The irregular form of surface of liver is one of the important signs in diagnosing fibrosis on images. A pathologist performs the definitive confirmed diagnosis of fibrosis by evaluating F-Grade with in the hepatic tissue of a liver biopsy. In this study, we developed a technique of automatically extracting a liver outline on EOB-enhanced hepatocyte-phase MRI images. After enhancing the liver edges using the unsharp-masking filter, the proposed method extracts the liver region automatically using the p-tile method. Next, the liver outline is automatically delineated by outline-determination processing. The F-Grade classification can be performed by the mean SD of the differences in positions between an outline and its polynomial fitting curve. The proposed technique was applied to 64 cases (F0: 9, F1: 15, F2: 12, F3: 11, and F4: 17) . The average error of automatic outlines to the manual outlines extracted by a radiologist was 0.78 mm (F0: 0.70 mm, F1: 0.77 mm, F2: 0.78 mm, F3: 0.71 mm, and F4: 0.86 mm) . The mean SD was significantly higher in the F3 group than in the F2 group (p<0.05, Tukey test) . In conclusion, the proposed technique may be useful for automatic classification of F-Grade on EOB enhanced MRI images.

抄録全体を表示

The study focused on pedestrian space consist of lower part of the building and sidewalk space. This study aimed to consider the prospects for the landscape formation of Midosuji avenue by analyzing that visual characteristics and clarifying the differences. First, based on the impression evaluation, principal component analysis and cluster analyses were performed. The first factor was interpreted as the “sophisticatedness” and the second factor as the “static-dynamic”. Second, in classifying landscape photographs, six types were shown. Third, the relationship between the types of landscape photography and landscape components was analyzed. In conclusion, it was found that the pedestrian space consisting of sidewalk and setback spaces has an effect on “sophisticatedness” and “static-dynamic”. Also, if the ratio of glass in the building facade is high, it was shown that it tended to be an element that affects the impression of “sophisticatedness”. If the ratio of green on the private side is high, it was shown that it tended to be an element that affects the impression of “sophisticatedness”. In addition, a correspondence relationship was also shown that tended to be “static” that tree heights were uniform, and “dynamic” that tree heights were uneven.

抄録全体を表示

The Amami Islands are located south of Japan's main islands and their inherent fauna and flora have high species diversity. In order to augment our limited knowledge on the coastal benthic fauna of these islands, we investigated the macrobenthic fauna in four tidal flats on Amami-Oshima Island. A total of 123 species or taxa ware sampled at the four study sites, with the number of species at each site varying from 39 to 89. Species richness was highest at Tekebu-higata tidal flat (the northernmost study site) and lowest at Ichi-higata tidal flat (central Amami). Yanyu-higata in the northern part of the island, and Kunetsu-higata, the southernmost study site, had intermediate species richness. The density of benthic animals was lowest at Yanyu-higata and highest at Kunetsu-higata. The local diversity, the mean number of species at a station, did not vary markedly among the study sites (ranging from 3.35 to 4.79), whereas the species richness of tidal flats tended to differ among the study sites. This indicates that the species diversity of the tidal flats can be attributed to the diversity among stations (β diversity). The heterogeneity of benthic community is discussed in relation to tidal flat sediment condition.

抄録全体を表示