It is our great pleasure to congratulate the Journal of Advanced Computational Intelligence and Intelligent Informatics (JACIII) on its 20th anniversary. The concept of Computational Intelligence was originally authorized in the first IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence (WCCI) held in Orlando,Florida in 1994, where the key issues of CI were characterizedby fuzzy, neuro, and EC (Evolutionary Computation). The JACI (Journal of Advanced Computational Intelligence) Vol.1 No.1 was published from Fuji Technology Press in Oct 1997, and the name of the journal has been changed to JACIII since Vol.7 No.1 Feb 2003 to accept more widely developed issues related to intelligent informatics.
The JACIII is currently published in bimonthly, six issues a year, in cooperation with International Fuzzy Systems Association(IFSA), Japan Society for Fuzzy Theory and Intelligent Informatics (SOFT), Brazilian Society of Automatics (SBA), The Society of Instrument and Control Engineers (SICE), John von Neumann Computer Society (NJSZT), Vietnamese Fuzzy SystemsSociety (VFSS), Fuzzy Systems and Intelligent TechnologiesResearch Society of Thailand (FIRST), Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems (KIIS), and Taiwanese Association for ArtificialIntelligence (TAAI), and is indexed in ESCI, SCOPUS, and COMPENDEX (Ei-Index).
In the past 20 years personally, so many issues happened in the JACIII editing process. Some of them were very tough but all are very good memories to us. We occasionally organize the JACIII editorial meetings in Tokyo and remotely. As Editors-in-Chief, we are most grateful to all who have worked with the JACIII and helped reach its 20th anniversary. We thank the editorial board members for editing this journal with their high discernment and the guest editors for arranging special issues with their high profession. We would also like to thank the peer reviewers for their accurate evaluations in a short time, and finally our special thanks go to the editorial office of Fuji TechnologyPress Ltd., especially to its founder, Mr. K. Hayashi, and to the editors, Ms. Reiko Ohta and Mr. Kunihiko Uchida for their efforts in publishing this journal.

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First of all it is my great pleasure to congratulate to the 20th anniversary of the Journal of Advanced Computational Intelligence and Intelligent Informatics (JACIII). The first volume of the journal was published in 1997 – and now twenty years later we reached the Vol. 21. Over these years JACIII was one of the forefront and determining journals of soft computing and intelligent informatics and focused to the most up-to-date topic despitethe fast vary and evolvement of this research field through its regular and special sessions. One of the greatest merit of the journal is that it is able be serve as a common platform for the most relevant researchers and societies in order to expand the boundaries of many related fields including Fuzzy Logic, NeuralNetworks, Genetic and Evolutionary Computation, Biologically-Inspired Computation Systems and so on.
In these days the most up-coming challenges are connected to the topics of JACIII including the current special issue as well. Self-driving cars, Wearables, Internet-of-Things and many other phenomena are imaginable with the advanced Computational Intelligence behind the rooftop. Expert- and decision-making systems and effective usage of big data request the highly developedFuzzy Inference Systems. Monitoring of social media in order to get useful information regarding the habits of humanusers and artificial robots cannot be realized without Web and Artificial Intelligence. Soft-computing based methods and many other intelligent and automated solutions are needed for eligible Data mining – and for the further preparation of the gathered data. Moreover, the demands of future smart city concepts, developed green energy producing solutions and connected power grids present the scientists with specific challenges whereon Smart Grid concept can be the only answer.
I would like to invite the Reader to an interesting reading which deals with the aforementioned challenges and scenarios.
Furthermore, I hope that JACIII can continue its contribution to the leading-edge research and we can celebrate the 30th anniversarytogether as well.

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It is my honour and privilege to express my heartfelt congratulations to the Journal of Advanced Computational Intelligence and Intelligent Informatics (JACIII) at the occasion of its 20th Anniversary. I was so lucky to be one of the founding Advisory Editors in 1997, invited by two excellent researchers and very close friends, now Emeritus Professors Kaoru Hirota and Toshio Fukuda, and I have been on the board ever since. The journal covers all important fields of Computational Intelligence and Soft Computing including Fuzzy Systems, Artificial Neural Networks, Evolutionary Algorithms,and others. These areas emerged since the 1960s, but especially since the second half of the 1980s, when the Fuzzy Boom exploded in Japan. I was able to attend the International Fuzzy Systems Association World Congress in 1987 in Tokyo, in the same year when world’s first automatic subway line was opened in Sendai and when so many domotic and other applications appeared on the market, among other fuzzy and neuro-fuzzy commercial products. This was the occasion when I made the friendship of the two outstanding scholars, who later started JACIII.
From year to year I have diligently followed the articles published in JACIII, sending annually recommendations for the best paper awards, and occasionally sending papers for publication or advising my peers to support the journal. This way I can sincerely state that in the past 20 years JACIII has become one of the leading periodicals of the CI and SC fields, its authors distributed not only in Japan, but all over the world. At the beginning the focus was naturally on the fuzzy related papers, while in time the scope opened up towards all other related research fields, gradually covering all Intelligent Systems topics.
Why is the mentioned research area so important? Real life problems and many commercial applications, industrial, economic, bio-medical, environmental or others often pose a challenge by the complexity of the problem that disables modeling and algorithmic solutions from the mathematical point of view. This complexity partly comes from the large number of state variables describing the inputs and outputs involved with the model, or from the undeterministic nature, the high adaptability need, or simply from the involvement of subjective elements coming from human experts, operators or other persons. To all these mathematically intractable problem classes intelligent technologie soften deliver a very good answer, a good compromise of resource efficiency and modeling"goodness," i.e. approximation accuracy, or optimality error. The articles published in JACIII during the past 20 years have given many good answers to these challenging questions, offering new methodological results and new application technics.
I sincerely hope that JACIII will continue its fruitful and important activities and will play an ever increasing role in the international scenario of research publications on Intelligent Systems. Long live JACIII!

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The JACIII was first published in 1997, and 2017 marks its 20^th anniversary. During the last two decades, the research fields in computational intelligence have rapidly evolved owing to the spread of the Internet, performance improvement of computers, and accumulation of scientific knowledge. To celebrate this 20^th anniversary, we have selected 6 important research areas from the JACIII scope, and invited outstanding researchers from each of these areas to contribute papers about the progress and major topics in those areas during the past 20 years. Submitted paper went through a peer-review process by distinguished professors to further improve the quality. The research areas selected were computational intelligence, fuzzy intelligence, intelligent robots, artificial intelligence and web intelligence, data mining, and smart grids. Each of those paper covers broad topics appeared in the research areas, from which readers could grasp what happened during the past 20 years. We also hope readers could find some hints about future directions of their own researches towards the next 20 years.

Invited Paper 1: Computational Intelligence: Retrospection and Future Author: Witold Pedrycz (University of Albolderta, Canada)

Invited Paper 2: Fuzzy Inference: Its Past and Prospects Authors: Kiyohiko Uehara (Ibaraki University, Japan) and Kaoru Hirota (Beijing Institute of Technology, China)

Invited Paper 3: Relationship Between Human and Robot in Nonverbal Communication Authors: Yukiko Nakagawa and Noriaki Nakagawa (RT Corporation, Japan)

Invited Paper 4: Web Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence Author: Yasufumi Takama (Tokyo Metropolitan University, Japan)

Invited Paper 5: A Review of Data Mining Techniques and Applications Authors: Ratchakoon Pruengkarn, Kok Wai Wong, and Chun Che Fung (Murdoch University, Australia)

Invited Paper 6: Development and Current State of Smart Grids: A Review Author: Ken Nagasaka (Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Japan)

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This study is aimed at a brief, carefully focused retrospective view at the Computational Intelligence – a paradigm supporting the analysis and synthesis of intelligent systems. We stress the reason behind the emergence of this discipline and identify its main features. We highlight the synergistic aspects of Computational Intelligence arising from an interaction and collaboration of fuzzy sets, neural networks, and evolutionary optimization. Some promising directions of future fundamental and applied research are also identified.

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Fuzzy inference in the past and its future prospects are described to further promote research in the field: First, the basic methods of fuzzy inference are introduced. Then, the progress of fuzzy inference is reviewed, showing its remarkable achievements, especially in industries. A consideration of fuzzy inference is presented from operational viewpoints. It provides a key to creating fuzzy-inference methods in the future. The growing research area of fuzzy inference is also introduced in order to discuss a current direction, reflecting the consideration mentioned above. Moreover, some future prospects on fuzzy inference are presented, which are expected to stimulate research.

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The function of the robot living together converges on the problem of communication. We focus on nonverbal communication and relationship between service robots and human. We show nonverbal communication experiments of robot to build relationship between human. We described some ideal fiction robots to live with. We got experience such as; Relationship based on touch communication is managed three elements, appearance, motion and predictable behavior. As the result, these elements are based on embodiment. Human touches robot after feeling safe and natural motion. Motivation to build relationship with robots is decided above three elements in physically but appearance and motion are important. Evaluation of relationship is complicated because relationship grows up depending on spending time and motivation to relate. These experiences were shown by life sized humanoid robot and robot arm in exhibition. Based on these results, evaluation method to understand relationship between robot and human are considered in near future robot development.

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This paper briefly summarizes the progress of artificial intelligence (AI) and web intelligence (WI) in the last two decades. The reason why we mention AI and WI together is because those have strong relationship with each other. This paper first summarizes the history of AI, and then gives brief description of supervised learning, which I think has played a major role in AI in the last two decades. As most history of WI is in the target decades, this paper first briefly describes major WI topics, and then gives more detailed description about information recommendation, which I think one of more successful and necessary technologies in practical use.

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Data mining is the analytics and knowledge discovery process of analyzing large volumes of data from various sources and transforming the data into useful information. Various disciplines have contributed to its development and is becoming increasingly important in the scientific and industrial world. This article presents a review of data mining techniques and applications from 1996 to 2016. Techniques are divided into two main categories: predictive methods and descriptive methods. Due to the huge number of publications available on this topic, only a selected number are used in this review to highlight the developments of the past 20 years. Applications are included to provide some insights into how each data mining technique has evolved over the last two decades. Recent research trends focus more on large data sets and big data. Recently there have also been more applications in area of health informatics with the advent of newer algorithms.

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Smart grids are an important component of the modernization of the power industry worldwide. Many researchers have contributed to their development. At this point, reflection on whether smart grids are being used as was expected and where further investigation is necessary to make them more applicable to the future power industry is warranted. The aim of this paper is to introduce the state of research and path of development of smart grids worldwide. In this investigation, the primary objectives of smart grids, from their inception to the present with changes along the way, are also presented. In addition, difficulties and barriers in their development and implementation and whether these issues are being solved are discussed. Finally, the future and accompanying challenges of smart grids are presented. It should be noted that the current state and development of smart grids is a very deep topic, and it is not possible to mention all the relevant points in a single article. The present review paper attempts to address a limited portion of these to provide an essential understanding of smart grids. Regarding the communication base of a smart grid, only smart meters, some developed communication techniques and smart grid models are presented.

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Loop closure detection, which is the task of identifying locations revisited by a robot in a sequence of odometry and perceptual observations, is typically formulated as a combination of two subtasks: (1) bag-of-words image retrieval and (2) post-verification using random sample consensus (RANSAC) geometric verification. The main contribution of this study is the proposal of a novel post-verification framework that achieves good precision recall trade-off in loop closure detection. This study is motivated by the fact that not all loop closure hypotheses are equally plausible (e.g., owing to mutual consistency between loop closure constraints) and that if we have evidence that one hypothesis is more plausible than the others, then it should be verified more frequently. We demonstrate that the loop closure detection problem can be viewed as an instance of a multi-model hypothesize-and-verify framework. Thus, we can build guided sampling strategies on this framework where loop closures proposed using image retrieval are verified in a planned order (rather than in a conventional uniform order) to operate in a constant time. Experimental results using a stereo simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) system confirm that the proposed strategy, the use of loop closure constraints and robot trajectory hypotheses as a guide, achieves promising results despite the fact that there exists a significant number of false positive constraints and hypotheses.

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The tissue characterization of coronary plaque is an important task to assess the atherosclerotic process and the potential risks of their ruptures on patient. Thanks to intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) medical imaging technique, the reflected ultrasound signals from tissues are acquired, then be used to visualize inside the artery by the computer-assisted equipment. Often, the characterization of tissues is based on the analysis of their responding echo intensity. However, the domination of various factors and the data robustness are the realistic challenges of IVUS classification problems. The quality of the visualization totally depends on the proposed classifier of descriptive features along with its algorithm. In this study, our objective is to characterize IVUS tissues by using classification restricted Boltzmann machine (ClassRBM). We propose to binarize feature patterns extracted from time domain signals for the input of ClassRBM. The results show a better evaluation compared to the conventional integrated backscatter IVUS method (IB-IVUS) for the same task.

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The purpose of this study is to develop smart equipment to quantify plantar tactile sensibility for early diagnosis and tracking of peripheral neuropathy caused by diabetes mellitus. In this paper, we present new testing equipment composed of a plantar tactile stimulation platform with a moving contactor to stretch the skin tangentially, a response switch for each tactile stimulus, a motor control box, and a personal computer for psychophysical data processing. This testing equipment offers more precise measurements and is easy to use compared to conventional testing tools such as von Frey monofilaments, pin-prick testing devices, and current perception threshold testers. Using our testing equipment, we showed that the plantar tactile threshold for the tangential stretching stimulus on the first metatarsal head of the feet ranges from approximately 10 to 60 μm for subjects without diabetic foot problems. Meanwhile, the plantar tactile threshold of some subjects suspected of having diminished protective sensation by the Semmens-Weinstein monofilament testing is approximately 100 μm or more. These preliminary results suggest that our testing equipment based on the plantar sensation elicited by lateral stretching of skin has the potential for quantitative diagnosis in subjects suspected of suffering from neuropathy, and for monitoring changes over time to sustain quality of life.

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In order to assist blind people in using a flat touchscreen, “virtual” tactile dots which feedback either of or both speech and vibration when touched have been proposed. In this paper, we investigated their effectiveness in map reading application. We conducted two experiments with eight blind participants in which participants perceived the distance and direction between two virtual tactile dots. Their results show that the perception of distance and direction by virtual tactile dots was accurate enough. However, the search time for these dots was significantly longer than that for real tactile dots. This search time issue made us conclude that the reading and vibrating tactile map is not practical.

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We propose a new method of presenting two-dimensional information, such as figures and graphs, on a tactile display so that visually impaired people are able to perceive them quickly and accurately. The new presentation method is developed for a tactile-proprioceptive display, which can present information on not only conventional “concave–convex” tactile display, but also vibration presentation in arbitrary area on a tactile display and mechanical leading presentation by mechanically leading user’s fingers using haptic device. In this paper, we outline the abovementioned two presentation method and the developed tactile-prop display, and objectively evaluate the effects of the local area vibration presentation method as an integral part of the tactile-prop display in comparison with the conventional “concave–convex” presentation method. We conducted experiments to evaluate the effects of the proposed local area vibration presentation method using two typical content patterns. In Experiment 1, discreetly dispersed objects are searched, and in Experiment 2, the cross graphs of line segments are distinguished and perceived. The experiments have proved that the method is effective in reducing search and cognitive time as well as identifying the correct cognition of cross graphs, as compared to the “concave–convex” tactile presentation method.

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Japanese Industry Standards (JIS) S 0021 (Packaging – Accessible Design – General Requirements) indicate the design policy for easy-to-use packaging and containers, targeting various individuals including elderly persons and individuals with disabilities. The JIS S 0021 includes tactile signs that are necessary to ensure the ease of distinguishing and handling as well as the ease of using those packaging and containers. The JIS S 0021 prescribes tactile signs on shampoo containers and notches for beverage paper packaging containers as tactile signs to distinguish the contents of the package and to differentiate between containers with the same or similar shapes. The policy was expanded to include tactile signs for body soaps when the standard was amended in 2014, and this was attributed to the fact that organizations of visually impaired demanded tactile signs for body soap, since body soap is often packaged in containers with shapes similar to those for shampoos and hair conditioners. Hence, tactile signs prescribed for body soap in JIS S 0021 guidelines were recently expanded to commercially available body soap containers. In the present study, experiments were performed to study the shapes of tactile signs for distinguishable body soap container. Specifically, shapes were studied through the following two steps: 1) tactile signs were selected based on experiments to evaluate the ease of distinguishing between multiple tactile signs, in a hearing survey involving visually impaired; and 2) experiments were performed to evaluate the tactile signs assuming that they were manufactured in collaboration with the Japan Cosmetic Industry Association, which is an industry organization of manufacturers for body soap and other products. It should be noted that the experiments involving distinguishing between products prioritized tactile signs on the top surfaces of the containers instead of on the side, since visually impaired tend to distinguish between pump containers by touching the top surfaces of the containers in hotels and public restrooms. The results of the experiments were used for tactile signs in the amended JIS S 0021 in 2014 for body soap. This study described evaluation experiments performed on the distinguishability of tactile signs on the top surfaces of pump type body soap containers to determine the factors that should be considered when establishing JIS tactile signs for body soap containers.

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For the noninvasive measurement of swallowing muscle activity, surface electromyograms and swallowing sounds are used. The electromyogram electrodes can be placed appropriately only by experts with specialized knowledge about the location of the swallowing muscle group. Therefore, these sensors have not been used for measurements in food development, for which there were no experts. In order to develop a simple swallowing muscle measurement method for food development, we proposed a sensor sheet consisting of multiple electromyogram electrodes and observed that different swallowing muscle activities could be measured depending on the type of food. In this work, we study a calculation method for the elimination of noise, which is inevitable in electromyograms, from the sensor sheet measurement results and prove that the method improves the performance of the swallowing muscle activity measurements.

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Tenpin bowling is an adaptive sport for persons with severe visual impairment, including blind persons with adequate support. It is known as “Blind bowling.” To play it, blind players are allowed to use a guide rail, and sighted assistants support the players by informing them of scores, ball trajectories, positions of remaining pins, etc. However, these blind players desire to play without the support of sighted assistants. Therefore, to solve this need, an automatic pin counting system was developed as an initial step. The system detects the number of remaining pins and positions using simple image processing, and communicates the information utilizing a speech synthesizer. Evaluation of the system showed that it was sufficient to assist the blind player’s practice. Moreover, an unexpected effect was found: all blind persons who take part in the game are able to enjoy whole games. This is because the system continuously announces to everyone present, the remaining pins of the targeted blind player, as well as every other player. As a consequence, the system helps the blind player, both when bowling alone, and when enjoying a game with other participants.

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This paper reviews issues on assistive products that help persons with disability to participate in activities in society, with the goal of ensuring that as many such products as possible should be better accepted and used in society. We focus on information that relate to the process from product developments to social acceptance. We first describe three information-related issues (transfer, understanding, and quality). Then, we present an overview of the aspects of development and social acceptance of such assistive products. Finally, we consider information items we need to confirm to ensure their success.

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The free induction decay (FID) quality signal of a proton precession magnetometer is closely related to tuning precision. To solve the commonly used current tuning problem method, we propose improving control algorithm tuning based on singular value decomposition (SVD). The space matrix is constructed by acquiring an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) for untuned FID signals, then conducting SVD to eliminate noise and obtain a useful signal. The fast Fourier transform (FFT) is then applied to the denoised FID signal to extract the time-frequency feature. Based on theory analysis, simulation modeling and actual FID signal testing, results show that compared to general tuning methods such as peak detection and auto correlation, our proposed algorithm improves sensor tuning precision and shortens tuning process time to one second or less.

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Sintering is a process that involves complex physical and chemical reactions. An intelligent coordinating control strategy is proposed for the strong coupling between the burn-through point (BTP) and the mixture bunker level (MBL). First, an intelligent integrated controller is established for the BTP by fusing the neural network, expert rules, and fuzzy logic. Moreover, an expert controller is designed for the MBL based on expert rules using the analysis of the main factors that affect the MBL. Furthermore, by employing the soft switching control algorithm, an intelligent coordinating controller for the BTP and the MBL is designed. The optimal operation parameters are obtained from the algorithm, which realize the multi-objective control of the sintering process. Finally, a simulation and an experiment of the intelligent coordinating control between the BTP and the MBL are carried out, where the models of the BTP and the MBL are the Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy model and the linear model, respectively. And the results show that the proposed approach is feasible and effective.

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This study investigated the stability and synchronization control of a fractional-order gene regulatory network system (GRNS). By applying the like-Lyapunov stability judgment method, the criteria of stability and synchronization control of a GRNS is determined. Further, the numerical simulation verifies the effectiveness of the method.

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Sparse multipath channel estimation has recently attracted significant attention due to the sparsity of the channel in broadband wireless communication. Many algorithms have been proposed for sparse multipath channel estimation. Among them, the least mean square (LMS) algorithm, based on adaptive filter, has attracted much attention due to its low complexity and high robustness. However, LMS is usually degraded by the long training signal, which needs large storage space. This paper proposes an improved method that transmits a circulating, short training signal, samples the received signal at a lower rate, and utilizes LMS with ℓ0-norm (ℓ0-LMS) to estimate the sparse multipath channel. This method can achieve high robustness in additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN), and reduce the sampling rate while needing small storage space for the training signal. Numerical simulations are provided to evaluate the performance of the proposed method.

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In the field of lightning current waveform acquisition, since the lightning stroke signal contains continuous current whose change is relatively flat, sampling with a fixed frequency is a waste of memory resources, and may even increase system design difficulty and cost. The multirate sampled method has been proposed to acquire lightning current waveforms based on the short-time Fourier transform (STFT) to counter this problem and cubic Hermite interpolation has been used to optimize sampled data. The results of simulation and lightning experiments have shown that the multirate sampled method reduces memory resource consumption by at least 70% and ensures high accuracy. The feasibility and effectiveness of the multirate sampled method have also been confirmed.

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Selective micro heat sintering (SMHS)-type 3D printing technology is a widely applied method in rapid prototyping, which uses an electric heating component to sinter non-metallic powder. It requires precise control of the heating component’s energy and its sintering time. Temperature is one of the key factors that affect the forming quality of fused-type 3D printing technology. Aiming at the nonlinear and time-delay characteristics of temperature control in fused-type 3D printing, a fuzzy control method based on variable universe fuzzy control was studied. This fuzzy control method adopts a set of nonlinear expansion-contraction factors to make the variable universes change with the adaptive error, which can help acquire adaptive temperature adjustment in the rapid prototyping process control. The results of the simulation and experiment showed that the controlled temperature response was faster, the overshoot was smaller, and the stability was better compared to the conventional fuzzy proportion integration differentiation (PID) algorithm after the temperature reached the target temperature. The printed results indicated that the universe fuzzy PID control can effectively improve the accuracy of the workpiece shapes and that the density distribution of the workpiece is increased, which can help improve the forming quality.

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