 and 17 years, respectively, and their conservatively-estimated annual risks associated with the countermeasure costs are up to around 1.5 thousand USD in the cases of daily-operated long-distance flights., 太陽フレアによる被ばくの脅威から航空機搭乗者を「合理的」に護る --経済的損失リスクの定量化により最適な航空機運用指針の策定が可能に--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2021-09-03.

Although solar activity may significantly impact the global environment and socioeconomic systems, the mechanisms for solar eruptions and the subsequent processes have not yet been fully understood. Thus, modern society supported by advanced information systems is at risk from severe space weather disturbances. Project for solar–terrestrial environment prediction (PSTEP) was launched to improve this situation through synergy between basic science research and operational forecast. The PSTEP is a nationwide research collaboration in Japan and was conducted from April 2015 to March 2020, supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan. By this project, we sought to answer the fundamental questions concerning the solar–terrestrial environment and aimed to build a next-generation space weather forecast system to prepare for severe space weather disasters. The PSTEP consists of four research groups and proposal-based research units. It has made a significant progress in space weather research and operational forecasts, publishing over 500 refereed journal papers and organizing four international symposiums, various workshops and seminars, and summer school for graduate students at Rikubetsu in 2017. This paper is a summary report of the PSTEP and describes the major research achievements it produced.

Summary:. Replacing an infected prosthetic thoracic aorta graft carries a high re-infection risk. We previously reported two clinical cases successfully treated with a new muscular wrapping technique: latissimus dorsi (LD) muscle flap with a distally based serratus anterior (SA) extension; however, a cadaveric study to prove the regular existence of the distal attachment area was lacking. We tried to establish an appropriate way of elevating the combined muscle flap safely. All of the cadavers were preserved using the Thiel embalming technique to retain flexibility. We checked for the existence of the distal attachment area between the LD and SA. Combined muscle flaps were elevated proximally while identifying the thoracodorsal artery, including the LD and SA branches. After the SA branch was ligated and cut, the SA muscle was manually peeled from the LD muscle with only the distal tight attachment area remaining. Contrast-enhanced computed tomography was performed using a multislice computed tomography system. Six human cadavers (three men, three women: 91 years old, on average) were examined. All six LD and SA combined muscle flaps showed a distal tight attachment area at the level from the seventh rib to the ninth rib. The tip of the SA muscle easily reached the sternum. Contrast-enhanced computed tomography failed to reconfirm the distal vascular flow from the LD to the reverse SA muscle, which we had visualized in a clinical case. We demonstrated the anatomical reliability of the new Y-shaped muscular flaps, which are suitable for preventing re-infection of aortic graft replacement.

Background The current gold standard in coronavirus disease (COVID-19) diagnostics is the real-time reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay for detecting severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) RNA in nasopharyngeal swab (NPS) samples. Alternatively, nasal swab (NS) or saliva swab (SS) specimens are used, although available data on test accuracy are limited. We examined the diagnostic accuracy of NPS/NS/SS samples for this purpose. Methods Ten patients were included after being tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR in NPS samples according to the National Institute of Infectious Disease guidelines. In comparison with this conventional diagnostic method, NPS/NS/SS samples were tested using the cobas 6800 systems RT-PCR device. To investigate the usefulness of the cobas method and the difference among sample types, the agreement and sensitivity were calculated. Five to six samples were collected over a total period of 5–6 d from each patient. Results Fifty-seven sets of NPS/NS/SS samples were collected, of which 40 tested positive for COVID-19 by the conventional method. Overall, the concordance rates using the conventional method were 86.0%/70.2%/54.4% for NPS/NS/SS samples (cobas); however, for samples collected up to and including on Day 9 after disease onset (22 negative and one positive specimens), the corresponding rates were 95.7%/87.0%/65.2%. The overall sensitivity estimates were 100.0%/67.5%/37.5% for NPS/NS/SS samples (cobas). For samples up to 9 d after onset, the corresponding values were 100.0%/86.4%/63.6%. Conclusions NS samples are more reliable than SS samples and can be an alternative to NPS samples. They can be a useful diagnostic method in the future.

This study attempts to use crowdsourcing to facilitate the operation of pattern-recognition-based video surveillance systems at an early stage. Target events (i.e. events to be detected during surveillance) are not frequently observed in recorded video, so achieving reliable surveillance on the basis of machine learning requires a sufficient amount of target data. Acquiring sufficient data is time-consuming. However, operating unreliable surveillance systems can induce many false alarms. Crowdsourcing is introduced to address this problem by verifying the unreliable results in data-driven surveillance. Experimental simulation conducted using monitoring video of Japanese black beef cattle demonstrates that crowdsourced verification successfully reduced false alarms in calving detection systems.

Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text.

Working time estimation is known to be helpful for allowing crowd workers to select lucrative microtasks. We previously proposed a machine learning method for estimating the working times of microtasks, but a practical evaluation was not possible because it was unclear what errors would be problematic for workers across different scales of microtask working times. In this study, we formulate MicroLapse, a function that expresses a maximal error in working time prediction that workers can accept for a given working time length. We collected 60,760 survey answers from 660 Amazon Mechanical Turk workers to formulate MicroLapse. Our evaluation of our previous method based on MicroLapse demonstrated that our working time prediction method was fairly successful for shorter microtasks, which could not have been concluded in our previous paper.

Background: Little is known about thenar dysplasia in radial polydactyly, other than that thenar hypoplasia occasionally occurs in radial polydactyly with triphalangism. In particular, the phenotype and level of duplication associated with thenar dysplasia remain unclear. Methods: The abductor pollicis brevis and flexor pollicis brevis muscles were visualized using three-dimensional ultrasound, and their horizontal geometry was assessed using a biaxial level classification system. Subjects were categorized into three phenotypes according to the developmental condition of the radial thumb. The relationship between the level of distribution of the muscles and the level of the bifurcation of the radial thumb was investigated. Results: Nineteen patients with radial polydactyly without triphalangism were included. There were 10 patients with the nonfloating type, three with the floating type, and six with the rudimentary type. All patients with bifurcation at or more distal to the metacarpophalangeal joint had normal thenar muscle distribution, but the muscles in patients with bifurcation at or more proximal to the level of the metacarpals were confined, regardless of phenotype. The level of muscle distribution was strongly correlated with the level of the bifurcation of the radial thumb. Conclusions: These findings suggest that formation of the thenar muscles in the longitudinal direction in radial polydactyly might depend on the level of bifurcation of the radial thumb. The presence of thenar dysplasia even in floating-type or rudimentary-type duplications is of clinical and etiologic importance., 赤ちゃんの多指症、筋肉の発達は規則的. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2018-01-04.

This paper reports on the development of a real-time three-dimensional ionospheric tomography technique using GNSS measurements. GPS measurement data from 200 GPS receivers distributed throughout Japan are analyzed in real time to calculate ionospheric Total Electron Contents (TECs). The three-dimensional ionospheric electron density distribution was reconstructed using the tomography technique from the slant TEC data. The tomography results were found to be in good agreement with both the electron density profiles obtained by radio occultation measurements by the COSMIC satellite and the ionospheric peak densities obtained by vertical radio sounding measurements (ionosondes). The real-time ionospheric tomography system commenced operation in March 2016 and it continuously produces three-dimensional electron density distributions over Japan every 15 min with latency of about 6 min. This system is a very powerful tool for monitoring the ionosphere in real time, which could both improve the performance of GNSS-based systems and further the understanding of ionospheric variations.

We investigate the azimuthal distribution of amplitude scintillation observed by Global Positioning System (GPS) ground receivers at Pontianak (0.0°S, 109.3°E; Mag. Lat.: 9.8°S) and Bandung (6.9°S, 107.6°E; Mag. Lat.: 16.7°S) in Indonesia in March and September from 2011 to 2015. The scintillation is found to occur more to the west than to the east in March at both stations, whereas no such zonal difference is found in September. We also analyze the zonal scintillation drift as estimated using three closely spaced single-frequency GPS receivers at Kototabang (0.2°S, 100.3°E; Mag. Lat.: 9.9°S) in Indonesia during 2003–2015, and the zonal thermospheric neutral wind as measured by the CHAMP satellite at longitudes of 90°–120°E during 2001–2008. We find that the velocities of both the zonal scintillation drift and the neutral wind decrease with increasing latitudes. Interestingly, the latitudinal gradients of both the zonal scintillation drift and the neutral wind are steeper in March than in September. These steeper March gradients may be responsible for the increased westward altitudinal and latitudinal tilting of plasma bubbles in March. This equinoctial asymmetry could be responsible for the observed westward bias in scintillation in March, because the scintillation is more likely to occur when radio waves pass through longer lengths of plasma irregularities in the plasma bubbles.

Ground-Based Augmentation System (GBAS) is concerned with the aircraft positioning correction for precision landing. The ionospheric irregularity is a major impediment of the performance of GBAS. When an airport has at least 2 Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) stations, the ionospheric delay gradients can be obtained by using the dual-frequency GNSS stations. If there is only 1 GNSS station in the area, the time step-method can be used. Normally, the baseline from the time-step method is varied according to the sampling rate of GNSS data. Although the sampling rate of the GNSS receiver is a constant value, the baseline varies due to the speed of the GNSS satellite, observed from the ground reference, which can be up to 20 difference km. This paper proposes the dynamic Time-Step method which designates the baseline by adjusting the time between 2 snapshots. The results show that the range of baseline from the reference time-step method, which is set to 1 minute of the sampling rate, can be reduced to 0.5-km variation.

Workers in crowd markets struggle to earn a living. One reason for this is that it is difficult for workers to accurately gauge the hourly wages of microtasks, and they consequently end up performing labor with little pay. In general, workers are provided with little information about tasks, and are left to rely on noisy signals, such as textual description of the task or rating of the requester. This study explores various computational methods for predicting the working times (and thus hourly wages) required for tasks based on data collected from other workers completing crowd work. We provide the following contributions. (i) A data collection method for gathering real-world training data on crowd-work tasks and the times required for workers to complete them; (ii) TurkScanner: a machine learning approach that predicts the necessary working time to complete a task (and can thus implicitly provide the expected hourly wage). We collected 9,155 data records using a web browser extension installed by 84 Amazon Mechanical Turk workers, and explored the challenge of accurately recording working times both automatically and by asking workers. TurkScanner was created using ~150 derived features, and was able to predict the hourly wages of 69.6% of all the tested microtasks within a 75% error. Directions for future research include observing the effects of tools on people's working practices, adapting this approach to a requester tool for better price setting, and predicting other elements of work (e.g., the acceptance likelihood and worker task preferences.), Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on World Wide Web (WWW '19), San Francisco, CA, USA, May 13-17, 2019

Photoacoustic (PA) imaging is a promising new imaging technology for non-invasively visualizing blood vessels inside biological tissues. In addition to blood vessels, body hairs are also visualized in PA imaging, and the body hair signals degrade the visibility of blood vessels. For learning a body hair classifier, the amount of real training and test data is limited, because PA imaging is a new modality. To address this problem, we propose a novel semi-supervised learning (SSL) method for extracting body hairs. The method effectively learns the discriminative model from small labeled training data and small unlabeled test data by introducing prior knowledge, of the orientation similarity among adjacent body hairs, into SSL. Experimental results using real PA data demonstrate that the proposed approach is effective for extracting body hairs as compared with several baseline methods.

This study aimed to characterize in vivo human digital arteries in three-dimensions using photoacoustic tomography in order to understand the specific mechanism underlying arterial deformation associated with movement of the proximal interphalangeal joint. Three-dimensional morphological data were obtained on the radialis indicis artery (radial artery of the index finger) at different angles of the joint. The association between increased curvature of the deformation and the anatomical region was assessed. Characteristic morphological deformations in areas of major deformation were determined. The deformation of the artery was characterized by three consecutive curves in juxta-articular regions, which were particularly noticeable when the joint was flexed at an angle of ≥ 60°. The change in the curvature of the deformation during 30°–90° of flexion was lower in middle-aged individuals than in young individuals. Better understanding of the mechanism underlying deformation of the digital arteries may contribute to advancements in flap procedures and rehabilitation strategies after digital artery repair.

To understand the dynamical properties of sporadic E layer (Es), we have developed a method to visualize the two-dimensional spatial structure of Es by monitoring the occurrence of anomalous propagation of VHF waves used for aeronautical navigation systems in combination with the electron density disturbance index ROTI, that is the Rate of total electron content (TEC) Index obtained from ground-based GPS receivers. We introduce a case of strong Es layer which occurred for ~4 h during daytime of July 4, 2019. In this interval, we succeeded in imaging the structure of Es elongating more in the east–west direction and moving northward gradually. This result indicates that the combination of network observations of aeronautical navigation signals and ROTI is capable of imaging the 2D structure of Es in a wide area including the sea surface, which enables us to discuss the dynamical characteristics and generation mechanism of Es.

Objective To characterise posttraumatic constrains of the volar-lateral ligaments by analysing volar plate (VP) dynamics after proximal interphalangeal (PIP) joint injuries using ultrasonography. Materials and methods From the anatomical and biomechanical perspectives of the VP and its surrounding structures, posttraumatic constrains of the volar-lateral ligament were evaluated by analysing the changes of VP motion. Using ultrasound, VP motion during active flexion of 0-60° was recorded in the central sagittal plane at 12 weeks after injury. VP trajectories visualised by 5-point tracing on the VP were analysed qualitatively to detect differential patterns of the ligament constrains. Quantitatively, correlation between averaged constrain index determined by measuring volar locational values of the 5 points on the VP and limitation in extension at the final follow-up was assessed. Results Eleven patients with PIP joint injuries involving five VP avulsions, three volar intra-articular fractures, or three dorsal fracture-dislocations were included. All patients with VP avulsion revealed a totally-constrained pattern, whereas patients with intra-articular or fracture-dislocation injuries showed distally-constrained pattern or normal. Averaged constrain index was negatively correlated with limitation in extension, indicating positive contribution of volar-lateral ligament constrains to residual flexion contracture. Conclusion Ultrasonographic visualisation of VP motion characterised posttraumatic constrained conditions of the volar-lateral ligaments. Knowledge of the manner of ligament damages might be useful to set treatment strategies for PIP joint injuries.

In toe desyndactyly, a dorsal or plantar commissural flap, combined with skin grafts, will ensure an acceptable result. However, the parallel unsightly scars in the longitudinal direction on the dorsum of the toes will sometimes fail to satisfy the patient's and/or the parents' aesthetic expectations. To address this issue, we developed a technique using a transversely oriented transposition flap for web reconstruction, which can spare the dorsal interdigital skin maximally to shift the dorsal scars plantarly such that they become inconspicuous. The design of the flap is simple and uncomplicated surgically. Moreover, the donor site morbidity is minimal, owing to the good healing potential of the transverse scars. This technique could be an alternative in web reconstruction of toe desyndactyly, especially in cases with high cosmetic priority.

Ground-based augmentation system (GBAS) is an important augmentation system that provides the differential corrections and integrity information from the reference stations to the aircrafts for precision approach and landing. It is known that the nonuniform ionospheric characteristics called “ionospheric delay gradient” can cause the errors in differential corrections degrading the accuracy and safety level if they are undetected by the reference stations. Since the characteristics of the ionosphere are different for each region, the ionospheric delay gradient observations in equatorial and low-latitude regions are necessary for developing the suitable ionospheric threat models. The purpose of this work is to analyze the ionospheric delay gradients observed by three GPS stations near Suvarnabhumi airport in Bangkok, Thailand, which is located in the low-latitude region. The ionospheric irregularities in this region are mainly caused by the plasma bubble, which usually occurs after sunset. The GPS data with plasma bubble occurrence during the September equinox 2011 and 2012 are therefore analyzed. In addition, the data analysis procedure utilizing the rate of total electron content change index for this region is proposed. The results show that the ionospheric delay gradients observed in the west-east direction appear higher than the south-north direction, varying from 28 to 178 mm/km during plasma bubble occurrences.

Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text.

HF-START (HF Simulator Targeting for All-users' Regional Telecommunications) is a user-friendly simulator developed to meet the needs of space weather users. Because prediction of communications failure due to space weather disturbances is of high priority and must be reliable, HF-START is necessary to be evaluated. A simple and low cost prototype of software defined radio (SDR) based digital receiver is developed for the HF experiment to evaluate the HF-START during the field campaign. The field campaign employs the receiver prototype in addition to existing domestic ionospheric observations in Japan. The experiment allows analyzing the effect of the ionosphere on radio propagation delay. The first experiment has proven the capability of the low cost prototype as its result showed very good signal quality with loud and clear playback ability. Extending similar experiment to Southeast Asia is planned.

The distal branching pattern of perforators is associated with thin anterolateral thigh flap failure. The purpose of this study was to investigate the feasibility of using photoacoustic tomography as a diagnostic imaging modality to identify anterolateral thigh perforators and their branching patterns in the subcutaneous layer. Ten thighs in five healthy men were studied. The anterolateral aspect of the midthigh was examined using photoacoustic tomography. The correlation between photoacoustic tomography and ultrasound findings was evaluated. To determine the detectability of photoacoustic tomography by depth, the depth of vessels in the stem portion was compared to the depth of the deep fascia measured by ultrasound. Branching patterns of vessels in the adipose and suprafascial layers were evaluated by three-dimensional observation. A total of 18 perforators were visualized by photoacoustic tomography. Photoacoustic tomography and ultrasound had comparable diagnostic potential for the detection of perforators. Photoacoustic tomography visualized microvessels in the subcutaneous layer, especially those in oblique or horizontal orientations. The estimated mean depth of visualized vessels was 9 mm; the maximum depth was 13 mm. There was a strong correlation between the depth of visualized vessels in the stem portion and the depth of the deep fascia. Three-dimensional observation of photoacoustic tomographic images showed the branching morphology of perforators. This study showed the applicability of photoacoustic tomography to identification of the branching patterns of anterolateral thigh perforators in vivo, although limited visualization of subfascial vessels is a technical issue. The authors believe that photoacoustic tomography has the potential to be a new imaging modality for thin anterolateral thigh flap surgery., 光超音波トモグラフィで皮膚の精細な3D血管地図の作成に成功 --より安全かつ良質な皮弁移植術の確立を目指して--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2018-05-01.

We present a 58-year-old right-handed man, who consulted us with an 11-year history of Dupuytren’s disease. To correct contracture of the little finger, we performed regional fasciectomy, skin grafting, and distraction arthrolysis of the proximal interphalangeal (PIP) joint using an external fixator. Preoperative or postoperative skeletal traction has been advocated to treat potential or residual stiffness of the PIP joint in Dupuytren’s contracture, but its intraoperative use has not been reported before. Our method has the advantage of treating each problem caused by Dupuytren’s disease. A good range of painless PIP joint motion is achieved by our intraoperative distraction technique without interfering with the skin graft and without reducing extensor tone, while the healing period is shortened by performing all procedures simultaneously.

Ground-Based Augmentation System (GBAS) allows high-precision aircraft landing based on Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) at large airports. However, non-uniform spatial ionospheric delay needs to be determined. In this work, we compute the nominal ionospheric delay gradients around Suvarnabhumi airport, Thailand. The utilized techniques involve Kalman filter and LAMBDA method. Based on the measurements on DOY 043 of 2015, we found that the ionospheric delay gradients are less than 20 mm/km. With the improved ambiguity ratio test to obtain higher success rate than previous works, the standard deviation σ VIG is 5.27 mm/km.

Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text.

Background: A breast-specific photoacoustic imaging (PAI) system prototype equipped with a hemispherical detector array (HDA) has been reported as a promising system configuration for providing high morphological reproducibility for vascular structures in living bodies. Methods: To image the vasculature of human limbs, a newly designed PAI system prototype (PAI-05) with an HDA with a higher density sensor arrangement was developed. The basic device configuration mimicked that of a previously reported breast-specific PAI system. A new imaging table and a holding tray for imaging a subject's limb were adopted. Results: The device’s performance was verified using a phantom. Contrast of 8.5 was obtained at a depth of 2 cm, and the viewing angle reached up to 70 degrees, showing sufficient performance for limb imaging. An arbitrary wavelength was set, and a reasonable PA signal intensity dependent on the wavelength was obtained. To prove the concept of imaging human limbs, various parts of the subject were scanned. High-quality still images of a living human with a wider size than that previously reported were obtained by scanning within the horizontal plane and averaging the images. The maximum field of view (FOV) was 270 mm × 180 mm. Even in movie mode, one-shot 3D volumetric data were obtained in an FOV range of 20 mm in diameter, which is larger than values in previous reports. By continuously acquiring these images, we were able to produce motion pictures. Conclusion: We developed a PAI prototype system equipped with an HDA suitable for imaging limbs. As a result, the subject could be scanned over a wide range while in a more comfortable position, and high-quality still images and motion pictures could be obtained.

This paper evaluates a new video surveillance platform presented in a previous study, through an abandoned object detection task. The proposed platform has a function of automated detection and alerting, which is still a big challenge for a machine algorithm due to its recall-precision tradeoff problem. To achieve both high recall and high precision simultaneously, a hybrid approach using crowdsourcing after image analysis is proposed. This approach, however, is still not clear about what extent it can improve detection accuracy and raise quicker alerts. In this paper, the experiment is conducted for abandoned object detection, as one of the most common surveillance tasks. The results show that detection accuracy was improved from 50% (without crowdsourcing) to stable 95-100% (with crowdsourcing) by majority vote of 7 crowdworkers for each task. In contrast, alert time issue still remains open to further discussion since at least 7+ minutes are required to get the best performance.

This paper proposes a new framework for video surveillance systems for crime prevention. The main purpose of this framework is to help provide reasonable and stable solutions for automated video surveillance systems in a collaborative way. This framework is characterized by a verification process using crowdsourcing after the image analysis process: automated image analyzer detects as many suspicious events as possible followed by filtering process using human intelligence, to achieve both high re-call and high precision rates. Here we describe the basic mechanisms for collaboration between camera devices, data stores, image analyzers and surveillance crowds.

We herein describe two cases of non-surgical treatment for skin necrosis of the dorsum of the neonatal foot caused by extravasation. In both the cases, closure of the defects was achieved after 3 months of conservative treatment without any complications. Although the defects occupied almost all of the dorsal skin of the foot, no significant contracture disabling the toe or ankle occurred during the maximum follow-up period of 9 years. Non-surgical treatments could be an alternative treatment for neonatal skin necrosis caused by extravasation.

Congenital dislocation of the hip joint includes prenatal, acquired, and developmental dislocation (i.e., femoral head dislocates from the acetabulum gradually after birth). Most of this disease occurs while this disease is named as “congenital”. True congenital dislocation is often intractable, as it has severe dislocation and is accompanied by considerable anomalies. In true congenital dislocation, the acetabulum is extra remarkably shallow and steep, and anterosion of the femur is severe. In acquired or developmental dislocation, environmental factors have more influence on the occurrence of the dislocation than congenital ones. The kind of diaper is one of the most important factors. The prevalence of dislocation is high in some cold areas. In such area, diaper or clothes is set to fix the knee and the hip in the extended position to keep the children from the coldness. In hemilateral dislocation after birth, lying position has influence on its occurrence. Joint instability, which is caused by hormone around birth, and contracture due to the position may cause dislocation. In left wryneck position (i.e., the face rotates in the right and the neck flexes in the left), the trunk often takes right lateral position. In such position, the left hip joint takes adducted position and tends to have adduction contracture, and dislocation may occur in the left hip. The degree of the dislocation varies from children. Hamstring muscles have strong influence on the occurrence of the dislocation. These muscles push the femoral head proximally.

Management of fractures in children is completely different from that of adults. Biological reaction for fracture is characteristic in children because of the anatomic, physiological, and biomechanical property of skeletal structure. Comprehension of the properties of children’s bone is essential to treat fractures in children. Some properties act favorably for the bone union and some make it difficult to treat fractures.

The efficacy and safety of 8 yr of GH treatment was assessed in 44 Japanese children with small for gestational age (SGA) short stature who met the criteria for GH treatment initiation (height SD score (SDS)