Paleolithic seafaring in East Asia: An experimental test of the dugout canoe hypothesis.

Archeological evidence indicates that full-scale expansion of across the oceans began about 50,000 years ago in the Western Pacific, yet how this was achieved remains unclear. The Ryukyu Islands in southwestern Japan, where archaeological sites suddenly appeared 35,000 to 30,000 years ago, are of particular interest in this regard because of the apparent difficulty in crossing the surrounding waters. In this study, we test if a non-sailing dugout canoe can be produced with Upper Paleolithic tools, and if it can cross the 110-kilometer-wide strait at the western entrance of the Ryukyus, where one of the world's strongest ocean currents intervenes.

Successful conservative treatment of microinvasive cervical cancer during pregnancy.

Cervical cancer complicated by pregnancy is a rare event. While counseling patients with cervical cancer during pregnancy, many factors must be considered, including the patient's desire to continue the pregnancy, the stage of the disease, and the gestational age at diagnosis. Pregnant women with microinvasive cervical cancer should be fully informed of all possible treatment options and consequences.

Severe 2009 H1N1 infection in early pregnancy.

Objective: Because pregnancy suppresses the immune system, women at any stage of pregnancy are more susceptible to bacterial and viral infection. Pregnant women might thus be at increased risk of complications from pandemic H1N1 virus infection, and illness may progress rapidly.

Case Report: A 23-year-old primigravida at 9 weeks' gestation was presented to our institution because of the sudden onset of sore throat, fever, chills, and vomiting for 5 days.

Switching bilateral filter with a texture/noise detector for universal noise removal.

In this paper, we propose a switching bilateral filter (SBF) with a texture and noise detector for universal noise removal. Operation was carried out in two stages: detection followed by filtering. For detection, we propose the sorted quadrant median vector (SQMV) scheme, which includes important features such as edge or texture information.