Multi-source Pseudo-label Learning of Semantic Segmentation for the Scene Recognition of Agricultural Mobile Robots

This paper describes a novel method of training a semantic segmentation model for environment recognition of agricultural mobile robots by unsupervised domain adaptation exploiting publicly available datasets of outdoor scenes that are different from our target environments i.e., greenhouses. In conventional semantic segmentation methods, the labels are given by manual annotation, which is a tedious and time-consuming task. A method to work around the necessity of the manual annotation is unsupervised domain adaptation (UDA) that transfer knowledge from labeled source datasets to unlabeled target datasets. Most of the UDA methods of semantic segmentation are validated by tasks of adaptation from non-photorealistic synthetic images of urban scenes to real ones. However, the effectiveness of the methods is not well studied in the case of adaptation to other types of environments, such as greenhouses. In addition, it is not always possible to prepare appropriate source datasets for such environments. In this paper, we adopt an existing training method of UDA to a task of training a model for greenhouse images. We propose to use multiple publicly available datasets of outdoor images as source datasets, and also propose a simple yet effective method of generating pseudo-labels by transferring knowledge from the source datasets that have different appearance and a label set from the target datasets. We demonstrate in experiments that by combining our proposed method of pseudo-label generation with the existing training method, the performance was improved by up to 14.3% of mIoU compared to the best score of the single-source training.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, submitted to Machine Vision And Application

Multi-Source Soft Pseudo-Label Learning with Domain Similarity-based Weighting for Semantic Segmentation

This paper describes a method of domain adaptive training for semantic segmentation using multiple source datasets that are not necessarily relevant to the target dataset. We propose a soft pseudo-label generation method by integrating predicted object probabilities from multiple source models. The prediction of each source model is weighted based on the estimated domain similarity between the source and the target datasets to emphasize contribution of a model trained on a source that is more similar to the target and generate reasonable pseudo-labels. We also propose a training method using the soft pseudo-labels considering their entropy to fully exploit information from the source datasets while suppressing the influence of possibly misclassified pixels. The experiments show comparative or better performance than our previous work and another existing multi-source domain adaptation method, and applicability to a variety of target environments.Comment: Accepted to IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS2023

Current Femoral Stem Fixation Selection in Hip-Fracture Bipolar Hemiarthroplasties, and Factors Affecting Surgeons’ Confidence in Their Ability to Teach about Cemented Stems: A Questionnaire in a Region of Japan with Super-Aged Patients

Japan’s hip fracture management guidelines now recommend the use of cemented stems in cases of bone fragility. However, the current stem selection practices in bipolar hemiarthroplasty (BHA) in a super-aging area in Japan remain unclear. This study aimed to examine the stem selection policies, the surgeons’ concerns about cemented stems, and factors affecting their confidence in their ability to coach others on cemented stem procedures. Ninety-four orthopedic surgeons (27 facilities) responded to our web-based questionnaire conducted in January/February 2022. Cementless stem was the first choice of 97.8% of the surgeons; <15% of the respondents expected to increase their use of cemented stems in the future. The cement technique was the greatest concern; almost half of the surgeons described having insufficient experience with cemented stems. The factor that most affected the surgeons’ expertise in using cemented stems is the number of surgeries they had conducted with a cemented stem (multivariable analysis odds ratio 8.42, p=0.001). Greater experience was associated with increased expertise of the surgeons in using cemented stems, with a threshold of 11 cases showing sensitivity of 41.7% and specificity of 98.3% for their confidence to instruct cemented stems

Antiallergic Activity of 6-Deoxy-2-O-methyl-6-(N-hexadecanoyl)amino-L-ascorbic Acid

Allergy is an excessive immune response to a specific antigen. Type I allergies, such as hay fever and food allergies, have increased significantly in recent years and have become a worldwide problem. We previously reported that an ascorbic acid derivative having palmitoyl and glucosyl groups, 2-O-α-D-glucopyranosyl-6-O-hexadecanoyl-L-ascorbic acid (6-sPalm-AA-2G), showed inhibitory effects on degranulation in vitro and on the passive cutaneous anaphylaxis (PCA) reaction in mice. In this study, several palmitoyl derivatives of ascorbic acid were synthesized and a structure–activity relationship study was performed to discover more potent ascorbic acid derivatives with degranulation inhibitory activity. 6-Deoxy-2-O-methyl-6-(N-hexadecanoyl)amino-L-ascorbic acid (2-Me-6-N-Palm-AA), in which a methyl group was introduced into the hydroxyl group at the C-2 position of ascorbic acid and in which the hydroxyl group at the C-6 position was substituted with an N-palmitoyl group, exhibited much higher inhibitory activity for degranulation in vitro than did 6-sPalm-AA-2G. 2-Me-6-N-Palm-AA strongly inhibit the PCA reaction in mice at lower doses than those of 6-sPalm-AA-2G. These findings suggest that 2-Me-6-N-Palm-AA may be a promising therapeutic candidate for allergic diseases

Anti-Allergic Activity of Monoacylated Ascorbic Acid 2-Glucosides

2-O-α-D-Glucopyranosyl-L-ascorbic acid (AA-2G) is one of the stable ascorbic acid (AA) derivatives known as provitamin C agents. We have previously synthesized two types of monoacylated derivatives of AA-2G, 6-O-acyl-2-O-α-D-glucopyranosyl-L-ascorbic acids having a straight-acyl chain of varying length from C4 to C18 (6-sAcyl-AA-2G) and a branched-acyl chain of varying length from C6 to C16 (6-bAcyl-AA-2G) in order to improve the bioavailability of AA-2G. In this study, 6-sAcyl-AA-2G and 6-bAcyl-AA-2G per se showed the inhibitory effects on hyaluronidase activity and degranulation. 6-sAcyl-AA-2G exhibited strong inhibitory effects on hyaluronidase activity and degranulation in a concentration-dependent manner, and the inhibitory effects tended to become stronger with increasing length of the acyl chain. 2-O-α-D-Glucopyranosyl-6-O-hexadecanoyl-L-ascorbic acid (6-sPalm-AA-2G), which has a straight C16 acyl chain, was the most potent effective for inhibition of hyaluronidase activity and for inhibition of degranulation among the 6-sAcyl-AA-2G derivatives and the two isomers of 6-sPalm-AA-2G. Furthermore, percutaneous administration of 6-sPalm-AA-2G significantly inhibited IgE-mediated passive cutaneous anaphylaxis reaction in mice. These findings suggest that 6-sPalm-AA-2G will be useful for treatment of allergies

距骨壊死に対するアルミナセラミック性人工距骨置換術のSAFE-Qを用いた臨床成績

Background: The purpose of this retrospective review was to evaluate the clinical outcomes of patients who underwent total talar replacement for talar necrosis using the SAFE-Q score, which was hypothesized to improve postoperatively. Methods: The study included 24 ankles of 22 patients who underwent total talar replacement from 2012 to 2018 and were evaluated using SAFE-Q preoperatively and postoperatively. Statistical analysis was performed using the mean values of the SAFE-Q and JSSF scale scores, and the range of ankle motion was compared before and 3 years after the surgery using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Results: The SAFE-Q scores improved postoperatively in the all the subcategories. “Pain and Pain-Related” changed from a mean value of 42.2±23.9 points preoperatively to a mean value of 84.6±12.6 points postoperatively (p<.01); “Physical Functioning and Daily Living” changed from 36.3±25.2 points to 73.4±20.5 points (p<.01); “Social Functioning” changed from 34.1±34.8 points to 81.0±25.3 points (p<.01); “Shoe-Related” changed from 41.3±28.9 points to 75.4±22.3 points (p<.01); “General Health and Well-Being” changed from 36.7±32.1 to 76.9±29.3 points (p<.01). Conclusion: Twenty-four osteonecrotic tali of 22 patients treated with alumina ceramic total talar replacement achieved good clinical results, as evaluated using the JSSF ankle/hindfoot score and SAFE-Q. Alumina ceramic total talar replacement is the mainstream treatment for talar osteonecrosis.博士（医学）・甲第856号・令和4年12月22