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Ensuring product quality and integrity is paramount in the rapidly evolving landscape of industrial manufacturing. Although effective to a certain degree, traditional quality control methods often fail to meet the demands for efficiency, accuracy, and adaptability in today’s fast-paced production environments. The advent of Deep Learning (DL) and Computer Vision (CV) technologies has opened new vistas for automated defect detection, promising to revolutionize the way industries approach quality control and inspection. This systematic review focuses on recent advancements in DL and CV applications for automated defect detection in manufacturing processes. It provides a comprehensive overview of state-of-the-art techniques for detecting, classifying, and predicting defects, highlighting the significant strides made in addressing challenges such as varying lighting conditions, complex defect patterns, and the seamless integration of these technologies into existing manufacturing workflows. Through a critical analysis of current methodologies, this study identifies key areas of opportunity, outlines the challenges that persist and suggests directions for future research. This review synthesizes findings from a broad spectrum of industrial applications, offering insights into the potential of DL and CV to enhance quality control mechanisms. By charting the progress and pinpointing the gaps in current practices, this paper aims to serve as a valuable resource for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers seeking to leverage the benefits of DL and CV for improved product management and manufacturing excellence.

Weakly supervised video anomaly detection (WS-VAD) is a crucial research domain in computer vision for the implementation of intelligent surveillance systems. Many researchers have been working to develop WS-VAD systems using various technologies by assessing anomaly scores. However, they are still facing challenges because of lacking effective feature extraction. To mitigate this limitation, we propose a multi-stage deep-learning model for separating abnormal events from normality to extract the hierarchical effective features. In the first stage, we extract two stream features using pre-trained techniques: the first stream employs a ViT-based CLIP module to select top-k features, while the second stream utilizes a CNN-based I3D module integrated into the Temporal Contextual Aggregation (TCA) mechanism. These features are concatenated and fed into the second-stage module, where an Uncertainty-regulated Dual Memory Units (UR-DMU) model is employed to learn representations of regular and abnormal data simultaneously. The UR-DMU integrates global and local structures, leveraging Graph Convolutional Networks (GCN) and Global and Local Multi-Head Self Attention (GL-MHSA) modules to capture video associations. Subsequently, feature reduction is achieved using the multilayer-perceptron (MLP) integration with the Prompt-Enhanced Learning (PEL) module via the knowledge-based prompt. Finally, we employed a classifier module to predict the snippet-level anomaly scores. In the training phase, the based function transfers the snippet-level scores into bag-level predictions for learning high activation in anomalous cases. Our approach integrates these cutting-edge technologies and methodologies, offering a comprehensive solution to video-based anomaly detection. Extensive experiments on ShanghaiTech, XD-Violence, and UCF-Crime datasets validate the superiority of our method over state-of-the-art approaches by a substantial margin. We believe that our model holds significant promise for real-world applications, demonstrating superior performance and efficacy in anomaly detection tasks.

Sign Language Recognition (SLR) represents a revolutionary technology aiming to establish communication between hearing impaired and non-hearing impaired communities, surpassing traditional interpreter-based approaches. Existing efforts in automatic sign recognition predominantly rely on hand skeleton joint information, steering clear of image pixels to address challenges like partial occlusion and redundant backgrounds. Many researchers have been working to develop automatic sign recognition using hand skeleton joint information instead of image pixels to overcome partial occlusion and redundant background problems. However, body motion and facial expression play an essential role in increasing the inner gesture variance in expressing sign language emotion besides hand information for large-scale sign word datasets. Recently, some researchers have been working to develop muti-gesture-based SLR recognition systems, but their performance accuracy and efficiency are unsatisfactory for real-time deployment. Addressing these limitations, we propose a novel approach, a two-stream multistage graph convolution with attention and residual connection (GCAR) designed to extract spatial-temporal contextual information. The multistage GCAR system, incorporating a channel attention module, dynamically enhances attention levels, particularly for non-connected skeleton points during specific events within spatial-temporal features. The methodology involves capturing joint skeleton points and motion, offering a comprehensive understanding of a person’s entire body movement during sign language gestures and feeding this information into two streams. In the first stream, joint key features undergo processing through sep-TCN, graph convolution, deep learning layer, and a channel attention module across multiple stages, generating intricate spatial-temporal features in sign language gestures. Simultaneously, the joint motion is processed in the second stream, mirroring the steps of the first branch. The fusion of these two features yields the final feature vector, which is then fed into the classification module. The model excels in capturing discriminative structural displacements and short-range dependencies by leveraging unified joint features projected onto a high-dimensional space. Owing to the effectiveness of these features, the proposed method achieved significant accuracies: 90.31%, 94.10%, 99.75%, and 34.41%, for the WLASL, PSL, MSL, and ASLLVD large-scale datasets, respectively, with 0.69 million parameters. The high-performance accuracy, coupled with stable computational complexity, demonstrates the superiority of the proposed model. This innovative approach is anticipated to redefine the landscape of sign language recognition, setting a new standard in the field.

Handwriting is controlled by neurons in the brain’s nervous system, reflecting an individual’s personality and psychology. This unique characteristic can be used for various applications, including user authentication, assessment of neurodegenerative disorders, and classification of handedness, gender, and age groups. Traditional authentication systems require memorization, information leakage, and fingerprints, making them vulnerable to security breaches. The majority of researchers have studied the limitations of image quality, camera frames, and light effects on text and image-dependent performance. Therefore, this paper mainly focused on real-time, text-independent handwriting fine-motor data and proposed an efficient authentication system with low cost using efficient feature extraction and optimal feature selection approaches. This research utilizes two benchmark databases, including the handwriting data of 48 (24+24) participants collected via a sensor-based pen tablet. Each participant wrote the 10 words five times repeatedly, making it a total of 2400 samples. The handwriting classification of the different individuals is in 3 phases: feature extraction, feature selection, and classification. A total of 91 features (statistical, kinematic, spatial, and composite) were extracted from more accurate, real-time numerical handwriting data. The efficient and optimal features have been selected using four feature selection approaches, namely, Pearson’s r correlation, ANOVA-F, Mutual Information Gain, and PCA, among which the ANOVA-F test and PCA perform well for handwriting-extracted data. Then, 14 machine learning (ML) models and 7 deep learning (DL) models were applied to handle the problem of individual classification, with both no- and full-feature-selection scenarios considered. The experimental analysis has been conducted with different angles and perspectives, such as K-Fold cross-validation, testing system efficiency considering 5/10/15/24/48 individuals, and in the case of individual tasks. It shows that ML-based algorithms, namely, CATBOOST (99.07%) with ANOVA-F and DL-based models, namely, BiLSTM (98.31%) with PCA-selected features, provide the highest accuracy with dataset 2, among others that advocate the practicality and reliability of choosing this system for user identification.

Abstract Cancer cells inevitably interact with neighboring host tissue-resident cells during the process of metastatic colonization, establishing a metastatic niche to fuel their survival, growth, and invasion. However, the underlying mechanisms in the metastatic niche are yet to be fully elucidated owing to the lack of methodologies for comprehensively studying the mechanisms of cell–cell interactions in the niche. Here, we improve a split green fluorescent protein (GFP)-based genetically encoded system to develop secretory glycosylphosphatidylinositol-anchored reconstitution-activated proteins to highlight intercellular connections (sGRAPHIC) for efficient fluorescent labeling of tissue-resident cells that neighbor on and putatively interact with cancer cells in deep tissues. The sGRAPHIC system enables the isolation of metastatic niche-associated tissue-resident cells for their characterization using a single-cell RNA sequencing platform. We use this sGRAPHIC-leveraged transcriptomic platform to uncover gene expression patterns in metastatic niche-associated hepatocytes in a murine model of liver metastasis. Among the marker genes of metastatic niche-associated hepatocytes, we identify Lgals3, encoding galectin-3, as a potential pro-metastatic factor that accelerates metastatic growth and invasion.

Roads on peat grounds are subject to stringent requirements in terms of controlling the residual settlement during their service period in order to minimize the post-construction maintenance work. This paper addresses the applicability of the Finite Element Method (FEM) by incorporating a time-dependent model for peats to an evaluation of the residual settlement. The applicability of isotach viscoplasticity, used to describe the peats’ behavior under variable-rate compression, was confirmed in laboratory tests. Long-term consolidation test results and a model simulation revealed the particular importance of two mechanisms in the residual settlement in peat grounds, namely, the stress-dependency of the coefficient of consolidation, cv, and the viscosity-induced secondary consolidation. A model peat ground, capturing these mechanisms, was implemented for the FEM and applied to a case history of a high-standard road construction in Hokkaido, Japan. The viscoplastic parameters determined from standard oedometer tests successfully reproduced the observed long-term settlement in a peat-dominated section of the expressway. The analysis was extended to address the settlement in the peat ground with the installation of prefabricated vertical drains (PVDs). The results indicate that the delayed primary consolidation due to the stress-induced cv reduction can be significantly alleviated, while the settlement arising from the secondary consolidation over a longer term is little affected by the PVDs. These insights point to the importance of untangling the two mechanisms of long-term settlement for the sake of making accurate predictions of the residual settlement in different time scales.

A soil investigation was conducted in peatlands in Japan, using two types of tube sampling methods, and the quality of the samples was evaluated. Unlike clays, peats easily lose water by compressive actions involved in sampler intrusion and core extrusion, leading to a significant loss of pore water. It was shown that this effect could be minimized by careful thin-wall sampling with a stationary piston, whereas open-drive sampling without a piston led to the significant compression of the sample core. The consequence of this disturbance on the in-situ behavior was interpreted through an examination of the mechanical properties of peat samples subjected to the “strain paths” expected during sampling in laboratory tests. By observing the deformation characteristics through a series of constant-rate-of-strain consolidation, unconfined compression, triaxial compression, and bender element tests, it was demonstrated that, contrary to soft clays, fibrous peats with high initial permeability potentially lead to the underestimation of the settlement during construction and the overestimation of strength due to inappropriate sampling. These results can be explained by the dominance of densification by disturbance over soil structure degradation. It was also noted that the sample quality varied considerably within the sampling tube.

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a life-threatening disease characterized by a progressive narrowing of pulmonary arterioles. Although VEGF is highly expressed in lung of patients with PH and in animal PH models, the involvement of angiogenesis remains elusive. To clarify the pathophysiological function of angiogenesis in PH, we compared the angiogenic response in hypoxia (Hx) and SU5416 (a VEGFR2 inhibitor) plus Hx (SuHx) mouse PH models using 3D imaging. The 3D imaging analysis revealed an angiogenic response in the lung of the Hx-PH, but not of the severer SuHx-PH model. Selective VEGFR2 inhibition with cabozantinib plus Hx in mice also suppressed angiogenic response and exacerbated Hx-PH to the same extent as SuHx. Expression of endothelial proliferator-activated receptor γ coactivator 1α (PGC-1α) increased along with angiogenesis in lung of Hx-PH but not SuHx mice. In pulmonary endothelial cell–specific Ppargc1a-KO mice, the Hx-induced angiogenesis was suppressed, and PH was exacerbated along with increased oxidative stress, cellular senescence, and DNA damage. By contrast, treatment with baicalin, a flavonoid enhancing PGC-1α activity in endothelial cells, ameliorated Hx-PH with increased Vegfa expression and angiogenesis. Pulmonary endothelial PGC-1α–mediated angiogenesis is essential for adaptive responses to Hx and might represent a potential therapeutic target for PH.

A new model is proposed for describing freeze-thaw-induced plastic volume changes in saturated clays based on microscopic inhomogeneities inherent in the soil structure and the pore water transfer between them. It is shown through a simple inhomogeneous mesostructure model that the equilibrium state reached after freezing serves as an important reference state for interpreting the volumetric behaviour. The soil state evolution towards this freeze equilibrium state describes many features seen in the experimentally observed freeze-thaw behaviour, such as the existence of a limiting stress level above which no plastic volume change occurs. The process of freezing/thawing is modelled as a rate process approaching the freeze equilibrium line (FEL) and representing the eventual equilibrium states at a particular sub-freezing temperature, exploiting a newly defined state parameter, ψfe. The model offers a mesoscopic three-dimensional yield surface in the specific volume – effective stress – temperature space, expressed by a simple equation. Although the model’s essence is encapsulated in only two simple equations, it can simulate well the experimentally observed volume change accumulation with freeze-thaw cycles under different stress levels and densities (or over-consolidation ratios). As the model is formulated in an incremental rate form, it can be applied to general freeze-thaw problems, even those with irregular temperature and stress history – a feature not seen in existing models.

Abstract Background and Aim Colonic diverticular bleeding is a common cause of acute lower gastrointestinal bleeding. Endoscopic hemostasis is generally selected as the first‐line treatment; however, a considerable number of patients experience early rebleeding after endoscopic treatment. We investigated the risk factors for early rebleeding after endoscopic treatment. Methods We retrospectively evaluated the data of 142 consecutive patients who underwent endoscopic treatment (endoscopic clipping or endoscopic band ligation) for colonic diverticular bleeding with stigmata of recent hemorrhage between April 2012 and April 2020. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was conducted to evaluate the statistical relationship between patient characteristics and the incidence of early rebleeding occurring within 30 days after endoscopic treatment. Results Of 142 patients, early rebleeding was detected in 34 (23.9%) patients. According to univariate analysis, platelet count of

Abstract Background Peripheral nerve injury causes limb muscle/bone atrophy, leading to chronic pain. However, the mechanisms underlying muscle/bone atrophy after peripheral nerve injury remain unknown. It was recently reported that M1 macrophages are the main factors responsible for neurogenic inflammation after peripheral nerve injury. We hypothesized that M1 macrophages are important in muscle/bone atrophy after nerve injury. Therefore, we investigated the influence of M1 macrophages on muscle/bone atrophy after nerve injury in mice to prevent muscle/bone atrophy by suppressing M1 macrophages. Methods Hindlimb muscle weight and total bone density were measured in a chronic constriction injury (CCI) mouse model. Immunohistochemical analysis and intravital microscopy were performed to visualize hindlimb muscles/bones, and cells were quantified using flow cytometry. We compared M1 macrophage infiltration into muscles/bones and muscle/bone atrophy between macrophage depletion and untreated groups. We also investigated muscle/bone atrophy using administration models for anti-inflammatory and neuropathic pain drugs. Results Peripheral nerve injury caused significant reduction in muscle weight and total bone density at 1 and 3 weeks after CCI, respectively, compared with that in controls. Osteoclast numbers were significantly higher at 1 week after CCI in the CCI group than in the control group. M1 macrophage infiltration into muscles was observed from 2 h after CCI via intravital microscopy and 1 week after CCI, and it was significantly higher 1 week after CCI than in the control group. In the macrophage depletion group, dexamethasone, pregabalin, and loxoprofen groups, M1 macrophage infiltration into muscles/bones was significantly lower and muscle weight and total bone density were significantly higher than in the untreated group. Conclusions M1 macrophage infiltration exacerbates muscle/bone atrophy after peripheral nerve injury. By suppressing M1 macrophages at the neural injury local site, muscle/bone atrophy could be avoided.

Fibrosis is a hallmark of several cardiac pathologies and its underlying mechanisms are still poorly defined. Here the authors show that macrophage hypoxia signaling following transverse aortic constriction in mice suppresses the activation of cardiac fibroblasts by secreting oncostatin M.

Fission product removal by pool scrubbing is known to be largely affected by the gas-liquid two-phase flow regime. The pool scrubbing performance of various carrier gases was evaluated in two-phase flow experiments by injecting helium, nitrogen, or argon through a pool of stagnant water in a column with an inner diameter of 0.5 m and a height of 8 m. The gases were supplied through a cylindrical nozzle with an inner diameter 69 mm at superficial gas velocities ranging from 0.013 to 0.053 m s-1. Measurements were conducted using a camera and two sets of a 128 × 128 wire-mesh sensors, separated by 40 mm. The visually observed gas hold-up and wire-mesh sensor-measured average void fraction decreased with increasing fraction of lighter gas in the supplied gas. Detailed analysis of the flow regime using the obtained wire-mesh sensor signals revealed that lighter gases led to a greater fraction of relatively large bubbles in the flow compared to heavier gases, causing the gas phase with the lighter gases to have a higher average rise velocity in the flow. This leads to a hypothesis that, compared to heavier gases, lighter gases break up less or coalesce more in the flow, resulting in distinct two-phase flow characteristics depending on the inlet gas composition.

Abstract Bioengineered lungs consisting of a decellularized lung scaffold that is repopulated with a patient’s own cells could provide desperately needed donor organs in the future. This approach has been tested in rats, and has been partially explored in porcine and human lungs. However, existing bioengineered lungs are fragile, in part because of their immature vascular structure. Herein, we report the application of adipose-derived stem/stromal cells (ASCs) for engineering the pulmonary vasculature in a decellularized rat lung scaffold. We found that pre-seeded ASCs differentiated into pericytes and stabilized the endothelial cell (EC) monolayer in nascent pulmonary vessels, thereby contributing to EC survival in the regenerated lungs. The ASC-mediated stabilization of the ECs clearly reduced vascular permeability and suppressed alveolar hemorrhage in an orthotopic transplant model for up to 3 h after extubation. Fibroblast growth factor 9, a mesenchyme-targeting growth factor, enhanced ASC differentiation into pericytes but overstimulated their proliferation, causing a partial obstruction of the vasculature in the regenerated lung. ASCs may therefore provide a promising cell source for vascular regeneration in bioengineered lungs, though additional work is needed to optimize the growth factor or hormone milieu for organ culture.

Abstract Haemophilia B, a congenital haemorrhagic disease caused by mutations in coagulation factor IX gene (F9), is considered an appropriate target for genome editing technology. Here, we describe treatment strategies for haemophilia B mice using the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)/Cas9 system. Administration of adeno-associated virus (AAV) 8 vector harbouring Staphylococcus aureus Cas9 (SaCas9) and single guide RNA (sgRNA) to wild-type adult mice induced a double-strand break (DSB) at the target site of F9 in hepatocytes, sufficiently developing haemophilia B. Mutation-specific gene editing by simultaneous induction of homology-directed repair (HDR) sufficiently increased FIX levels to correct the disease phenotype. Insertion of F9 cDNA into the intron more efficiently restored haemostasis via both processes of non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ) and HDR following DSB. Notably, these therapies also cured neonate mice with haemophilia, which cannot be achieved with conventional gene therapy with AAV vector. Ongoing haemophilia therapy targeting the antithrombin gene with antisense oligonucleotide could be replaced by SaCas9/sgRNA-expressing AAV8 vector. Our results suggest that CRISPR/Cas9-mediated genome editing using an AAV8 vector provides a flexible approach to induce DSB at target genes in hepatocytes and could be a good strategy for haemophilia gene therapy.

Dredged soils have been used as construction materials by alkaline activation with steel slag (steel slag-dredged soil mixtures) at harbors. Such mixtures develop strength chiefly by calcium silicate hydrate (C-S-H) formation by the pozzolanic reaction. However, the strength of such mixtures is unpredictable, and in some cases, mixtures have been too soft for the intended engineering application. An identification of strength development indicators would accelerate evaluation processes for strength development to facilitate and promote the utilization of such materials. This paper focuses on the relationship between the characteristics of soil organic matters in dredged soils and the strength development of the mixtures by a comparison of eight dredged soils collected from eight different Japanese harbors. The characteristics of the soil organic matters were identified to determine as indicators of mixtures with weak strength development, i.e., enriched sulfur content in extracted soil organic matter (humic acid) fraction, and the N/C ratio of humic acid similar to land humic acid standards. Increases in the validated fraction of dredged soils and steel slag by replacing fractions disadvantageous to construction resources would contribute to reduce waste production, which would lower the environmental impact of the use, aiming to achieve sustainable utilization of such materials.

Background/AimsMucosal healing (MH) is a proposed therapeutic goal for patients with ulcerative colitis (UC). Whether MH is the final goal for UC, however, remains under debate. Therefore, to elucidate clinical variables predicting relapse after MH in UC could be useful for establishing further therapeutic strategy. The aim of this study is to evaluate the predictive variables for relapse in UC-patients after achieving MH.MethodsFrom April 2010 to February 2015, 298 UC-patients treated at Kitano Hospital were retrospectively analyzed. MH was defined as Mayo endoscopic subscore of 0 or 1. The cumulative relapse free rate after achieving MH was evaluated. Predictive variables for relapse in UC-patients were assessed by Cox regression analysis.ResultsOf 298 UC-patients, 88 (29.5%) achieved MH. Of the 88 UC patients who achieved MH, 21 (23.9%) experienced UC-relapse. Based on Kaplan-Meier analysis, the cumulative relapse free rate at 1, 3, and 5 years after achieving MH was 87.9%, 70.2%, and 63.8%, respectively. The cumulative relapse free rate tended to be higher in the Mayo-0 group (76.9%) than in the Mayo-1 group (54.1%) at 5 years, although the difference was not statistically significant (P=0.313). Cox regression analysis indicated that the use of an immunomodulator was a predictive variable for relapse in UC-patients after achieving MH (P=0.035).ConclusionsOur data demonstrated that the prognosis of UC patients after achieving endoscopic MH could be based on UC refractoriness requiring an immunomodulator.

Assessing trunk coordination has many potential applications in health promotion. However, traditional bio-mechanical approaches are not suited for daily use as they require expensive devices and manual analysis. This study aimed to develop an approach for automatic classification of good and poor trunk coordination using widely available mobile devices. Weinvestigated different combinations of sensor locations (i.e. chest and pelvis), sensing modalities (i.e. accelerometer and gyroscope) and classification techniques (i.e. SVM, KNN, and decision tree). Results showed that using both sensing modalities at chest and pelvis with SVM produced the best classification accuracy: 96% for chest rotation and 100% forpelvis rotation. In practice, however, using one device with both sensing modalities (i.e. accelerometer and gyroscope) will achieve a better trade-off between feasibility and accuracy. In this case, the device should be fixed on the chest. KNN should be selected as the classification technique for chest rotation (best accuracy 95%), and SVM should be selected asthe classification technique for pelvis rotation (best accuracy 79%). Post hoc analysis found that poor coordination during chest rotation was associated to weak cross-correlation of angular velocity between chest and pelvis in the frontal plane, while poor coordination during pelvis rotation was associated to weak correlations of angular velocity between the threeorthogonal components at chest. This study demonstrated how simple mobile devices can capture relevant motion data and extract key features that help construct computational models for automatic assessment of trunk coordination.

The renin-angiotensin system (RAS), which plays an important role in the progression of heart failure, is efficiently blocked by the inhibition of renin, the rate-limiting enzyme in the RAS cascade. In the present study, we investigated the cardioprotective effects of TAK-272 (SCO-272, imarikiren), a novel, orally effective direct renin inhibitor (DRI), and compared its efficacy with that of aliskiren, a DRI that is already available in the market. TAK-272 was administered to calsequestrin transgenic (CSQ-tg) heart failure mouse model that show severe symptoms and high mortality. The CSQ-tg mice treated with 300 mg/kg, the highest dose tested, of TAK-272 showed significantly reduced plasma renin activity (PRA), cardiac hypertrophy, and lung congestion. Further, TAK-272 reduced cardiomyocyte injury accompanied by an attenuation of the increase in NADPH oxidase 4 and nitric oxide synthase 3 expressions. TAK-272 also prolonged the survival of CSQ-tg mice in a dose-dependent manner (30 mg/kg: P = 0.42, 100 mg/kg: P = 0.12, 300 mg/kg: P < 0.01). Additionally, when compared at the same dose level (300 mg/kg), TAK-272 showed strong and sustained PRA inhibition and reduced the heart weight and plasma N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) concentration, a heart failure biomarker, while aliskiren showed a significant weaker PRA inhibition and failed to demonstrate any cardioprotective effects. Our results showed that TAK-272 is an orally active and persistent renin inhibitor, which reduced the mortality of CSQ-tg mice and conferred protection against cardiac hypertrophy and injury. Thus, TAK-272 treatment could provide a new therapeutic approach for heart failure.

Although bleeding is a common complication of surgery, routine laboratory tests have been demonstrated to have a low ability to predict perioperative bleeding. Better understanding of hemostatic function during surgery would lead to identification of high-risk patients for bleeding. Here, we aimed to elucidate hemostatic mechanisms to determine perioperative bleeding. We prospectively enrolled 104 patients undergoing cervical spinal surgery without bleeding diathesis. Blood sampling was performed just before the operation. Volumes of perioperative blood loss were compared with the results of detailed laboratory tests assessing primary hemostasis, secondary hemostasis, and fibrinolysis. Platelet aggregations induced by several agonists correlated with each other, and only two latent factors determined inter-individual difference. Platelet aggregability independently determined perioperative bleeding. We also identified low levels of plasminogen-activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) and α2-plasmin inhibitor to be independent risk factors for intraoperative and postoperative bleeding, respectively. Most important independent factor to determine postoperative bleeding was body weight. Of note, obese patients with low levels of PAI-1 became high-risk patients for bleeding during surgery. Our data suggest that bleeding after surgical procedure may be influenced by inter-individual differences of hemostatic function including platelet function and fibrinolysis, even in the patients without bleeding diathesis.

This research aims to propose the use of spectral analysis of surface wave (SASW) tests along with in-situ suction measurements for non-destructive determination of shrinkage cracks. The underlying principle behind this proposed method is that, while suction and the small-strain shear modulus are positively correlated for intact samples, this is not the case for cracked ground. A series of SASW tests were performed on a clay embankment at different periods, during which the suction, modulus, and shrinkage crack depth varied seasonally. The soil water retention curve (SWRC) of the undisturbed sample collected from the cracked zone was determined, which related the suction-to-moisture content and void ratio of the soil. A free-free resonant frequency (FFR) test in the lab was conducted to determine the small-strain shear modulus (G0) at various moisture contents. The small-strain moduli from the SASW tests on the intact ground were generally higher than those from the FFR tests due to the effect of confining stress. A drop in the small-strain modulus determined using the SASW test was observed as an increase in suction-induced cracks and it relieved the horizontal stress. The crack depth measured in the field was then modelled using a semi-empirical procedure that can be used to predict crack depth relative to suction.

In order to clarify the mechanism of cavitation cloud shedding, the shedding frequencies of cavitation clouds were investigated by high-speed observations and image analysis. The results indicate that the shedding frequency follows the similarity law for unsteady vortex flow. The ranges of parameters considered were from 0.4 to 2.0 mm for the nozzle throat diameter, from 10 to 30MPa for the injection pressure, and from 0.01 to 0.05 for the cavitation number. The similarity law is discussed with reference to the Strouhal number, which depends on the shedding frequency of the cavitation cloud, the width of the cavitating jet and the jet velocity at the nozzle exit. Formulas describing the relationships between the shedding frequency of the cavitation cloud and the investigated parameters were developed. In addition, the Strouhal number for cavitation cloud shedding was shown to be independent of the investigated parameters and constant, with a value of 0.18. In fact, the cavitation cloud shedding was governed by the constant Strouhal number.

The authors wish to make the following corrections to this paper [...]

Some of the steel slag from ironworks and dredged soils from marine and waterfront engineering work are partially treated as waste. However, a mixture of these two kinds of waste has the potential to be used as construction materials when mixed, due to chemical reactions forming secondary phases. Utilizing waste of such kind as a resource will help to improve sustainability in society by reducing waste and replacing virgin resources such as cement. Recently, it was reported that mixtures of steel slag and dredged soil hardens under specific conditions. The phase compositions of dredged soils and steel slags vary depending on the quantity of each component, which results in unpredictable strength development of mixtures. The effect of the variations in the components of steel slags and dredged soils on strength development of the mixtures is not yet clear, limiting the utilization of both materials. Understanding the hardening mechanisms of the mixtures will enable the prediction of strength development. Focusing on the variations in the components in steel slags and, especially of dredged soils, this study aims to identify the components in both materials that affect the secondary phase formation that are responsible for strength development. We found support for suggestions that calcium silicate hydrate, C-S-H, is one of the secondary phases responsible for the strength development of the mixtures. From a comparison of two kinds of steel slags and various dredged soils, the amount of portlandite in the steel slags and the amount of amorphous silica in the dredged soils are suggested as a couple of the key components of starting materials involved in the C-S-H formation.

trans-1,2-Cyclohexanediol, the major metabolite of the cilexetil moiety of candesartan cilexetil (CC), has been reported to have potent pro-arrhythmic effects in dogs with congestive heart failure (CHF), especially when co-administered with digoxin. To verify this and to clarify the clinical relevance and the underlying mechanisms, a series of in vivo and in vitro experiments was conducted. When CC up to 300 mg/kg was administered orally to intact dogs, no changes in the electrocardiograms (ECG) or the required cumulative doses of ouabain to induce ventricular arrhythmias were observed. In dogs with CHF, intravenous bolus administration of trans-1,2-cyclohexanediol at 4 mg/kg followed by continuous infusion at 0.1 mg·kg-1·min-1 had no effects on the ECG parameters, the type, incidence, and onset time of digoxin-induced arrhythmias or the metabolism of digoxin. In an in vitro experiment using isolated guinea pig papillary muscle, trans-1,2-cyclohexanediol (1 – 100 μmol/L) showed no effects on any parameter of the action potentials. Because no effects were observed in these experiments where the exposure levels of trans-1,2-cyclohexanediol were extremely high compared to those in humans given the maximum therapeutic dose of CC, it is unlikely that CC would induce arrhythmias in clinical use even in patients treated with cardiac glycosides.