Our proposed system rapoptosis is a novel proposal for the sustainable value of artifacts. It aims to enable unused things to autonomously determine their own existence value, bid farewell to their owners, and be revalued by new or original users. In this paper, through the questionnaire survey, we define the existence value includes not only measurable extrinsic existence value but also intrinsic existence value such as memories and attachments. In addition, through the workshop, we investigate the appropriate form of farewell and various farewell messages, and summarize the design guidelines for the autonomous farewell of artifacts for revaluing of itself.

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Walking can be thought of as a social interaction. It is also thought that a mobile robot and people around it can make social interaction during walking together. Investigating the interaction of people around a mobile robot will lead the development of mobile robots to be more acceptable for society. The authors have built a robot "Walking-Bones" that tries to walk with people while expressing its internal state by looking around. In this study, we conducted fieldwork in elementary school and analyzed children's actions toward "Walking-Bones" to consider how children perceived "Walking-Bones". As a result, 1st and 2nd-grade children tended to have actions such as patting the robot's head, and they regarded "Walking-Bones" as something they could sympathize with. On the other hand, the 5th-grade children observed "Walking-Bones" from a distance, and regarded it as an existence that they could not immediately sympathize with but could understand. In addition, when "Walking-Bones" turned its face to the surrounding environment and people around them, children often looked into the robot's face and blocked its path. Furthermore, regardless of the experimental condition of "Walking-Bones", the behavior that children helped "Walking-Bones" was observed many times.

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A concept of “Benefit of Inconvenience (BoI)” has recently attracted much attention as a novel design paradigm, and it has gained sympathy from a lot of people who question the excessive pursuit of conveniences in modern society. However, some of such sympathy is based on, for example, shallow nostalgic ideas that excessively beautify the past. In order to avoid such misunderstandings and misusing, some attempts to (re)define the concept of BoI in a clear and easy-to-understand manner have been made. However, even these (re)definitions still cannot eliminate undesirable misunderstandings and misusing of BoI concept. This paper clarifies causes of such problems of the former definitions and proposes a new definition of BoI that can solve the problems.

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Self-augmentation media such as power-assisted suits and AR technology have been studied to "directly" impart the properties and capabilities of media to humans. We propose “Caug Studio”, a novel architecture of self-augmentation media that "indirectly" extends human capabilities by drawing human creativity into the incompleteness of media properties. “Caug Studio” is characterized not only by the incompleteness of the media that draws in human's potential, but also by the expansion of creative abilities such as drawing and music making, and by the co-creative expansion in which humans and media complement each other to create a single work. In this paper, we evaluate and discuss the effectiveness of “Caug Studio” from the viewpoint of well-being using a singing music robot, “Tune-born”, which was developed based on “Caug Studio”.

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From the perspective of supporting the activities of students participating in PBL at university, this research describes an ethnography of a community of practice that appreciates trial and error. The processes of change were clarified in the discourses and the contents of the pattern languages developed there. The results show the importance of knowledge sharing and support that leaves students with room for thoughtful action. This study suggests that PBL as interfaces that include benefits of inconvenience could increase value in the development of a community of practice.

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Responding to spreading CoVID-19 disease, online conferences are often held in various scenes. It is sometimes heard from participants of an online conference that it would be hard to keep what they’ve discussed in their memory. Therefore, the authors aim to examine whether such a memory issue actually would occur in this study. The authors conducted the experimental online and onsite conferences and evaluated the breadth and depth of participants’ memory about the discussion on each experimental conference. As a result of comparing them by ANOVA, it is found that both the breadth and depth of participants’ memory about the discussion on the online conference will be less than those on the onsite conference.

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In order to prevent the spread of virus infection, we need to pay attention to keyboard operation. In particular, if the terminal is used in common, input behavior is likely to lead to infection. Alcohol disinfection is an effective means, but it is difficult to operate electronic devices with alcohol-soaked fingers, especially touch panel operation. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a new method of inputting the PIN code by foot without touching. This method does not use hands, so the possibility of infection is low. Furthermore, it is a method that can be used by people with physical disabilities who cannot use both arms. In addition, this method is resistant to shoulder-surfing and is unlikely to leak confidential information.

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In this age of the corona disaster, face-to-face lectures have been decreasing and on-demand lectures have been increasing. However, the role of students beside oneself in real classroom interaction is important. In this study, we expand this to on-demand lectures. To understand the interaction of students in on-demand classes, we created lecture videos and a CG classroom based on a real classroom. In addition, we introduced a nodding mechanism for student characters. On the basis of this, we conducted classes using 2D video, 360-degree video, and VR using an HMD, and we clarified the differences between 360-degree video and VR. We also performed questions about movie types and character behaviors. The results of the evaluation of movie types indicate that using VR in on-demand classes can make students feel a relationship in the classroom. The results of the evaluation of character behaviors show that rash action is useful in some cases.

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In response to a new coronavirus (COVID-19), many institutions and companies are forced to implement remote working. As a result, use of visual display terminals are increasing which is one of the risk factors of dry eye disease. Since dry eye is a chronic disease of tear fluid and the keratoconjunctival epithelium, eye self-care practices in daily life are important to prevent dry eye. Assessment of tear film is indispensable for diagnosing dry eye, but precise evaluation is difficult because of the tiny amount and transparency of tears. The clinical slit-lamp biomicroscopy is used for observing tear film by instilling fluorescein into tears. Recently, tear film interferometry is also used to obtain interferometric image without using fluorescein. It can also provide an useful information of tear film lipid layer dynamics. However, the devices are only available in the medical office and therefore gives limited access to the general public. Observation of tear film regardless of location, time or environment can be beneficial not only for healthcare professionals but also for patients. In this study, a device for self-checking the tear film was developed and its feasibility was investigated for the use in the daily life routine to prevent dry eyes.

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This research investigated the psychological stressors during the COVID-19 pandemic. We also examined the effects of essential oil odor exposure during this period. An official stay-at-home restriction order was implemented in May 2020. We sent essential oils to the homes of 30 participants. The participants received emails 5 times a day for 6 days. They reported their recent use of the essential oils and how they felt before and after using them by means of the Two-Dimension Mood Scale. The participants also reported their circumstances and intentions when using the oils. Results showed that the vitality and stability levels increased significantly after essential oil odor exposure. In addition, four psychological stress structures were obtained using the evaluation grid method. The results suggest that some of the participants felt conflicted about balancing housework, childcare, and work. They were the most stressed, and after essential oil odor exposure, their vitality and stability levels increased considerably.

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Currently，owing to the popularity of Internet，people have many opportunities to access information technology terminals．The color scheme of the terminals’ display is an important factor in conveying information．This study consists of a subjective evaluation research，performance evaluation and physiological evaluation of visibility．We measured NIRS，ECG，finger behavior，and selective reaction time of participants for the 2 types of figure and ground color scheme on a touch screen．The participants were required to stare at the touch screen and touch projection portion of the target characters on different color backgrounds．Measurements were performed for two types of tasks，i．e.， low-contrast color tasks and high-contrast tasks．Each task was tested 117 times，Based on visual sensation，NIRS，ECG，finger behavior，and reaction time were recorded．The physiological evaluation yielded the following results．The selective reaction time of low-contrast color tasks was significantly longer than that of the high-contrast color tasks．In low-contrast color tasks，speed and acceleration of finger movement also tended to slow down during operation，In addition，increases in brain activity and sympathetic nerve activity during low-contrast color tasks were found to be associated with concentration，tension，and fatigue.

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With the development of human sensing technology and AI technology, much research of emotion recognition has been conducted. We have already proposed an emotion estimation method from natural body movement based on Laban Movement Analysis. In this study, we applied the proposed method to the scene of design creation where creative work is performed using PC. First, we extracted and analyzed the evoked emotions in the design creation using SONY FES Watch U based on the evaluation grid method, and constructed an emotion model. Next, using the constructed emotion model,we performed a measurement experiment of a dataset in which the body movement is associated with the emotion. By using this dataset, we classified three emotional expression types based on only the motion characteristics. We achieved about 87% estimation accuracy for individuals. Nevertheless, average estimation accuracy for emotional expression types was 18%.

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