With the popularization of smartphones, SNS, which allows easy message exchange, has become popular. On the other hand, a metaverse has attracted attention recently. In the metaverse, participants interact with each other through avatars in a virtual space. Therefore, if we can show participants the existing SNS space as the metaverse, we can provide participants with more intuitive use cases. This manner is beneficial for elderly people who are unfamiliar with using smartphones. In this paper, we propose LINE metaverse. LINE is the most popular messaging application in Japan. The LINE metaverse is characterized by replacing the bot mechanism used for marketing using SNS with a metaverse agent. In the LINE metaverse, elderly people can exchange messages via avatars on the metaverse.

Hexagonal pattern nets made of polyester monofilament are widely used for fish cages and rockfall prevention due to their durability. Although these nets are manufactured by automatic knitting machines, factory workers constantly monitor the process to prevent abnormalities as it is difficult to distinguish abnormalities. Therefore, it is necessary to automatically, quickly and accurately detect net abnormalities during production. On the other hand, subsequent tension adjusting operations for anomaly clearance must be still performed by factory workers. To prevent mesh abnormalities in knitting machines, therefore, it is not enough just to be able to detect abnormalities with high accuracy; it is also important to obtain feedbacks on the subsequent factory worker’s anomaly clearance operations. This article proposes image features that achieve the requirement and a method for obtaining these features from net images. It further proposes a learning method to identify abnormalities with high accuracy using such images. We shows that the identification accuracy of our method is as high as that of the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) based method, which is well known by its high performance in detecting anomalies using image data, even when not enough training data is available. In addition, we show that it is easy to estimate which strings need to be adjusted to clear the anomaly by obtaining these proposed image features, without training the classifier. Furthermore, this proposed method was implemented on an actual knitting machine as an experiment, which confirmed that it can detect mesh abnormalities in real-time.

In recent years, image inspections have become a useful tool in the early diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). However, evaluations in RA ultrasound inspections are visual inspections by doctors, evaluation tends to become somewhat subjective, meaning that it is difficult for less-experienced doctors to make an assessment. In this study, therefore, we propose a system that alleviates the burden on doctors, by automating RA image diagnosis, that is to say an RA image diagnosis support system using ultrasound images. With this system, as it is necessary to automate RA image diagnosis, it is necessary to propose an image classification method with higher classification accuracy. Therefore, in this paper, we propose an image classification method with higher precision, by comparing methods of image classification. We also show our evaluation results. As a result, it is considered that image classification via CNN using automatic extraction images of synovial thickening surrounding areas is effective for image classification of ultrasound images for the purpose of automating RA image diagnosis.

With the growing global demand for marine products, offshore aquaculture, which enables large-scale aquaculture compared to conventional coastal aquaculture, is drawing attention. In offshore aquaculture, the occurrence of red tide due to residual food can be suppressed by the circulation of ocean currents, and the environmental load can be reduced. On the other hand, since the farmed cage is located in a remote area, there are problems such as the cost of transporting food, the storage of a large amount of food, and the management of facilities in the event of a typhoon. In addition, it is especially important to manage the environmental information in the cage in order to understand the health condition of farmed fish in remote areas. If a device that measures water quality, which is one of the environmental information, is left in the sea for a long period of time, dirt such as algae will adhere and the measurement performance will deteriorate. This time, we developed an air pressure control system that allows the water quality sensor in the sea to enter the water only when measuring, and implemented it in the observation device. This observation device enables long-term observation of various water quality data.

Currently, a communication robot like an AI speaker has become popular as one of consumer services. As realized high functions seen in cooperation of network and home appliances by them, hurdles for the elderly in operating such advanced IT devices are still high. On the other hand, RPA (Robotic Process Automation) attracts attention for productivity improvement of business processing. However, there are few examples that applied RPA to consumer services. It is caused that there is not common sense about an application method of RPA for consumer services. Therefore, if we could define the application method of RPA for consumer services, we could develop consumer services familiar with the elderly. This paper gives some examples of our developed consumer services for the elderly by communication robots after summarizing requirements for applying RPA to consumer services. Then, we inspect the effectiveness of the consumer services based on RPA. Finally, we make clear a RPA basic model for consumer services.

Automated driving reduces the burden on the driver, however also makes it difficult for the driver to understand the current situation and predict the future movement of the vehicle. When the acceleration due to automated driving occurs without future prediction, the driver's anxiety and discomfort are increased compared to the case in manual driving. To facilitate the prediction of the future behavior of the vehicle by the driver, this paper aims to design and evaluate a haptic interface that actuates the vehicle seat. Our system displays to the driver the movement of the vehicle a few seconds in the future, which allows the driver to make predictions and preparations. Using a driving simulator, we compared the conditions where the movement of the car was displayed in advance for the length of different time. The subjective evaluation of the driver showed that the predictability of the behavior of the vehicle were significantly increased compared to the case without display. The experiment also showed that comfortable feeling significantly decreased if the preceding display is too early.

We developed SNS Door Phone by making an interphone system an IoT device. We integrated SNS and QR-code recognition function with an interphone system. Thanks to connection with SNS, we can know the visit of the parcel delivery service anytime through SNS even if during going out. Thanks to introduction of QR-code recognition function, if a parcel deliveryman only showed the QR-code of the parcel in front of SNS Door Phone, the re-delivery operation information would be sent to a user automatically through SNS. Then, the user can call or ask re-delivery arrangement using smart phone without inputting any additional data. We can consider this kind of seamless re-delivery operation to be a good example of Robotic Process Automation.

There are many obstacles for wheelchair users outside. These items are not an issue for people without physical impairment, but are major obstacles for wheelchair users. Due to these obstacles, wheelchair users may feel anxiety besides familiar paths, leading to less desire to go outside. In this study, we propose a system for collecting social barrier-free information from the various sensors attached to general-purpose wheelchairs and constantly feeding back the latest barrier-free street view information to wheelchair users, that is to say an “on-demand barrier-free street view system.” With this system, wheelchair users can confirm safe routes using the street view; thus, their range of movement can be increased. Furthermore, shared road information is information that was gathered by wheelchair users; therefore, it is a verification that the path is actually passable with a wheelchair. It provides a feeling of security for wheelchair users to go out. In this paper, we show the results of an evaluation experiment using this system.

We propose a SNS Agency Robot that can be used for the interactive communication between elderly people and younger generation via existing Social Networking Service (SNS). This robot system has been implemented on a cloud service and a single board computer embedded in a human-type robot, which is equipped with a microphone, camera, speaker, sensors, and network access function, so that elderly people can transmit and receive information by voice via SNS without using smartphones. We employed LINE that is a proprietary application for instant communications on electronic devices such as smartphones. In LINE, we need to select a message destination address before sending messages. On the other hand, our proposed robot is basically operated by voice due to realizing the simple user interface. Therefore, we proposed a message exchange learning-type destination estimation method that enables elderly people not to express a message destination address explicitly. We developed the prototype system including the message exchange learning-type destination estimation method. Then, we confirmed the effectiveness of the message destination estimation through the demonstration experiment at the house for the elderly with the care service.

Statistical tourism data are critical to supporting tourism policy decisions. Such data are normally compiled via questionnaires or interviews, which requires both time and money, thus making such data unusable for policy decision-making to occur in real-time. To support real-time policy decision-making, we focused on person trip data for promoting tourism. The city government can reflect such data on tourism events and guidebooks if it has a grasp of tourist person trip patterns. In this paper, we focused on using the log data of Wi-Fi access points available at each tourist spot. Wi-Fi access points have log data that keep track of the timestamps of users connecting and disconnecting from the Wi-Fi. We can visualize the movements of tourists using these data; however, there is bias among Wi-Fi users. Therefore, we must evaluate the Wi-Fi log data to verify they are representative of almost all tourists. More specifically, we evaluated log data for Goto City to determine whether the government's data were equivalent to the log data. We also showed the possibility of visualizing tourist movement history based on our log data.

Hemiplegia is a disease where the sufferer has difficulties moving the muscles, and thus rehabilitation is required. We propose a method for real-time CG animation of the cooperative motion of both hands for a mirror box therapy support system in place of mirror box therapy. This system displays cooperative movement through CG. The image of a healthy hand is displayed in real-time. On the other hand, the image of a hemiplegic hand is substituted by motion capture data of the healthy hand. In this system, patients perceive the hand by replaced motion capture as their affected hand, and the brain is "tricked" into believing that it is. We use a leap motion device for motion capture and obtain the position information of the fingers. We evaluate our system by applying it to six people.

This paper proposes an "Information Orchestration System" that enables the closing of the information retrieval capability gap. In this proposed system, users can automatically pull up relevant information one after another just by tapping the desired information listed on screen devices. Users can also simultaneously distribute relevant information to different screen devices around users by tapping or motion operation. In this way, this proposed system realizes information orchestration in a way just like conducting a symphony orchestra.

Reducing our energy consumption has become an important issue all over the world, and power saving techniques are attracting attention. We propose "HACCS: Home Appliance Control Concierge System" which makes power-saving actions more natural. This system unites the state of home appliances, manual operation buttons, and information used to trigger power saving actions with the web screen of the PC or tablet the user is perusing. This system encourages the user to save electricity by operating home appliances more carefully.

I am engaged in Research and Development for improving software productivity and quality. Currently, I am interested in applying the data mining techniques to software development projects. Up to now, I examined two use cases which were applied the data mining techniques to real software development projects. I introduce the results of these specific examples and explain the effectiveness of data mining techniques.

Recovering traceability is an important software goal in the reverse engineering process. Conventional methods based on the information retrieval model have recovered traceability links for supporting software engineers. In such methods, the call relations in the source code directly impact the accuracy of traceability links in large projects, e.g. enterprise projects. This paper uses a source code parser to create a syntax tree as a preprocessing step for information retrieval to recover traceability links between source code and documents. The effectiveness of our proposal is confirmed by a comparison with real product data obtained from an enterprise project.

We propose a method of identifying purchase-stage to enhance the success rate of recommendations. When a user purchases a commodity through the Web, she goes through several stages, for example, " Interest in commodity, Search for commodity, Comparison of commodities, Action of purchasing". To increase the purchase rate, we need to identify the different purchase stages and construct web sites so that they better support each purchase-stage. This paper hypothesizes that the purchase-stage of the user is evidenced by his/her web-access pattern. An experiment is conducted to collect the Web access logs of several subjects when they purchase commodities on electronic commerce (EC) sites. The proposed method is shown to approximately discriminate the purchase-stages.

A new approach to DFT (design for test) for an embedded DRAM LSI is proposed in This work. One powerful BIST engine is implemented on the LSI, which executes not only the array BIST for the DRAM and SRAM macros, but also functional BIST for the whole chip. It was implemented in an embedded DRAM cache LSI which is presented together with measured results.