Family Members Identification with Brightness Distribution Sensors to Self-sustaining of Power as Personal Actions

There are many attempts to recognize actions using sensors in homes. Some of them aim to keep watching on the elderly living alone, while others try to bring ecological life, scheduling domestic actions consuming energy. We need an inexpensive method to make it prevail in the society. In the meantime, recognition results threaten privacy, if outsiders obtain them. Almost all people mind whether they are used in malicious ways. The sensor should prevent the leak of the privacy of users. This work proposes a method to recognize various domestic actions with a single kind of sensors, which is not only inexpensive, but also safe enough to protect the privacy. The method uses brightness distribution sensors presenting a sequence of cells, each of which indicates the brightness of one direction in the view area of the sensor. The method gets local features along with the persons who conduct domestic actions. The method enables to recognize both of domestic actions and the period in which they are conducted. To evaluate the accuracy of the method, 10 men and women have participated in an experiment, where they take various domestic actions in their own ways with 4 brightness distribution sensors installed on the wall of an actual kitchen. As a result, the method has marked high performance on the recognition of “vacuuming”, “cooking”, and “taking a rest”, along with their periods. The method also identifies all examinees who conduct them in high accuracy. It is possible to recognize domestic actions in actual home spaces

Treatment with teriparatide for advanced bisphosphonate-related osteonecrosis of the jaw around dental implants: a case report

Abstract We report a case of a 66-year-old severely osteoporotic woman with bisphosphonate-related osteonecrosis of the jaw (BRONJ) around her dental implants, who was treated successfully with teriparatide and sequestrectomy of the mandible. After 5 months of teriparatide therapy, the sequestrum separation had progressed and a sequestrectomy was performed under general anesthesia. Five months after the operation, new bone formation was observed around the bone defect in the region of the sequestrectomy. A repeat computed tomographic image revealed improvement in the bone defect in the mandible. These results suggest that teriparatide provides beneficial effects in the treatment of advanced BRONJ around dental implants

Establishment of an Animal Model of Bisphosphonate-Related Osteonecrosis of the Jaws in Spontaneously Diabetic Torii Rats.

BACKGROUND:We evaluated the side effects of bisphosphonate (BP) on tooth extraction socket healing in spontaneously diabetic Torii (SDT) rats, an established model of non-obese type 2 diabetes mellitus, to develop an animal model of BP-related osteonecrosis of the jaws (BRONJ). MATERIALS AND METHODS:Male Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats and SDT rats were randomly assigned to the zoledronic acid (ZOL)-treated groups (SD/ZOL or SDT/ZOL) or to the control groups (SD/control or SDT/control). Rats in the SD/ZOL or SDT/ZOL groups received an intravenous bolus injection of ZOL (35 μg/kg) every 2 weeks. Each group consisted of 6 rats each. Twenty-one weeks after ZOL treatment began, the left maxillary molars were extracted. The rats were euthanized at 2, 4, or 8 weeks after tooth extraction, and the total maxillae were harvested for histological and histochemical studies. RESULTS:In the oral cavity, bone exposure persisted at the tooth extraction site in all rats of the SDT/ZOL group until 8 weeks after tooth extraction. In contrast, there was no bone exposure in SD/control or SDT/control groups, and only 1 of 6 rats in the SD/ZOL group showed bone exposure. Histologically, necrotic bone areas with empty lacunae, microbial colonies, and less invasion by inflammatory cells were observed. The number of tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase-positive osteoclasts was lower in the SDT/ZOL group than in the SD/control group. The mineral apposition rate was significantly lower in the SDT/ZOL group compared with the SD/control group. CONCLUSIONS:This study demonstrated the development of BRONJ-like lesions in rats and suggested that low bone turnover with less inflammatory cell infiltration plays an important role in the development of BRONJ

Validation of the diabetic phenotype of SDT rats.

<p>Changes in body weight (<b>A</b>) and blood glucose levels (<b>B</b>) in SD and SDT rats. □: SD/control, ■: SD/ZOL, ○: SDT/control, ●: SDT/ZOL. Data are expressed as means ± SD (n = 6). *<i>p</i><0.005 versus SD/control. Macroscopic opacity of the lens observed at approximately 32 weeks of age in SDT rats (<b>C</b>).</p