Recently, the demand for nursing care services has been increasing in Japan due to the aging of the population. Addressing this increase in demand is an urgent issue, necessitating a qualitative shift in nursing care services. Proposals for new caregiving support measures utilizing welfare equipment are deemed effective in addressing such an issue. Thus, a Human Interface-type pointing device (Face-input Pointing Device: FPD) has been developed to promote the self-support of individuals requiring caregiving. The FPD can be controlled only by head movement, utilizing the head posture angle and masseter muscle electromyography (EMG) as control signals. However, aging may affect the operation of FPD due to a decrease in occlusal force and masseter muscle EMG potentials. Namely, investigations targeting a wide age range are necessary. In this study, the reliability of FPD operation by age group was evaluated. Test subjects were males in their 10’s to 30’s and 40’s to 50’s. In the experiment, masticatory ability (Occlusal force, occlusal pressure, occlusal contact area, etc.) measurement, masseter muscle EMG measurement and FPD operational test were conducted. The effect of aging was analyzed based on the relationship between EMG potentials and masticatory ability. In the operation test, the operational reliability of the FPD was evaluated based on the task success rate. As a result, 96.6 % of test subjects did not fall into the low occlusal force category, and task success rates were high (> 90 %), indicating that people in 10’s to 50’s are suitable candidates for FPD adaptation. On the other hand, when targeting older individuals with reduced masseter muscle EMG signals, distinguishing between EMG signals and noise may become challenging using current electromyographs. Therefore, further noise reduction measures in electromyographs for the elderly are necessary.

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Automatic music transcription, which is primarily the conversion of sound into a symbolic representation such as sheet music, is one of the major tasks in the field of music and computers. One of these tasks, automatic drum transcription, focuses on a drum set consisting of various percussion instruments, and detects which instruments are struck and at what timing, and converts them into symbolic representations. In previous studies, automatic music transcription has been processed mainly using only acoustics as an input. However, methods that use only acoustics as an input often have difficulty in scoring polyphonic instruments and in scoring sounds recorded in an environment where background noise is present. One possible solution is to use automatic music transcription based on visual information from a video recording of a person playing a musical instrument. Therefore, this study focuses on snare drums, one of the main instruments in a drum set, and examines the possibility of detecting the onsets (i.e., the physical time when a certain drum is hit) under monophonic conditions from silent performance videos. As a specific method, we first fine-tuned the pre-trained ResNet-18 into a binary classification model using images of onset and non-onset. Then, the classification accuracy and final layer output of the evaluation data were verified. The results of the validation experiments show that the onset can be detected with high accuracy.

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Akamoku (Sargassum horneri) is brown algae widely distributed along the coast of Japan except in eastern Hokkaido. Although it is traditionally considered inedible in many regions, it has gained popularity nationwide as a food source. When boiled, this species turns vibrant green and develops a distinctive sticky texture. We aimed to explore the effect of incorporating commercially available boiled Akamoku or microwave-boiled Akamoku into breakfast or lunch meals along with rice on postprandial blood glucose dynamics. The experiment included three distinct test meals: a standard meal comprising rice, soup, and seasoning; an Akamoku-enriched meal incorporating commercially available processed Akamoku with standard components; and a microwave-boiled Akamoku meal with standard meal components. The blood glucose dynamics in these three dietary conditions were compared among healthy adult male and female participants using the FreeStyle Libre® flash glucose monitoring system. The results suggested that both boiled Akamoku and microwave-boiled Akamoku exhibited a notable effect in suppressing the rate of blood glucose increase. However, no significant influence on the reduction or delay in the maximum postprandial blood glucose level, rise value, rise and fall times, or incremental area under the curve was observed. These findings indicate that while the ingestion of boiled or microwave-boiled Akamoku effectively attenuates the rapid postprandial rise in blood glucose levels, it does not impede bodily absorption of sugars or nutrients.

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Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) is a self-reported sensory phenomenon, in which people experience a tingling sensation across the scalp and back of the neck in response to specific triggering stimuli. The aim of this study was to examine whether the level of ASMR can be quantitatively assessed using electromyography. Six ASMR videos were viewed by twenty healthy young subjects. Electromyography was used during the viewing of each video, and a questionnaire on ASMR levels was administered after each video. The results showed that the top two videos out of six were the same for both self-reported levels of ASMR and electromyography amplitudes. Levels of ASMR sensation showed a statistically significant correlation with electromyography amplitudes. In particular, for the tingling sensation, the higher the sensation level, the larger the electromyography amplitude. Multiple regression analysis showed that the level of ASMR sensation had a significant influence on electromyography amplitude. Our findings may suggest that electromyography could be used as an objective way of assessing ASMR levels.

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Yttria- and scandia-stabilized zirconia are pivotal in solid-state oxide fuel cell research owing to their exceptional oxide ion conduction properties. In addition, the similarity between Hf and Zr, combined with their abundance, underscores the significance of exploring yttria-stabilized hafnia as a potential alternative. In this study, we aim to enhance our understanding of the properties and potential applications of such materials in sustainable energy technologies. Thus, the effect of the Zr/Hf ratio on the oxide ionic conductivities of (ZrxHf1-xO2)0.9(Y2O3)0.1 compounds is investigated by varying the Zr/Hf ratio in the range of 1.00/0.00/0.00/1.00. We determined that the oxide ionic conductivity intragrain decreases with increasing Hf contents, and the apparent activation energy with respect to the oxide ionic conduction increases. The standard enthalpy of formation per one oxygen atom is –572.35 and –550.28 kJ mol-1 for Hf-O and Zr-O, respectively. In addition, it is confirmed that the Hf-O bond is stronger than the Zr-O bond. Therefore, it is assumed that oxide ion conduction does not occur easily when Hf atoms are adjacent to oxide ions.

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A Li-ion battery consists of two active materials, namely positive and negative electrodes, and an electrolyte in contact with both. Because they use both liquid and solid electrolytes, all-solid-state Li-ion batteries, which are composed entirely of solids, are expected to outperform electrolyte-based batteries in terms of safety, lifetime, and power output. In this paper, we propose an experimental material that enables students to fabricate an all-solid-state Li-ion battery in air and evaluate its charge/discharge characteristics using a direct-current (DC) voltage and current source/monitor. Sheets of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) with 30 wt% Li nitrate (30%LiNO3-PVA) were used as the Li electrolyte. Li cobaltate (LiCoO2) and acetylene carbon black C were used as the anode and cathode, respectively. All-solid-state Li-ion batteries were constructed using 30%LiNO3-PVA sheets and C-30%LiNO3-PVA anodes and LiCoO2-C-30%LiNO3-PVA cathodes placed on either side of the sheets. Using a DC voltage and current source/monitor, good charge/discharge characteristics were obtained after constant-current charging and discharging. A constant-current charge of 5.7 mA cm-2 was applied at room temperature in air for 10 min, achieving a voltage of 3.6 V. During the constant-current discharge of 57 μA cm-2, the voltage was 1.4 V at the start of discharge, and a voltage drop of 2.2 V was observed. Thereafter, stable discharge continued until a voltage of 1.1 V was obtained after 20 min. Thus, a low-cost, safe, and effective all-solid-state Li-ion battery for student experiments was realized.

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This article examines the characteristics of Virtual YouTuber (VTuber) names by comparing them with human names. Especially, it focuses on differences caused by the fact that some constraints and restrictions on human names are not applied to VTuber names. VTuber names are freer because the constraints and restrictions on human names are not applied. Specifically, when giving names to VTubers compared to humans, (1) there are no constraints on varieties of usable characters (only Chinese characters, hiragana, and katakana are usable for human names: other types of characters such as Arabic numbers, alphabets, and marks are prohibited), (2) there are no constraints on varieties of usable Chinese characters (there is a constraint on varieties of Chinese characters for human names: 2,999 characters), (3) people can decide first names (forenames) of their own VTubers by themselves (first names of humans are given by others such as parents and guardians), and (4) people can decide last names (surnames) of their own VTubers by themselves (last names of humans are automatically set as a family member in most cases). These differences in the constraints and restrictions produce various differences between VTuber names and human names. The fact that people can freely give names to VTubers reflects the high level of freedom VTubers have in their activities and also creates this freedom itself. Moreover, investigating the differences between VTuber names and human names clarifies how human names are constrained and restricted.

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The anteater program is a method to acquire similar knowledge to experts, for example animal classification etc. This program acquires knowledge itself and can be also applied to other areas. And, this program does not have a built-in database. In this paper, an improved anteater program is proposed to narrow down main dishes potentially desired to be eaten as an association support system. The subjects firstly registered some dishes (main dishes) in the system as a process, which they had eaten before, and the impressions for each dish were recorded at the same time. Some questions were created to narrow down the dishes potentially desired to be eaten based on these impressions. As the subjects answered a series of questions, they could associate the dishes that they might potentially desire to eat, and this process continues until the name of the dish is finally concluded in the system. This system is a learning system. When the concluded dish name is not the dish the subject desires to eat, new questions are added for a binary tree so the subject can reach the name of the desired dish.

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The number of skyscraper buildings is increasing mainly in big cities. The delay of elevators in these skyscrapers has become a major problem during busy times when commuting to work or returning home. In this study, a new type of elevator operation method is proposed to reduce this subject. An elevator car (‘kago’ in Japanese) that carries passengers is lifted up with a cable and only moves up and down in an ordinary elevator. However, the elevator car can move up and down, left and right, and forward and backward in this proposed elevator system. And, the car has electric gear wheels attached to the four corners (left and right, front and back of the car). It can run on electricity. Elevators dedicated to ascending and descending (these are called main elevators in this paper) and elevators capable of normal vertical movement are installed. The main elevators are fast (high-speed elevator) and these elevators are configured to stop only on floors with many users (for example, the 1st floor, 10th floor, 20th floor, etc.). Low-speed elevators will be operated between the floors where the high-speed elevators do not stop for both ascending and descending. Though there is one elevator car in a common elevator, there are multiple elevator cars in the proposed system. When it is crowded, those elevator cars can be moved from the left and right or front and rear, and it consists of multiple cars per unit (elevator) and can move for ascending and descending. When the number of passengers of an elevator decreases, the number of cars is adjusted by evacuating the car to the left and right, front and rear areas. The multiple cars in the left/right elevator or front/back elevator on the 1st floor can be stored. And, these cars can be stored in the left/right elevators or in the front and rear elevators on the top floor. With this three-dimensional elevator system, an elevator car that reaches the top floor in an elevator that only goes up is moved to an elevator for only going down. An elevator car that has reached the bottom floor in a down-only elevator is similarly moved to an up-only elevator (like drawing a loop). In addition, cameras are installed at each top front of ascending and descending elevators (main elevator) and they can count the number of people waiting. The number of elevator cars in operation is adjusted according to the number of passengers. This method can improve the time efficiency of the elevator.

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