Throughout the world, people can post information about their local area in their own languages using social networking services. Multilingual short text clustering is an important task to organize such information, and it can be applied to various applications, such as event detection and summarization. However, measuring the relatedness between short texts written in various languages is a challenging problem. In addition to handling multiple languages, the semantic gaps among all languages must be considered. In this article, we propose two Wikipedia-based semantic relatedness measurement methods for multilingual short text clustering. The proposed methods solve the semantic gap problem by incorporating the inter-language links of Wikipedia into Extended Naive Bayes (ENB), a probabilistic method that can be applied to measure semantic relatedness among monolingual short texts. The proposed methods represent a multilingual short text as a vector of the English version of Wikipedia articles (entities). By transferring texts to a unified vector space, the relatedness between texts in different languages with similar meanings can be increased. We also propose an approach that can improve clustering performance and reduce the processing time by eliminating language-specific entities in the unified vector space. Experimental results on multilingual Twitter message clustering revealed that the proposed methods outperformed cross-lingual explicit semantic analysis, a previously proposed method to measure relatedness between texts in different languages. Moreover, the proposed methods were comparable to ENB applied to texts translated into English using a proprietary translation service. The proposed methods enabled relatedness measurements for multilingual short text clustering without requiring machine translation processes.

In this paper, we present results of investigation on the dynamics of group decision making - how people discuss and make a decision-with collaborative web search. Prior works proposed systems that support group decision making with web search but have not examined the influence of discussion behaviors especially on the satisfaction levels with the final conclusion. In this study, we conducted a set of experiments to observe discussion behaviors and the consequent satisfaction with the conclusion using our experimental system and a set of questionnaires. The task for each participant was to make a decision on a restaurant. Our primary results revealed (1) the similar activities across all groups at the beginning and the end of the group discussion, (2) a lack of correspondence between the satisfaction with the conclusion and the time spent to reach the conclusion, and (3) the presumption that a member who actively engaged in the activities that were visible for the other members was likely to be voted as a leader in the group discussion beyond the discussion. Finally, we discussed how to implement intelligent systems that aid group decision making.

We demonstrated experimentally the improvement of the transmission distance by 27% of 150Gb/s signal at 3b/s/Hz with a novel TCM format, 8-state 12QAM TCM, compared to PM-8QAM. We also demonstrated improvement of the transmission distance for multiple state TCM using nonlinear compensation, ranging from 14% to 26%, while similar improvement was below 11% for PM signals.

Abstract—As the scale of the computer systems becomes very large and complex in the latest cloud data centers, the operations of these systems should be more efficient. We analyzed the operations of an actual data center and found that approximately 30% of the time was spent on system message handling. We proposed a concept of an automated message handling system for a cloud-based managed service. This system is based on modeling an operator's actions in a state transition model. We built a prototype system and evaluated its performance for three months on an actual data center. We observed that approximately 80% of the message handling was automated with the system.

The vision of I-centric communications is one of the important and well-known paradigms for future ubiquitous user-centric services. Following this vision, the goal of the research project 'I-centric business communication tools (ICBCT)' is to realize a seamless computing environment and supporting tools for mobile workers and users. Context awareness, personalization, adaptation as well as communication support are identified as key features of the envisioned platform. The tools were implemented using YACAN (yet-another context awareness), which is a context awareness framework developed by NTT DATA. During the course of the project, YACAN are enhanced with features derived from the I-centric communications approach. This paper introduces the functional building blocks as well as the logical architecture of the resulting ICBCT platform. Based on this architecture two service scenarios was shown.

We developed straight style transfer equipment for a person with disabled legs. It realizes travel in a standing position even on uneven ground, standing-up motion from a chair, and ascending stairs. This equipment comprises three modules: a pair of elastic crutches, a powered lower extremity orthosis, and a pair of mobile platforms. We show the conceptual design of the equipment and the motion of each module. Cooperative operations using three modules are discussed through simulations. We verified travel in a standing position, including rotation, through experiments using prototypes of elastic crutches and mobile platforms.

Proposes a method to learn the typical assembly operation of inserting a flexible wire into hole. The input space is divided into different contexts. Several virtual agents based on a learning automaton are constructed in the output space. Through learning, the agents can learn optimal actions according to different contexts, and achieve the insertion task together. The paper also proposes a computation approach based on a multi-body model to simulate the insertion process. The simulation results of a 2D insertion operation prove the feasibility of the proposed methods.

Besides assembling, processes like drilling, cutting, and pasting are required in various operations to human bodies or micro-machines. Force control is essential to those dexterous operations even in the micro world. For this purpose, a prototype micro operation hand with two fingers constrained to parallel motion linkages was developed. It uses magnetic suspension technology so that fine force control without force sensor is realized. The accuracy of positioning is a few m with a range of tens mm. The accuracy of force control is 30 mgf with a range of hundreds gf. The effectiveness of the proposed hand was verified by the application to various micro operations including mechanical processes.

Force control is required in dexterous micro operation of small mechanical parts and biological objects. Our research aims at the development of micro operation hands. For this purpose a finger subsystem with a lever mechanism and magnetic actuators were developed and applied to contact motion task. In this paper, characteristics of the mechanism and actuators are analyzed. A motion control system which compensates for disturbances is designed and applied to drawing tasks of micro figures.

VIEW Media is a cooperative hypermedia system, which supports cooperative work utilizing hypermedia documents. It provides fundamental functions for cooperative work support systems and enables developers to construct various groupware such as distributed presentation systems, education systems, conference systems, and so forth. This system provides a powerful and flexible mechanism of customization. The mechanism can alter presentation, structure, behavior and authority of hypermedia documents and workspace, which supports dynamic change of roles of users. This paper describes the purpose of VIEW Media, its basic model and implementation, and a user interface which supports conferences among users who have different access rights to shared documents.

In this paper, we propose a new prototype model of a micro pump using an ICPF (ionic conducting polymer film) actuator as the servo actuator. This micro pump consists of two one-way valves that make use of the same ICPF actuator. The overall size of this micro pump prototype is 12 mm in diameter and 20 mm in length. The actuating mechanism is as follows. (1) The ICPF actuator as the diaphragm is bent into the anode side by application of electricity. Then the volume of the pump chamber increases, resulting in the inflow of liquid from the inlet to the chamber. (2) By changing the current direction, the volume of the pump chamber decreases, resulting in liquid flow from the chamber to the outlet. (3) The ICPF actuator is put on a sine voltage, the micro pump provides liquid flow from the inlet to the outlet. The characteristics of the micro pump are measured. The experimental results indicate that the micro pump has satisfactory responses.

We have proposed a new prototype model of micro catheter with active guide wire that has two bending degrees of freedom using ICPF (ionic conducting polymer film) actuator on its front end as the servo actuator. In this paper, the bending characteristics of the micro active catheter (MAC) have been measured by application of electricity in physiological saline solution. By using simulators (whose conditions are similar to those of a body cavity), we also carried out simulation experiments "in vitro" and the contrast experiments of operability between the proposed catheter and conventional guide wire catheter. The experimental results indicate that the proposed MAC is applicable to intracavity operations.

We propose a new prototype model of micro-active guide wire catheter that has two bending degrees of freedom. The fabrication methods of this micro-active catheters (MAC) are described. Prototype models are 3Fr, 4Fr, 6Fr (1Fr=1 mm) in diameter and consist of catheter tube and active guide wire with ionic conducting polymer film on its front end as the servo actuator. The bending characteristics of the MAC have been measured by application of electricity in physiological saline solution. By using simulators (whose conditions are similar to those of a body cavity), we carried out simulation experiments "in vitro" and the contrast experiments of operability between the proposed catheter and a conventional guide wire catheter. The experimental results indicate that the proposed MAC is applicable to intracavity operations.