物理/バーチャル空間の接続と分離を媒介する可動壁に関する研究

Tohoku University博士（情報科学）thesi

Virtual reality tourism : the new frontier or the end of the journey?

Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, the tourism industry was a mega-industry. Although virtual reality (VR) is a relatively new development in tourism, due to COVID-19 it has literally transformed and improved the industry, particularly in the fields of marketing, sustainability and virtual worlds. VR is held to provide tourists with the “ultimate” tourist experience. The reason is that tourists no longer have to experience any of the negative aspects associated with conventional tourism. Despite the benefits and popularity of VR, a key question arises: will VR be the end of conventional tourism or can it be considered as a new tourism frontier? Therefore, the main purpose of the study is to address this question by focusing on the role of VR in tourism, especially in the context of South Africa. In addition, the study provides a detailed background of VR in general and in terms of tourism; types of VR tourism; the benefits and drawbacks of VR in tourism; and finally, the study compares conventional tourism models with VR in order to highlight the similarities. It concludes that VR does not in essence substitute conventional tourism, but rather it can be considered as a tourism niche in its own right, even if only as a futuristic prospect. For this to actualise, there are three major concerns that need to be addressed in the future; physical interaction; a full sensorial experience and the question of revenue.Thesis (PhD (Heritage and Cultural Tourism))--University of Pretoria, 2021.Post grad UP fundingHistorical and Heritage StudiesPhD (Heritage and Cultural Tourism)Unrestricte

A Human Side Of The Smart Grid: Behavior-Based Energy Efficiency From Renters Using Real-Time Feedback And Competitive Performance-Based Incentives

Our energy system is rapidly transforming, partially due to advances in internet and communications technologies that leverage an unprecedented amount of data. Industry proponents of the so-called “smart grid” suggest these technologies facilitate deeper engagement with end-users of energy (utility customers) that can in turn drive behavior-based changes and accelerate a renewable energy transition. While there has been progress in understanding how these technologies change consumer behavior using, for example, real-time feedback, it’s unclear how specific segments (e.g., renters) respond to these interventions; it’s also unclear why feedback is, or is not, producing changes in energy consumption. The literature suggests that behavioral strategies (e.g. information feedback, competitions, incentives) coupled with technology may present a way for utilities and efficiency programs to create savings—expanding opportunities for those often underserved by traditional approaches, such as renters—yet this coupling is not well understood, neither broadly (for all end users) nor specifically (for renters). This dissertation builds upon that literature and explores a human side of the smart grid, using a field experiment in renter households to test the interacting effects of real-time energy feedback and a novel form of financial incentive, referred to here as a competitive performance-based incentive. The experiment had two phases: phase one tested the feedback against a control group; phase two tested feedback, the incentive, and a combined treatment, against a control group. Results of these interventions were measured with pre- and post-treatment surveys as well as observed electricity consumption data from each household’s smart meter. The results of this experiment are described in three papers. Paper one examines the interventions’ individual and combined effectiveness at motivating renters to reduce or shift timing of electricity consumption. Feedback alone produced a significant savings effect in phase one. In phase two, the effect of the feedback wore off; the incentive alone had no significant effect; and the group that received feedback and the incentive experienced a doubling of savings relative to the effect of feedback alone, as observed in phase one. Paper two uses pre- and post-intervention survey data to examine how individual perceptions of energy change as a result of the interventions. Perception of large energy-using appliances changed the most in households that received feedback, suggesting that better information may lead to more effective behavior changes. Paper three leverages the results of the first two components to evaluate the policy implications and impacts on demand side management for utilities, efficiency programs, and the potential for behavior-based energy efficiency programs. Advocates of the smart grid must recognize the technology alone cannot produce savings without better engagement of end-users. Utility rate designers must carefully consider how time-based rates alone may over-burden those without the enabling technology to understand the impact of their energy choices

Technical and conceptual considerations for using animated stimuli in studies of animal behavior

© The Author (2016). Rapid technical advances in the field of computer animation (CA) and virtual reality (VR) have opened new avenues in animal behavior research. Animated stimuli are powerful tools as they offer standardization, repeatability, and complete control over the stimulus presented, thereby "reducing" and "replacing" the animals used, and "refining" the experimental design in line with the 3Rs. However, appropriate use of these technologies raises conceptual and technical questions. In this review, we offer guidelines for common technical and conceptual considerations related to the use of animated stimuli in animal behavior research. Following the steps required to create an animated stimulus, we discuss (I) the creation, (II) the presentation, and (III) the validation of CAs and VRs. Although our review is geared toward computer-graphically designed stimuli, considerations on presentation and validation also apply to video playbacks. CA and VR allow both new behavioral questions to be addressed and existing questions to be addressed in new ways, thus we expect a rich future for these methods in both ultimate and proximate studies of animal behavior

Rural sustainability in Sarawak : (the role of adat and indigenous knowledge in promoting sustainable sago production in the coastal areas of Sarawak)

Conventional development, a northern-inspired modernisation programme, is no longer seen as the only solution to rural development problems. It has been criticised for neglecting environmental issues and has failed to improve the lives of the rural poor. Accordingly, there has been a search for more ‘appropriate’ approaches to development. One option is to incorporate indigenous knowledge in development. Such a recognition is believed to empower people, to enhance their self-esteem and consequently to allow them to participate in decision-making; and thus to meet their own needs and aspirations.The study area consists of three districts (Dalat, Oya and Mukah) in the coastal area of Sarawak. The Melanau are the dominant ethnic group, depending on sago cultivation for their livelihood. The study looks at the role of the Melanau’s indigenous knowledge in sago production and compares it to ‘modern’ techniques (the subsidy scheme and plantation) as introduced by the government. Sago cultivation is unique, as it not only provides the means of material production but also influences the Melanau’s socio-cultural system and environmental perceptions. Indigenous knowledge is encoded in Melanau culture through the customary law, the adat.The findings show that current agricultural policies not only fail to reach their socioeconomic objectives but are also insensitive to socio-cultural needs and the local environment. The contribution of indigenous knowledge is overlooked and undermined, despite its potential contribution to developmental programmes. Although there are signs of acculturation, indigenous techniques still play an important role, and are often combined with modern elements, implying a dynamic process of innovation among the farmers. The findings expose the myth that deploying indigenous knowledge is synonymous with economic decline. In contrast, indigenous knowledge contributes to socio-economic wellbeing by minimising risk, providing food self-sufficiency, enabling low cost farming and legitimising a redistributive system

The Impact of Tourism Activities on Communities Adjacent to National Parks: A Case of Ruaha National Park, Tanzania.

As the number of tourism business increases steadily in RUNAPA, it is subject to an increase of several tourism activities and these activities brings both negative and positive impacts to host communities which needs to be assessed. Thus, the main objective of this study was to assess the impacts of tourism activities on local communities adjacent to Ruaha National Park. The sample of the population was 361respondents;constituting 300 local communities for structured and selfadministered questionnaires, 13 key informants from RUNAPA staff and 6 Focus Group Discussion (FGD) from 48 respondents. The study used self-administered questionnaire, interviews and documentary reviews for data collection. Both primary and secondary data were used to collect data for this study from a sample of selected respondents. Data was analyzed descriptively using frequency and percentage, while inferential statistical were analysis was done using the Chi-square test. The research found out that majority of respondents faced challenges from park related tourism activities such as environmental problems, traditional and cultural destruction, loss caused by wild animals through livestock and crops and habitats damages, and poor leakages within local economy. It has also been found that the main tourism activities undertaken adjacent to RUNAPA are walking, game viewing, Balloon Safaris and photographic safaris. The findings of the study indicate that expansion of tourism activities adjacent to RUNAPA has substantial impacts on the local economy and nation as shown by the increase in real GDP, social welfare and exports. Key words: Tourism industry, Economic Impact, Socio-Cultural Impacts, Local Community, Ruaha National Par

Camera based Display Image Quality Assessment

This thesis presents the outcomes of research carried out by the PhD candidate Ping Zhao during 2012 to 2015 in Gjøvik University College. The underlying research was a part of the HyPerCept project, in the program of Strategic Projects for University Colleges, which was funded by The Research Council of Norway. The research was engaged under the supervision of Professor Jon Yngve Hardeberg and co-supervision of Associate Professor Marius Pedersen, from The Norwegian Colour and Visual Computing Laboratory, in the Faculty of Computer Science and Media Technology of Gjøvik University College; as well as the co-supervision of Associate Professor Jean-Baptiste Thomas, from The Laboratoire Electronique, Informatique et Image, in the Faculty of Computer Science of Universit´e de Bourgogne. The main goal of this research was to develop a fast and an inexpensive camera based display image quality assessment framework. Due to the limited time frame, we decided to focus only on projection displays with static images displayed on them. However, the proposed methods were not limited to projection displays, and they were expected to work with other types of displays, such as desktop monitors, laptop screens, smart phone screens, etc., with limited modifications. The primary contributions from this research can be summarized as follows: 1. We proposed a camera based display image quality assessment framework, which was originally designed for projection displays but it can be used for other types of displays with limited modifications. 2. We proposed a method to calibrate the camera in order to eliminate unwanted vignetting artifact, which is mainly introduced by the camera lens. 3. We proposed a method to optimize the camera’s exposure with respect to the measured luminance of incident light, so that after the calibration all camera sensors share a common linear response region. 4. We proposed a marker-less and view-independent method to register one captured image with its original at a sub-pixel level, so that we can incorporate existing full reference image quality metrics without modifying them. 5. We identified spatial uniformity, contrast and sharpness as the most important image quality attributes for projection displays, and we used the proposed framework to evaluate the prediction performance of the state-of-the-art image quality metrics regarding these attributes. The proposed image quality assessment framework is the core contribution of this research. Comparing to conventional image quality assessment approaches, which were largely based on the measurements of colorimeter or spectroradiometer, using camera as the acquisition device has the advantages of quickly recording all displayed pixels in one shot, relatively inexpensive to purchase the instrument. Therefore, the consumption of time and resources for image quality assessment can be largely reduced. We proposed a method to calibrate the camera in order to eliminate unwanted vignetting artifact primarily introduced by the camera lens. We used a hazy sky as a closely uniform light source, and the vignetting mask was generated with respect to the median sensor responses over i only a few rotated shots of the same spot on the sky. We also proposed a method to quickly determine whether all camera sensors were sharing a common linear response region. In order to incorporate existing full reference image quality metrics without modifying them, an accurate registration of pairs of pixels between one captured image and its original is required. We proposed a marker-less and view-independent image registration method to solve this problem. The experimental results proved that the proposed method worked well in the viewing conditions with a low ambient light. We further identified spatial uniformity, contrast and sharpness as the most important image quality attributes for projection displays. Subsequently, we used the developed framework to objectively evaluate the prediction performance of the state-of-art image quality metrics regarding these attributes in a robust manner. In this process, the metrics were benchmarked with respect to the correlations between the prediction results and the perceptual ratings collected from subjective experiments. The analysis of the experimental results indicated that our proposed methods were effective and efficient. Subjective experiment is an essential component for image quality assessment; however it can be time and resource consuming, especially in the cases that additional image distortion levels are required to extend the existing subjective experimental results. For this reason, we investigated the possibility of extending subjective experiments with baseline adjustment method, and we found that the method could work well if appropriate strategies were applied. The underlying strategies referred to the best distortion levels to be included in the baseline, as well as the number of them

Singing in Life's Twilight: Serious Karaoke as Everyday Aging Practice in Urban Japan

Being an avid karaoke singer, I was intrigued to come across what are known in Japan as karaoke classrooms and kissas (a bar/café hybrid), during my periods of fieldwork in Tokyo and Osaka in 2013 and 2016. In my visits to these places, I watched (and participated in) how regulars at these karaoke venues, mostly working-class men and women between 60 to 80 years old, sang over the microphone, and chatted and laughed with each other over drinks. Their vivacity and enthusiasm were far removed from the doom and gloom that characterized many media and academic accounts of elderly life in Japan (Coulmas 2007). To these elderly karaoke participants, music and leisure serve as important cultural resources that allow them to build and maintain identities and lifestyles as they age (Bennett 2012; Koizumi 2013). In this thesis, I explore how and why regular participation in the spaces and activities of the karaoke classroom and kissa enable the elderly participants to attain sense of well-being and ikigai, the commitment and direction which makes life worth living (Mathews 1996). To capture the unique modes of engagement that influence the individual and social aspects of these participants’ karaoke participation, I mobilize the conceptual lenses of “musicking” as constructed by Small (1998) and “serious leisure” as elaborated by Stebbins (2015), in analyzing the data I obtained from the intensive ethnographic fieldwork I conducted in 2013 and 2016. By detailing the karaoke regulars’ attainment of senses of well-being and ikigai through “serious” musical engagement, I paint a livelier picture of elderly life in urban Japan, by not treating old age simply as a crisis to be solved, but rather a period of life that can be negotiated proactively

Green profit design for lifecycle

“Green Profit” refers to economic profits generated by an environmentally sustainable business. As awareness of sustainability increases and environmental regulations become more stringent, manufacturers are faced with the challenge of making a green profit in their businesses. Recovering end-of-life products after customer use is a promising solution to this challenge. Various recovery options, including reuse, refurbishment, remanufacturing, and material recovery, can make it possible for companies to comply with environmental legislation and also gain social and economic benefits. This dissertation presents a design approach, referred to as “Green Profit Design,” to help maximize green profits from end-of-life recovery of products. Green Profit Design is a Design for Recovery approach that facilitates green and profitable end-of-life recovery of products by establishing a clear link between product design and end-of-life recovery. Product design features, including product architecture, functional performance, and material properties, greatly affect the economic and environmental performances of end-of-life recovery. Therefore, the most important factors in achieving green profit are an understanding of how design decisions affect actual end-of-life recovery and understanding the economic and environmental implications of the design. The Design for Recovery methods introduced in this dissertation evaluate product design from a recovery perspective and provide a quantitative assessment of how good or how bad a product design is in terms of both recovery profit and environmental impact. The methods can be utilized for either design improvement or design selection. An original contribution of this dissertation is that it provides the foundation for integrating the different perspectives on end-of-life recovery of different domains, i.e., design engineering, environmental engineering, and business. Another important contribution is its thorough coverage of recovery processes. In addition to technical and operational issues, the methods in this dissertation also cover the recovery processes at the front end (i.e., product take-back and reverse logistics) and the back end (i.e., remarketing of recovered items) and suggest an advanced approach for coordinating and managing the entire process more effectively. This dissertation presents two empirical studies, four Design for Recovery methods, and three extended studies on further refinement of the four methods. Using statistical analyses, the empirical studies investigate the challenges that the Design for Recovery approach must overcome. The current industry practice of electronics recovery is examined to gain a better understanding of the design issues associated with end-of-life recovery. The Design for Recovery methods focus on evaluating the design of the original product from a recovery perspective. The first three methods consider the case in which the second-life products recovered from the end-of-life products have a pre-defined design. Optimization models for evaluating a single product and for evaluating the design of a family of products are presented, and the effects of product obsolescence and deterioration at the time of end-of-life recovery are also analyzed. The fourth method is focused more on how to remarket end-of-life products, and it provides the advanced tools required for market positioning to optimize the design and the price of a second-life product. The three extended studies focus on environmental implications of end-of-life recovery and discuss appropriate timing utilizing recovery principles. End-of-life recovery is basically a strategy for extending the life of a product by reusing, refurbishing, or remanufacturing that product. The studies demonstrate that an extended lifetime may not always be environmentally sustainable, and that shortening the lifetime may actually be better in some cases. To help decide on the optimal lifetime strategy for a given product, lifecycle assessment (LCA) approaches for a large-scale system are discussed, and an analytical model is proposed for planning optimal lifetime of a given product based on the LCA approach

Wearable technology industry: challenges and opportunties in the European market

Wearable technology is a new industry which is develop. Smartwatches, activity trackers are done explains of these devices. In this new field, fashion and technology work together to create successful products with limitless function