Interdisciplinary Information Sciences
Online ISSN : 1347-6157
Print ISSN : 1340-9050
ISSN-L : 1340-9050
Volume 7, Issue 2
Displaying 1-13 of 13 articles from this issue
  • Eikoh CHIDA, Masahiro MAMBO, Hiroki SHIZUYA
    2001 Volume 7 Issue 2 Pages 135-165
    Published: 2001
    Released on J-STAGE: June 11, 2003
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Digital money, a digital substitute of physical money, has been extensively examined and developed in a past decade. Especially anonymous digital money has received much attention. Based on a thorough survey on digital money, mostly on anonymous digital money, we explain basic components and a history of digital money systems.
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  • Kwang Hyoun JOO, Tetsuo KINOSHITA, Norio SHIRATORI
    2001 Volume 7 Issue 2 Pages 167-177
    Published: 2001
    Released on J-STAGE: June 11, 2003
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    A multi-agent system could facilitate purchase of products on the Internet by executing required buying activities. To make the multi-agent system intelligent, we propose an Information Evaluation Mechanism which adopts colleague consumers’ opinion. It uses Information Exchange Partners’ Trust Points to calculate Comparison Points of alternatives for adopting the opinion as the user’s own. We have implemented Information Evaluation Mechanism and Information Exchange Protocol in GrocShop and carried out information exchange experiments. The results thereof show that GrocShop changes its preference and purchases different goods after adopting colleague consumers’ opinion. It shows that proposed Information Evaluation Mechanism and Information Exchange Protocol are effective and useful for adopting colleague consumer’s opinion.
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  • Peter BROWN, Nei KATO, Yoshiaki NEMOTO
    2001 Volume 7 Issue 2 Pages 179-188
    Published: 2001
    Released on J-STAGE: June 11, 2003
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    SUMMARY-In this paper we propose a web-based instant messaging application. This application is full-featured and similar to other proprietary Instant Messaging applications but can be used from any computer with a web browser and a connection to the Internet. em9 manages your contacts and informs you who is on-line at any time, enabling you to communicate with them instantly in near real time. In this paper we discuss the instant messaging class of software and its advantage, em9 and how it compares, our method of implementation and finally we evaluate the performance of our first version. Currently the first version of em9 is freely available at www.em9.com.
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  • Yuji WAIZUMI, Tsutomu ISHII, Nei KATO, Yoshiaki NEMOTO
    2001 Volume 7 Issue 2 Pages 189-196
    Published: 2001
    Released on J-STAGE: June 11, 2003
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    We propose a design method using Gaussian activation function for alternative-style handwritten character recognition system. While the alternative method can gain high accuracy recognition performance by simplifying the recognition problem to linear discriminant problem, the overfitting problem will occur with small number of learning samples. In this paper, we introduce Gaussian function as activation function of neurons in order to avoid the overfitting problem. Our proposed method can learn the overall distribution of samples and gain higher generalization ability. In the recognition experiment using ETL9B 3036 categories, the proposed method can achieve 97.67% recognition accuracy.
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  • Koichiro DEGUCHI, Rieko FURUKAWA
    2001 Volume 7 Issue 2 Pages 197-208
    Published: 2001
    Released on J-STAGE: June 11, 2003
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    This paper proposes a method to describe left-ventricular (LV) motion in X-ray cardiac (heart) images using a curvature-based process diagram. Based on this diagram, shape dynamics can be described as graph patterns to enable an easy interpretation for medical diagnosis. We take curvatures of two regional contours of X-ray heart image as characteristics of the shape, because these parts are deeply related to heart disease. Plotting these curvatures in the diagram during endocardium motion, we obtain graph pattern. In this diagram, every point location corresponds to LV contour shape, and the pattern corresponds to its motion. So that, even though LV shapes differ from each person individually, we obtain same patterns if their motions are same. We applied the method to real X-ray images and compared between normal and abnormal left-ventricular motions. The results promises the possibility of automated diagnosis from these diagram patterns.
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  • Hidetoshi IKEDA, Zhi-Dong WANG, Takayuki TAKAHASHI, Eiji NAKANO
    2001 Volume 7 Issue 2 Pages 209-217
    Published: 2001
    Released on J-STAGE: June 11, 2003
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    This paper describes a new cooperative strategy for two wheelchairs to climb a step. These two wheelchair robots are connected with a simple linkage mechanism between the rear of one wheelchair and the front of another. Two wheelchair robots climb a step one after the other. In this research, we did not use a method by which a robot lifts up and supports its weight using any special actuator but a method of handling the robot’s moment of rotation by the force of the link which come from the assisting robot. This method is especially influenced by the height of the two robot’s link positions. So we study this method from the viewpoint of changing the two-link positions. We perform a numerical calculation to clarify the combination of the two robot’s link positions from the two fixed points which enable them to climb (or descend) a step and is stable at the same time. We conclude from the result of the simulation that it is necessary to change the link position to climb and descend a step safely. We ascertain the effectiveness of this method by means of experiments using the robot system.
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  • Yuichiro KIZU, Hikaru INOOKA
    2001 Volume 7 Issue 2 Pages 219-225
    Published: 2001
    Released on J-STAGE: June 11, 2003
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    In this paper we propose a method to develop the program of continuous dancing motions using discrete motions sequentially for a computer-controlled automaton. Firstly a human listens to music and he imagines dancing motions. Secondly he generates a series of discrete skeleton images on a CRT display using a mouse. The skeleton image is the model of an automaton which has been developed in advance. Thirdly the continuous trajectories are generated by interpolating the sequential dancing images. Finally the continuous dancing motions of the skeleton images are evaluated on a CRT screen with the music. If necessary, the modification is repeated until a satisfactory motion is realized. The final check of the computer program is done by using the real automaton.
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  • Kunihiro KUMAGAI, Kenji OZAWA, Yôiti SUZUKI, Toshio SONE
    2001 Volume 7 Issue 2 Pages 227-236
    Published: 2001
    Released on J-STAGE: June 11, 2003
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    This paper discusses multidimensional perceptual space derived from the results of psychoacoustical experiments on similarities in the quality of sounds amplitude-modulated by nine triangular waves different in rise- and fall-times. For sinusoidal (1 kHz) and random-noise carriers, three experiments were conducted with different modulation frequencies, namely 8, 16 and 32 Hz. In each experiment, similarities in sound quality for stimuli with modulation depths of 0.4, 0.8 and 1.0, as well as the original carrier wave, were rated. The similarities were analyzed by a multidimensional scaling method (ALSCAL), and three-dimensional configurations were derived. A common configuration correlated with the modulation depth was seen irrespective of carrier wave and modulation frequency. There was a perceptual dimension related to shape of amplitude modulation for all conditions except for noise carrier with 32-Hz modulation. The difference in rise time caused larger differences in sound quality than similar differences in fall time up to a modulation frequency of 16 Hz, irrespective of the kind of carrier wave.
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  • Kenji OZAWA, Yôiti SUZUKI, Toshio SONE
    2001 Volume 7 Issue 2 Pages 237-246
    Published: 2001
    Released on J-STAGE: June 11, 2003
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • Mitsuyuki NAKAO, Masayoshi KAWAI, Yoshinari MIZUTANI, Norihiro KATAYAM ...
    2001 Volume 7 Issue 2 Pages 247-258
    Published: 2001
    Released on J-STAGE: June 11, 2003
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Some patients with amputations are known to still experience presence of the amputated limb (phantom limb). Phantom limb is found to be accompanied by reorganizations of somatotopic representations at cortical and subcortical levels due to deafferentation, which also discloses presence of body schema, i.e., integrated image of body. In addition, phantom limb is often recognized with painful sensation, i.e., phantom pain, which is suggested to be caused by abnormally high activations in thalamocortical neurons in the deafferentated area. In this paper, simulations using a self-organizing neural network model were performed to clarify contribution of axonal sprouting and body schema to reorganization of cortical representation, and to explore a possible mechanism underlying abnormally high thalamocortical activation. The results showed that axonal sprouting could cause reorganization of cortical mapping with an aid of facilitatory inputs referring to the conserved body schema even after deafferentation. In addition, removing thalamic recurrent inhibitions was shown to induce high and sustained activations in thalamocortical neurons in the deafferentated area. Consequently, this study suggested that discordance between the recognized cortical representation and physiological process referring to the body schema could give rise to phantom pain. Phantom pain is a clue disclosing how body schema is constructed and maintained, which might be an important subject also for robotics dealing with an artificial body.
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  • Masahiko HIRATSUKA, Takafumi AOKI, Tatsuo HIGUCHI
    2001 Volume 7 Issue 2 Pages 259-278
    Published: 2001
    Released on J-STAGE: June 11, 2003
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    This paper explores the possibility of constructing massively parallel computing systems using molecular electronics technology. By employing specificity of biological molecules, such as enzymes, new integrated circuit architectures which are essentially free from interconnection problems could be constructed. To clarify the proposed concept, this paper presents a functional model of a molecular electronic device called an enzyme transistor. Using enzyme transistors, various wire-free computing circuits can be realized. Examples described in this paper include basic analog amplifiers and digital logic circuits. This paper also demonstrates the potential of enzyme transistors for creating reaction-diffusion dynamics that performs useful computations in a massively parallel fashion. Prominent examples discussed in this paper are: (i) Turing pattern formation and (ii) excitable wave propagation in a two-dimensional enzyme transistor system.
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  • Michitaka KAMEYAMA, Masanori HARIYAMA
    2001 Volume 7 Issue 2 Pages 279-287
    Published: 2001
    Released on J-STAGE: June 11, 2003
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Several concepts from viewpoints of applications, system integrations, algorithms and VLSI processor architectures are proposed to realize a human-oriented information society. These concepts are merged together to design VLSI processors for human-oriented intelligent integrated systems. As a typical example, a VLSI processor for a ball-catching robot is presented to demonstrate usefulness of the design methodology.
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  • Masanori HARIYAMA, Michitaka KAMEYAMA
    2001 Volume 7 Issue 2 Pages 289-297
    Published: 2001
    Released on J-STAGE: June 11, 2003
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    This paper presents a stereo-matching algorithm to establish reliable correspondence between images by selecting a desirable window size for SAD (Sum of Absolute Differences) computation. In SAD computation, a degree of parallelism between pixels in a window changes depending on its window size, while a degree of parallelism between windows is predetermined by the input-image size. Based on this consideration, a window-parallel and pixel-serial architecture is proposed to achieve 100% utilization of processing elements. Not only 100% utilization but also a simple interconnection network between memory modules and processing elements makes the VLSI processor much superior to conventional processors.
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