In Japan, bridges are inspected via close visual examinations every five years. However, these inspections are labor intensive, and a shortage of engineers and budget constraints will restrict such ...inspections in the future. In recent years, efforts have been made to reduce the labor required for inspections by automating various aspects of the inspection process. In particular, image processing technology, such as transformer models, has been used to automatically detect damage in images of bridges. However, there has been insufficient discussion on the practicality of applying such models to damage detection. Therefore, this study demonstrates how they may be used to detect bridge damage. In particular, delamination and rebar exposure are targeted using three different models trained with datasets containing different size images. The detection results are compared and evaluated, which shows that the detection performance of the transformer model can be improved by increasing the size of the input image. Moreover, depending on the target, it may be desirable to avoid changing the detection target. The result of the largest size of the input image shows that around 3.9% precision value or around 19.9% recall value is higher than one or the other models.
In Japan, older adults account for the highest proportion of the population of any country in the world. When large-scale earthquake disasters strike, large numbers of casualties are known to ...particularly occur among seniors. Many are physically or mentally vulnerable and require assistance during the different phases of disaster response, including rescue, evacuation, and living in an evacuation center. However, the growing number of older adults has made it difficult, after a disaster, to quickly gather information on their locations and assess their needs. The authors are developing a proposal to enable vulnerable people to signal their location and needs in the aftermath of a disaster to response teams by deploying radar reflectors that can be detected in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite imagery. The purpose of this study was to develop a radar reflector kit that seniors could easily assemble in order to make this proposal feasible in practice. Three versions of the reflector were tested for detectability, and a sample of older adults was asked to assemble the kits and provide feedback regarding problems they encountered and regarding their interest in using the reflectors in the event of a large-scale disaster.
In Japan, bridges are inspected via close visual examinations every five years. However, these inspections are labor intensive, and a shortage of engineers and budget constraints will restrict such ...inspections in the future. In recent years, efforts have been made to reduce the labor required for inspections by automating various aspects of the inspection process. In this study, we proposed and evaluated a method of applying super-resolution technology to obtain precise point cloud information to create distance information images to enable the use of tactile information (e.g., human touch) on the surface to be inspected. We measured the distance to the specimen using LiDAR, generated distance information images, performed super-resolution on the pseudo-created low-resolution images, and evaluated them in comparison with the existing magnification method. The evaluation results suggest that the adaptation of the super-resolution technique is effective in increasing the resolution of the boundary of the distance change.
In Japan, the final tightening of bolts in the bolt-tightening operations is guaranteed to have been performed correctly by visually determining the change in markings during the temporary tightening ...operation performed by the technician. However, the engineer must confirm many bolts; further, the amount of time needed for the confirmation work and the inability to keep an objective record of the confirmation results present problems. To solve these problems, we developed a system for automating the final tightening of bolts using deep learning-based image-processing technology. The proposed system takes as input videos of bolt fastening points, extracts individual bolts, extracts markings on the extracted bolts, and makes fastening decisions based on the markings. In the judgment stage, the system processes information on each bolt where a marking is detected; thus, it is possible to leave this information as objective data. In this paper, we evaluated the accuracy of each automated step using an actual bridge video. We also compared the confirmation time with human confirmation. As a result of the confirmation, our proposed method reduces the confirmation time by about 33% in comparison to human confirmation.
When large earthquakes occur over wide areas, in addition to damage to medical facilities, the disaster response capabilities of local governments are severely compromised. There is a very high ...possibility that the supply-demand balance of medicines will collapse within the disaster area, and that appropriate supplies of medicines will not be provided to disaster victims. Therefore, it is important to estimate in advance the quantity of pharmaceuticals that may be needed during disasters. In this study, the purpose is to clarify the quantity and quality of pharmaceuticals used by chronically ill patients by using Japanese National Health Insurance data regarding the issues mentioned above. The methodology used was to extract the status of pharmaceutical prescriptions based on receipt information from National Health Insurance data for Hakui, Ishikawa Prefecture, a small regional city in Japan, as the analysis target area. Through the analysis in this study, the quantity and quality of medicines supplied to chronically ill patients in Hakui, Ishikawa Prefecture, were clarified on a town-by-town basis.
In the United States, many people have suffered losses caused by the collapse of deteriorated road bridges and subsequent road closures, and in Japan, bridges built during rapid economic growth are ...now reaching the end of their planned service period. Under these circumstances, instead of corrective maintenance, regular visual inspections of the bridges are performed once every five years to implement preventative maintenance. In this study, to identify those bridges prone to rapid deterioration, deterioration rates were calculated based on data from two cycles of inspection results, and the environmental factors that impacted these rates were statistically analyzed based on Hayashi’s quantification theory type I. The results clearly show that the bridge deterioration rate is significantly impacted by its specifications (superstructure materials, bridge length, year of construction), but that environmental factors also exert an equivalent impact. Therefore, considering environmental factors that can influence deterioration is expected to aid the development of more efficient and effective bridge maintenance plans.
Hydroelectric power generates electricity with the potential energy of water flow. A penstock diameter over a range of several centimeters to several meters, one of the length over a range of several ...meters to several kilometers. A regular maintenance method of penstock needs a worker to approach penstock and check its surface by their eye. Maintenance workers must walk the distance from one end to the other of penstock to check the whole. This method needs a lot of time and cost. We propose an automatic maintenance method using a drone and an image processing method. This method uses the penstock picture taken by a drone to check the surface of the penstock. This picture is used as an input of a deep learning-based image processing method to extract the damaged area on the penstock. In this paper, we explain the overview of the proposed method, evaluate the damage extract method, discuss the remaining problems to realize the proposed method.
The purpose of this study is to describe the influences of lower limb edema on the daily lives of elderly individuals in elderly day care to describe the necessity of care for lower limb edema.
...Semi-structured interviews based on a quality of life questionnaire for limb lymphedema were conducted. Two types of text mining analysis methods were used: a frequent word analysis and a content analysis. The edema severity was graded on a scale of 0 to 3, and the sum of the numerical values of the grades for each person was defined as the pitting score.
The seven participants had a mean age of 83.4 ± 4.6 years (mean ± SD). The pitting scores ranged from 1 to 25 in the participants. The words "think" (389 times), "walk" (136 times), and "put on" (135 times) were extracted frequently. The content analysis focused on the words "walk" and "put on." The participants complained of difficulty walking, pain, and numbness when walking, weakness of their lower limbs, difficulty putting on shoes, restrictions on shoe types, and difficulty finding shoes.
These results demonstrate that elderly individuals experienced troubles during their daily lives caused by lower limb edema, which highlights the necessity of symptom management. Active interventions for edema by nurses are necessary to improve quality of life in elderly individuals.
With the aging of bridges, the efficiency of periodic inspections has become a problem. As issues with the continuing close visual inspection of bridges are surfacing, remote imaging systems are ...expected to become a new inspection method that replaces close visual inspection. The objective of the study is to develop a classification model of countermeasure categories using the results of past periodic inspections of bridges conducted by skilled inspectors. Focusing on concrete slabs, a model was constructed to classify the countermeasure categories based on the characteristics of the damage maps by random forest classification. As a result, it was possible to classify two classes of countermeasure categories with a macro-average precision rate of about 88%. It became clear that the degree of crack development and the number of cracks are the most important factors in the classification of judgment categories.
Recently in Japan, traffic accidents caused by elderly drivers have attracted public attention. Elderly drivers are judged whether they can continue driving based on the results of the cognitive test ...at the renewal of their driver's license. However, it has not been to lead the reduction of accidents. Therefore, it is important to understand the relationship between driving ability and cognitive impairment for elderly drivers.In this study, we analysis on the relationship between driving ability and cognitive impairment for elderly drivers. The driving ability evaluates using the driving behavior at intersections where driving operations are difficult. In conclusion, a model for evaluating the cognitive impairment of an elderly driver can be constructed from the results of driving ability. On the other hand, a model for evaluating the driving behavior of an elderly driver from the result of cognitive test cleared that it needs further improvement.
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