Flip-chip BGA (ball grid array) implementation offers advantages such as shorter signal wires and a smaller footprint compared to conventional wire-bonding face-up packaging technology. These characteristics are also well-suited for advanced packaging technologies such as 2.5D or 3D packaging. Si-substrate backside of IC chips are open and exposed in flip-chip packaging. In the context of hardware security, attackers can access to the backside of an IC chip easily and use the Si-substrate backside as a contact point for fault injection and side-channel attacks. In this paper, we show that high voltage pulsing (HVP) injection over Si-substrate backside could be a serious threat as IC chips become thinner for low profile and chip stacking. First, using simulations comparing injection from the frontside and from the backside, we show that the HVP injection from the backside has the characteristic ability to induce faults in targeted circuits over a small area and explain the physical mechanism behind this ability. It is also shown that this ability becomes more pronounced as IC chips become thinner. Secondly, we prepare a Si prototype chip and confirm this characteristic ability by experimental results. It is shown that HVP over Si-substrate backside can target flip-flops (the size of each flip-flop is about $13 \mu \mathrm{m}$ times $3 \mu \mathrm{m}$) in the area with an accuracy of about $50 \mu \mathrm{m}$ times $50 \mu \mathrm{m}$ and reproducibly causes bit flips associated with the targeted bytes. Finally, the threat of this attack is demonstrated by performing differential fault analysis (DFA) on AES-128bit and obtaining entire secret key bytes.

In serial concept mapping, a concept map created during one lecture is extended in subsequent lectures, resulting in a comprehensive map over time. The quality of the initial maps directly influences the quality of future maps, making it crucial to enhance the concept maps created in each lecture. Teachers often develop reference concept maps beforehand to evaluate learners' maps and provide feedback based on these reference standards. Incorporating a reference map sharing phase after individual concept mapping is anticipated to improve the quality of learners' maps in each lecture and positively influence subsequent ones. However, the scratch- building method, where learners freely create all components of the map, poses challenges for effective reference map sharing due to discrepancies between the reference and learners' maps. To address this, we explored the re-composition method, where learners construct concept maps by reorganizing pre-provided components, allowing them to concentrate on structural aspects rather than creating the components themselves. This paper compares the effects of reference map sharing between individual concept mapping using the re-composition method and the scratch- building method. In the re-composition method, components are provided by decomposing the reference map, enabling learners to focus on structural differences during the reference map sharing phase. The study was conducted in university lectures, involving three map-building sessions and two reference map sharing sessions across three lectures for both groups. Results showed that the quality of each map (submap) improved incrementally for the re-composition group but not for the scratch-building group. This suggests that reference map sharing in serial concept mapping is more effective when using the re-composition method.

Teaching mathematics could be a challenging task because the students are expected to understand many interrelated concepts and abstract representations (e.g., mathematical symbols). Some learners, especially those with weaker mathematical foundations, may fail to grasp the relationship between important concepts in the subject. To address such an issue, one of the typical learning strategies is providing structured summary writing (SSW) as an information organizing activity to improve learners' understanding and retention of knowledge through explaining relevant concepts using their own words. However, low-achiever learners who do not have sufficient ability to identify and extract important concepts from the learning materials may have difficulty writing a good summary, thus minimizing their improvement due to a high cognitive load. Despite their potential for enhancing mathematics learning, prior studies have reported some challenges in using summary writing and traditional scratch concept mapping. In this study, kit-build concept mapping (KBCM) is proposed as an alternative to help learners improve their understanding of mathematics through reconstructing a teacher-created concept map from provided components. KBCM scaffolds learners to grasp the structure of the knowledge domain without requiring them to extract the structure from scratch by themselves. The results from an experiment involving 105 undergraduate computer science students from two linear algebra classes confirm the potential of the KBCM to be a better alternative for improving learners' overall understanding of a mathematics subject compared to the typical SSW activity. Some characteristics of KBCM and SSW are discussed.

In this paper, we focus on learning through problem-posing in arithmetic word problems and propose an environment for stepwise learning of problem-posing. As a foundation for stepwise learning, we have summarized the relationship between problem-posing tasks as a problem-posing task graph by setting difficulty levels based on the of conditions that must be considered during problem-posing. This is based on a domain that summarizes the structural conditions necessary for arithmetic word problems to be valid. Based on this, we designed and developed a stepwise learning environment called Monsakun Step. To verify its effectiveness, we conducted an experiment with university students. The results suggest that using Monsakun Step may be particularly effective for learners with a low structural understanding of arithmetic word problems.

The present study examined a potential mechanism underlying college students’ resisting in-class media multitasking under contextual control from a behavioural economic perspective. Using a hierarchical cluster analysis, we first identified subgroups of students who differed in frequencies of media multitasking across two contexts (preferred and non-preferred classes). We then compared a subgroup of students who could resist media multitasking in one context but not in another context with other subgroups of students in terms of rates of delay discounting and levels of impulse control. In the delay-discounting task, participants made a series of choices between smaller amounts of hypothetical monetary rewards available immediately and a larger amount of hypothetical monetary rewards available after a delay. Impulse control was measured by a self-reported scale. The primary finding was that the subgroup of students who could resist media multitasking in preferred but not non-preferred classes showed significantly lower rates of delay discounting than the subgroup of students who frequently engaged in media multitasking in both preferred and non-preferred classes. Implications for developing effective intervention strategies from a behavioural economic perspective are discussed.

Summarization is a conventional task to promote reading comprehension. However, because it is impossible to diagnose the summary immediately and accurately, it is not easy to realize formative feedback for ongoing reading comprehension. To solve this issue, we have proposed Viat-map reconstruction as a task for promotion of reading comprehension. Viat-map is a three-component (Data, Warrant and Claim) representation of the Toulmin Argument. Reconstruction means that a learner is required to reconstruct a Viat-map prepared by an expert by using provided components. By comparing the reconstructed map with the original map, it is possible to realize immediate and accurate diagnosis and ongoing formative feedback for the reading comprehension. We have conducted a comparative experiment of promotion effect for EFL reading comprehension between conventional summarization and Viat-map reconstruction. Fifty-eight second year students of Information Technology Department from State Polytechnic of Malang, Indonesia were involved in the experiments. All of them are using English as Foreign Language. The experiment was conducted in an English course Subject for three weeks. Experiment and control group were created equally based on the initial test of reading comprehension test. The experiment group was using Viat-map, while control group is using conventional summarization method. The result of the experiment was analyzed by using ANOVA statistical analysis and Holm’s Sequentially Rejective Bonferroni Procedure for POST Hoc analysis. The result shows that Viat-map reconstruction overachieved summarization and both groups can maintain the memory one week after the lesson. However, the delay-post test score for experiment group is higher than control group.

Asynchronous online discussion activity has become a popular form of online collaborative learning (OCL) and has been widely adopted in higher education. In the discussion, learners are expected to effectively co-construct knowledge together through engaging in problem solving discourse. Such an ability to construct and confirm understanding while working together to solve a problem is defined as cognitive presence, which plays a central role in the success of OCL. However, despite various facilitation strategies suggested in prior studies, it is challenging to ensure that learners show sufficient cognitive presence. Providing a preparatory activity that increases engagement with learning materials before participating in the discussion is another strategy that could foster cognitive presence. This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of providing two kinds of knowledge reconstruction activities, namely kit- build concept mapping (KBCM) and summary writing, as a discussion preparatory activity. The results show that using KBCM for reconstructing basic knowledge related to discussion topic has a potential to be better for fostering cognitive presence compared to summary writing. The KBCM activity provides opportunities to engage more with basic knowledge related to the discussion topic, to confirm understanding, and to familiarize themselves with common terms or keywords used in the discussion through reconstructing a teacher-created map. Some directions for future studies are discussed.

Concept map as an assessment tool is widely accepted in the field of education. In this research, assuming the process evaluation of concept map building leads to better evaluation than the product (that is, built concept map) evaluation, we proposed a process evaluation method and conducted an experimental evaluation of the method. The process evaluation method is intended for re-composition type of concept maps, not for general ones. In the re-composition concept map, a learner is provided a set of components of a concept map, that is, links and nodes, and required to recompose a concept map by using the components. The provided components are generated by decomposing the concept map built by an expert as a representation of understanding of the learning target. In this research, we set several submaps with a set of semantics in one expert map and define a good process by recomposing the submap as a series of activities. The process evaluation results were compared with the product evaluation results for the data of a practical use of re-composition of concept map in undergraduate class. As the results of the comparison, we have already confirmed that the result of process evaluation was a better predictor of learner’s understanding than the results of the product evaluation. In this paper as an additional analysis, we reported the analysis of relation between process evaluation and product evaluation. The difference between the evaluation methods could result in a case where there is zero score for process evaluation and full score for product evaluation. However, analysis results confirmed that there is a strong correlation between the two evaluation methods with r value = 0.8. These results suggest that support for the process of submap re-composition is a promising way for learners to recompose a good concept map. We further explore the usability of the process evaluation to the teachers, and it shows a high rate of agreement of the usefulness and appropriateness of the method. Based on the results, we are developing a formative assessment and support environment for concept map re-composition.

Programmable scan LiDAR is able to measure arbitrary areas and is expected to be used in various applications. In this paper, we study a LiDAR sampling strategy for deep depth completion of a programmable scan LiDAR with an RGB camera. General data sampling strategies include adaptive approaches such as active learning, in which candidate data are assessed through a task model for data selection and then the selected data pool is updated sequentially. Although it is an effective approach, the adaptive approach requires many iterations involving the inference process to assess the candidate data, which is not suitable for LiDAR systems. Therefore, we propose a novel interactive LiDAR sampling method without each inference process. Our key insights are that we assess sampling candidates by depth estimation uncertainty and virtually update the uncertainty by an approximation of the candidate assessment. This enables us to add interactivity to the model state without requiring each inference process. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method on the KITTI dataset and the generalization performance on the NYU-Depth-v2 dataset in comparison with a conventional adaptive LiDAR sampling method, and we find superior results in the depth completion task. We also show ablation studies to analyze our approach.

The aim of the present study was to examine the role of gender and impulsive decision making on social networking site (SNS) use in college students. Participants completed a delay-discounting task with hypothetical monetary rewards, in which they made repeated choices between a larger amount of money obtained later and an equal or lower amount of money obtained immediately. Based on the reported hours spent for SNS use, the participants were first grouped into the high or low SNS use group. They were then grouped by gender. The results show that, in females, the high SNS users did not differ significantly from the low SNS users in terms of rates of delay discounting, whereas in males, the high SNS users discounted delayed monetary rewards at greater rates than the low SNS users. These findings support the conclusion that gender acts as a moderating variable in the relation between SNS use and impulsive decision making. The present study contributes to the literature by providing implications for developing effective intervention strategies for excessive/problematic SNS use.

The present paper describes the Reciprocal Kit Build approach as a designed activity for collaborative concept mapping. We aimed to investigate the effect of differences in individual knowledge (both prior knowledge and knowledge on task) on knowledge transfer, collaborative product, and learners’ affective responses during co-construction of a concept map with the Reciprocal Kit Build (RKB) approach. We categorized learners into two groups based on their prior knowledge equivalence and their degree of shared knowledge reflected in the individual maps. The RKB approach allowed learners to create an individual map, to reconstruct a concept map from their partner’s map components (nodes and links), and to discuss similarities (or differences) between the initial map with the reconstructed map. The results showed that, following our proposed activity, transfers of individual knowledge regarding the shared and unshared knowledge were considerably high. Although, learners’ differences on prior and shared knowledge did not significantly affect the knowledge transfers and the final collaborative products, different group composition influenced the experiences of learners.

Recently, access to information is easier than before, but most of them are written in English. It leads to another new problem for a non-English speaking country. This research proposes an approach to improve English reading comprehension with the help of Kit-build concept map (KB-map) with an additional function named source connection. A university teacher in Indonesia practically used this approach and the other two approaches in several English classes of the second year of undergraduate student to compare the effectiveness of those approaches. The result shows that KB-map with the source-connection function was more effective in English reading comprehension compare to the traditional summarization and the normal Kit-build method.

Gamification, the use of game elements in non-game contexts, is a popular method to design motivating, enjoyable learning experiences. It is often applied through external rewards like leaderboards and achievements. Research shows that these rewards can negatively affect intrinsic motivation. One way to avoid this issue is by applying the game elements to the internal design of the learning activity. This approach is called Core Gamification. However, there are no concrete methods to apply Core Gamification to learning activities. This paper presents a method for the Core Gamification of learning activities based on information structure manipulation. In this case, information structure manipulation is not done by the code. And they are also not just about the design of the activity. The structures are visible to the user. The manipulation is also done by the user. Case studies with verified learning effects is also shortly presented.

Typically, classroom practices in the collaborative learning context center around three distinguishable levels of activity: individual activities, group work, and whole-class discussion. It is important to identify and analyze the correlation between these levels to enable teachers to understand and improve the dynamics of students’ understanding in the context of collaborative learning. This study proposes a method based on the Kit-Build concept map (KBmap) to analyze the relation between individual activities and group work in the classroom. The KBmap is a type of close-ended concept map that provides decomposed concepts and links from the concept map made by a teacher. This mechanism enables teachers to assess students’ understanding, and facilitate the coordination of learning in the classroom. To evaluate the proposed method, a junior high school in Japan is used as case study.

Conjunctive words connect two sentences logically. This property is divided into same-meaning and different-meaning commutativity. The former emphasizes a meaning that is explicitly represented in the sentences that already exist, but the latter adds a meaning beyond what is explicitly represented in them. Doing exercises to learn how to use both the former and the latter is important because conjunctive words play an important role in reading and writing effective sentences. Exercises to learn the former are easy, as there is only one correct answer to a fill-in-the-blank problem. On the other hand, to demonstrate mastery of the latter, the exercises must be difficult because various correct answers with different meanings exist. In this study, we designed and developed a conjunctive word learning support system for performing conjunctive word exercises to master different-meaning commutativity. In this system, the learner is provided with an exercise that entails assembling a sentence structure composed of two sentences and a conjunctive word and a conjunctive logical structure composed of two explicit situations and an implic it situation. The system also automatically diagnoses the learner’s performance on the exercises and gives feedback based on the diagnosis results. Furthermore, we carried out an experiment to verify the validity of this system, and the results suggest that the system is effective for helping students to master this aspect of language.

Kit Build (KB) is a closed-ended and reconstruction concept map that proven positive effects in assessment and learning regarding learners' knowledge understanding. The KB design emphasizes the centralization of teacher understanding that would be reconstructed by learners and ignores their knowledge structure itself. This study focused on a new extension of the KB concept map reconstruction, which is combined with the open-ended style called KB-Mixed. KB-Mixed does not only aim to increase knowledge understanding, but also enhance meaningful learning and facilitate knowledge structure. This study involved university students as participants who were divided into two groups, experimental and control. Students in the experimental group were requested to construct concept maps using the KB-Mixed method, while those in the control group used the open-ended concept map which called Extended Scratch-Build (ESB). The experiment results indicated that KB-Mixed outperformed the control group in terms of knowledge understanding and knowledge structure.

This study investigated a new extension of reconstruction Kit-Build (KB) concept map, which combined with the open-ended style that calls KB-Mixed. To confirm the learners' comprehension of new knowledge, we compared KB-Mixed and open-ended concept map. This study involved 55 2nd-grade university students who were divided into two groups, experimental and control. Students in the experimental group requested to construct concept maps using the KB-Mixed method, while those in the control group using the open-ended concept map, which calls Extended Scratch-Build. The results indicated that KB-Mixed had a significant impact on learners' comprehend, which was represented by the post-test score. Moreover, the concept maps score assessed by expert judgment showed a significant correlation difference to the post-test score.

In a collaborative situation, learners must actively interact with their peers to have meaningful discourse, not only co-present. Researchers have shown that employing a concept map as a representation tool was useful to construct and maintain group shared knowledge, rather than a dialogue only communication setting. The use of concept map positively affected students’ learning outcomes as well as their attitudes. Moreover, prior studies have extended the collaborative concept map activity with individual externalization, concept map sharing and reviewing activity to trigger cognitive change through conflicts. The current study introduces a new extension of collaborative concept mapping activity with Reciprocal Kit Build (RKB). The RKB allows learners in pair to create an individual and collaborative concept map, exchange ideas through reconstruction, and discuss it facilitated by shared and difference maps. Unlike existing studies, our design activity is aimed to promote learning mechanism at boundaries, by boundary-crossing and utilizing boundary objects. This paper explains how the RKB may potentially provoke conceptual changes during collaboration.

Data-driven approach is effective for upscaling observation network data of terrestrial carbon fluxes. In this study, we estimated terrestrial gross primary productivity (GPP) and net ecosystem exchange (NEE) across Asia by re-assessment of input parameters and updated MODIS datasets (collection 6, C6) with a machine learning approach. Site-level experiments showed that the newly introduced lagged effect successfully improved estimation of NEE. Interannual variations in GPP and NEE across Asia is more consistent with independent model-based estimations compared with the previous data-driven estimation based on MODIS collection 5 data (C5). Our new estimation provides a good benchmark for understanding spatio-temporal variability in terrestrial GPP and NEE.

This paper reports a practical use of triangle block model for learning of arithmetic word problems. The triangle block model has been proposed as a bridging model between conceptual representation of a word problem and quantitative representation of its solution. Based on this model, we have developed an interactive environment where a pupil is able to manipulate an integrated representation of the conceptual and quantitative ones as learning of arithmetic word problems. We also designed a series of lessons to use the environment. The lessons were practically conducted for 75 4th grade pupils (in two classes) in an elementary school for 7 class times. As the results, it was confirmed that (1) the pupils and their responsible teacher accepted the lessons as useful ones, and (2) the lessons had learning effect as improvement of structural understanding for the problems.

Kit-building task of a concept map is a promising exercise for strengthening and assessing learner's comprehension for a topic that a learner already has learnt. In order to investigate the value of the kit-building task of a concept map, we are comparing it with multiple-choice task of fill-in-the-blank questions. As a step to realize the comparison, in this paper, it is described an implementation to generate learning task from a series of propositions, that is, (1) kit-building task of concept map and (2) multiple choice task of fill-in-the-blank questions.

Formative assessment is widely used in education area for improve learning achievements. And we propose a framework of Kit-Build concept map for utilizing in ongoing formative assessment. Concept map strategy is already proven to represent learner’s understanding and becomes to a suitable strategy for formative assessment. We investigate the proposition of concept map that is constructed by connecting two concepts via linking words. The framework can gather and assess concept maps as learners’ evidence for identifying learners’ state in classroom situation that is a task of formative assessment. It provides assessment result and diagnosis result to instructor. These results are generated by using the proposition level exact matching method of an automatic concept map assessment. The assessment result is the similarity score between instructor’s concept map (Goal map) and learner’s concept map (Learner map). And the diagnosis result is represented in form of concept map with three error types. The errors show the different proposition between goal map and learners map, which is called individual-goal difference map. Both assessment result and diagnosis result provide information about understanding of each learner on lecture content to instructor that is called individual diagnosis. It can contribute instructor’s feedback that is a key of formative assessment. As more as possible to gather and assess learner’s evidence provides more opportunities to instructor for improving learner’s achievements. Providing overview of learners can reduce analysis time of instructor to recognize learners’ understanding. It means instructor can design and provide instructor’s feedback in less time based on group diagnosis of Kit-Build concept map. The group diagnosis includes group map and group-goal difference map. The group map is generated from overlaying all of learners map. It shows common understanding of learners that is used to generate group-goal difference map, this group-goal difference map shows most common misunderstanding. In this paper, we would like to propose the scenario that is suitable for supporting through of learning process since setting goal, gathering evidence of learners and providing effective information to designing instructor’s feedback for improving teaching and learning in classroom situation.

Learning by problem-posing is promising activity in learning mathematics and considered to contribute the understanding of the problem’s structure. If we can clarify how learners are thinking in steps of problem-posing, we will support learning by problem-posing more. This study investigate what learners think during problem-posing as sentence-integration in terms of intermediate products as well as the posed problems as the resultant product. Problem-posing as sentence-integration defines that arithmetic word problems have a structure and problem-posing is a task to satisfy all the constraints and the requirements to build a valid structure. A previous study shows, in problem-posing of arithmetic word problems as sentence-integration, learners try to satisfy relatively large number of the constraints in the posed problems. This study focuses on the violation of constraints in the intermediate products during problem-posing as sentence-integration. If learners have concern with the structure, they will try to avoid relatively larger number of the violated constraints on the way to the resultant posed problems. We conducted Pearson’s correlation test between the occurrence frequency of intermediate products and the number of violated constraints of them. The result shows the negative correlation between them. We consider that learners had an inclination to avoid as many violated constraints as possible throughout problem-posing activity.

Previous researches on supporting EFL (English as a Foreign Language) reading showed that Kit Build concept mapping (KB-mapping) method has better efficiency than Scratch Build concept mapping (SB-mapping) method in recalling the comprehended information two weeks later. In this research, we set out to investigate the following research question “Why KB-mapping method has better efficiency than SB-mapping method in recalling the comprehended information two weeks later?”. One of the common comprehension styles in the EFL reading comprehension tasks is the sentence-by-sentence, where learners understand the text by closely following each sentence in the text. Learners will be able to sentence-by-sentence answer the Comprehension Test (CT) just after the reading, but many investigations indicated that, this understanding could not be kept for a longer time as is the case in the Delayed CT (DCT). We have a hypothesis that “KB-mapping method promotes a learner to read not sentence-by-sentence, although SB-mapping method does not promote same as KB-mapping method”. In order to proof this hypothesis, we conducted an experiment to compare the learner’s comprehension with KB-mapping and SB-mapping methods. During this experiment, we have monitored the performance of learners in terms of the size and the progress of building learner’s map. In doing so, we added new functions to our system to record the building process of every learner. The outcome of the experiment confirms our previous results regarding the efficiency of KB-mapping. Moreover, the analysis of the progress of map building gives a proof that KB-mapping method helps the learners to avoid the sentence-by-sentence comprehension style. But the SB-mapping method could not help the learners to escape from this style of comprehension. Based on these results, we will design adaptive support for reading comprehension in our future work.

The implementation of learning by problem posing in practical use is facing the issue of inefficiency in time needed for assessment and giving feedback to students’ posed problems. As a solution of this problem, we have developed tablet PC-based software for learning by posing arithmetical word problems named Monsakun. The software is based on Triplet Structure Model of arithmetical word problem. In this research, we investigated elementary school students’ performance in Monsakun. The result shows that students did not pose problems randomly and with some sort of thinking. With further analysis of constraints, we also found that the frequent errors contain few non-meaningful errors and students tried to pose problems satisfying as many constraints required in each assignment as possible. The process of understanding assignment requirements and relating them to suitable sentence cards is an important point especially for young learners to reach deep understanding of the structure of arithmetical word problems.

In solving arithmetic/mathematics word problems, comprehension phase is the most important and difficult phase. In the comprehension phase, conceptual and quantitative comprehension is formed as connection between problem representation and solution representation. Externalization of the comprehension phase is a promising way to support learners to overcome their difficulty in this phase. In this paper, triangle block model is proposed as a way to externalize the conceptual and quantitative comprehension. We have already developed a learning environment based on the model. In this environment, a learner builds the externalized representation of the conceptual and quantitative comprehension by combining provided components. Through an experimental use by seventy-two sixth grade students in an elementary school, we have confirmed that the learning activity designed based on the model is accepted by the students and the responsible teacher of them.

Problem posing is well known as an effective activity to learn problem-solving methods. Although the activity is considered to contribute to understanding of the structure of problems, it is not clear how learners could understand it through the activity. This paper proposes detection of important learner's actions by tracing problem-posing activity sequences. The sequences are considered to represent thinking process of learners and reflect their understanding and misunderstanding about the structure of problems. This paper expects visualizations of the sequences to be helpful to infer learners’ bottlenecks in thinking and misunderstanding behind them. The goal of this paper is to make it possible to analyze problem-posing activity sequence for enhancing the effectiveness in learning. As an example, this paper proposes detection of “trap-state” that is a combination of simple sentences many learners tend to make in problem-posing assignments.

This paper proposes an example-based method to increase the resolution of a low-resolution image. In the proposed method, we generate example images by a novel view synthesis technique using 3D geometry reconstruction and camera pose estimation from a video or images capturing the same scene. We then increase the resolution by minimizing an energy function by searching for the optimal example from the generated example images. The proposed method has less limitations on camera positions and geometry of the target scene than those in conventional methods. Experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method by qualitatively comparing the results of the proposed and conventional methods.

In generally the reading comprehension is a very difficult task for students in all the stages of study, especially when they are reading text in a foreign language, the EFL reading” (English as foreign language) is one of the most common research topics in the learning field. This study aimed to investigate the effect of teaching EFL reading comprehension to Japanese students through Kit-Build concept mapping (KB-mapping) method. In doing so, we have conducted an experiment to compare the student comprehension with KB-mapping and Scratch-Build Concept Mapping (SB-mapping) Methods. In doing so, a comprehension test and delayed comprehension test (two weeks after using) were used. By comparing the results of the Comprehension Test (CT) scores and the Delayed Comprehension Test scores (DCT) for the both conditions groups, we found that the using of KB-mapping had the same effects of SB-mapping in the understanding the text just after the using, but KB-mapping had better effects in the recalling and remembering the text after a while.

We have developed a computer-based learning environment called MONSAKUN to realize learning by problem-posing, where students pose arithmetical word problems by selecting and arranging several sentence cards. As the next step of MONSAKUN development, we analyze the sentence selection process which is considered to reflect students' thinking process. In the first step of analysis, we focused on first sentence selection. We found that the selection approach changed based on different type of story and students’ exercise experience. This result is an important step towards building elaborate process model of problem-posing and adaptive support of the process.

As a support for learners who failed to solve a problem, teaching the way to solve the problem is a general method. However, in order to realize active learning, it is a desirable way to let learners overcome the impasse of the problem solving by themselves. Because it is usually difficult for the learners to do it by themselves, we have proposed “problem simplification” that is a way to find a simplified problem that is included in the original problem from the viewpoint of problem solving. If the simplified problem can be solved by the learner, the difference between the simplified one and the original one is the origin of the impasse. To make clear the origin of the impasse is feasible scaffolding for self-overcoming of impasse. In this paper, firstly we propose a framework to define simplification of problems in elementary mechanics in high school. Then, it is introduced a support system for self-overcoming of impasse of problem solving using the problem simplification targeting elementary mechanics. We also report a practical use of this system in classes of a technical high school.

Problem-posing is effective learning for comprehending problem structure. We have designed and developed the learning environment for problem-posing and performed its practical use for first and second grade students on elementary school continually. The scopes of these systems are one-step addition, subtraction or multiplication arithmetic word problem. The results of these practical uses suggested that the learning environment was effective to comprehend these problem structures. Therefore, as the next step, we have designed and developed a learning environment for posing one-step multiplication or division word problem in order to let learners acquire a difference between multiplication and division. Developed learning environment and its practical use in an elementary school are reported.

In this paper, we discuss reuse of teaching strategies that schoolteachers employing in practice. One of the significant capabilities of teachers is to blend content knowledge and general pedagogical knowledge within a context. The authors carried on a case study of modeling practical teaching strategy of schoolteachers in order to facilitate reusing them based on an ontological engineering approach. As the result, the teacher could design lesson plans serving his different two intentions.

This paper describes Ambient Party Room, which is a room-shaped information environment for party situations. This system estimates the conversation states by measuring participants' nonverbal cues and displays various types of information to stimulate the conversation. In this study, we reconstructed the system architecture from an early prototype and newly examined several types of information stimulus using a floor display, wall displays, and speakers. We conducted an experiment in which six participants talked freely in Ambient Party Room. Results showed that both profile-based information stimulus and feedback information of participants' behaviors contributed to their activated conversations.

People often communicate with others using social touch interactions including hugging, rubbing, and punching. We propose a soft social-touchable interface called “Emoballoon” that can recognize the types of social touch interactions. The proposed interface consists of a balloon and some sensors including a barometric pressure sensor inside of a balloon, and has a soft surface and ability to detect the force of the touch input. We construct the prototype of Emoballoon using a simple configuration based on the features of a balloon, and evaluate the implemented prototype. The evaluation indicates that our implementation can distinguish seven types of touch interactions with 83.5% accuracy.

In this paper, we discuss the effectiveness of an ontological modeling approach in practice. Although a lesson plan is a document that describes the plan of a lesson, the design rationale behind it tends to be implicit. The authors have developed an ontology called OMNIBUS and a theory-aware authoring system called SMARTIES. This paper describes the result of the experimental use of them in the real task of schoolteachers.

We propose a room-shaped information environment called Ambient Suite that enhances interpersonal communication. In Ambient Suite, the room itself works as both sensors to estimate the conversation states of participants and displays to present information to stimulate conversation. This paper introduces an implementation assumed standing-party situations as a typical use case of Ambient Suite. From the result of user study using its implementation, we confirmed that our system adequately encouraged participant conversations.

We propose a cup-shaped device called Cup-le for conversational experiment. Cup-le has various sensors to record participants' nonverbal behavior such as utterance. Cup-le saves the work of attaching sensors. Also, since Cup-le appears cup-shaped, it can sense without being aware of the sensor unlike conventional wearable sensors. Moreover, by attaching touch display, Cup-le can show information and can be operated. In this conversational experiment, we use the input-output as method to have a questionnaire during the experiment and capture participants' impression for their conversation. We conducted real conversational experiment with Cup-le, and we confirmed that Cup-le supported sufficiently the experiment without affecting their impression.

This paper discusses computer support for making a design of a lesson in a school teacher’s mind. Although school teachers usually describes the plan in a document called lesson plan, it is the result of thought and does not often have enough information about the design rationale behind it. The authors have developed an ontology called OMNIBUS and a theory-aware authoring system called SMARTIES. The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of them through the practical efforts of deploying them to a community of social studies schoolteachers. This paper presents findings of the practical efforts and considerations of improvement of OMNIBUS and SMARTIES.

This paper discusses computer-based support for self-reflection of teachers in a lesson design task. One of the keys to success in the design task is an alternating cycle of externalization of ideas and reflection resulting from those externalized ideas. However, it is difficult for teachers to externalize their ideas to generate effective reflection. This study aims at enhancing reflection by ontological modeling of the design rationale of a lesson plan. The result of a trial in which a teacher externalized the design rationale of her plan and investigated reflection generated in the trial is reported here.

This study, through the ontological engineering approach, aims at building a conceptual basis that encourages instructional designers in better understanding of learning/instructional theories, which mean that instructional designers can select and integrate appropriate strategies from theories within an instructional context. This paper proposes a methodology of structuring the theories in terms of strategies included in them, in which strategies can be structured independent of paradigms and theories.

Design of collaborative learning (CL) scenarios is a complex task, but necessary if the goal of the collaboration is learning. Creating well-thought-out CL scenarios requires experience and knowledge about different learning/instructional theories and practices related to collaboration. Inexperienced designers, who may not have all the needed knowledge to formulate pedagogically sound collaborative learning plans, may have difficulties to design CL activities. Thus, although CL has shown to be effective, it is not often used in classroom adequately. To tackle this problem, this paper presents an ontology for CL, that aims at modeling not only the learning activities, but also the rationale for their configuration in pedagogical terms. This ontology allows modeling the expected interactions among students as well as the mechanisms that promote or enhance collaboration structured across several sessions and involve individual and collaborative activities. Finally, the paper discusses an application of the presented ontology to support the design of pedagogically sound CL scenarios.

Intellectual synergy is a major source of high competitive power for an organization. Through the authors research project, we have been developing an environment, Kfarm, to support creating/inheriting organizational intellect. Characteristic features of Kfarm include a dual loop model which represents ideal processes of knowledge-level communication among personnel to create/inherit organizational knowledge. In this paper, they focus on collaborative learning support functions of Kfarm. This research seeks to clarify the essential role of collaborative learning in an organization and provide an appropriate opportunity for collaborative learning for organization members. Attaining the goal requires construction of a design model of collaborative learning and realization of design support functions into Kfarm. This paper first introduces learning aspects of organizational activities, Then, it roughly outlines Kfarm while focusing on collaborative learning support functions.

It is necessary that the relations between individuals and organizations be properly understood and support learning for knowledge inheritance, and encourage the creation, the spreading and inheriting of new knowledge. This paper presents an framework of information systems for knowledge management focused on a learning system in organization. Major characteristics of this framework are derived from “Dual loop model” which represents the flow of knowledge in an organization. Since these two things enable the framework to grasp the meaning of knowledge and the progress of organizational learning, it can provides appropriate support for knowledge management Then we will introduce two systems as concrete examples, namely a knowledge management support environment: Kfarm.

G. Peano published a paper of space-filling curve in 1890. There are several applications using this curve in the area of image processing, computer graphics, etc. This paper presents a region-based scanning technique for image compression which we call an adaptive space filling scan (ASFS). In order to generate the ASFS, we make use of a minimum spanning tree technique. From several experiments for image compression, it is confirmed that in comparison to JPEG, acceptable quality images can be obtained at the same bit-rates.