Background: Intervention trials that have demonstrated significant effects may not always replicate those effects when scaled up. This study aimed to test whether scaling-up a successful cluster randomized trial (the COMMUNICATE study, 9 intervention communities), which promoted population-level physical activity (PA), could promote PA in a broader citywide setting (29 communities) after two years, as a mid-term evaluation of the six-year scaled-up trial.
Methods: This is a single-arm, pre-post comparison of a multi-strategic community-wide intervention covering the entire Unnan City, Japan.
The current study proposed and evaluated "residual squeeze and excitation attention gate" (rSEAG), a novel network that can improve image quality by reducing distortion attributed to artifacts. This method was established by modifying the Cycle Generative Adversarial Network (cycleGAN)-based generator network using projection data for pre-reconstruction processing in digital breast tomosynthesis. Residual squeeze and excitation were installed in the bridge of the generator network, and the attention gate was installed in the skip connection between the encoder and decoder.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlast Reconstr Surg Glob Open
July 2024
Background: Although aesthetic treatments can rejuvenate the skin, they often cause specific forms of tissue damage. Unlike wounding, which typically results in fibrotic scar tissue, damage from aesthetic treatments induces a distinct histological rejuvenation. The mechanisms that drive this rejuvenation are not yet fully understood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAmyand's hernia is a rare type of inguinal hernia characterized by the presence of the vermiform appendix within the hernia sac. It was named after Claudius Amyand who performed the world's first successful appendectomy on an 11-year-old boy with a right inguinal hernia in 1735 and discovered a herniated appendix during surgery. This condition warrants urgent surgical treatment, with the type of surgical intervention depending on the appendix's condition.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCytokines are small secreted proteins that have specific effects on cellular interactions and are crucial for functioning of the immune system. Cytokines are involved in almost all diseases, but as microscopic chemical compounds they cannot be visualized at imaging for obvious reasons. Several imaging manifestations have been well recognized owing to the development of cytokine therapies such as those with bevacizumab (antibody against vascular endothelial growth factor) and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells and the establishment of new disease concepts such as interferonopathy and cytokine release syndrome.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnviron Sci Process Impacts
August 2023
Forest-stream ecotones possess prominent detritus-based food webs, and Cs-contaminated litter can influence the contamination levels of animals inhabiting such ecosystems. The effects of leaching on contaminated litter induce greater absolute differences between the Cs concentrations of forest and stream litter in more contaminated sites. Because Cs concentrations in litter can be attenuated temporally, spatiotemporal patterns in the differences in Cs concentrations between forest and stream litter may vary depending on both the amount of Cs deposition and the passage of time.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAn optically pumped magnetometer (OPM) is a new generation of magnetoencephalography (MEG) devices that is small, light, and works at room temperature. Due to these characteristics, OPMs enable flexible and wearable MEG systems. On the other hand, if we have a limited number of OPM sensors, we need to carefully design their sensor arrays depending on our purposes and regions of interests (ROIs).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe amount of ozone absorbed by the tree leaves is a critical factor determining the ozone effects on forest trees. Stomatal ozone uptake of a forest canopy can be estimated from the ozone concentration and canopy conductance (g) determined by the sap-flow-based method. This method measures sap flow as a metric of crown transpiration and then derives g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: In recent years, positron emission tomography/magnetic resonance imaging (PET/MRI) has been clinically used as a method to diagnose non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). This study aimed to evaluate the concordance of staging and prognostic ability of NSCLC patients using thin-slice computed tomography (CT) and F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) PET/MRI.
Methods: This retrospective study was performed on consecutive NSCLC patients who underwent both diagnostic CT and F-FDG PET/MRI before surgery between November 2015 and May 2019.
The polymer gel dosimeter has been proposed for use as a 3D dosimeter for complex dose distribution measurement of high dose-rate (HDR) brachytherapy. However, various shapes of catheter/applicator for sealed radioactive source transport used in clinical cases must be placed in the gel sample. The absorbed dose readout for the magnetic resonance (MR)-based polymer gel dosimeters requires calibration data for the dose-transverse relaxation rate (R2) response.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEcological resilience to ungulate overbrowsing is an important issue in forest ecosystems. After chronic herbivory, the recovery rate of understory vegetation and its related functions can be slow even with decreasing grazing intensity; thus, detecting elasticity during alternative successional trajectories is fundamental to understanding state perturbations. In this context, we focused on physical plant-soil feedback (functional interactions between plant growth and soil physical conditions) and evaluated elasticity and recovery processes according to deer density.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFForest is an important part of the environmental system, which has a significant impact on soil hydrological characteristics and forest landscapes, because these processes are influenced by forest management and understory vegetation. Quantitative understory vegetation biomass (UVB) measurement and estimation are vital processes in forest ecology and environmental management. However, these estimations are difficult to make on a large scale especially dense planted forest.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Global aging continues to progress. The shortage of human resources involved in long-term care (LTC) is a serious problem worldwide. It is necessary to promote the stable employment of foreign care workers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this study, we evaluated the improvement of image quality in digital breast tomosynthesis under low-radiation dose conditions of pre-reconstruction processing using conditional generative adversarial networks [cGAN (pix2pix)]. Pix2pix pre-reconstruction processing with filtered back projection (FBP) was compared with and without multiscale bilateral filtering (MSBF) during pre-reconstruction processing. Noise reduction and preserve contrast rates were compared using full width at half-maximum (FWHM), contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), and structural similarity (SSIM) in the in-focus plane using a BR3D phantom at various radiation doses [reference-dose (automatic exposure control reference dose: AECrd), 50% and 75% reduction of AECrd] and phantom thicknesses (40 mm, 50 mm, and 60 mm).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlexander disease is a rare form of leukodystrophy caused by heterozygous mutations in the gene encoding glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP). Brain cavitation in the white matter, predominantly distributed in the frontal periventricular area, has been described in some cases. Here, we present a case of a 1-year-old boy with neonatal Alexander disease caused by the p.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMRI-based gel dosimeters are attractive systems for the evaluation of complex dose distributions in radiotherapy. In particular, the nanocomposite Fricke gel dosimeter is one among a few dosimeters capable of accurately evaluating the dose distribution of heavy ion beams. In contrast, reduction of the scanning time is a challenging issue for the acquisition of three-dimensional volume data.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFalls in older adults are a major public health issue, and it is unclear whether the neighborhood environment is associated with falls among this group. This cross-sectional study investigated whether hilly neighborhood environmental factors were associated with fall status (falls or fear of falling) in rural Japanese older adults. Data obtained from 965 participants aged 65 years and older living in Unnan City, Shimane Prefecture, Japan, in 2017 were analyzed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this study, a novel combination of hybrid generative adversarial networks (GANs) comprising cycle-consistent GAN, pix2pix, and (mask pyramid network) MPN (CGpM-metal artifact reduction [MAR]), was developed using projection data to reduce metal artifacts and the radiation dose during digital tomosynthesis. The CGpM-MAR algorithm was compared with the conventional filtered back projection (FBP) without MAR, FBP with MAR, and convolutional neural network MAR. The MAR rates were compared using the artifact index (AI) and Gumbel distribution of the largest variation analysis using a prosthesis phantom at various radiation doses.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFForest-stream ecosystems are widespread and biodiverse terrestrial landscapes with physical and social connections to downstream human activities. After radiocesium is introduced into these ecosystems, various material flows cause its accumulation or dispersal. We review studies conducted in the decade after the Fukushima nuclear accident to clarify the mechanisms of radiocesium transfer within ecosystems and to downstream areas through biological, hydrological, and geomorphological processes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Food access is an important aspect of health promotion for the elderly. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between distance to the nearest food store and diet variety in rural community-dwelling elderly Japanese.
Methods: This cross-sectional study analyzed data from 1,103 elderly participants surveyed by mail in rural areas of Japan.
Objectives: Skipping breakfast prolongs the fasting state initiated after the last meal consumed the previous day and can have negative effects on muscle protein balance. The aim of this crossover trial was to examine the effects of skipping breakfast before a single bout of resistance exercise (RE) on muscle protein breakdown (MPB), as assessed using the urinary 3-methylhistidine/creatinine ratio (3-MH/Cr).
Methods: Thirteen healthy young men, who habitually consumed breakfast (21.
We developed a novel dual-energy (DE) virtual monochromatic (VM) very-deep super-resolution (VDSR) method with an unsharp masking reconstruction algorithm (DE-VM-VDSR) that uses projection data to improve the nodule contrast and reduce ripple artifacts during chest digital tomosynthesis (DT). For estimating the residual errors from high-resolution and multiscale VM images from the projection space, the DE-VM-VDSR algorithm employs a training network (mini-batch stochastic gradient-descent algorithm with momentum) and a hybrid super-resolution (SR) image [simultaneous algebraic reconstruction technique (SART) total-variation (TV) first-iterative shrinkage-thresholding algorithm (FISTA); SART-TV-FISTA] that involves subjective reconstruction with bilateral filtering (BF) [DE-VM-VDSR with BF]. DE-DT imaging was accomplished by pulsed X-ray exposures rapidly switched between low (60 kV, 37 projection) and high (120 kV, 37 projection) tube-potential kVp by employing a 40° swing angle.
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