Diagnostic value of computed high b-value whole-body diffusion-weighted imaging for primary prostate cancer

Purpose: To investigate the utility of post-acquisition computed diffusion-weighted imaging (cDWI) for primary prostate cancer (PCa) evaluation in biparametric whole-body MRI (bpWB-MRI). Methods: Patients who underwent pelvic MRI for PCa screening and subsequent bpWB-MRI for staging were included. Two radiologists assessed the diagnostic performance of the following datasets for clinically significant PCa diagnosis (grade group >= 2 according to the Prostate Imaging-Reporting and Data System, version 2.1): bpMRI(2000) (axial DWI scans with a b-value of 2,000 s/mm(2) + axial T2WI scans from pre-biopsy pelvic MRI), computed bpWB-MRI2000 (computed WB-DWI scans with a b-value of 2,000 s/mm(2) + axial WB-T2WI scans), and native bpWB-MRI1000 (native axial WB-DWI scans with a b-value of 1,000 s/mm(2) + axial WB-T2WI scans). Systemic biopsy was used as reference standard. Results: Fifty-one patients with PCa were included. The areas under the curve (AUCs) of bpMRI(2000) (0.89 for reader 1 and 0.86 for reader 2) and computed bpWB-MRI2000 (0.86 for reader 1 and 0.83 for reader 2) were significantly higher (p < 0.001) than those of native bpWB-MRI1000 (0.67 for both readers). No significant difference was observed between the AUCs of bpMRI(2000) and computed bpWB-MRI2000 (p = 0.10 for reader 1 and p = 0.25 for reader 2). Conclusions: The diagnostic performance of computed bpWB-MRI2000 was similar to that of dedicated pelvic bpMRI(2000) for primary PCa evaluation. cDWI can be recommended for implementation in standard WB-MRI protocols to facilitate a one-step evaluation for concurrent detection of primary and metastatic PCa

子どものグリーフサポートグループの意義を考える : ルーテル学院大学および日本ルーテル神学校における17年間の子どもの集まりの取り組みを通して

実践報告Practical Activity Repor

Semi-automatic staging area for high-quality structured data extraction from scientific literature

In this study, we propose a staging area for ingesting new superconductors' experimental data in SuperCon that is machine-collected from scientific articles. Our objective is to enhance the efficiency of updating SuperCon while maintaining or enhancing the data quality. We present a semi-automatic staging area driven by a workflow combining automatic and manual processes on the extracted database. An anomaly detection automatic process aims to pre-screen the collected data. Users can then manually correct any errors through a user interface tailored to simplify the data verification on the original PDF documents. Additionally, when a record is corrected, its raw data is collected and utilised to improve machine learning models as training data. Evaluation experiments demonstrate that our staging area significantly improves curation quality. We compare the interface with the traditional manual approach of reading PDF documents and recording information in an Excel document. Using the interface boosts the precision and recall by 6% and 50%, respectively to an average increase of 40% in F1-score.Comment: 5 tables, 9 figures, 31 page

Fall Risk Notification System using LiDAR Sensor for the Visually Impaired People

We have developed the fall risk notification system using LiDAR sensors to reduce number of fall accidents on platform involving visually impaired people. In this paper, we report the experiment results of the environment recognition algorithm for the fall risk notification system. In this algorithm, height grid map is generated from the depth image from LiDAR sensor and the posture of iPhone. In the experiment, we evaluated the accuracy and responsivity when approaching risky area of falling, such as stairs.The 2022 International Conference on Artificial Life and Robotics (ICAROB 2022), January 20-23, 2022, on line, Oita, Japa

Influence of Diabetes Mellitus on Surgical Outcomes in Patients with Cervical Myelopathy: A Prospective, Multicenter Study

[Study Design] Multicenter, prospective study. [Purpose] To investigate the effects of diabetes mellitus (DM) on surgical outcomes in patients with cervical myelopathy. [Overview of Literature] To date, few studies have investigated the influence of postoperative blood glucose or glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) levels on surgical outcomes. [Methods] The participants were patients who underwent surgery for the treatment of cervical spondylotic myelopathy and ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament. The 61 cases were evaluated preoperatively and 1 year postoperatively using the Japanese Orthopaedic Association (JOA) scores and the JOA Cervical Myelopathy Evaluation Questionnaire (JOACMEQ). The study variables included fasting blood glucose and HbA1c levels measured preoperatively and at 1 week, 4 weeks, and 1 year postoperatively; the F-wave conduction velocity, latency, rate of occurrence, and M-wave latency in the ulnar and tibial nerves were measured preoperatively and at 1 year postoperatively. The patients were divided into a group without diabetes (N group, 42 patients) and a group with diabetes (DM group, 19 patients). We then assessed the associations between the surgical outcomes and each of the study variables. [Results] JOA scores significantly improved in both groups; however, no significant between-group differences were found. There was no significant improvement in the JOACMEQ scores, which assessed cervical function, upper and lower limb function, and bladder function in both groups. We then subdivided the DM group into those with a good control of HbA1c after 1 year (DMG group, 12 patients) and those with HbA1c deterioration after 1 year (DMB group, seven patients), prior to comparing the surgical outcomes. The JOACMEQ scores for upper and lower limb function significantly improved in the DMG group (p<0.01). Compared with the DMB group, there were no significant increases in upper or lower limb function scores in the DMG group. [Conclusions] Poor glycemic control might prevent postoperative functional recovery of the spinal cord

Polynomorphs of Japanese Alpine Plants(3)

Article環境科学年報14:35-44(1992)research repor