In recent years, there has been growing research on the development of interface devices based on the tactile sense. However, although some studies have investigated the characteristics of temperature sense, there has been little research on the development of interface devices based on the temperature sense. Therefore, in this study, we focused on the temperature sense and examined the relationship between the sensory characteristics of temperature and press force in order to investigate these characteristics during active touch. Specifically, we experimented to evaluate the effect of the press force on the sensory characteristics of temperature by using pair comparison method. Additionally, we measured the contact area of forefinger for verifying its effect on sensory characteristics of temperature. The results showed that the scale value of temperature sense increases with the press force, implying that the warmer (cooler) the human perception of the temperature, the higher the press force. If the temperature of objects is similar to skin temperature, the effect of the press force on the sensory characteristics of temperature is small. Moreover, it was found that there is the possibility that contact area of forefinger affect the characteristics of temperature sense.

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Currently, the management power of Japanese SMEs (small-and-medium-sized enterprises) is remarkably declined. As a solution, financial institutes should deepen relationship banking with SMEs. The purpose of this paper is to develop a visualization technique of financial conditions for deepening of relationship banking. The authors of this paper have found that “net worth” and “receivable turnover period” relate to bankruptcy risk of SMEs. And, the authors have proposed to assess actual equity capital (or negative net worth) c as follows: where is net worth, is surplus trade receivables, and is surplus inventory. These surplus assets are differences between an amount reported on balance sheet and a national average. In this paper, financial conditions have been visualized by a two-dimensional chart based on c and operating cash flow. This chart is useful to facilitate communication between financial institute and SME.

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This study verifies the mental and physical effects of menial work and those of its implementation in virtual experience along with their relationship with the subjects' profiles. The subjects were requested to perform four tasks. We called the first task the “handmade task” and the second the “hand playing task.” As a virtual experience, we set the work to verify a video that was filmed while other people were performing the same tasks. Subjective evaluations were conducted via a questionnaire about impressions of the work. We performed an objective evaluation by measuring the change in the amount of oxyhaemoglobin visible on subjects' foreheads using an optical topography device. The subjective evaluation revealed that subjects performing a task himself/herself or through virtual experience had a significant impact, whereas subject attributes or the type of work did not. In contrast, the objective evaluation demonstrated that subject attributes are more influential than other factors.

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We developed a signal sound which robustly inform citizens of disaster information even if speech signal is hardly intelligible because of long-path echoes and intense background noise. To do this research, we examined various factors required to develop such a signal sound under actual out-door conditions as well as laboratory (in-door) conditions with long-path echoes by use of multidimensional psychophysical evaluation for several candidate signal sounds as well as some other alarm signal sounds. Based on the experiments, we have finally chosen a single good candidate sign sound.

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Visually challenged people use raised-line drawing kits for drawing. There are some drawbacks such as the drawn line cannot be erased. Previously, we prepared pens and pencils (Beeswax-discharge writing material) that overcame the limitations of raised-line drawing kits by way of trial. Beeswax-discharge writing material is intended for visually impaired people. However, the number of people who become visually impaired and do not have sufficient tactile experiences has increased. Nevertheless, we lack design guidelines for using Beeswax-discharge writing material for tactile beginners. To determine a suitable radius of pen tip, we evaluated its influence on ease of drawing. Additionally, we measured the height and width of drawn lines for verifying their ease of perception. The results reveal that tactile beginners can draw easily when the radius of the pen tip is 1.00 mm, and lines drawn with Beeswax-discharge writing material are easy to perceive.

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We investigated the influence on the physiological response of clothing pressure from a fastened waist belt under several luminance conditions. Brain activity and autonomic nerve activity were evaluated by electroencephalogram and electrocardiogram measurements. From the results, in the case of high luminance, the brain wave has a tendency to shift to fast wave activity, and the autonomic nerve activity response to stimuli of pressure sensation was striking. When the luminance was lowered at the same time that the clothing pressure was applied, the pressure sensation had a greater influence than the visual sensation on the physiological response. When the luminance was heightened, the visual sensation had greater influence than the pressure sensation. From the viewpoint of homeostasis, when evaluating stress using autonomic nerve activity, we should not make the judgment that increases in parasympathetic nerve activity are relaxed conditions, but should consider stress as changes from the normal conditions.

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