Robust Vehicle Detection under Various Environments to Realize Road Traffic Flow Surveillance Using an Infrared Thermal Camera

To realize road traffic flow surveillance under various environments which contain poor visibility conditions, we have already proposed two vehicle detection methods using thermal images taken with an infrared thermal camera. The first method uses pattern recognition for the windshields and their surroundings to detect vehicles. However, the first method decreases the vehicle detection accuracy in winter season. To maintain high vehicle detection accuracy in all seasons, we developed the second method. The second method uses tires’ thermal energy reflection areas on a road as the detection targets. The second method did not achieve high detection accuracy for vehicles on left-hand and right-hand lanes except for two center-lanes. Therefore, we have developed a new method based on the second method to increase the vehicle detection accuracy. This paper proposes the new method and shows that the detection accuracy for vehicles on all lanes is 92.1%. Therefore, by combining the first method and the new method, high vehicle detection accuracies are maintained under various environments, and road traffic flow surveillance can be realized

Crystal Structures of a Piscine Betanodavirus: Mechanisms of Capsid Assembly and Viral Infection

Betanodaviruses cause massive mortality in marine fish species with viral nervous necrosis. The structure of a T = 3 Grouper nervous necrosis virus-like particle (GNNV-LP) is determined by the ab initio method with non-crystallographic symmetry averaging at 3.6 Å resolution. Each capsid protein (CP) shows three major domains: (i) the N-terminal arm, an inter-subunit extension at the inner surface; (ii) the shell domain (S-domain), a jelly-roll structure; and (iii) the protrusion domain (P-domain) formed by three-fold trimeric protrusions. In addition, we have determined structures of the T = 1 subviral particles (SVPs) of (i) the delta-P-domain mutant (residues 35−217) at 3.1 Å resolution; and (ii) the N-ARM deletion mutant (residues 35−338) at 7 Å resolution; and (iii) the structure of the individual P-domain (residues 214−338) at 1.2 Å resolution. The P-domain reveals a novel DxD motif asymmetrically coordinating two Ca2+ ions, and seems to play a prominent role in the calcium-mediated trimerization of the GNNV CPs during the initial capsid assembly process. The flexible N-ARM (N-terminal arginine-rich motif) appears to serve as a molecular switch for T = 1 or T = 3 assembly. Finally, we find that polyethylene glycol, which is incorporated into the P-domain during the crystallization process, enhances GNNV infection. The present structural studies together with the biological assays enhance our understanding of the role of the P-domain of GNNV in the capsid assembly and viral infection by this betanodavirus

Robust Vehicle Detection under Various Environmental Conditions Using an Infrared Thermal Camera and Its Application to Road Traffic Flow Monitoring

We have already proposed a method for detecting vehicle positions and their movements (henceforth referred to as “our previous method”) using thermal images taken with an infrared thermal camera. Our experiments have shown that our previous method detects vehicles robustly under four different environmental conditions which involve poor visibility conditions in snow and thick fog. Our previous method uses the windshield and its surroundings as the target of the Viola-Jones detector. Some experiments in winter show that the vehicle detection accuracy decreases because the temperatures of many windshields approximate those of the exterior of the windshields. In this paper, we propose a new vehicle detection method (henceforth referred to as “our new method”). Our new method detects vehicles based on tires’ thermal energy reflection. We have done experiments using three series of thermal images for which the vehicle detection accuracies of our previous method are low. Our new method detects 1,417 vehicles (92.8%) out of 1,527 vehicles, and the number of false detection is 52 in total. Therefore, by combining our two methods, high vehicle detection accuracies are maintained under various environmental conditions. Finally, we apply the traffic information obtained by our two methods to traffic flow automatic monitoring, and show the effectiveness of our proposal

Fluorometric analysis of galactose in whole blood spotted on paper

新生児の血液を滲み込ませた濾紙中のガラクトースを2%過塩素酸で抽出してga1actoseを測定する方法について検討した.この方法は除蛋白操作が容易で,安定した結果が得られるので血中ガラクトースの定量方法として有用である.本法による新生児血中ガラクトースの平均値は0.14mg/dlであり,生後の日齢による変動は見られなかった.Galactose was measured in whole blood spotted on paper as a screening test for congenital metabolic disorders in the newborn. Two dried blood spots of 3 mm diameter were extracted with 2% perchloric acid and diluted with a buffer. Galactose was determined by galactose dehydrogenase. The normal range for galactose in the newborn by this method was 0 to 0.15 mg/dl

High Turnover Frequency CO–NO Reactions over Rh Overlayer Catalysts: A Comparative Study Using Rh Nanoparticles

International audienc

Diagnosis of infective endocarditis with cardiac CT in an adult

The diagnosis of infective endocarditis is based on modified Duke's criteria, which includes clinical, biological, and echocardiographic findings. However, computed tomography (CT) has not been mentioned as a diagnostic tool in the criteria. We report a case of infective endocarditis confirmed by cardiac CT in which we could identify vegetations and perivalvular abscess not on transthoracic echocardiography and transesophageal echocardiography. Cardiac CT was feasible imaging modality for evaluating and diagnosing infective endocarditis. Cardiac CT should be recommended in patients with clinical suspicion of infective endocarditis even when transthoracic echocardiography and transesophageal echocardiography is negative for infective endocarditis. Keywords: Cardiac computed tomography, Infective endocarditi