It is important that student nurses obtain such abilities that they can develop their understanding for patients and diseases and express their opinions to the nursing. Several researches show practical training in hospitals changes students greatly, but there are no studies to investigate the mental changes. In this paper, we report the results of comparisons between 3^<rd> grade student before training and 4^<th> grade after training. In each item, the 4^<th> grade have higher scores than 3^<rd> grade, which implies that the training gives the student the deep understanding about patients not only in the physical conditions but also in the mental states.

View full abstract

To realize the mobile scene-touch equipment of for vision-impaired persons, the measurement and presentation method for the system are examined. It is desirable that the system has fewer disturbances to the vision-impaired person, higher portability and lower cost. Then, we consider a system that uses the video camera attached to the person and the vibrator attached to his/her finger. The video camera acquires the front scene and his/her finger simultaneously. The vibrator presents the image contour of the scene near the finger. As to simplify the measurement of the finger position, a marker is also attached to the finger. In this paper, the measurement precision was examined for various markers. The result showed that the three-colored marker had the best performance in the actual environment. Next, the touch system was confirmed to he used effectively. In addition, a method is presented to obtain the distance to the marker by using the image size of the marker. The system can be expanded to the three-dimensional pointing device.

View full abstract

To realize low-cost 3D mouse system, a multi points 3D measurement system is proposed. The system has two video cameras and acquires 3D coordinates of three colored markers. As the system uses only common devices, it is applicable to various fields. The measurement error of the marker position was 10mm at 100mm in front of the cameras. The system acquired 3D coordinates of the markers 30 times per second. As an application, we implemented a 3D mouse system, in which an object in the virtual space is picked and moved.

View full abstract

In this paper, we propose a method for decision of class borders. The method decides approximately the border on SOM from nearest neighbor data set of different classes. The method also decides the border on the SOM using the characteristic of SOM which can map a multi-dimensional data set to the low dimension which is 2 or 3 dimensions. Using two examples, it can be shown that the proposed method can improve the accuracy of Cluster analysis and show that the method makes the class border visualized accurately and comprehensible as well. One example is two-components data set where the class border can be easily plotted. The other is the iris data set where the class border is really difficult to be expressed.

View full abstract

The existent 3-D modeling technique such as the stereoscopic vision recovers 3-D shape of part of a solid which can be observed commonly from the set cameras. This inevitably needs registration among recovered partial shapes in order to obtain an entire 3-D model of the solid For this purpose, strict camera calibration is indispensable, resulting in not very efficient modeling procedure. In this paper, a technique based on a simple camera calibration is proposed for recovering entire shape of a solid without registration by the application of the factorization. In the first place, multiple cameras are set around an object interested and the feature points observable from all the cameras recover their 3-D locations by the factorization. By employing the information on the orientations of the cameras observing the front part of the object, those feature points observable only from the frontal cameras recover their 3-D locations. In the same way, the feature points observable only from the cameras looking at the rear part of the object recover their 3-D positions by the employment of the orientations of the rear cameras. In this way, all the feature points on the object recover the 3-D positions, providing entire shape of the object. Experimental results show satisfactory performance of the proposed technique.

View full abstract

In this paper, we propose an adaptive color extraction technique employing an update type two-dimensional color histogram model. A two-dimensional color histogram model using an H-S plane in the HSV color space is updated every time, and it extracts object's color that varies under changeable illumination. When updating the color model, color of the background area might be included in a color model as a noise. By such a miss update, a color model will be overflowed with non-object's colors. We define an asymmetric anisotropic Gaussian-like distribution in order to estimate a changeable color area of an object, and employ it as kernel function for providing weight coefficients to the model update. We have developed a color tracking system using a pan-tilt camera, and performed tracking experiments in two different environments, i.e., an indoor environment with changeable illumination and an outdoor environment under sunshine. As a result, the developed system kept tracking an object successfully even though the illumination has changed in both environments.

View full abstract

Automatic detection of abnormal shadow area on a multi detector CT image is important task under developing a computer aided diagnosis system. Ground glass opacity is one of the important features in lung cancer diagnosis of computer aided diagnosis. It may be seen as diffuse or more often as patchy in distribution taking sometimes a geographic or mosaic distribution. A large number of diseases can be associated with GGO on CT image. We propose a technique for automatic detection of ground glass opacity from the segmented lung regions by computer based on a set of the thoracic CT images. In this paper, we segment the lung region for extraction of the region of interest employing binarization and labeling process from the inputted each slices images. The region having the largest area is regarded as the tentative lung regions. Furthermore, the ground glass opacity is classified by correlation distribution on the successive slice from the extracted lung region with respect to the thoracic CT images. Experiment is performed employing 32 thoracic CT image sets and 71.7% of recognition rates were achieved. Some experiment results are shown along with discussion.

View full abstract

In recent years, various useful diagnosis systems such as HRCT have been introduced into medical fields for detecting of abnormalities such as cancer, shadows. In the field of abdominal CT images, it is very important to understand blood vessel structures of a patient before operation. On the other hand, temporal subtraction method attempt to remove normal structures in the CT images, so that abnormalities can be observed more clearly to the medical doctor. With the subtraction techniques, image warping is very important. In order to achieve a good performance, elastic matching technique is applied to temporal subtraction method. In this paper, we apply temporal subtraction method with elastic matching technique to abdominal CT images in order to detect the blood vessel region. In this method the temporal subtraction is applied between successive phases. The proposed technique is applied to three abdominal CT images. And we perform 3-D displaying of extracted blood vessels by using a SSD and can perform the usefulness of proposed technique.

View full abstract

A clear digital image with high resolution of blood vessels by using a CT angiography or MR angiography for analyzing the blood vessels structures is easily obtained in medical field. Recently, the disease by arteriosclerosis increases rapidly. Especially, the one that originates in hands and feet's peripheral arterial is called arteriosclerosis obliterans (ASO). In order to diagnose the ASO using a contrast enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) applied as a useful visual screening method on the medical field. It is, however, sometimes with a contrast enhanced MRI method make burden to patients. To avoid adverse reactions from the contrast medium, a non-enhanced fresh blood imaging (FBI) method is developed. In this paper, we develop a 3-D visualization method for analyzing the internal structure such as blood vessels in the lower limbs area. To develop a visualization method, we propose a technique for extracting the blood vessels region by use of region growing method which obtained the maximum intensity projection image. This technique was applied to four non-enhanced FBI MR imaging, and satisfactory 3D blood vessel region was extracted. Some experimental results are shown with discussion.

View full abstract

Detection of abnormal areas such as lung nodule, ground glass opacity (GGO) on multi detector computed tomography (MDCT) images is a difficult task for radiologists. It is because subtle lesions such as small lung nodules tend to be low in contrast, and a large number of CT slice images required for visual screening times. In order to detect the abnormalities by use of computer aided diagnosis (CAD) system, some technical method have been proposed in medical field. Despite of these efforts, their approach did not succeed because of difficult of image processing in detecting the GGO areas exactly. Thus they did not reach to the stage of automatic detection employing unknown thoracic MDCT data sets. In this paper, we develop a CAD system for automatic detection of GGO areas from thoracic MDCT images by use of four statistical features. The proposed technique applied 31 thoracic MDCT image sets in the performed experiment, and 79% of recognition rates were achieved. Obtained some experimental results are shown along with a discussion.

View full abstract

In order to remove a bad smell around bedside, evaluation of the flow of the air around the bedside is done from a theoretical side. Simulated calculations are performed for various conditions. The calculation is based on the Navier-Stokes equation. The flow vectors are drawn for seveval models for the comparison between models. The shapes of the nozzule of the inlet are compared, and it is shown that the wide nozzule shape is more effective than the other shapes. A system is newly evaluated, which has a pair of outlet and inlet in their oposite side. It is concluded that the circulation of the flow is much effective, since the air works in both ends. These findings are a guideline which makes it possible to construct a new machine to remove effectively the odor around bedside.

View full abstract

Information science has wide applications, and it provides a useful tool for basic medical researches. This paper shows the method recently developed by our group. The main porpose is to show the method wchich can search useful probes to directly idetify the higher ranks of bacterias in taxonomy, and the second is to classify bacteria based on the proposed method. This is done by a novel method, which introduces two indeces, Coincidence Ratio Inside Group (CRIG), and Coincidence Number Outside Group(CNOG). Using these two indeces, the usufulness of the probes are characterized, many hierachical objects are classified in a systematic way. Its application to the 16SrRNA gene of 2206 bacterial species is shown as the first major result.

View full abstract

In mesoscopic region, molecular machines are defined as machines using stochastic resonance (SR) and described as complex diffusion equations. Appropriate adjusted diffusion coefficients and corresponding mass terms can describe many phenomena caused by mechanism of Brownian motions and Markov process. If the molecular machines do not have SR, the molecular machines do not efficiently work out under fluctuational environments. Molecular machines can live together with thermal fluctuations of their environments. We proposed stochastic machines (SIRM) using SR existing between myosin head and random motions of water molecules. SR means coordinated movements of molecular structures and coherent sates of machines.

View full abstract

Risk management of medical accident is important to attain better "fabric administration", "Accident correspondence", and "field management". We performed an investigation for actual medical accidents cases. We classified the medical accidents into four factors by using cluster analysis and regression analysis. As a result, rates of malpractices caused by "Carelessness group" had about 49%, Which has much influence on maintaining for our quality of medical cares. We used analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and, from this result, determined strategy of prevention for "the accidents with various medical apparatus". As a result, most effective correspondence was "enlightenment education" and the next was "emergency measure", and then the third was "detailed research". At First, we advance a suggestion "Emergency measure" and "Detailed research" on "Carelessness group". In addition, we suggestion "educations on improvements of Working environment" with applying same schedule for Working Environmental group. Secondly, we suggestion about "administration countermeasure" and "Inexperience research" or "safety control". We got the result that these plans are the most effective countermeasures. The AHP analysis countermeasure was thought to be useful tools in all in medical scene.

View full abstract

We developed nano-silver (Ag) particles, instead of nano-ferromagnetic particles, by using microwave synthesis methods in order to get a clearer imaging under high radiation energy (> 35Kev). Mice born in before two weeks, which were perfused were injected nano-Ag solvents into their portal vein and coronary arteries. We succeeded to make clearer images for various branches of their vessels at 35KeV synchrotron radiation energy. We found that the narrowest diameter of vessels has about 0.02mm, which is a limit of spatial resolution of observations of living bodies. Since the strong transmitted X-ray beam is utilized to get the contrast of various tissues and organs, it is said to be a technological limits of present CCD cameras.

View full abstract

We proposed new basic theory and methods for quantum computation and neuro-computer based on functional path integral of quantum theory. And then we concretely calculated probability amplitudes for quantum circuit and slit which have interferences and tunnel effects. We give operator expressions of switches and their circuits, and the diagrams of those systems correspond to potentials of Hamiltonian. Finally, we found that AND-circuit is represented by second order of perturbation, and OR-circuit looks upon as two particles scattering system. We showed it is useful to design and to make tests for new quantum system and computers.

View full abstract

The maximum and minimum information of the acoustic waveform plays a key role in the reproduction of sound, maintaining the pitch, loudness and timbre. We have estimated the margin of error of the extrema, which would facilitate not only the visualization but also the operation of the acoustic structue. The sampled extrema were manipulated by the three steps of ±20%, ±40% and ±60% of amplitude errors and more three steps of ±4%, ±9% and ±14% of phase errors. The subjective scores have determined that the margin of error of the extrema exceeded ±20% for amplitude and ±4% for phase. The results have supported the idea that the great many resources of the wav-formatted file could be converted the temporal series of the approximated extrema under the spectral constraint of 80-5, 120Hz. Additionally, the proposed file format with variable-length record has attained the memory reduction of 54.9% for the speech data, 63.8% for the classical music, and 47.2% for the mechanical noise of doors slamming.

View full abstract

The acoustic structure has been simply modeled as the linkage of the virtual elements or acoustic particles, each of which was composed of two successive extrema of the filtered waveform with a passing bandwidth of just one octave. The acoustic particle has both energy and the instantaneous frequency, and its distribution is closely related to the complexity of sound or timbre. Both the subjective scores and the sum squared error of the reconstructed sound have ascertained the hypothesis, in which the monotonous curve between the two successive extrema was not perceptible. Although the sinusoidal interpolation between the two successive extrema of the speech and musical data is better than the other four reconstruction techniques by using the linear function, the sigmoid, the cosine cubed and the cosine to the 0.3^<rd> power, no significant difference is observed for the reproduction of the door noise, suggesting that the noises may be roughly identified in the human auditory system.

View full abstract

We have qantization method, which is based on Feynman path integral rule. Amplitudes of particles were defined by using both propagators and Gaussian slits. According to that calculating method, we attempted to rewrite the classical AND, OR and NOT gate into quantum expressions named as q-AND, q-OR and q-NOT. Those classical switches were quantized as operators, and general Hamiltonian of switch system were given for basic gates. Logic of switch operators was different from theory of crisp numbers or fuzzy set theory. We showed that the logic of q-switches satisfies with excluded middle, however, the law of contradictoin does not hold true.

View full abstract

It was investigated whether there are differences in concentration and the motivation for learning by the position of the seat of the lecture using a questionnaire form. As a result, it is shown that the student in a forward seat has a strong interest on the lecture and significantly high in the motive for learning of every day schooling. On the contrary, the student of backward seat felt tediously, and think about other things while the lecture, and they cannot concentrate in the lecture. In addition, the investigation shows that the seat for which the student is sitting at present is his desired seat.

View full abstract

Our aim in this paper is to examine the possibility of the approach that integrates Socion theory's family system approach and whole family system function approach such as FACES (Olson, et. al., 1979). Socion theory's family system approach is the method that figure out family system function based on each family members' perception of affectionate communication "caring" between family members. FACES is the scale that evaluate family system's adaptability and cohesion based on the data of each family member's perception of family system function. The results of our study showed that the integrated approach could be useful to provide basic data for the practical approaches such as clinical family function assessment. And we found that the relationship family members' affectionate communication between family members and whole family system function could he more specifically explained by putting both internal structural variable as gender and external structural variable as social stratification into the analysis of the data. We have to carry out further research based on two-mode three-way data to confirm our findings.

View full abstract

We continued fundamental researches that nano magnetic fluid(Fe) is used for the drug delivery system (DDS). We observed rat's kidney into which Ag/Fe nano particle were injected, using SPring-8 synchrotron radiations. A figure showed magnetic fluid in kidney attracted by a magnet. Another figure showed blood vessels in kidney by Ag/Fe nano-particles as contrast agent.

View full abstract