Tsunami Evacuation Drill System Focusing on Mobile Devices

Natural disasters, such as tsunami, claim lives of many coastal residents every year. Therefore, tsunami evacuation drills are important for costal residents to survive tsunami. We developed a tsunami evacuation drill system that enables participants to evacuate and move to a shelter while occasionally glancing at a map-based tsunami simulation on mobile devices. The system has the following advantages: (1) a practitioner can easily customise the simulation, (2) the simulation can be displayed on a web browser and (3) the participants’ evacuation routes can be recorded and displayed on the simulation system. We conducted a preliminary comparative experiment with 18 university students and found that the developed system was accepted more by participants using a tablet rather than by those using smartglasses

Prototype Digital Signage System for Learning Material Delivery Focusing on Student Friendship

A digital signage system to deliver learning materials on a university campus is described. The proposed system identifies student viewers using a high-powered radio-frequency identification reader and delivers learning materials that are suitable for multiple students based on existing and potential friendships, which can be estimated from the learning material viewing data. The delivery of learning material can reinforce existing student friendships and identify potential friendships (i.e., unite unacquainted students who can potentially form a learning community). A preliminary experiment revealed that the existing-friendship estimation is currently inaccurate and unsuitable

ニシン ディジタル タンサクギ オ モチイタ ジショ ケンサクホウ ト ソノ オウヨウ ニ カンスル ケンキュウ

本論文は，キー検索技法の中で特に2進ディジタル探索木(BinaryDigital Search Tree : BDS木と呼ぶ)を用いた辞書検索法に関する研究の成果をまとめたものであ り，次の6章より構成される. まず，第l章では，緒論として，本研究の目的ならびにその工学上の意義を述べ ることで，本研究の意義および位置づけを明確にする.更に，本研究によって得ら れた諸成果を概説する. 次に，第2章では，キー検索技法の歴史的背景を述べると共に，各種キー検索技 法の中でも，特に2分探索木法，多分探索木法，ハッシュ法，トライ法についての 構成法を紹介し，各技法の特徴および問題点について解説する. そして，第3章では，本研究の基となるBDS木を用いたトライハッシュ法の構成 法を説明する. トライハッシュ法は，ハッシュ法の特徴である高速な検索能力を継 承しつつ，従来のハッシュ法では困難であった順検索を可能にする手法である. し かしながら，登録キー数が多くなると，ハッシュ法の索引部を形成するBDS木のサ イズが大きくなり， BDS木全体を主記憶上に格納できなくなる.この問題点を解決 するため，JongeらはBDS木を先行順ビット列と呼ばれるコンパクトなビット列に圧 縮する手法を提案した.そこで，本章ではJongeらの提案した圧縮手法について解説 した後，先行順ビット列上でのキーの検索・追加アルゴリズムを示す. 第4章では，第3章で紹介した先行順ビット列の時間的および空間的な問題点を 明確にした後，先行順ビット列により表現されたBDS木の時間効率および空間効率 を改善する手法をそれぞれ提案する.まずキー集合が大規模になると，先行順ビ ット列が非常に長くなり，その結果，ビット列の後方に位置するキーに対する処理 の時間効率が悪化する.この時間的な問題点に対して，本論文では，BDS木の構造 を階層的に分割管理し，不必要な部分木に対する処理を削減することにより，大規 模なキー集合に対しても時間効率の悪化を防ぐ手法を提案する.また，先行順ビッ ト列上でキーの検索・追加を実現するためには，BDS木のすべてのノードが2本の 枝を有する必要がある.従来の手法では，1本の枝しか持たないノードに対してダ ミーリーフと呼ばれる擬似的な葉を持たせていた. しかしながら，大規模なキー集 合に対しては，ダミーリーフ数が非常に多くなり，その結果，ビット列が非常に長 くなる. この空間的な問題点に対して，本論文では，ダミーリーフを用いずに，よ りコンパクトなビット列に圧縮する手法を提案する.更に，それぞれの提案手法の 理論的評価，及び実験による具体的評価を与え，本手法の有効性を確かめる. また，第5章では，第4章で提案した2進ディジタル探索木を用いた辞書検索法 の文書処理への応用として，2進ディジタル探索木で構成された片仮名辞書と片仮 名変換ルールを用いた効率的な片仮名異表記生成手法および2進木構造で構築さ れた文書構造データベースを用いた自動図表配置手法について述べる. 最後に，第6章では，本研究で得られた諸成果の統括を行い，今後の研究課題に ついて述べる

Investigative Report Writing Support System for Effective Knowledge Construction from the Web

Investigative reports plagiarized from the web should be eliminated because such reports result in ineffective knowledge construction. In this study, we developed an investigative report writing support system for effective knowledge construction from the web. The proposed system attempts to prevent plagiarism by restricting copying and pasting information from web pages. With this system, students can verify information through web browsing, externalize their constructed knowledge as notes for report materials, write reports using these notes, and remove inadequacies in the report by reflection. A comparative experiment showed that the proposed system can potentially prevent web page plagiarism and make knowledge construction from the web more effective compared to a conventional report writing environment

Tsunami Evacuation Drill System Using Smart Glasses

Evacuation drills are commonly conducted as traditional disaster education to reduce damages from natural disasters. However participants are not always interested in or committed to such drills. To improve this situation, we focused on Edutainment and proposed game-based evacuation drill (GBED) using the Real-World Edutainment (RWE) program. There are two types of GBED systems, i.e. the Tablet-based GBED (T-GBED) and the AR and HMD-based GBED (AH-GBED). We conducted GBED at several schools and determined that it can improve student motivation for disaster prevention. Subduction-zone earthquakes frequently generate tsunamis and can cause catastrophic damage especially to coastal areas. Thus people in coastal areas must move very quickly to evacuation sites when a massive earthquake occurs. Both GBED systems cannot be used directly for tsunami evacuation drills because the participants will not want to sprint while holding a tablet or wearing a HMD and have time to stop to view the digital materials. In this study, we propose a tsunami evacuation drill (TED) and have developed a TED system. The TED system uses smart glasses (a lightweight optical see-through HMD) which allows participants to view digital materials while moving quickly

Using Digital Game, Augmented Reality, and Head Mounted Displays for Immediate-Action Commander Training

Disaster education focusing on how we should take immediate actions after disasters strike is essential to protect our lives. However, children find it difficult to understand such disaster education. Instead of disaster education to children, adults should properly instruct them to take immediate actions in the event of a disaster. We refer to such adults as Immediate-Action Commanders (IACers) and attach importance to technology-enhanced IACer training programs with high situational and audio-visual realities. To realize such programs, we focused on digital game, augmented reality (AR) and head-mounted displays (HMDs). We prototyped three AR systems that superimpose interactive virtual objects onto HMDs’ real-time vision or a trainee’s actual view based on interactive fictional scenarios. In addition, the systems are designed to realize voice-based interactions between the virtual objects (i.e., virtual children) and the trainee. According to a brief comparative survey, the AR system equipped with a smartphone-based binocular opaque HMD (Google Cardboard) has the most promising practical system for technology-enhanced IACer training programs

Game-based evacuation drill using augmented reality and head-mounted display

Purpose–Evacuation drills should be more realistic and interactive. Focusing on situational and audio-visual realities and scenario-based interactivity, we have developed a game-based evacuation drill (GBED) system that presents augmented reality (AR) materials on tablet computers. Our current research purpose is to improve visual reality (AR materials) in our GBED system. Design/methodology/approach–Our approach is to develop a new GBED system that superimposes digital objects (e.g. 3DCG elements) onto real-time vision using a marker-based AR library, a binocular opaque head-mounted display (HMD) and other current easily available technologies. Findings–Our findings from a trial experiment are that the new GBED system can improve visual reality and is appropriate for disaster education. However, a few problems remain for practical use. Research limitations/implications–When using the GBED system, participants (i.e. HMD wearers) can suffer from 3D sickness and have difficulty in moving. These are important safety problems in HMD-based systems. Social implications–The combination of AR and HMDs for GBEDs (i.e. integrating virtual and real worlds) will raise questions about its merits (pros and cons). Originality/value–The originality of our research is the combination of AR and an HMD to a GBED, which have previously been realized primarily as simulation games in virtual worlds. We believe that our research has the potential to expand disaster education

Failure-enhanced evacuation training using a VR-based disaster simulator : A comparative experiment with simulated evacuees

Evacuation training is an important component of disaster education and survival. Evacuation training using a virtual reality (VR)-based disaster simulator that provides a highly immersive simulated evacuation experience (SEE) has attracted significant attention. To improve the training effect, we propose a failure-enhanced evacuation training model based on Kolb’s experiential learning theory. Our model aims to purposefully induce participants to succumb to conformity bias and fail to evacuate during the first SEE because inactive evacuees (i.e., people who are not evacuating speedily or not starting their evacuation) are simulated in a VR-based disaster simulator. The participants are expected to overcome failure in the second SEE via reflection and conceptualization. A preliminary comparative experiment focused on how simulated evacuees influence the SEE of participants in a VR-based disaster simulator. Results indicated that failure-enhanced evacuation training can successfully improve the training effect

Expressing Disaster Situations for Evacuation Training Using Markerless Augmented Reality

Evacuation training is crucial for protecting human lives from natural and man-made disasters, but it should be more realistic to achieve training effects. In this study, we focused on expressing disaster situations using markerless augmented reality to achieve realistic evacuation training. We prototyped a scenario-based evacuation training system that superimposed three-dimensional computer graphics of disaster situations (e.g. fire and debris) onto real-time vision (captured by Android tablets or smartphones) using ARCore and Unity3D. Through preliminary experiments, we found that the prototype system can provide realistic expression and potentially be used for evacuation training, but we have not yet clarified the training results and how the expressions influenced participants’ emotions

サフィックス アレイ ニ モトズク ゲンゴ モデル オ モチイタ オンセイ ニンシキ ニ カンスル ケンキュウ

For obtaining high speech recognition performance, we need high quality acoustic model and language model of speech recognition. In this study, we focus on the language model. The conventional language models, which are CFG, N-gram model, and so on, have some problems which are outputted the non-language characters and words sequence. Therefore, in this paper, we proposed the language model which was used the suffix array for speech recognition. The suffix array was proposed for the information retrieval. The advantages of the suffix array were that “予測可能” “無駄な仮説が生成さ れない” For evaluating the proposed language model, we conducted the similarly music information retrieval experiment using MIDI database. The experimental results showed that the proposed method was useful for the music information retrieval