Many studies have focused on supporting orchestral performers. In some of these studies, researchers helped multiple players perform without conductors by using a system that conducts the orchestra with artificial, or virtual conductors. Several approaches have been taken in this field. Some conduct players using a conductor made from computer graphics, while others conduct through the changing or moving of figures. However, these studies have not demonstrated how to conduct specific instructions for each player. We propose a group of personalized virtual conductors for a group of players such as an orchestra. To date, the studies of virtual conductors have only addressed a single conductor. However, because the required dynamics, tempo, and nuances are different based on each player's role and part, personalized conduct may be desirable. We developed a prototype that includes a group of personalized virtual conductors and found it has tendency to better for the players and listeners.

When a large-scale disaster occurs, it is necessary for citizens to take the lead and do rescue operations. People train and prepare for disasters in advance, but training sessions cannot be held easily, and the learning pace of each individual is not considered. In this study, we propose a first aid training system for citizens using a human-shaped input device, QUMARION. This system provides first aid skills training through human-computer interaction. By using a human-shaped input device instead of human bodies, people can carry out the training of posture management individually and learn at their own pace. In addition, since our system provides advice and feedback depending on the knowledge level of the user, not only can they perform the learning, but they can also confirm whether they acquire knowledge and skills correctly. We conducted an experiment to see whether the trainee can learn accurately by using our system. The results showed that our system enables easy and effective learning about first aid.

The supported work is divided into synchronous and asynchronous supported work. In the synchronous supported works, the instructor and worker are able to communicate in real time. In the asynchronous supported work, the instructor and worker cannot communicate in real time. For example, the instructor prepares the manual and the worker works with the manual. In the synchronous supported works, the worker can work efficiency by tips at proper timing. However, in asynchronous supported work, it is difficult to support works in likewise the synchronous supported work because it is difficult to define the timing of appending tips. Thus in this paper, we propose an authoring tool and MR (Mixed Reality) manual using afterimages. By using metaphor of afterimage, time flows of works become place flow of works. The timing of appending tips is optimized for instructor (manual maker) and he can add tips any timing easily. In addition, MR manual using afterimages can convey the motion of work more than animate instruction with MR.

In recent years, the concept of triage in emergency medical care at the time of disaster has attracted wide attention and studies have focused on developing electronic triage systems that can collect and manage information about victims through a network. In order to carry out emergency lifesaving activities at an actual disaster site quickly and accurately, it is essential to do triage training frequently. In this study, we propose a triage training system where a training scenario may change depending on actions of health care workers. In addition, our system makes triage training more realistic by enabling information sharing between the disaster countermeasures office and a disaster site. The evaluation shows that our system enables to prompt an appropriate action to health care workers even in a case of a dynamic scenario change, and to share necessary information with the office accurately.

A help desk is composed by a customer and a clerk. At a help desk it is important to share information with each other. However, when the customer is more than one person, it is difficult for the clerk to understand the intentions of the customers. In this study, we created a system which can support a travel agency desk. We propose the system to support the clerk to understand the interest degree of multiple customers simultaneously. And our system supports them to decide their travel plan. This system presents the travel information to customers on a tabletop interface, and detects the line-of-sight and the touching actions of the customers. By using the detected data, this system can measure the interest degree of the customers and notify the clerk of the result. In addition, customers can create the travel plan on the tabletop interface with the clerk. When the clerk can provide the best information and guide customers smoothly with this system, planning their itinerary would become easier. We aim to simplify the process necessary at the travel agency desk by using this system.

Periodic assessment of olfaction is important because a decline in olfaction can be caused by disorders such as Alzheimer's dementia at an early stage. However, current olfactory tests are rarely conducted due to the time and effort necessary for the scent presentation and the problem of scent lingering in the air. Therefore, we developed an olfactory display using pulse ejection for medical use. We also developed several types of nozzles and compared them. We evaluated the performance of the olfactory display on patients with olfactory disturbance. Then, we measured the degree of olfactory loss of the patients by using T&T olfactometer, the most widely known olfactory test in Japan, and found that our olfactory display could accurately assess the olfactory skills of the patients. In the future, we aim to solve the problems of current olfactory tests by using the olfactory display and familiarize olfactory tests.

At times of mass casualty incidents, medical resources such as personnel and equipment are limited. By performing triage, the act of deciding the priority of treating patients by severity of their condition, efficient use of the resources can be achieved. In Japan, triage became widely known after the 2011 Japan Earthquake, and the necessity of triage training has been acknowledged. Frequent training helps in acquiring skills needed to act in real situations, but current training does not consider the skill level of each trainee, since several people train simultaneously. This leads to the decline in motivation and inefficient training sessions. Moreover, creating a customized scenario for each trainee is difficult and costly. To address this issue, we designed a training system which adjusts the level of difficulty according to user proficiency. The system automatically generates the scenario for each user, and provides visual feedback after training. We conducted an evaluation experiment to measure whether the trainee can acquire the necessary knowledge by using our system. The results showed that training with our system helps in learning the skills quickly and accurately.

This paper presents the design, implementation, and evaluation of a sports tactics analysis supporting system. In the field of sports, tactics analysis is conducted using data from multiplayer games. In so doing, it is important to recognize the actual play in a sports game. This research focuses on reproducing player action in sports games. Unlike the conventional systems that only display static images of the players, this proposal system shows the player moving in a manner similar to a game in virtual space that reproduces the pitch, so user is able to have realistic image of game, and therefore the user acquires proper spatial information. The system also allows the user to move the object by touching a display. Consequently, it provides an environment in which users can easily discuss the game. From experiments, we confirmed the system facilitates users in tactics analysis.

Olfaction has recently been gaining attention in information and communication technology, as shown by attempts in theaters to screen videos while emitting scents. However, because there is no current infrastructure to communicate and synchronize odor information with visual information, people cannot enjoy this experience at home. Therefore, we have constructed a system of smell videos which could be applied to television (TV), allowing viewers to experience scents while watching their videos. To solve the abovementioned technical problems, we propose using the existing system for broadcasting closed caption. Our system's implementation is mindful of both video viewers and producers, allowing the system on the viewer end to disperse odorants in synchronization with videos, and allowing producers to add odor information to videos. We finally verify the system's feasibility. We expect that this study will make smell videos become common, and people will enjoy ones in daily life in the near future.

In this paper, to present new information and a high sense of realism to the audience, we propose a simple method of adding scent to television (TV) broadcasts. Recently, study of attaching scents to video has been active, and scented videos have been shown to successfully improve viewer understanding and sense of reality. Such videos are currently used mainly for advertisements and specific movies, and so few people have the chance to experience them. Thus, to provide opportunities for the general public to enjoy scent attached video content, we consider adding scent to TV broadcasting, which is the most common type of visual medium. However, the use of existing scented video techniques to synchronize broadcasts and scents would require developing a method to create new types of scent data. Such development would be difficult under current television broadcasting. Therefore, adding scent to a TV broadcast is presently complex. In this study, we add scents to a TV broadcast by attaching the scent information to closed caption data. By utilizing the already broadcast closed caption data, ascent can be added to a TV program and subsequently edited more easily than before. We have verified through experiments that the proposed method works as expected, and hence the attachment of scents to TV broadcasts through our simple approach has been demonstrated to be possible. We hope that through scent addition to TV programs with our developed system, many people can easily enjoy video content with high realism and attractiveness.

This paper presents the design, implementation, and evaluation of an interactive tabletop and vertical touch screen system that supports recognition of virtual soccer field. Arrangement player positions, imagine the sense of distance between players, such task is difficult for inexperienced people, because they need to imagine real field space in detail. To get proper spatial information and solve this problem, this research focuses on two viewpoints, an overhead view and a first-person view. The proposed system shows both viewpoints, using the tabletop display for the overhead view and the vertical display for the first-person view. From experiment that verified effectiveness for visualizing the game space, We confirmed the system allows the user to intuitively move objects in each viewpoint, and promotes the image of game situations than conventional systems.

In this paper, we propose a pointing method for remote Mixed Reality (MR) cooperative work which an expert can instruct with captured still worker's view video. Much research has been devoted to the study of remote cooperative work, and recently systems using MR have been investigated. In these systems, users can work while looking at instructions which are superimposed as virtual objects by MR. Worker's view video is often used because an expert needs to know the situation of the workspace in real-time and exactly. But in this case, the expert's view depends on the worker's viewpoint, and the indicating point shifts if the worker moves his head or work objects. Also if an expert sees workspace through Head Mounted Display (HMD), he tends to feel sick by shaking video which is brought by the worker's head movement. In our system, an expert can stop worker's view video and direct on its captured still image. So an expert can instruct without being influenced by the moving video. It is expected to improve pointing accuracy and expert's sickness.

Although cloud storage offers a number of attractive features, it also raises various security concerns. In particular, cloud storage of sensitive information, such as medical or trade records, requires measures to be taken not only for privacy protection, but also for assured deletion and verifiable version control. Even though there are methods for realizing both assured deletion and version control in cloud storage, they cannot guarantee the integrity of files and their versioning order. Therefore, we propose a system referred to as ``Assured Deletion and verifiable version Control (ADEC)'', which is implemented as a virtual file system capable of taking snapshots in cloud storage. The main ideas behind ADEC are a scheme for generating chained keys and a scheme for verifiable version control with hysteresis signatures. This method can be used not only for protection of privacy, but also for assured deletion of specific versions and all older versions in a single operation. In addition, the integrity of each file version can be verified with the hysteresis signature scheme, which makes it impossible to implement rollback and reordering attacks.

Theater is a collaborative art form that involves production team members with different specialties. Because theater involves various technical elements, such as stage design and lighting, the production team must work in cooperation among various departments to design a theatrical production. When planning a theatrical production, it is difficult to visualize the stage as a whole and to incorporate the ideas of production team members from various departments. In this paper, we propose a system for reproducing the theatrical stage by means of a virtual stage linked to a physical miniature stage. The miniature stage is presented on a tabletop interface, and the virtual stage is created by computer graphics to reflect the actions on the miniature stage in real time. By actually presenting theatrical production ideas in two spaces, users can more easily collaborate and gain a comprehensive view of the stage.

When there are a lot of injured people at a large-scale disaster site, medical staff first do triage. Triage is to decide the priority for treatment depending on the degree of severity or urgency of injured people. Paper triage tags are used now to show their condition and to record information on injuries. We do research that collect information of injured people by using electronic triage tags which replace the current paper tags. To do prompt and accurate emergency medical services with electronic tags at a disaster site, it is important for medical staff to engage in a disaster-relief training using them on a daily basis. So we propose the disaster-relief training system using the electronic triage tag. This system supports to develop the scenarios of injured people information and transport information. We let the electronic triage tag generate vital signs of injured people constantly. By collecting and monitoring those data at regular intervals, we aim to conduct a more practical disaster-relief training considering the change in symptoms of injured people.

The transmission of olfactory information together with audiovisual information is now attracting much attention. However, the information is difficult to synchronize because of problems of scent lingering in the air and olfactory adaptation. We aimed at minimizing the amount of odorant presented to users in order to mitigate these problems, and developed an olfactory display that is able to present scents precisely. The display uses pulse ejection, whereby scents are emitted for only short periods of time. In this study, we aimed to mitigate the above-mentioned problems and to measure the time characteristics of olfaction in a single breath, which are difficult to measure by conventional methods. As a result, the most effective conditions for using a small amount of odorant in a single breath were revealed. These results are expected to ease the synchronization of olfactory and audiovisual information.

As advancement of information society, information leakages grow into a serious problem. It is important for security managers to analysis log-files for finding out cause of leakages promptly. Existing methods of presenting log-files take the method of ordering them in time. It makes easy to understand a flow of operations. However, if a log recording an incorrect operation is included in the back of log-file, finding out it may drop back. To address this problem, this paper presents visualization system for log analysis with probabilities of incorrect operation. Incorrect operations are operations that may cause a security incident. Probabilities of incorrect operation are set up by rate of number of incorrect operations in past log-files. Security analysts set order of priority, and logs are sorted. Also, we introduce Visualize Part to help security analysts understand a flow of operations in spite of not ordering logs in time. We aim to contribute speedy security analyses by combine visualizing log-file with probabilities of incorrect operation. To evaluate our proposal, accuracy and efficiency are measured by user experiment. Our proposal tool was compared with the tool without probabilities of incorrect operation. As the result, in terms of accuracy, there are no significant difference between. However, our proposal demonstrate a 39.5% improved efficiency.

In a large-scale disaster in which many persons are injured at the same time, triage has been introduced. Triage is a method that temporarily delays the treatment of people with mild to moderate injuries and symptoms and gives priority to those in a critical condition. In the process of multiple triage, more specific information is needed in the second triage compared to the first to accurately prioritize the persons injuries and state. To solve this problem we proposed and constructed a touch-based interface for managing information inserted during second triage. A touch-based tablet interface is introduced to specify wound areas and gestures for wound types. The information is shared wirelessly with all emergency personnel, giving medics shared, data-centric, visibility of overall triage status for the first time. The evaluation experiment shows that this proposed system enables to reduce input errors, speed up injured person care, and facilitate information sharing between medics efficiently. As a result, we believe that many more injured persons can and will be saved.

Recently, when the disaster occurred, the lifesaving emergency method that was called triage are being introduced. Purpose of triage is to decide the lifesaving order from patient's condition and to save more preventable deaths. The sensor network is constructed by using the computerized tag, and the research of the emergency lifesaving support system that observes and collects information on patient is active. We state this network as triage network. When the data of patient is collected through the sensor network, it is necessary to consider battery power of the sensor node. If the battery ran out, not only the patient data measured with the node is not obtained but also the relaid data is lost. In this paper, we propose N2LE, combining delayedRREP by estimated lifetime and triggeredRREQ. The purpose of N2LE is to reduce the difference between node lifetime and network lifetime that is caused by battery problem. Battery that can be used in delayedRREP by estimated lifetime for the network is quantified and reflects it in the route. When the change takes place in the battery environment, the route is restructured in triggeredRREQ. We evaluate our proposal using simulations, and results show that our proposal achieves longer network lifetime while node lifetime kept similar.

This paper proposes augmentation of check in/out model for remote collaboration with Mixed Reality (MR). We add a 3D shared and private space into the real workspace by MR technology, and augment the check in/out model to remote collaboration. By our proposal, user can intuitively receive remote partner's work via virtual objects in the shared space and stop sharing information about an object by just moving the object into the private space if the user doesn't want to share it. We implement a system which achieves our proposal and evaluate it.

Trials on transmitting olfactory information together with audio/visual information are currently being conducted in the field of multimedia. However, continuous emission of scents creates problems of olfactory adaptations and scents lingering in the air. To overcome these problems, we developed an ink-jet olfactory display. This display has high emission control so that it can provide stable pulse emission of scents. Humans detect the scents when they breathe in and inhale scents molecules in the air. Therefore, it is important to synchronize the pulse ejection of scent presentation with the inspiration. With that, by using the pulse ejection of scents, we constructed the pulse ejection pattern what enables instantaneous switch of scents. We first measured the responding time to sense the shift of scents in order to achieve the pulse ejection pattern suited for switching the scents. Then, by using the pattern found in first experiment, we measured the shortest period of scent switching. At last, we measured the limit of switching scents. As a result, we constructed the presenting pattern of scent switching and the limit of scent switching when the scent switching was presented with its shortest period. It is expected that using this developed pattern with movies would raise the realistic sensations.

In this paper, we propose a method of reducing the insertion amount of data at the time of sanitization in order to increase the usefulness of the sanitizable signature scheme for SMF. When a user plays back a part of an SMF, which is signed with a general digital signature, the signature is destroyed. We propose a sanitizable signature scheme for SMF, and the user can prove that a partial playback satisfies the intention of the copyright holder, making it possible to show using the musical piece correctly. With the existing method, the signing object is a hash value set. Therefore, in order to verify the SMF and the sanitized digital signature, all the hash values of the sanitized block are required. With the proposed method, a root hash value is signed instead of a hash value set. Therefore all low rank nodes become a part of the host node, which is a sanitization block, which makes it possible to decrease the insertion amount of data at the time of sanitization of the number of the hash value which a sanitizer inserts.

In this paper, we describe a secure distributed file system using hysteresis signatures. Although tremendous amounts of information are stored on file servers, it is impractical to have a professional and reliable person to manage such information, especially for small organizations. Also, setting up RAID or multiple servers for the purpose of fault tolerance is a difficult and time-consuming task. We introduced a distributed secure file system in a previous work. However, since the proposed file system was problematic from the viewpoint of computer forensics,we propose here a new method using hysteresis signatures. The confidentiality of information of files is maintained since files are encrypted and distributed among the PCs of the users. Operation logs are securely saved on the system, and log is chained one by one. Moreover, the logs are exchanged by several PCs and users in order to make the system safer than the existing one.

Trials on the transmission of olfactory information together with audio/visual information are currently underway. However, a problem exists in that continuous emission of scent leaves scent in the air causing human olfactory adaptation. To resolve this problem, we aimed at minimizing the quantity of scent ejected using an ink-jet olfactory display developed. Following the development of a breath sensor for breath synchronization, we next developed an olfactory ejection system to present scent on each inspiration. We then measured human olfactory characteristics in order to determine the most suitable method for presenting scent on an inspiration. Experiments revealed that the intensity of scent perceived by the user was altered by differences in the presentation method even when the quantity of scent was unchanged. We present here a method of odor presentation that most effectively minimizes the ejection quantities.

Thinking states are very important factors in the evaluation of and interaction with virtual spaces. Physiological information is often used to estimate thinking states objectively. However, it is difficult to estimate complex feelings numerically from limited physiological information. In this paper, we propose a method for the evaluation of thinking states in cyberspace using multiple physiological parameters. We developed a mapping matrix that converted physiological data into a composite of thinking states. In experiments, we found that with one mapping matrix the thinking states of different subjects for the same task could be derived. In addition, we investigated the similarities and differences between six estimated thinking states by using the mapping matrix.

Currently, there are many occasions to communicate with each other in the collaborative virtual environment. However, it is more difficult to keep high-motivation for participating in communication in such virtual environment than in face-to-face environment. It is considered that the reasons are 1) the difficulty of understanding how their own motivations are and 2) the boring expression due to the fixed view point. To address this issue, we display electroencephalogram information to a virtual space by forward-backward model - zoom in/out of whole virtual space. According to the results of experiment, our system successfully provides an environment in which people can keep high-motivations for participating in communication.

In this paper, we propose d-ACTM/VT, a network based worm detection method that effectively detects hit-list worms. To detect a kind of hit-list worms named Silent worms in a distributed manner, d-ACTM was proposed. d-ACTM detects the existence of worms by detecting tree structures composed of infection connections as edges. Some undetected infection connections, however, can divide the tree structures into small trees and degrade the detection performance. d-ACTM/VT addresses this problem by aggregating the divided trees as a tree named Virtual AC tree in a distributed manner and utilizes it for detection. Simulation result shows d-ACTM/VT reduces the number of infected hosts by 20% compared to d-ACTM.

Research into collaborative mixed reality (MR) or augmented reality has recently been active. Previous studies showed that MR was preferred for collocated collaboration while immersive virtual reality was preferred for remote collaboration. The main reason for this preference is that the physical object in remote space cannot be handled directly. However, MR using tangible objects is still attractive for remote collaborative systems, because MR enables seamless interaction with real objects enhanced by virtual information with the sense of touch. Here we introduce "tangible replicas"(dual objects that have the same shape, size, and surface), and propose a symmetrical model for remote collaborative MR. The result of experiments shows that pointing and drawing functions on the tangible replica work well despite limited shared information.

In this paper we propose a worm detection method that detects silent worms effectively in intranet and LANs. Most existing detection methods use aggressive activities of worms as a clue for detection and are ineffective against worms that propagate silently using a list of vulnerable hosts. To detect such worms, we propose anomaly connection tree method (ACTM). ACTM uses two features present to most worms. First is that the worms's propagation behaviour is expressed as tree-like structures composed of infection connections as edges. Second is that when selecting infection targets, the worm does not consider which hosts its infected host communicates to frequently. Then, by detecting composed of anomaly connections, ACTM detects the existence of worms. Through the simulation results, it has been shown that ACTM can detect the worms in an early stage of the propagation activities.

Most of existing network worms have used address scanning to find vulnerable hosts. Recently, however, worms with more effective propagation strategies have emerged. Among the worms, we focus on the worms that exploit address lists obtained from infected hosts to find other vulnerable hosts effectively. In this paper, we propose a method to detect and contain such worms that try to infect all hosts in an enterprise network. In our method, a detection system inserts some dummy addresses into the address lists of hosts in the network. Then, the system detects the existence of worms when a host tries to open a connection to a dummy address, and then traces back the connection logs to find potentially infected hosts and removes them from the network. Computer simulation results showed our method detected and contained worms with less than 1% infected hosts and less than 5% removed hosts.

This paper proposes a distributed network based worm detection method, d-ACTM, to detect a kind of hit-list worm named Silent worm. The worm propagation behavior in the network is expressed as a tree-like structure composed of the infected hosts and the infection connections. d-ACTM detects the existence of worms by detecting the tree structures composed of anomaly connections in a distributed manner. The simulation result shows that d-ACTM can detect Silent worms before 7% of all vulnerable hosts are infected under the condition where the infection interval is equals to the normal connection interval.

In this paper we propose a novel worm detection method that can detect silent worms in intranet. Most existing detection methods use aggressive activities of worms as a clue for detection and are ineffective against worms that propagate silently using a list of vulnerable hosts. To detect such worms, we propose anomaly connection tree method (ACTM). ACTM uses two features present to most worms. First is that the worm's propagation behavior is expressed as tree-like structures. Second is that the worm's selection of infection targets does not consider which hosts its infected host communicates too frequently. Then, by constructing trees that are composed of anomaly connections, ACTM detects the existence of such worms. Through the simulation results, we have shown that ACTM can detect the worms in an early stage

In this paper, we propose SAVe, a real-time stream authentication scheme for video streams. Each packet in the stream is authenticated to correspond to packet loss seen in UDP-based streaming. Since temporal and spatial compression techniques are adopted for video stream encoding, there are differences in the importance and dependencies between frames. Therefore, to take the characteristics special to video into consideration, in SAVe the amount of redundancy distributed to each frame is adjusted according to the importance of each frame. Simulation results show that SAVe improves the playing rate 50% compared to previously proposed schemes

This paper describes a proposal of an extended event model using a media synchronization method for video hypermedia applications. In this extended event model, video and metadata are synchronized by periodically inserting event information in the video multiplex. We considered the following design policies: 1) a model that is independent of the video format and delivery method, 2) the synchronization accuracy can be tuned depending on the purpose and use of the metadata. We designed the extended event model based on the above design policies, and implemented this model as an encode/decode library for Windows Media. Based on this model we developed a video hypermedia system prototype and performed evaluation experiments. The evaluation results of real time synchronization performance of the system prototype showed that in the case of sports video content a synchronization accuracy of 100 msec between video and metadata makes our method effective for use in video hypermedia applications

In this paper, we propose an authentication scheme considering privacy aimed for JPEG images. A picture from a surveillance camera must be authenticated when submitted to a third party, such as a legal organization, courts and so on. On one hand, privacy of objects in the picture must be considered. Therefore, mosaic and masking must be performed to the picture if needed. Our scheme authenticate JPEG picture, where parts are processed by mosaic and masking. Our scheme uses Merkle tree and Sandhu tree and achieves small overhead size needed to authenticate the processed picture.

This paper describes a technique for mapping objects such as insects and plants in the field on a blank map in mobile learning. We propose map creating system that utilizes man's subjective geographic recognition in addition to a GPS. With the help of man's ability of recognizing placement of objects and geographical relations between objects, objective geographic information with small error given by a GPS is effectively compensated.

We propose a new environment for testing the behavior of TCP. We analyze existing test methodologies and show that there is still a need to reduce the loads imposed on both the worker and the expert. The Auto Detector is extensible and so well supports both the automation of predefined tasks and the communication tools needed to ensure gradual refinement by the participants. To show the effectiveness of our proposal, actual software flaws found in HP/UX and the Windows operating system are taken as examples of how to realize the automation of reproduction and detection tasks; it is flexible enough to resolve real-world issues.

We propose a streaming authentication scheme for the use over the IP telephony. To clear the strict real-time transmission requirements of the IP telephony, the latency and interval between signatures are adjusted dynamically according to the transmission quality of the network. This provides efficient signing and continuous authentication during real-time streaming. We show our scheme's advantages over previously proposed schemes by comparing delay on the sender and receiver side, and tolerance to packet loss.

In this paper, we propose the broadcasting data structure that can clip the requested scene or information in the TV program, and that can reconstitute the TV program depending on the review environment or the purpose. As a result, this mechanism enables users to use the clipped broadcasting contents for various purposes.

Visual shared workspaces will be always staying on users' screens in the near future. Users will be moving frequently between their personal workspaces for personal and asynchronous work and shared workspaces for communication and synchronous cooperation. Also the system should supports users' everyday awareness of co-workers. For supporting such situation, this paper proposes a new technique to visualize workspaces as a set of layered virtual screens in three-dimensional space. In this way, groups' shared spaces are shown as background of users' personal spaces like as looking from a top personal layer down to a bottom public layer. In conventional groupware, user's workspace is divided into some shared spaces and a personal space to show all of them simultaneously, so the size of the personal space is very restricted. This layered perspective visualization alleviates this problem and also supports users' awareness by always showing shared spaces in background.

Nowadays in many enterprises, for the purpose of efficiency improvement and the automation of the business, the workflow management system of the business process is coming into wide use. However, an individual workflow management system is introduced into each organization so the workflow system is effective as a business support inside a single organization, but it is difficult to apply this management system to coordinate business among more than two organizations. We propose Interworkflow system which coordinates each workflow system among multiple organizations. The Interworkflow system consists of three sub-systems and has a user friendly interface. We report on the fact that we have constructed an actual Interworkflow system that coordinates multiple workflow systems and confirm that it functioned effectively.

Asynchronous messaging systems like e-mail systems need some advanced characteristics, such as intelligence, controllability and scalability, to accomplish more effective and sophisticated message handling. We propose a framework of next generation messaging systems, Flexible Asynchronous Messaging System (FAMES), which consists of autonomous and collaborative software agents. In FAMES, various messaging functions composing of agents can be utilized to integrate heterogeneous user environment. Moreover, FAMES operates message flow in an intelligent manner, considering the receiver's own convenience and that flexible message delivery can be achieved. We designed and implemented the proposed system based on multi agent technology, and we show its effectiveness through experimental studies using a prototype system.

Article Integration of face-to-face and video-mediated meetings: HERMES Share on Authors: Tomoo Inoue Department of Information and Computer Science, Keio University, 3-14-1, Hiyoshi, Kohoku-ku, Yokohama 223 Japan Department of Information and Computer Science, Keio University, 3-14-1, Hiyoshi, Kohoku-ku, Yokohama 223 JapanView Profile , Ken-ichi Okada Department of Information and Computer Science, Keio University, 3-14-1, Hiyoshi, Kohoku-ku, Yokohama 223 Japan Department of Information and Computer Science, Keio University, 3-14-1, Hiyoshi, Kohoku-ku, Yokohama 223 JapanView Profile , Yutaka Matsushita Department of Information and Computer Science, Keio University, 3-14-1, Hiyoshi, Kohoku-ku, Yokohama 223 Japan Department of Information and Computer Science, Keio University, 3-14-1, Hiyoshi, Kohoku-ku, Yokohama 223 JapanView Profile Authors Info & Claims GROUP '97: Proceedings of the international ACM SIGGROUP conference on Supporting group work: the integration challengeNovember 1997 Pages 405–414https://doi.org/10.1145/266838.267361Online:16 November 1997Publication History 10citation465DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations10Total Downloads465Last 12 Months5Last 6 weeks1 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteGet Access

Portable computers can be connected to a network by wireless communication while the user is moving. Users can enjoy this capability and use services on a computer network in any place and at any time. This new style of computer usage is called "mobile computing". In a mobile computing environment there are some problems which are caused by using wireless interfaces, such as disconnection and inability to connect to the network. Moreover, it is likely that most users operate not only with their portable computers but also with other computers in their office, home and so on. The authors discuss the agent platform which considers these features of mobile computing. This platform is designed in order to cover the shortages of wireless communication, and to provide a platform for agents that support user mobility.

This video shows a multiparty videoconferencing system “MAJIC” and a multiparty desktop conferencing system “DesktopMAJIC”. MAJIC is composed of 2 video cameras, 2 video projectors, a one-way transparent screen, and a tilted workstation forming a desk. Life-size video images of participants are projected without boundaries onto a large curved screen as if users in remote locations are sitting around a table attending a meeting together. MAJIC supports gaze awareness and multiple eye-contact among the participants. Moreover, a shared work space is provided at the center, enabling users to carry on a discussion in a manner comparable to face-to-face meetings.

Today, various novel telecommunication systems have been proposed. The idea of a virtual communication space shared by multiple distributed users via networks, so-called cyberspace, has received considerable communication. In cyberspace, there are tremendously many users, on-line services, and much information, and users have great opportunity to encounter all of these. We think the most serious problem in cyberspace is the great risk that a user might miss a chance to get relevant or important information. In this paper, we propose a strategy for auditory browsing to address this problem, using a spatial sound interface. We implemented VCP (Virtual Cocktail Party), an experimental system for achieving efficient and flexible telecommunication and data retrieval, which takes advantage of human auditory capability. This system can support a number of physically separated users in a single shared sound cyberspace and consists of distributed terminals with a spatial sound interface.

The paper deals with nonverbal communication in asynchronous networks. It is well known that nonverbal communication plays an important role in interpersonal communication. However, nonverbal communication has not been used in traditional character based network communication until now, yet the need for conveying feelings has increased. Due to the development of multimedia networks, it is thought that nonverbal communication can be valuable for network communication. The research is based on the importance of expressing feelings through nonverbal communication, especially gestures. It has not yet been determined what kind of feelings can be conveyed by gestures so the evaluation of feelings expressed by gestures has been done using animated cartoons. From this, it has been shown that feelings expressed by gestures on display are distinguished in five ways by the Japanese. Furthermore, an evaluation of electronic mail with computer graphics animation has been done as an example of asynchronous network communication. From this, it has been seen that mail with the gestural animation reflects the feelings of its animation. Using gestural animations to convey feelings in asynchronous networks has been suggested.>

Article Free Access Share on Learning from TV programs: application of TV presentation to a videoconferencing system Authors: Tomoo Inoue Keio University, 3-14-1, Hiyoshi, Kohoku-ku, Yokohama 223 Japan Keio University, 3-14-1, Hiyoshi, Kohoku-ku, Yokohama 223 JapanView Profile , Ken-ichi Okada Keio University, 3-14-1, Hiyoshi, Kohoku-ku, Yokohama 223 Japan Keio University, 3-14-1, Hiyoshi, Kohoku-ku, Yokohama 223 JapanView Profile , Yutaka Matsushita Keio University, 3-14-1, Hiyoshi, Kohoku-ku, Yokohama 223 Japan Keio University, 3-14-1, Hiyoshi, Kohoku-ku, Yokohama 223 JapanView Profile Authors Info & Claims UIST '95: Proceedings of the 8th annual ACM symposium on User interface and software technologyDecember 1995 Pages 147–154https://doi.org/10.1145/215585.215967Published:01 December 1995Publication History 25citation450DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations25Total Downloads450Last 12 Months20Last 6 weeks0 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteeReaderPDF

In an office working environment, it is very unusual that a worker is engaged in a single task until the task is completed. Generally, multitasking is the norm, so workers will belong to several project groups and work on one of the projects and then, before completing that, switch to another. Focusing on how to manage resources effectively and how to support task performance in an environment in which workers belong to multiple projects, this paper examines the provision of appropriate mechanisms to support collaborative work in the environment. We suggest a method for managing resources which uses a 3-level structure consisting of a sharing level, a working level and a personal level, and we describe the implementation of the Multi-Project Support System which is capable of supporting interrelations among workers, resources and projects.>

This paper describes the design and implementation of MAJIC, a multi-party videoconferencing system that projects life-size video images of participants onto a large curved screen as if users in various locations are attending a meeting together and sitting around a table. MAJIC also supports multiple eye contact among the participants and awareness of the direction of the participants' gaze. Hence, users can carry on a discussion in a manner comparable to face-to-face meetings. We made video-tape recordings of about twenty visitors who used the prototype of MAJIC at the Nikkei Collaboration Fair in Tokyo. Our initial observations based on this experiment are also reported in this paper.

Attention to CSCW has been increasing, resulting in greater needs for secure group communication. In order to realize secure group communication, data which is sent from a member to other members of a group should be encrypted by the cryptographic communication key of the group. We propose an identity-based non-interactive group communication key sharing scheme using smart cards based on the modified copy key (MCK) method. We assume that the smart cards contain the key generators and are secure for tampering. Each user has a smart card and a key generator. A user can generate a group communication key non-interactively with his key generator and the IDs of the other group members using his smart card.>

A cryptographic scheme can be used for controlling access to information, since any user who does not have a proper key can not decipher. But for this purpose, a user would have to manage a huge number of keys when he tries to communicate with a lot of people. The practical utilization method of access control by cryptography is discussed. The authors propose a typical organizational structure called hierarchical group oriented structure and go on to propose a hierarchical group oriented key management method (HGK method) based on the multiple keys generated from the combination of pieces. They explain that this method is very desirable in terms of reducing the numbers of keys required for each user in the hierarchical group oriented structure.>