Estimation of water seepage rate in the active crater lake system of Kusatsu-Shirane volcano, Japan, using FDNPP-derived radioactive cesium as a hydrological tracer.

We describe here a first attempt to estimate the water seepage rate of an active crater lake using radioactive cesium dispersed into the environment by the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant accident in March 2011 as a hydrological tracer. Kusatsu-Shirane volcano is one of the most active volcanoes in Japan and has an active crater lake named Yugama. There is no outflow such as a river from Yugama crater lake.

[Recent trends in the clinical characteristics of infective endocarditis: a survey of 54 consecutive cases from 2006 to 2010].

Background: It has been reported that the clinical characteristics of infective endocarditis are changing during the course of the decades. However, most of the available data are obtained in the early 2000s or earlier. We therefore evaluated the more recent clinical spectrum of infective endocarditis.