Tsutomu Fujinami

Dialogue acts in VERBMOBIL-2

Die vorliegende Arbeit wurde im Rahmen des Verbundvorhabens Verbmobil vom Bundesministerium f ur Bildung, Wissenschaft, Forschung und Technologie (BMBF) unter dem FF orderkennzeichen 01IV101K/1 geff ordert. Die Verantwortung f ur den Inhalt dieser Arbeit liegt bei den AutorInnen.

A knowledge management system for dynamic organizational knowledge circulation

The demand for knowledge management is increasing because knowledge is an important and essential resource for sustaining competitiveness. We report a system to support knowledge asset reuse. Incorporating work breakdown structure-based project management, workflow management, and a document database, the system guides workers to efficiently store and reuse knowledge assets. To dynamically circulate knowledge throughout an organization, the system supports the concept of knowledge flow, through which knowledge is transferred from one project to another. A distinctive feature of our approach is that after collecting relevant knowledge, the system sends it to the members of a project and prompts them to have a meeting to discuss whether they accept the knowledge. The purpose of this meeting is to have members internalize knowledge assets and share their tacit knowledge through discussion. We developed a prototype system and evaluated it using our experience with it.

A technology roadmap of assistive technologies for dementia care in Japan.

The number of elderly people in Japan is growing, which raises the issue of dementia, as the probability of becoming cognitively impaired increases with age. There is an increasing need for caregivers, who are well-trained, experienced and can pay special attention to the needs of people with dementia. Technology can play an important role in helping such people and their caregivers. A lack of mutual understanding between caregivers and researchers regarding the appropriate uses of assistive technologies is another problem. A vision of person-centred care based on the use of information and communication technology to maintain residents’ autonomy and continuity in their lives is presented. Based on this vision, a roadmap and a list of challenges to realizing assistive technologies have been developed. The roadmap facilitates mutual understanding between caregivers and researchers, resulting in appropriate technologies to enhance the quality of life of people with dementia.

How does telenoid affect the communication between children in classroom setting

It needs to be investigated how humanoid robots may affect people in the real world when they are employed to express the presence, a feel of being there, in tele-communication. We brought Telenoid, a tele-operated humanoid robot, into a classroom at an elementary school to see how schoolchildren respond to it. Our study is exploratory and we focused on the social aspects that might facilitate communication between schoolchildren. We found that Telenoid affected the way children work as group. They participated in the group work more positively, became more spontaneous, and differentiated their roles. We observed that Telenoids limited capability led them to change their attitudes so that they could work together. The result suggests that the limited functionality may facilitate cooperation among participants in classroom setting.

Promoting Socialization of Schoolchildren Using a Teleoperated Android: An Interaction Study

Our research focuses on the social aspects of teleoperated androids as new media for human relationships and explores how they can contribute and encourage people to associate with others. We introduced Telenoid, a teleoperated android with a minimalistic human design, to elementary school classrooms to see how children respond to it. We found that Telenoid encourages children to work cooperatively and facilitates communication with senior citizens with dementia. Children differentiated their roles spontaneously and cooperatively participated in group work. In another class, we applied Telenoid to remote communication between schoolchildren and assisted living residents. The children felt relaxed about continuing their conversations with the elderly and positively participated in them. The results suggest that limited functionality may facilitate cooperation among participants, and varied embodiments may promote the learning process of the association with others, even those who are unfamiliar. We propose a teleoperated android as an educational tool to promote socialization.

The role of body movement in learning to play the shaker to a samba rhythm: An exploratory study

Rhythm is an essential element of music, but how we acquire it has not been investigated in detail. Some argue that learners acquire rhythms mentally, and others argue that body movements are involved. This study, therefore, investigated how body movements affect the rhythmic performances of learners in the course of rhythm acquisition. We used accelerometers to measure the arm and lumbar accelerations of 17 participants who took samba lessons regularly for 10 months. Detailed analyses revealed that all learners who learnt to play the shaker to a samba rhythm exhibited samba-like rhythmic patterns in both lumbar and arm movements. This indicates that the coordination contributing to the lumber movement has something to do with the acquisition of samba rhythm, and this is consistent with the argument that body movements are involved in acquiring rhythms.

Aware group home: person-centered care as creative problem solving

The population of elderly is rapidly increasing in Japan and we expect that almost eight percent of elderly people will suffer from dimentia in 2015. The change suggests that we can no longer hospitalize them, but have to find some way to go along with them at home. Group Home is thought to be ideal form of caregiving in the sense that the inhabitants can keep their contacts with the locals and circumstance to feel at home. Managing Group Home may, however, often run into troubles due to the cognitive asymmetry between the elderly with dementia and caregivers. We address in this paper the problems we found in the communication between the people with dementia and caregivers and present design principles for Aware Group Home, which enhances the awareness of caregivers towards people with dementia using information technologies.

Enhancing care homes with assistive video technology for distributed caregiving

Abstract Dementia care is becoming increasingly important in Japan as the elderly population grows. Care homes are designed so that caregivers can easily observe and subsequently respond to the needs of people with dementia. However, the layout of care homes can become overly restrictive for residents, for example, by not providing intermediate spaces where people can spontaneously interact and initiate conversations. We present a case study that explores the implementation of video monitoring in two purpose-built care homes in which we were asked to help overcome the blind spots presented by the layout. We collected data both before and after the implementation of the video monitoring in order to understand its effect. The balance between people’s sense of security and the concerns about loss of privacy through video monitoring is well established. However, we found that video monitoring had a beneficial effect on both the caregivers and the residents if implemented sensitively. Furthermore, the implementation of video monitoring could support the design of more beneficial care home layouts. In conclusion, we propose that the sensitive implementation of video monitoring be considered alongside design of the physical layout of care homes.

The 101 translation problems between Japanese and German/English

We investigate differences between Japanese and German/English and explain characteristic phenomena to Japanese. The study helps us to realize what can be problematic when translating Japanese into German/English and vice versa.

Approaches to incorporating assistive technologies into dementia care

This paper discusses the incorporation of assistive technologies into dementia care. Dementia care is difficult because it heavily depends on the context, for example, the caregivers involved in dementia care, the persons being cared for, and the devices employed. In the attempt to develop and apply assistive technologies to the real world, the context dependence of dementia care has not been extensively studied. This paper describes two case studies involving a camera system and an RFID slipper system to focus on the issues involved in the development and deployment of assistive technologies. It is important to consider two factors: reduction of system operation costs for caregivers in dealing with multiple tasks and adjustment of the system on the basis of the personal histories of persons with dementia. To prevent unnecessary behavioral changes in persons with dementia and their caregivers, engineers must specifically consider the abovementioned factors during the installation of assistive technologies in the real world.