Field Informatics Core
Summary ・ Theme ・ Member ・ Contact
■All Themes
Participatory simulation
Toru ISHIDA
Multiagent simulation, which can reproduce situations in the real-
world, is an ideal technology with which to analyze and understand
complex social problems, such as large-scale disaster, traffic
systems in metropolis. The implementation of human's individual
behaviors is the key to achieving realistic and reasonable multiagent
simulation. In this research, we try to develop agent modeling
technologies to model human's behavior and decision making process
using information acquired during participatory simulation in 3D
virtual environment. According to the developed technologies, we
first try to achieve mega-scale multiagent simulation consists of
multiple agents, each of which has diverse individual behaviors. We
then develop methodologies to reproduce emergent phenomenon through
interaction among agents and to analyze micro-macro relationships.
→Participatory simulation
Acquisition and analysis of ecological information
for coexistence of human beings and species to extinction
|
We, human beings, being a part of the biosphere, need to sustainably
utilize biological resources without destroying the ecology. Whilst
there still are mysterious things in aquatic ecology, expectations for
the possibility of providing the necessary biological resources exist.
However, in recent years, the number of aquatic spices has decreased
and extinction of spices which will not be utilized as resources is an
issue of concern as well. Conservation of these species is becoming a
major social problem.
Our Biosphere Informatics course sets the challenge to clarify the ecology of aquatic animals which are not readily visible by using Biotelemetry. Biotelemetry is a new method to monitor, record, and measure a living organism's basic physiological functions making the best use of information technology. We place small transmitters or recorders on target spices and obtain ecological information of aquatic animals. This is exactly a method to see "what is unseen". Many fruitful results have been obtained, which have contributed to the research on aquatic animals, being the last remaining frontier on this earth. |
|
→The 8th SEASTAR2000 Workshop
Studies on the sustainable agricultural production system in
intermediate and mountainous area (ChuSankan Area)
| The ChuSankan Area,which is the major area of food production in Japan, has various nature and ecosystems.It is an important region to maintain multiple functions of agriculture, which is not only the production of food but also maintenance of natural environment and water resource, etc.On the other hand, it has various problems such as aging, an increase in the abandoned cultivated land by the progress of depopulation, the occurrence of the damage by birds and wild animals, and the ruin of the spectacle, and those solutions are requested strongly. Recently, the cooperation of the consumer in urban area and the agricultural producer in rural area has been growing by using of the Internet. Moreover, the movement of the establishment of the village corporation that aims at the efficiency improvement of the farm management has come out, too. In this research, we investigate the sustainable agricultural production system with reducing the negative environmental impact that can apply to the entire region using the field survey, GIS, the system dynamics, and the multi agent simulation, etc. |
|
Social Education Field: Participatory Production
| Industrial accumulation (IA) is one of characteristics of Japanese industry. IA in which thousands of small factories accumulate in a region enables various production with small lot size and in short delivery time. In this theme, we aim at production that meets individual end user's requirement by participation of the end user from the design phase, and utilizing the potential of the IA as a possible vision of novel industry in future. We try to construct information technology to support the process of such participatory production through collaborative case study with Suwa area as a partner IA. |
|
Intercultural Collaboration
|
Many of the current issues such as environmental issues involve
solutions on a global scale which require international participants
from various countries, cultures, and sectors to collaborate with
one another. There is a pressing need to establish technology and
methodology to support such intercultural collaboration.
In a setting where intercultural participants collaborate to achieve
a common goal, the language barrier is a high-priority age-old
problem since goal accomplishment is difficult without collaboration,
and collaboration is difficult without communication.
|
|
|
We aim to realize computer-supported multilingual collaboration by
combining and connecting existing technologies which include
natural language processing, web service composition, and grid
technology. We introduce multilingual collaboration-support
technologies to real-world sites where intercultural collaborations
are being carried out. The infused technologies are improved and
refined based on the feedback from the real-world users to develop
industrial-strength multilingual collaboration technologies. This line of
processes consisting of (1) infusion of technology into the real-world
site, (2) getting feedback from the site, and (3) improving and refining
the technology based on the feedback, is systematized, and
best-practices are extracted to establish methodology for
technological development specified to supporting intercultural collaboration.
→Language Grid Operation Center →Language Grid Assoication | |
Field Education Media by experience log, distance communication, interaction models
| From the viewpoints of "Making a Field a Laboratory" and "Making Living and Learning Environment a Field", we are investigating life-log recording and browsing, distance communication, and interaction models for human-human and human-machine communications. For example, we now can easily record what we see and hear by carrying video cameras or other sensors, and can be accumulated in our computers. To browse such a huge amount of data and to retrieve what we want wherever we are, we need new wearable systems, automatic indexing, display scheme for huge amount of data, etc. Distance communication technologies such as video conference or more advanced technologies essential for field educations. Although life and education environments are intrinsically fields, considerable efforts have been made to regulate them as if they are in a deterministic world. We, however, keep independence of people who are supported by automated machine or ICT systems, and one of the effective ways is to consider those environments as fields: to suppress unnecessary supports, to wait humans for discover by themselves, etc. We need human-machine interaction models that can estimate internal state of humans while giving supports to humans. |
|