Tomoko Kashima

Effects of sharing farmers' information using content management system

In recent years, new business models for agricultural markets have appeared. Under this perspective, we develop a new information system for urban markets to facilitate the transactions. Both sides, consumers and farmers, require certain information from markets about agricultural products. For example, consumers may make requests about the exact information of agricultural products or their safety, while farmers may want to make requests about the information on how to boast their produce. Under the considerations of such requirements at the markets, which may be conflicting, we propose a new information system to assist in the negotiation between parties.

Feasibility of Integrated Menu Recommendation and Self‐Order System for Small‐Scale Restaurants

In recent years, point of sales (POS) systems with order function have been developed for restaurants. Since expensive apparatus and system are required for installing POS systems, usually only large‐scale restaurant chains can afford to introduce them. In this research, we consider the POS management in a restaurant, which cooperates with an automatic order function by using a personal digital device aiming at the safety of the food, pursuit of service, and further operational efficiency improvements, such as foods management, accounting treatment, and ordering work. In traditional POS systems, information recommendation technology is not taken into consideration. We realize the recommendation of a menu according to the user’s preference using rough sets and menu planning based on stock status by applying information recommendation technology. Therefore, we believe that this system can be used in comfort with regard to freshness of foods, allergy, diabetes, etc. Furthermore, due to the reduction of the p...

Proposal of a Method to Measure Difficulty Level of Programming Code with Eye-Tracking

In recent years, guaranteeing the educational quality is required in university education of Japan. With this situation in mind, we built study support environment with the information technology. As a result, we utilized the result for programming education and obtained the effect. There are various technical elements in the programming skill. However, many evaluations have adopted a comprehensive evaluation method. Therefore, a student’s attainment to each technical element is indefinite. Some students become difficult to perform learning activities. So, in this research, programming notes the point which is the implicit thinking skill which is strongly related in study. Accumulation experience analyzes strongly related eye movement, and we aim at the standard construction for skill.

Evaluating an Automatic Adaptive Delivery Method of English Words Learning Contents for University Students in Science and Technology

Todays e-Learning, blending portable digital devices and common PC devices under well-maintained Internet infrastructure, provides convenient learning environment where everyone can learn when they need. In particular, self-study with simple multiple-choice questions with LMS Learning Management System is available with no need to score by lecturer because usual LMS implements automatic scoring capability. Since LMS is useful for both lecturers and students, in Japan it has been already accepted as being indispensable in educational institutions around universities. However, this type of learning can only support just gathering of knowledge, but not assist the improvement of the skill to leverage knowledge. Currently it has not been enough to provide e-Learning with capabilities of both knowledge acquisition and utilization, so to realize it the authors started the development of user adaptive learning service which deals with English learning. This paper focuses on the automatic delivery of learning contents for each users mobile device, and verifies practical effectiveness of item response theory for user adaptive learning contents provision. This paper develops a server program to automatically deliver learning materials consisted of some multiple choice questions. Based on the result of preliminary experiment, for realizing e-Learning service with learner adaptation functionality, the conceptions to evaluate each users learning effort and to realize the learning of knowledge acquisition are discussed.

Development of Push-Based English Words Learning System by Using E-Mail Service

At present, common e-Learning systems have been designed for positive learners whose learning habits are already established to some degree. To assist students other than the positive learners, most of who has more difficulty in learning with the usual e-Learning systems, this paper focuses on a new type of e-Learning system called “push-based e-Learning”. The push-based e-Learning is for learners who cannot establish study habits or take an active part in learning, and be an essential tool for supporting self-study continuity. This study realizes push service by e-mail technology of cell-phone. The system, used in conjunction with an interactive e-mail service through cell-phones, allows users to automatically receive up to some exercise e-mails a day. For our system, this paper implemented COCET 3300, a corpus of English words, and made a trial operation of our system with several university students for training English vocabulary. This paper firstly shows the detail of system configuration, and then evaluates our implementation of push-based e-Learning with the result of the trial operation. From the trial operation, the effectiveness of our system was shown by questionnaire while the result was on the students’ subjective viewpoint.

A Proposal of Farmers Information System for Urban Markets

In recent years, new business models for agricultural markets have appeared. Under this perspective, we develop a new information system for urban markets to facilitate the transactions. Both sides, consumers and farmers, require certain information from markets about agricultural products. For example, consumers may make requests about the exact information of agricultural products or their safety, while farmers may want to boast with their produce. Under the considerations of such requirements at the markets, which may be conflicting, we propose a new information system to assist in the negotiation among both parties.

User-Friendly Information Sharing System for Producers

A model that connects producers, consumers, and farmers’ markets was developed, and an information system was developed as a communication tool in order to collate the experience- and intuition-based know-how of producers and improve the value of their crops. However, the elderly comprise over 60% of the population employed in agriculture, and farmers are unwilling to utilize information technology (IT) devices. In an effort to increase the IT utilization rate, a proof-of-concept test was conducted up to 2016 at a roadside station.

Mathematical Modelling for Sustainable Agricultural Supply Chain Management Considering Preferences Between Farmers and Retailers

This paper considers an agricultural supply chain management to find the best matching between farmers and retailers with contract according to their preferences. It is important to construct the agricultural production system to hold the win-win relationship considering transportation costs. Therefore, in this paper, a mathematical programming problem is formulated to find the optimal matching between farmers and retailers under several uncertainties. It is generally difficult to obtain the best solution directly in terms of multiobjectivity and uncertainty. Therefore, the flexible modeling and the efficient algorithm to obtain these optimal solutions are also developed using a data-driven approach using our proposed information system.

Effectiveness of evaluation function and permutation GA in multimodal consecutive meals planning

The consecutive meals planning is a combinatorial optimization problem that determines a meals plan on a long period consisting of consecutive days. A meal is characterized in different characteristics such as food style, ingredient, and cooking method. For the problem, this paper proposes an evaluation function using information entropies on moving intervals. The function measures the appearance order of meals characteristics on the plan. In addition, we design a specific genotype of a permutation GA and apply it to this problem. In the numerical experiments, we show that the consecutive meals planning employing our function can be viewed as a multimodal problem and then show that our meals plan obtained by the permutation GA is a good solution with large variation of appearance order of meals characteristics.

Consecutive Meals Planning by Using Permutation GA: Evaluation Function Proposal for Measuring Appearance Order of Meal’s Characteristics

The consecutive meals planning is a combinatorial optimization problem that determines a meals plan in one period consisting of consecutive days. This paper proposes an evaluation function using a moving entropy for this problem. The function measures the appearance order of meal’s characteristics on the plan. In the numerical experiments, we apply a permutation GA to the problem. We show that our meals plan is a good solution with large variation of appearance order of meal’s characteristics for the consecutive meals planning.