Such a bold move bespeaks both the severity of the challenges faced by Hitachi, and the determined, pro-active style of its management team, led by CEO Nakanishi Hiroaki.

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Hitachi president Hiroaki Nakanishi - en route from the World Economic Forum in Davos to Japan - stopped off to see Mr Jones at the Wales Office in London.

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The accusation against Komuro in a blog is strongly reminiscent of the scandal involving Hiroaki Matsubara, another prominent researcher who recently resigned from his position after numerous retractions and investigations.

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In a commentary in the same journal, Dr Hiroaki Matsuba of the Kyoto University Hospital in Japan added that potential complications should be thoroughly investigated before such methods were more widely used in patients.

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Last March, following accusations by independent bloggers in Japan and Germany, the American Heart Association (AHA) issued an Expression of Concern about five papers published in AHA journals co-authored by the chief investigator of the Kyoto Heart Study, Hiroaki Matsubara, who was a prominent cardiologist and researcher at Kyoto Prefectural University in Japan.

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