Dynamics on and of networks are two basic processes that drive coevolving networks such as online social networks. The paper investigates the mechanism of coevolving networks using a generalized adaptive voter model based on related work and the homophily principle which is known as a driving mechanism to form community structure in social networks. The proposed model has mechanisms for dynamics on and of coevolving networks, which are node state change via social interactions and link rewiring based on homophily. The numerical simulation of the proposed model reveals that there exists two phase transitions for the parameters adaptability and homophily. This observation implies that the nature of the homophily principle lies in the adaptive mechanism in the proposed model.

In this paper, we propose a method to detect failure of learning to support one-to-one instruction in the classroom, using quiz responses in Moodle, a course management system. Failure of learning is defined as a situation in which the correct answer rate of a particular learning topic in a quiz is significantly lower than the correct answer rate of other topics answered by students in the same quiz. In this study, the researchers identified the presence or absence of failure of learning in actual classes to evaluate the usefulness of the proposed method. The results revealed that more instruction was given to the experimental group.

Course Management Systems efficiently provide a variety of information about a class, and also serve to cultivate communication between the instructor and students, as well as between the students themselves. These systems are beginning to be effectively utilized in classes with large numbers of students, such as programming practicums at universities. The present research designs and proposes support functions for assessing learning conditions, which aim to assess learning conditions (such as the problems of individual students) without circulating through the classroom, reduce the burden on instructors through providing accurate support, and improving the quality of instruction. Carrying out experiments in actual classes, we evaluate in terms of instruction methods through these support functions, and instruction content with regards to conditions that can only be assessed through the functions, and then verify their effectiveness.

The paper discusses the mechanism of information resonance phenomenon in which the number of postings for a specific topic increases temporarily in social media such as Twitter. The author models Twitter's information propagation in its users' social network and information diffusion as news media, then proposes a simulation model to verify hypotheses for the mechanism of information resonance in social media.

The paper describes an analysis of users' behaviors in discovering useful information resources by using social bookmarking service. The aims of the analysis are to evaluate the effectiveness of social bookmarking service for information discovery and to propose improvements in its navigational function. We analyzed users' behaviors of information discovery in an experimental social bookmarking service and evaluated the effectiveness of social navigation for information discovery. The results of the analysis show users frequently select tags to focus topics to search and prefer to browse others' libraries to find related information around the focused topics.

For the effective promotion of software process improvement (SPI) activities in a large-scale organization, it is necessary to establish an organizational structure and a deployment method for promotion and to develop training courses, support tools, and other materials. Even if an organizational promotion system is established, the SPI activities of each development department cannot be promoted effectively without SPI community. To promote SPI activities throughout the TOSHIBA group, we organized a Corporate Software Engineering Process Group in April 2000. We also have been focused to establish SPI community, while promoting SPI activities in each development department. The fundamental our operating policy of SPI is "bottom-up". This paper discusses the problems encountered in the promotion of SPI activities and presents solutions to the problems. The actual results obtained show that the framework and solutions developed by us can be used to effectively promote SPI activities.

The paper describes a teaching assistant facility being developed in Nippon Institute of Technology to activate question answering in computer programming practice using Web based teaching. The facility is implemented in the Website to provide agent supported collaborative learning using community Web software. The contents of the Website are teaching materials for computer programming practice and an electronic bulletin board system for question answering to assist practice of the students. The students can send a question message to the bulletin board and then receive an answer message from the teacher or other students in the classroom. An agent in the Website distributes the question message to teacher and/or the students being active to answer questions. The facility activates question answering between students as a form of collaborative learning.

This paper describes an evolutionary distribution system for Web-based teaching materials that can spontaneously make teaching materials stored in the system more sophisticated. The system consists of a Web server, assisting tools and a repository of teaching materials represented as HTML/XML data. The layered structure of the teaching materials' information model enables one to treat the content of the teaching materials as scenarios, subjects and elements independently. For this purpose, XML is used to represent the teaching materials. The proposed system is being built at the Nippon Institute of Technology to evaluate its usefulness for the Internet in the year 2001.

This paper describes a fully automated low-power design methodology in which three different voltage-scaling techniques are combined together. Supply voltage is scaled globally, selectively, and adaptively while keeping the performance. This methodology enabled us to design an MPEG4 codec core with 58% less power than the original in three week turn-around-time.

We present a low-power design method that utilizes the multiple supply voltages. The proposed method reduces the power consumption of random logic circuits by 47% on the average, with up to 15% area overhead, by the combination of Clustered Voltage Scaling (CVS) and by Row optimized Power Supply (RRPS) scheme. By the CVS scheme, the optimal netlist, that uses the minimized number of the level converters and the maximized number of the low Vdd gates under the timing constraints, is generated. To avoid the wiring resource consumption and the increase of the interconnect delay caused by the layout constraints of the multiple-supply-voltage design, a new power bus wiring scheme called RRPS is proposed. The proposed method is applied to a media processor chip Mpact/sup TM/ and achieved the above mentioned results. In this paper, the emphasis is put on the interrelation between the generation of the two-supply-voltage netlist with the CVS scheme and the layout technology, such as the power supply scheme and the placement of the multiple-supply-voltage gates. The clocking scheme for the multiple supply voltages is also discussed.