This article presents the past, the present and the future of research on fuzzy theory, soft computing and those neighborhoods inAIJ, related Japan Society for Fuzzy Theory and Systems (SOFT) and Japan Society for Fuzzy Theory and Intelligent Informatics (SOFT). Further, some examples at Shingu Lab., Nihon University will be introduced.

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It is well known that fuzzy mapping plays an important and fundamental role in fuzzy analysis. In this paper, we attempt to determine extensive classes of these fuzzy mappings that are represented by their Taylor expansion. We have first obtained that the continuous function f (x) can transform a fuzzy mapping f (u) using the extension principle. And we discuss some properties of the series of fuzzy numbers. From these properties we have seen that f (u) has the property of being analytic for the analytic function f (x). Finally as applications, we give a sufficient condition for convergence of a fuzzy alternating series.

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There is the observation problem in quantum theory. In quantum mechanics, wave function obeys Schrodinger's equation, but wave function acts in other uncertain ways in an observation. This action is called reduction of the wave packet. Thus the observation problem means that quantum theory could be inconsistent and its application would be unsuitable. Next We consider what consciousness is. The state that one awakens to oneself and is aware of oneself considering things as objects, can be thought of as being conscious. Namely, one could not be conscious of the self itself without paying an attention to oneself. This leads to a big question : Who on earth is a person thinking of the self? This situation might be regarded as some kind of discrepancy, but we are always faced with a similar situation whenever considering consciousness. In this structure of logic, there is a similarity between the obsen>ation problem and phenomena of mind and consciousness.

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In this paper, we propose a procedure of architectural morphogenesis by an algorithmic architecture (design) using the genetic algorithms with diversity of solution. The algorithmic architecture is a morphogenesis procedure based on a rule and is a tool to draw out designer s idea. This procedure has to set the form generation rules corresponding to purpose in building. We discovered a rule using base unit of the housing model applying the sweeping of nodes and a curve or a surface. The proposed procedure is applied to the design of the architectural morphogenesis for the low rise housing. In this design, objective functions for facility and structure are satisfied the same time as the multi-objective optimization problem.

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In this paper, we show the computational property of the genetic algorithms with diversity of solution (ISGA). ISGA is the procedure to obtain the solution with comparatively high evaluation for both the objective function space and the design variable space. To grasp its property, ISGA is used for the maximum search of single-objective optimization problem (SOP) and multi-objective optimization problem (MOP) of bivariate functions. Additionally, by amending a part of computational procedure, it is possible to search for Pareto optimum solution or a local Pareto solution and to improve the improvement at the computing time.

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[in Japanese]

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This paper describes a novel edge-preserved smoothing method with special consideration to an intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) image. An IVUS image, which is commonly used for a diagnosis of acute coronary syndromes (ACS), is very grainy due to heavy speckle noise. The speckle noise prevents a medical doctor from reading the IVUS image. The processing of the image for computer-aided diagnoses (CADs) also becomes difficult. In order to reduce the speckle noise, in this study, we propose a modification of anisotropic diffusion filter in which diffusion strength is locally and adaptively controlled by a weighted separability of an IVUS image. The proposed method not only reduces a speckle noise but also effectively enhances an edge of plaque tissue in an IVUS image. The effectiveness of the proposed method has been verified by the experiments using the real IVUS images.

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We propose a pattern classification scheme for occlusal sound obtained by a bone conduction microphone. The proposed method consists of a threshold-based occlusal sound detector and a subspace-based occlusal sound classifier. In this paper, we discuss the classification performance of the present scheme and its applicability to a personal computer (PC) input interface for severely disabled people.

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I continued research and development on automated diagnosis of ECG and evaluation of health management. The study of finding the optimum method for improving diagnostic accuracy based on multiple tests has been achieved. It was found that consideration of inter-test correlation is necessary to improve diagnostic accuracy. This paper focuses on how to treat the inter-test correlation coefficient and overall diagnostic accuracy. It was cleared that the more overall diagnostic accuracy of the multiple test is earned in case of the less inter-test correlation coefficient. A randomized generation method of simulation data which has arbitrary sensitivity, specificity and inter-test correlation coefficient of each test, was developed.

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To construct a health supporting system based on oriental medicine, the objective examinations in Oriental medicine (the measurement of tongue color, the tongue diagnosis supporting system, acceleration pulse wave), and the two kinds of health questionnaires were used in our investigation. The subjects of the study were ten adult volunteers. The result indicated that the measurement value (+L^* value) of tongue color has correlate with the score of the health questionnaire (the PCS ofSF-8). The output value of the tongue diagnosis supporting system (the value of the cold-heat differentiation) has correlate with the total score of the oriental medicine health questionnaire. It is suggested that the objective examinations in Oriental medicine are useful as constructing of health supporting system.

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In order to clarify the relation of the image about the delivery desk and the knowledge on the posture of the delivery, the investigation has been done using questionnaire to the young students, 77 students of 2^<nd> year ,and 75 students 3^<rd> year in nursing course, and 105 students in midwife course. It is cleared that 1) the degree of recognition on the postures of delivery is largely different between nurse course students and midwife course students (p=0.000), 2) midwife course students has negative image for the delivery desk compared with the nurse course students, 3) nurse course students have the image as "usual" (p=0.000) and "natural" (p=0.000) and also "general" (p=0.012) compared with the midwife course students.

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Recently many midwifes are taking part into educations on the birth, baby and their lives. It is important to investigate what kindofrecognisiton the midwifery course students have, especially on the education of the first menstruation. The aim of this paper is to clarify the relation betweenrecognition to menstruation and the first menstruation education in midwifery course students. The search was done by the questionnaire for them. As the result, significant differences on the 8 contents of the education were seen among 2 groups, i.e., affirm tive group (N=22) and negative group (N=22).

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Many patients use drugs to reduce pharyngeal pains in otolaryngology. This paper reports the investigation on the actual situation of the related factors such as radiation area or range or dose. It is found that the significant differences are recognized as a order of total radiation dose, internal medicine of painkiller, habit of drinking, history of sleeping pill, diabetic mellitus, stage of cancer, time period, amount of smoking, intake of meal. It is suggested that the discussions are necessary of the timing to use the drugs around 20Gy in total radiation dose.

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Personal Computer Users 'Application technology (PCUA) had done the consultations service of the trouble of the personal computer in the past. However, the questioner was not able necessarily to obtain the answer early because the operator used the key word and it retrieved the database. Therefore, I suggest the system which searches a database without a questioner depending on an operator. This paper explains the outline and the performance of the system that doesn't need the operator and can retrieve it.

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We proposed the procedure using the self-organization critical analysis to the street scene evaluation of historical streets, and submitted the numerical data of the preservation of these street scenes. In this paper, to expand this procedure on the evaluation of a general street scene the procedure for introducing the caption evaluation method and the semantic differential method is shown. The effectiveness is confirmed by analyzing the feature street seen on a nationwide scale, and showing numerical results.

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The approach of the Web accessibility is necessary for all the people to be able to use websites. As the visual elements are very important factors in the website, in our previous study, the visibility of young adults, the elderly and dichromatic vision was evaluated using the simulation filters. In this report, we made a model of discriminant analysis using the results of the paired comparison for predicting the website visibility. As the results, the difference between young adults and the elderly simulation was not confirmed at using the simulation filters. However, apart from the above, at dichromatic vision simulation, the visibility was very low when G-value of RGB is 66 and R-value is small. Therefore, when the character colors in this RGB region are used, the website visibility has to be considered carefully.

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This paper proposes distance-type TS (Takagi-Sugeno) reasoning method, in which the consequent part of fuzzy rule consists of a function. Moreover, learning algorithm is proposed for the distance-type TS reasoning method and applied to the fuzzy discriminant analysis of a diabetes diagnostic data, showing the satisfactory learning results.

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As an extension of TS fuzzy reasoning method, "weighted multi-output type TS fuzzy reasoning method" is proposed in which the consequent part of fuzzy rule is of multi-output type, consisting of output functions with weighting functions. This paper shows learning algorithms for the fuzzy reasoning method by using the steepest decent method, and compares learning results with the cases by simplified reasoning method and TS fuzzy reasoning method by applying to diabetes diagnostic data.

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It has been reported that the maximum and minimum data of the narrow-band (one octave) acoustic waveforms played a key role in the speech synthesis by using the sinusoidal interpolation between two successive extrema. Although two indices of phase and quantization errors of the extrema have closely related to the perception of sound localization, and the form of amplitude envelope, respectively, which has been regarded as a principal carrier of speech waveforms, the interaction between the two has remained unclear as to which is a critical factor in the auditory cognitive system in the previous study. We have, then, measured the mismatch negativity (MMN) of the event-related potentials, by using a repetitive stimulus of a male syallable /kal, randomly replaced at a 14.3 % probability by the synthesis. Salient MMN component has been elicited by the synthesized syllable with 7 % phase error, but not the corresponding one with quantization error. It has been suggested that the two key indices concerning the quality of sound demonstrated the intrinsic features of the cognitive system with superior temporal resolution but inferior sensitivity to noise in amplitude envelope.

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Brain atrophy in CT images is often found in patients with Senile dementia of Alzheimer type (AD), but, occasionally it isn 't prominent in some patients with symptoms of dementia. On the contrary, some patients with few symptoms of dementia sometimes show a remarkable atrophy in their brain CT. This is one of the reasons why the diagnosis of AD in the early stage is difficult. Therefore, it is very important that we develop an explicit method to measure the atrophy objectively. Fractal analysis is a method to estimate the complexity of morphology. In this report, we applied this analysis to patients with AD and investigated the relationship between the fractal dimension of cortex surface and the score of HDS-R (Revised version of Hasegawa s dementia scale). As a result, we could not find out any significant difference between them, unfortunately, in this preliminary study. The further study is needed, but, we think that it will be possible to distinguish fine brain atrophy.

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Rubin (1975) identified seven major characteristics of "good language learners. "I would like to focus specifically on Rubin's assertion that being a good guesser (deriving the meaning of language from context) is essential for language learning. Research has shown that many Asian countries including Japan focus on rote memorization and translation when learning English. However, in my opinion such strategies ignore an essential part of the Japanese experience : Paying close attention to situational norms and context to achieve the desired result. In other words, Japanese people often make very accurate guesses during their personal and professional interactions. Using both outside research as well as my own in classroom exercises as case studies, I will show how Japanese teachers and students can harness this natural ability to learn how to better communicate in English.

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In order for children with disabilities to live a normal life in the community, it is necessary for them to have early diagnosis, early treatment, as well as a support system that considers all life stages. In a small island community, where medical specialists and other social services are scarce, local community networks play an essential role. It is important that these networks include both administrative and private party collaboration, and that they have a way to ensure continuation. Living in this kind of an island situation, we are continually considering how to do this well.

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Body weight and fat deposited in greater omentum were examined with special reference to reproductive success in artificially fed free-ranging female Japanese monkeys ( Macaca fuscata) at Takasakiyama (Oita Prefecture ).Reproductive success was closely related to the body weight and the fat in November just before the mating season. The weight and the fat in pregnant females were higher than those of non-pregnant females.

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It has been reported that the maximum ana7 minimum data of the narrow-band (one octave) acoustic waveforms played a key role in the sound reproduction by using the sinusoidal interpolation between two successive extrema. Although two indices of phase and quantization errors of the extrema have closely related to the perception of sound localization, and the form of amplitude envelope, respectively, which has regarded as a principal carrier of speech waveforms, the interaction between the two has remained unclear as to which is a critical factor in the auditory cognitive system in the previous study. When the sum squared errors between an unmodified sound and the synthesized ones are mutually close, phase error of the extrema in a 3-s synthesized speech and music is larger than quantization error. Besides, Scheffe s pair test has revealed the degradation of the synthesized sounds with phase error, suggesting the cognitive superiority of phase error to noise in amplitude envelope, as well as the introduction of the two new indices sensitive to the sound quality.

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Biometric authentication technology has used the operating system and various applications including PC login devices and validation devices for ATMs for various fields in Japan. In addition to studying the usability of biometrics, I'm also interested in acceptability. In particular, I'm interested in how people will accept (or reject) biometric authentication system. In this paper, I describe acceptability of biometrics with a case study of the student attendance management system by finger vein authentication technology in our university.

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We have quantization method, which is based on Feynman path integral rule. Amplitudes of particles were defined by using both propagators and Gaussian slits. According to that calculating method, we attempted to rewrite the classical AND, OR and NOT gate into quantum expressions named as q-AND, q-OR and q-NOT. Those classical switches were quantized as operators, and general Hamiltonian of switch system were given for basic gates. Logic of switch operators was different from theory of crisp numbers or fuzzy set theory. We showed that the logic ofq-switches satisfies with excluded middle, however, the law of contradiction does not hold true.

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This time the author analyzed the physiological and psychological factors related to the achievements of archery athletes, from the relations of the achievements mainly with the physiological indexes such as heart rate, blood pressure, etc. before a match and the psychological indexes such as the conditions ready for a match, for the archery matches. As a result, the points scored in a mock match were significantly higher in the experienced athletes, compared with the inexperienced ones, and the blood pressures and heart rates before a match (before W-up, immediately before a match) showed a tendency of higher levels, in the experienced athletes, compared with the inexperienced ones. A significant, positive correlation was observed among the match results (total scores), the blood pressures before W-up (diastolic and average pressures) and the heart rates. A significant negative correlation was also observed between the match results (total scores) and the negative scores of the mood scale immediately before a match.

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In the case of the conventional fuzzy reasoning model, the number of the rules increases exponentially with the increase of the input variable. Therefore, it needs too much learning time. This paper proposes SNIRMs (Small Number of Input Rule Modules) conected fuzzy reasoning model. In addition, SNIRMs with deletion of the unnecessary rule modules and deletion of a rule by oblivion learning are proposed to reduce the number of rule modules. In order to show the effectiveness, numerical simulations are performed.

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Cross-linked-polyethylene is used as an insulating layer in high-tension cable. Degradation of polyethylene resin used as cable insulation due to electrical discharge is anticipated. Accordingly, it is considered important to minimize degradation due to oxidization by addition of lithium carbonate. In this study, generation of CO and CH_4 gases from thermal decomposition of polyethylene resin was investigated, and changes in the gas generation rate were measured using pyrolysis gas chromatography. The results of the investigation of inhibition of oxidization are reported.

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The authors discuss the educational evaluation applying fuzzy theory. Besides weighted mean, it is also known that we can evaluate students' work by using approximate reasoning. Based on students' scores of examination and report, it is not difficult to evaluate their performance individually. However, the subjects such as calligraphy and drawing are not easy to evaluate the score of each evaluation item. For this reason, this research is also focused on how to apply fuzzy number to approximate reasoning. First, the authors describe an example of evaluation in mathematics to show the relation between two evaluation methods (weighted mean and approximate reasoning). Second, the authors discuss another example (evaluation of student s calligraphy work) to show that using approximate reasoning is more objective than using weighted mean in this case. When we analyze the fact, we faced a problem that a fuzzy statement is hard to assign to a number which in [0, 1]. Last, the authors discuss that approximate reasoning is extended to approximate reasoning on fuzzy number.

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Inexact information such as human behavior and cognition could be properly analyzed and clarified by applying fuzzy theory. In this paper, the authors present an analysis method of the opinion survey by applying fuzzy graph and also illustrate its practical effectiveness with the case study concerning the sport preference of college students.

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The authors could generally analyze the inexact information efficiently and investigate the fuzzy relation by applying the fuzzy graph theory. We would extend the fuzzy graph theory, and propose a fuzzy node fuzzy graph. And we transform it to a fuzzy graph by using T-norm family. In this paper, we would discuss about four subjects, (1) fuzzy node fuzzy graph, (2) new T-norm "quasi logical product", (3) decision analysis of the optimal fuzzy graph in the Juzzy graph sequence. By using the fuzzy node fuzzy graph theory and this new T-norm, we could clarify the relational structure of fuzzy information, and by using the decision of an optimal level on a partition tree, we could analyze the clustering relation among nodes. Moreover, we would illustrate its practical effectiveness with the case study concerning sociometry analysis.

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