Susumu Kunifuji

An experimental study on the effects of Network delay in Cooperative Shared Haptic Virtual Environment

Abstract A cooperative shared haptic virtual environment (CSHVE), where the users can kinesthetically interact and simultaneously feel each other over the network, is beneficial for many distributed VR simulations. A little is known about the influences of the network delay on the quality of haptic sensation and the task performance in such environments. This paper has addressed these issues by conducting a subjective evaluation to the force feedback and the task performance in a tele-handshake cooperative shared haptic system for different delay setting. Also, four subjective measures to evaluate the quality of haptic in CSHVEs have been proposed. These measures are the feeling of force, the consistency between the haptic-visual feedback, the vibration, and the rebound in the haptic device. In addition, a detailed description of the haptic sensation for different time delays is also described. A network emulator was utilized to simulate the real network cloud. An objective evaluation of the force feedback and the performance showed that there was no effect of the delay on the force feedback. It had a negative impact on the task performance. In general, the quality of haptic deteriorated as the delay increased and vibration and rebound hampered the users for large time delay. The haptic-visual consistency was robust in the presented system even for large time delays. Nevertheless, the examined tele-handshake system was able to deliver a high quality of haptic sensation, good performance, and stability for large time delay over the network.

An Empirical Study of an RFID Mat Sensor System in a Group Home

We have been developing an RFID (radio frequency identification) mat system to assist caregivers in a group home. In Japan, the number of group homes offering home-like care for elderly persons suffering from dementia has increased considerably. Even though the smaller number of people residing in a group home makes it suitable for family-like care, the scarcity of caregivers increases the burden, especially during the night. To augment caregiver attention, we developed floor mats with embedded RFID antennae and slippers with RFID tags. These can help caregivers be aware of the activities of persons suffering from dementia by specifying whether an individual has passed over a mat in a particular corridor. This not only helps the caregivers understand such persons by reviewing their activities but also keeps them informed about their current activities. We introduced the floor mats in a real group home and confirmed the feasibility of the system. In this study, we describe the system and lessons learned from our experiment.

A support system for finding lost objects using spotlight

We propose a support system for finding lost objects indoors. The system employs active RFID and ultrasonic position detection to detect the position of a lost object. The system illuminates the position by using Movinglight, which is normally employed in stage lighting. From an experiment, the way of notification by light is better than that by sound in some situations.

Alignment between a technical paper and presentation sheets using a hidden Markov model

We have been studying the automatic generation of presentation sheets from a technical paper. Our approach consists of obtaining a set of rules for generating presentation sheets by applying machine learning techniques to many pairs of technical papers and their presentation sheets collected from the World Wide Web. As a first step, in this paper, we propose a method for aligning technical papers and presentation sheets. Our method is based on Jings method, which uses a hidden Markov model (HMM). Although this method is useful to align short sentences in newspaper articles, it is inapplicable to align sentences in a paper including charts and long sentences. Therefore, we analyse features of papers and sheets, such as information from text appearance, and propose an alignment method that combines the use of these features and Jings method. The evaluation shows that our alignment method performed effectively.

Notification of dangerous situation for elderly people using visual cues

There are various dangers that could lead to accidents in daily life at home. It is difficult for elderly people to realize these dangers beforehand. In this study, we focus on a method for enhancing the risk perception of elderly people. We have developed a system that enhances the awareness of dangerous situations. It performs the following functions: (1) it recognizes the behavior and situation of the elderly person, (2) it estimates the risk, and (3) when the risk is estimated to be high, it notifies the person of the risk by means of visual and audio cues. In this paper, we outline our system and report a user test that evaluates the notification function, particularly the use of visual cues in our experimental living environment. The result is that the visual cues are suitable for elderly rather than healthy people in the environment of a dark room. As a future work, we will investigate the effects of visual and audio cues as notifications of danger for elderly people.

CONSENSUS-MAKING SUPPORT SYSTEMS DEDICATED TO CREATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING

There are many creative thinking manual methods in the world. They are brainstorming method, brain-writing method, mind mapping, NM method, Equivalent Transformation method, KJ method, etc. Human thinking process for creative problem solving consists of four sub-processes. They are divergent thinking sub-process, convergent thinking sub-process, idea crystallization sub-process, and idea verification sub-process. In accordance with this proposal, most Japanese research and development is centered on this four types of creative thinking manual methods and support systems. In this paper, we describe three types of Group Decision Support Systems (DSSs) for creative problem solving, similar to KJ method. All design philosophy depends on bottom-up decision-making. They are knowledge acquisition support groupware GRAPE, consensus-making support systems Group Coordinator (I) and Group Coordinator (II). The characteristic function of GRAPE is knowledge merging for GRAPE users, and that of Group-Coordinator (I) and Group-Coordinator (II) is tradeoff resolution by sensitivity analysis and adjusting of user requirements by the QDA method, respectively. The systems that we have developed are similar to the KJ method, which is the most popular methodology for creative problem solving in Japan. The essence of our developed methodology and tools is that it boosts intellectual productivity. GRAPE and its successors can speed-up the given group decision making problem by two to three times with respect to the idea crystallization (evaluation and judgment) sub-process.

Aware Group Home Enhanced by RFID Technology

In Japan, the number of group homesoffering home-like care for elderly persons suffering from dementia has increased considerably. Even though the lesser number of people residing in a group home is suitable for family-like care, the shortage of caregivers increases the burden, especially during the night. To supplement this lack of attention, we developed floor mats embedded with RFID antennae and slippers with RFID tags. These can help caregivers be aware of the activities of persons suffering from dementia, by specifying whether an individual has passed over a sheet in a particular corridor. This not only helps the caregivers understand such persons by reviewing their activities, but also keeps them informed about the persons current activities.

Development of aroma-Card based soundless Olfactory Display

Previously, mechanical devices have been used for the controlled release of aroma molecules. Therefore, noise associated with the operation of the device could not be avoided, prior to every transmission of aroma information. Moreover, as the aroma source was located inside or in the bottom of the device, it had a problem of odor components adhering to the device structure. In this research, we focus on a chemical container of temperature responsive hydrogel, which can have reversible phase transition between sol and gel, and controlled release of aroma by using a peltier module to control the temperature. With this approach, a soundless olfactory display was achieved. In addition, we tried to solve the problem of odor component adhesion by arranging a card-based aroma source on the top of the olfactory display. Having evaluated the usability of the card-based olfactory display, we were able to confirm its effectiveness and efficiency.

Knowledge, Information and Creativity Support Systems

This volume consists of a number of selected papers that were presented at the 9th International Conference on Knowledge, Information and Creativity Support Systems (KICSS 2014) in Limassol, Cyprus, after they were substantially revised and extended. The 26 regular papers and 19 short papers included in this proceedings cover all aspects of knowledge management, knowledge engineering, intelligent information systems, and creativity in an information technology context, including computational creativity and its cognitive and collaborative aspects.

An editing and displaying system of olfactory information for the home video

Olfactory displays developed in the past emphasized the display of multiple fragrances using one device, and, hence, problems arose, such as huge device size, high cost, troublesome operation and complicated maintenance. Therefore, a home environment to edit and play back images and sound with fragrances has not been achieved to date. In this work, we proposed and developed the “FragrantMemories” system, which can be implemented very easily at home and is convenient to use. Users can edit FragrantMemories and play back images and sounds with fragrances.