IMPLICATIONS OF THE CONSUMER RESPONSE TO EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES AND DISEASES FOR INTERNATIONAL TRADE: THE CASE OF JAPAN

International Relations/Trade,

Consumer Response to Genetically Modified Food Products in Japan

In Japan, a large U.S. export market, there has been growing public opposition against genetically modified (GM) foods. Using a dichotomous choice contingent valuation method, findings show the discount needed for Japanese Seikyou consumers to purchase GM food products is positively affected (i.e., a greater discount is required) by higher levels of self-reported risk perceptions toward GM food, higher levels of concern about food safety and the environment, higher self-reported knowledge about biotechnology, education levels, and income. Interestingly, gender does not significantly affect the discount needed for GM food. Further, it can be inferred from the results that a transformation of Japanese consumers' perceptions and attitudes is needed for GM food products to successfully enter the Japanese market.Consumer/Household Economics,

ARDUINO およびKINECT を使用したフィジカルコンピューティングに関する研究

この研究は、人間の動きをモーションキャプチャーという仕組みで記録することが可能な装置「KINECT」を使用し、人間の動作や感覚を機械が記憶するインタラクティブで基礎的なメカニズムの制作、またそれを使用した作品の制作を目的としている。KINECT はゲーム用センサーであり、一般家庭に数多く普及した装置である。本体から赤外線を照射し、その反射を読み取り人間の骨格を認識し、手足や胴体や顔の位置や角度のデータを生成することができる。これらの生成された一瞬一瞬の人間のデータを連続的につなぐことができれば、時間的に変化する人間の「動作」をデータ化することが可能となる。そして人間の身体の動きを記録することが可能であるならば、記録したデータを再生することがその技術の延長として可能になる。またこの再生はリアルタイムに再生することだけではなく、「時間」と「空間」を移して再生することも考えられる。開発した基礎技術「KINECTaction recognition software」によって、現在ここで行われている人間の動作を、ロボットを使用して他の都市で再生することも、あるいは同じ場所において20 年後に再生することも可能となる。We conducted this study using a KINECT motion-capture device capable of recording physical movements to operate a very basic interactive mechanism to recognize human gestures and behaviours, which might then be used to control a creative work or project. The KINECT device is widely available for home use and often used as a sensor for electronic games. The unit sends out infrared beams, then reads the reflections so as to map a human figure and generate data for the position and angle of limbs, torso and face.Such data strings linked continually moment-by-moment can help render time-based digitized pictures of physical actions, which might by extension be recorded and replayed — not only in realtime, but also across great removes in time and space.Thus, we could conceivably use our KINECT-based system to have robots replay today\u27s immediate gestures and movements in a distant city or in the same location twenty years hence

インタラクションデザインの教育方法に関する研究/地域連携、企業連携、大学連携、学部・大学院連携を基盤とする実践的デザイン教育

本研究は、情報社会へと移行している現代における社会構造の変化と社会環境の変化に対応したこれからのデザインのあり方を研究し、その教育の基盤となるカリキュラムを開発、これを実践的に運営することを通して教育方法の構築を行うことを目的としている。　特に現代の情報環境において失われつつある人間の「身体」をテーマとして未来のデザインの枠組みを考えること、また「ポストデザイン」をテーマとしてこれからのデザイン領域の変化そのものを考えることを研究の中心におく。新しい教育方法の実践としては、国際ワークショップなどの開催、大学連携、企業連携を通じて教育方法の調査・研究を行う。また国内外のデザイン研究機関および教育組織と連携し、わが国におけるインタラクションデザインという新しいデザイン領域の教育研究拠点としての活動を行った。At IDI(Interaction Design Institute), we aim to investigate how design is to respond to contemporary society in transition to the post-industrial information age, to develop curricula basic to such learning, and to establish appropriate teaching methods through actual practice.One central theme of our research concerns the loss of "body experience" in today\u27s information environments and the shift from existing concepts of design itself to "post-design" ideas. Specifically, we have conducted man-machine experiments and published findings on robotic replication of movement using KINECT platform devices to visually collect and compile data on human motion.Likewise, another direction toward new educational practices involves holding international workshops in collaboration with IAMAS, the RCA in London and other progressive institutions both in Japan and abroad so as to share and improve methodologies across the field of design-related education

カレッジ・オブ・ファインアーツ（COFA）との大学間国際連携による先端的デザイン教育の研究および実践

カレッジ・オブ・ファインアーツ（COFA）との大学連携国際プロジェクトを基盤とした共同研究を行なった。研究の成果は「Future Crossing展」としてグランフロント大阪キュリオシティにおいて展示し、情報発信を行なった。インタラクションデザイン教育研究所（IDI）と岐阜県立情報科学芸術大学院大学（IAMAS）の協働による以下の5つのプロジェクトが展示された。1) Curating the city: Kobe2) Quattro libri3) Cinema obscura4) Do it together5) Everything you can imagine is real特に、「キュレーティング・ザ・シティ：神戸」は港湾都市というシドニーとの地政学的な共通点をテーマとした都市プロジェクトである。ヘイドン・ホワイトのメタヒストリーという概念からアイデアを得た過去と未来をつなぐ都市形成の方法論である。ビルディングタイプによって都市をカテゴライズするのではなく、異なる種類の都市の結節点をつないで都市ネットワークを構築する試みである。"Future Crossing" show also featured five IDI and IAMAS faculty projects in robotics, 3D printing, retooling old technologies and "curating the city" with an emphasis on using new technologies to cross over existing cultural boundaries and pre-set fields of inquiry to imagine new possibilities and future social realities.1)Curating the city: KobeThis project proposed in counterpoint to the City of Kobe’s more traditionalist urban planning schemes takes a hint from Hayden White’s Metahistory: grasping the city as a multilayered (past-present-future) time-space description in which functions are not categorised by building types, but rather as nodes for “vocabularies replete with diverse plots and rhetorics”. Information society “big data” can streamed through such nodes while simultaneously the built environment and physical structures can be more easily repurposed in the form of nodes for new urban networks.2) Quattro libri, 3) Cinema obscura, 4) Do it together, 5)Everything you can imagine is rea

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy in Japan: consumers’ food safety perceptions and willingness to pay for tested beef

The discovery of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as ‘mad cow disease’, in Japan caused anxiety about consuming beef and beef products. As a result, there was a sudden fall in sales of beef that hurt the Japanese beef industry as well as major beef exporters to Japan. We analyse factors that affect Japanese consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) price premiums for BSE-tested beef and estimate the mean WTP for BSE-tested beef using data obtained from a consumer survey in Japan. A single-bounded dichotomous choice contingent valuation model is used to recover the premium amount. We find that attitudes to food safety, reduction in beef consumption following the BSE outbreak, and being female all have a statistically significant positive effect on the WTP for BSE-tested beef. Interestingly, demographic variables such as age and income do not affect the WTP, possibly indicating that the BSE scare similarly affected multiple segments of the population. In our sample, consumers are willing to pay a premium on average of greater than 50 per cent for BSE-tested beef

Consumer Response to Genetically Modified Food Products in Japan

In Japan, a large U.S. export market, there has been growing public opposition against genetically modified (GM) foods. Using a dichotomous choice contingent valuation method, findings show the discount needed for Japanese Seikyou consumers to purchase GM food products is positively affected (i.e., a greater discount is required) by higher levels of self-reported risk perceptions toward GM food, higher levels of concern about food safety and the environment, higher self-reported knowledge about biotechnology, education levels, and income. Interestingly, gender does not significantly affect the discount needed for GM food. Further, it can be inferred from the results that a transformation of Japanese consumers' perceptions and attitudes is needed for GM food products to successfully enter the Japanese market

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy in Japan: consumers’ food safety perceptions and willingness to pay for tested beef

The discovery of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as ‘mad cow disease’, in Japan caused anxiety about consuming beef and beef products. As a result, there was a sudden fall in sales of beef that hurt the Japanese beef industry as well as major beef exporters to Japan. We analyse factors that affect Japanese consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) price premiums for BSE-tested beef and estimate the mean WTP for BSE-tested beef using data obtained from a consumer survey in Japan. A single-bounded dichotomous choice contingent valuation model is used to recover the premium amount. We find that attitudes to food safety, reduction in beef consumption following the BSE outbreak, and being female all have a statistically significant positive effect on the WTP for BSE-tested beef. Interestingly, demographic variables such as age and income do not affect the WTP, possibly indicating that the BSE scare similarly affected multiple segments of the population. In our sample, consumers are willing to pay a premium on average of greater than 50 per cent for BSE-tested beef.beef, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, Japan, Demand and Price Analysis, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,