A wearable system which monitors human's state real-timely and offers services based on human's objective, preference, location and state is needed. We developed a system which monitors human's movement by a wristwatch-type motion sensor and foot pressure shoes which send data to a wearable PC via Bluetooth and gives appropriate contents on a face mounted display without hindering action and annoying to the user. The algorithm of foot pressure shoes for recognizing behaviors (walking, running, standing, sitting, squatting) by plantar pressure patterns was verified. They can be used for improving the accuracy of user's state estimation.

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A bench platform that enables evaluation of information technology for future comprehensive healthcare systems has been developed integrating wearable physiological sensors, signal processing, short-range wireless transmission, systems networking, databases and a data processing framework. First, selection and evaluation process of communication technology and sensor devices measuring vital signs of the entire body, that have been used to design the generic software architecture of the bench platform are discussed. Then, to estimate practical problems related to real use environment, results of experiments carried out in collaboration with welfare partners are presented. Finally, the implementation of an upper framework for analysis functionalities, to which applications supporting medical doctors diagnosis process have been successfully integrated, is described.

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This paper describes radio-controlled clocks/watches employing digital quadrature detection based on the Time Analog to Digital Converter (TAD) technology. In-phase and quadrature components of the input modulated signal are obtained by only addition and substitution processes of the data digitized by the TAD with sampling clock of the frequency quadruple to the carrier frequency. Since the TAD digital quadrature detection also acts as a precise bandpass filter, quartz filters used by the conventional radio-controlled clocks/watches are not necessary. The CMOS digital circuit structure of the TAD makes it possible to integrate the receiver circuit into the clock/watch digital circuit on a single chip.

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Epidural anesthesia is one of the regional anesthesias used for the abdominal surgery and the obstetric analgesia for labor. An anesthesiologist need to place the needle tip at the epidural space precisely, according to decrease of the puncture force when the needle tip enters in the epidural space. No study examined the relation between the tip shape and the force curve. In this paper, six needles were compared by a phantom study.

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Although fine ceramics are both electrically and mechanically excellent, it is not used as common element parts. In order to reduce the processing cost, element processing should be carried out after press working and before baking. The demanding state should be processed after the baking. In order to examine the processing technique, 500 pieces of silicon nitride printing guides which require precise processing technique were prepared. As the result, it was possible to reduce the processing by 1/2 without loosing the quality.

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We have developed the information wrist watch with Microsoft and Fossil for "MSN Direct Service" started in North America in January, 2004. This watch has very simple design and friendly man-machine interface, and then users can receive personal and broadcast information anytime and anywhere. This device is expected as "a new network tool" which can acquire glance-able information. This paper reports the specification and contents of the service.

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[in Japanese]

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