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COVID-19 causes physical and psychological impacts on health care workers (HCWs), especially when it occurs during an outbreak. As there are few reports on outcomes of HCWs infected with COVID-19 during a hospital outbreak, we investigated the physical and psychological impacts on HCWs infected with COVID-19 during an outbreak in our hospital.During the outbreak in our hospital, 231 people were infected with COVID-19 including patients, HCWs and their families. Among them, 83 HCWs were enrolled in this study. Current quality of life (QOL) was assessed with the EuroQol-visual analogue scales (EQ-VAS), and motivation to keep on working was evaluated by a 10-point analogue scale. Physiological recovery rates including return to work (RTW) period were also analyzed.One nurse quit work due to anxiety regarding re-infection with COVID-19. The median period to RTW from the diagnosis was 14.0 (12.0-17.0) days. Motivation to keep on working was slightly reduced, and the EQ-VAS was 75.0 (65.0-83.6). There were no significant differences in QOL and motivation between male and female HCWs, nurses and other HCWs, treatment and non-treatment group, and supplemental and non-supplemental oxygen group. The most frequent persistent symptoms at 1,3 and 6 months after infection were anosmia followed by fatigue.Although QOL and motivation to keep on working were slightly reduced, only one HCW quit work. No severe persistent symptoms were observed, and the RTW period was relatively short.

Beat perception and synchronization within 120 to 140 beats/min (BPM) are common in humans and frequently used in music composition. Why beat synchronization is uncommon in some species and the mechanism determining the optimal tempo are unclear. Here, we examined physical movements and neural activities in rats to determine their beat sensitivity. Close inspection of head movements and neural recordings revealed that rats displayed prominent beat synchronization and activities in the auditory cortex within 120 to 140 BPM. Mathematical modeling suggests that short-term adaptation underlies this beat tuning. Our results support the hypothesis that the optimal tempo for beat synchronization is determined by the time constant of neural dynamics conserved across species, rather than the species-specific time constant of physical movements. Thus, latent neural propensity for auditory motor entrainment may provide a basis for human entrainment that is much more widespread than currently thought. Further studies comparing humans and animals will offer insights into the origins of music and dancing.

Summary Fast and wide field-of-view imaging with single-cell resolution, high signal-to-noise ratio, and no optical aberrations have the potential to inspire new avenues of investigations in biology. However, such imaging is challenging because of the inevitable tradeoffs among these parameters. Here, we overcome these tradeoffs by combining a resonant scanning system, a large objective with low magnification and high numerical aperture, and highly sensitive large-aperture photodetectors. The result is a practically aberration-free, fast-scanning high optical invariant two-photon microscopy (FASHIO-2PM) that enables calcium imaging from a large network composed of ∼16,000 neurons at 7.5 Hz from a 9 mm2 contiguous image plane, including more than 10 sensory-motor and higher-order areas of the cerebral cortex in awake mice. Network analysis based on single-cell activities revealed that the brain exhibits small-world rather than scale-free behavior. The FASHIO-2PM is expected to enable studies on biological dynamics by simultaneously monitoring macroscopic activities and their compositional elements.

Two-person interaction recognition has become an area of growing interest in human action recognition. The graph convolutional network (GCN) using human skeleton data has been shown to be highly effective for action recognition. Most GCN-based methods focus on recognizing an individual person’s actions on the basis of an intra-body graph. However, many of these methods do not represent the relation between two bodies, making it difficult to accurately recognize human interaction. In this work, we propose multi-stream adaptive GCN using inter- and intra-body graphs (MAGCN-IIG) as a new method of human interaction recognition. To ensure highly accurate human interaction recognition, our method cooperatively utilizes two types of graphs: an inter-body graph and an intra-body graph. The inter-body graph, which is newly introduced in this paper, connects the inter-body joints between two people as well as intra-body connections. The adaptive GCN using the inter-body graph captures the relation of joints between two people, even different types of joints located far away from each other. Further, by implementing a multi-stream architecture, our method simultaneously captures both inter-body and intra-body relations in each of two units that represent the position and motion of people. Experiments on interaction recognition using two large-scale human action datasets, NTU RGB+D and NTU RGB+D 120, showed that our method recognized human interactions more accurately than state-of-the-art methods.

Osteochondral fractures of the fingers are challenging to treat, and it is mandatory to acquire early bone union and joint surface reconstruction to obtain satisfactory outcomes. These injuries sometimes occur as open fractures with poor soft tissue condition and bone defect adjacent to osteochondral fragment. For such cases, surgical treatment can be more difficult, and vascularized bone graft (VBG) could be a useful method for joint reconstruction. Here, we report reverse-pedicled VBG based on the radiodorsal artery of the thumb for reconstructing a traumatic bone defect of the thumb. A 36-year-old man, who had ulcerative colitis and was taking immunosuppressive agents, sustained open fracture-dislocation of the thumb interphalangeal joint with a free osteochondral fragment of the proximal phalanx and 6 × 5 × 4 mm of subcondylar bone defect. We harvested 5 × 5 × 5 mm VBG at the base of the first metacarpal bone and dissected running the radiodorsal artery. The vascularized bone was grafted into the bone defect site through the subcutaneous tunnel created on the radial aspect of the proximal phalanx and fixed with a Kirschner wire. Bony union was obtained 2 months after surgery. At 7 months after the operation, the patient complained no pain, and the range of motion of the thumb interphalangeal joint was extension 0° and flexion 42°. Radiographs showed no avascular necrosis of the united fragment and osteoarthritis of the interphalangeal joint. This method could be a useful option for reconstruction of the thumb with bone defects.

Techniques for integrating different types of multiple features effectively have been actively studied in recent years. Multiset canonical correlation analysis (MCCA), which maximizes the sum of pairwise correlations of inter-view (i.e., between different features), is one of the powerful methods for integrating different types of multiple features, and various MCCA-based methods have been proposed. This work focuses on a supervised MCCA variant in order to construct a novel effective feature integration framework. In this paper, we newly propose supervised fractional-order embedding geometrical multi-view CCA (SFGMCCA). This method constructs not only the correlation structure but also two types of geometrical structures of intra-view (i.e., within each feature) and inter-view simultaneously, thereby realizing more precise feature integration. This method also supports the integration of small sample and high-dimensional data by using the fractional-order technique. We conducted experiments using four types of image datasets, i.e., MNIST, COIL-20, ETH-80 and CIFAR-10. Furthermore, we also performed an fMRI dataset containing brain signals to verify the robustness. As a result, it was confirmed that accuracy improvements using SFGMCCA were statistically significant at the significance level of 0.05 compared to those using conventional representative MCCA-based methods.

Osteitis of the fingers is a serious infection that needs early diagnosis and appropriate surgical debridement and antibiotic treatment of the infected bone. If the effects of treatments are insufficient, long-term antibiotic treatment and repeated operations could be required. In worst cases, some patients may have to undergo amputation. Recently, the usefulness of the Masquelet technique in extensive traumatic bone defects has been reported. We herein describe two cases of immunocompromised patients with purulent osteitis involving joint destruction of the finger treated by two-stage arthrodesis using the Masquelet technique. They obtained good infection control and better function of the finger than before the operation. Moreover, there was no recurrence of the infection. The Masquelet technique could be an alternative technique for osteitis with high risk of amputation.

Acoustic noise and vibration are one of the main issues concerning permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) drives. The issue occurs because PMSMs generate pulsating torque and self-excite mechanical resonance of their drive systems. To produce smooth torque, a novel control scheme using (i) feedforward-based compensation to achieve an actively oscillating current precisely and (ii) estimation of spatial harmonics included in the permanent magnet flux distribution is proposed. These functions can produce smooth torque without pre-measurement and tuning of parameters related to occurrence of pulsating torque and its compensation. Moreover, they use simpler algorithms than existing ones. It is therefore possible to implement them on a drive platform for mass-produced products such as fans and pumps. The effectiveness of the proposed control scheme was verified by simulation and experimental tests on a PMSM for an air-conditioning fan.

Fast and wide imaging with single-cell resolution, high signal-to-noise ratio and no optical aberration has the potential to open up new avenues of investigation in biology. However, this imaging is challenging because of the inevitable tradeoffs among those parameters. Here, we overcome the tradeoffs by combining a resonant scanning system, a large objective with low magnification and high numerical aperture, and highly sensitive large-aperture photodetectors. The result is a practically aberration-free, fast scanning high optical invariant two-photon microscopy (FASHIO-2PM) that enables calcium imaging from a large network composed of ∼16k neurons at 7.5 Hz in a 9 mm2 contiguous image plane including more than 10 sensory-motor and higher-order regions of the cerebral cortex in awake mice. Through a network analysis based on single-cell activities, we discover that the brain exhibits small-world-ness rather than scale-freeness. FASHIO-2PM will enable revealing biological dynamics by simultaneous monitoring of macroscopic activity and its composing elements.

We investigated the viability of vascular endothelial cells with the existence of lipid bubbles under ultrasound exposure. First, we estimated the various situations of bubbles on the cells including either adhesion, floating, or both of them using not only image analysis but also an experiment to retain the cells in flow. Then we examined the viability measurement of the cells using the ultrasound conditions with the frequency of 3 MHz, a maximum sound pressure of 400 kPa pp, and a maximum irradiation time of 60 s. We found that the floating bubbles caused more damage on the cells rather than the adhered bubbles. Because insufficient adhesion of bubbles might cause damage by floating bubbles, we consider that the adhered bubbles were protective of cells against floating bubbles. However, excessive bubbles with a higher concentration than the saturation also might cause damage by destructing both the floating and adhered bubbles.

Atraumatic acute carpal tunnel syndrome is a rare type of median nerve neuropathy caused by etiologies that increase compartment pressure in the carpal tunnel. This report describes a patient with flexor tendon abrasion as an unusual complication of distal radioulnar joint arthritis. This abrasion caused a hematoma to form in the carpal tunnel during anticoagulant treatment with apixaban, resulting in recurrent acute carpal tunnel syndrome.

Adverse reactions to metal debris after total hip arthroplasty are an increasing concern. Metal debris is released from the metal-on-metal articulation itself as well as from the head-neck taper. There is also a risk of corrosion at the neck-stem junction. Some stems were recalled because of high revision rates as a result of metal debris from the modular junction. We conducted a retrospective analysis of the 3-year to 8-year clinical and radiographic outcomes of a consecutive cohort of patients who underwent cementless total hip arthroplasty using a modular hip prosthesis with ceramic-on-ceramic bearings.We retrospectively evaluated 104 patients who had undergone 119 primary ceramic-on-ceramic total hip arthroplasties using modular neck femoral components between December 2006 and November 2012. All hips were implanted with a titanium alloy stem and titanium alloy neck. Clinical outcomes were evaluated using the Japanese Orthopaedic Association hip score. Prosthesis survival was calculated according to the Kaplan-Meier method considering any reason for revision as failure. Postoperative magnetic resonance imaging was performed and graded using a previously described pseudotumor grading system. Mean follow-up was 5.9 years (range: 3 to 8 years).The mean age of the patients at the time of the index arthroplasty was 59.0 years. Mean hip score improved from 45.9 (range: 9 to 90) preoperatively to 91.5 (range: 65 to 100) at the final follow-up. The overall implant survival rate was 97.3% at 8 years when revision for any reason was used as the endpoint. Abnormalities on magnetic resonance imaging were seen in 16 of 91 hips (17.6%). All abnormalities were cystic thin-walled lesions located in the peritrochanteric area. There was no revision operation due to adverse reactions to metal debris.A modular neck femoral prosthesis with ceramic-on-ceramic bearings offers satisfactory 3-year to 8-year results. However, abnormalities on magnetic resonance imaging were seen in one-fifth of the patients, although the clinical significance is unknown.

In this paper, we propose a design of asynchronous communication for an industrial wireless LAN system. In our design, MAC is synchronous multi-user round-robin transmission protocol. Low overhead Packet Division Multiple Access scheme is utilized for Multi-user Downlink transmission up to 80 MHz, while Frequency Division Multiple Access is employed for the uplink transmission. The designed of PHY system is developed based on a fast and deterministic communication featuring the synchronous multi-user system. In this paper, the industrial robots are not only controlled by synchronous communication but also by asynchronous communication via our industrial WLAN (iWLAN) system. This paper presents the hardware and software cooperative design. In the verification, up to 10 motors can be controlled by our iWLAN system by asynchronous communication, and the delay of each robot measured is 188 μs on average. Besides, the time synchronization captured by oscilloscope is from 40 to 100 ns as in our target.

A 42-year-old female developed type 1 diabetes mellitus at the age of 16 years and received insulin therapy. Esophagogastroduodenoscopy revealed an atrophic change localized in the gastric body and a small, protruding gastric lesion. Biopsy revealed that this lesion was gastric neuroendocrine tumor. Hence, the patient underwent en bloc resection by endoscopic submucosal resection with a ligation device. As the patient presented both autoimmune gastritis and type 1 diabetes mellitus, she was diagnosed with type 4 autoimmune polyendocrine syndrome. We report this case considering that only few cases of gastric neuroendocrine tumor with autoimmune gastritis (type A gastritis) complicated with autoimmune polyendocrine syndrome have been reported till date.

Traveling waves are commonly observed across the brain. While previous studies have suggested the role of traveling waves in learning, the mechanism remains unclear. We adopted a computational approach to investigate the effect of traveling waves on synaptic plasticity. Our results indicate that traveling waves facilitate the learning of poly-synaptic network paths when combined with a reward-dependent local synaptic plasticity rule. We also demonstrate that traveling waves expedite finding the shortest paths and learning nonlinear input/output mapping, such as exclusive or (XOR) function., Author summary There are approximately 1011 neurons with 1014 connections in the human brain. Information transmission among neurons in this large network is considered crucial for our behavior. To achieve this, multiple synaptic connections along a poly-synaptic network path must be adjusted coherently during learning. Because the previously proposed reward-dependent synaptic plasticity rule requires coactivation of presynaptic and postsynaptic neurons, learning can fail if a subset of neurons along a distant network path is inactive at the beginning of learning. We suggest that traveling waves that are initiated at an information source can mitigate this problem. We performed computer simulations of spiking neural networks with reward-dependent local synaptic plasticity rules and traveling waves. Our results show that this combination facilitates the learning and refinement of synaptic network paths. We argue that these features are a general biological strategy for maintaining and optimizing our brain function. Our research provides new insights into how complex neural networks in the brain form during learning and memory consolidation.