E-Mail Based Mobile Communication System for Interactive Lecture Support

The authors of this chapter present an e-mail based mobile communication system for interactive lecture support. This system consists of: attendance management subsystem, attendance history management subsystem, short examination management subsystem, questionnaire subsystem, and assignment delivery subsystem. Both students and teachers mainly use only e-mail functions and it can access the server. This system can be used regardless of terminal models only if mails can be sent and received through the Internet. In this chapter, the outline of this system is described, and the functions and effects are discussed.

Modern Diffusion of Products with Complex Network Models

In this chapter, some important matters of complex networks and their models are reviewed shortly, and then the modern diffusion of products under the information propagation using multiagent simulation is discussed. The remarkable phenomena like “Winner-Takes-All” and “Chasm” can be observed, and one product marketing strategy is also proposed.

Development of a 4D Visualization Tool for Construction Planning

This chapter presents the implementation of a system that visualizes the construction process using 3D modeling data and schedule data to analyze construction planning. Previous papers have emphasized the benefits of visual 4D planning that combines 3D modeling data and process schedule data for work progress control. The proposed methodology offers rapid visualization of work performance with scheduled activity and facilitates construction planning and schedule inspection. Consequently, it should increase productivity and reduce rework. However, even major construction companies will not adopt such a work style, because the existing, well-organized way of working would not be readily changed unless the new style is proven to afford benefits that outweigh the effort and cost required to adapt to the style. The advanced CAD system, for example, is able to simulate the assembly process, and the advanced 3D graphic designer is able to animate the arrangement of objects. Even though each software provides multiple functionalities, the applications in practical use are all independent and specific, such as CAD for designing 3D models, and a project manager for scheduling and analyzing. Therefore, a system that integrates all outputs from each application is required to move from the conventional work style to the new one. This chapter, thus, aims to develop a system that integrates several types of data and enables the simulation of the construction progress by gradually showing 3D models according to the activity schedule. It is also possible to attach material data to each object and to display related information like cost and object properties. The system assumes the following requirements: (1) to import and display the 3D modeling data, (2) to import the project schedule, (3) to link each model and activity, (4) to give the material data on each object to enhance reality, and (5) to show cost accumulation. These functions are supposed to be realized such that the system utilizes the resources previously reserved. Therefore, the system should be able to import a DXF format file for 3D modeling data and access the MDB format database for the project schedule, including costs. The MDB file is originally a database that Microsoft Access creates. Microsoft Project, which is probably the most widely used software for project management, is also able to export the project data in this format. These functions are implemented with Microsoft Visual C++ and DirectX SDK. Although the system displays inaccurate models partially because of the misinterpretation of the DXF file, all of the demands listed above are satisfied currently. The authors of this chapter are now at the stage of implementation of further functions, that is, to display not only structures but also other elements such as the temporal space on the site, the route of delivery vehicles, and the work area of the temporally used heavy machinery, all for the sake of the visualization and analysis of the entire construction site.

Study on Image Quality Assessment with Scale Space Approach Using Index of Visual Evoked Potentials

This chapter presents an objective assessment method of image quality using visual evoked potentials (VEPs) to image engineer field based on multi-disciplinarily approach such as knowledge of neurobiology, image recognition theory, or computer vision. The multi-disciplinarily based objective assessment method applies Gaussian scale-space filtering in order to define a scalar parameter to depict blur image. In the experiment, visual stimuli are provided by the scalar parameter, and subjects are detected using VEPs. Their VEPs are recoded during observation of the checkerboard pattern reversal (PR) stimuli, and are analyzed with a latency of about Negative 145 msec (N145) component. The result of the experiment was that latency of N145 components were long about10-20 msec when parameters were large vale (more blur). This result shows one example of availableness for the multi-disciplinarily based objective assessment of image quality by integrating the pattern reversal visual evoked potential (PR-VEP) and the scale-space theory.

Need and Possible Criteria for Evaluating the Effectiveness of Computer-Mediated Communication

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) has been a ‘hot’ topic in computer-assisted language learning (CALL); however, its effectiveness remains uncertain. This chapter reviews the nature of CMC, pinpoints the advantages and disadvantages of incorporating it into language learning, considers factors that may affect the quality of CMC, and identifies possible directions for future studies. The author argues that sound criteria are lacking for the evaluation of the effectiveness of CMC and attempts to identify a set of possible criteria for classroom-based studies drawing from literature in language teaching and learning. The author also urges engineers to consider these criteria when designing new software, so that end users can conveniently measure its effectiveness and record their own progress.

Improvement of Lecture Speech Recognition by Using Unsupervised Adaptation

The aim of this work is to improve the recognition performance of spontaneous speech. In order to achieve the purpose, the authors of this chapter propose new approaches of unsupervised adaptation for spontaneous speech and evaluate the methods by using diagonal-covariance and full-covariance hidden Markov models. In the adaptation procedure, both methods of language model (LM) adaptation and acoustic model (AM) adaptation are used iteratively. Several combination methods are tested to find the optimal approach. In the LM adaptation, a word trigram model and a part-of-speech (POS) trigram model are combined to build a more task-specific LM. In addition, the authors propose an unsupervised speaker adaptation technique based on adaptation data weighting. The weighting is performed depending on POS class. In Japan, a large-scale spontaneous speech database “Corpus of Spontaneous Japanese (CSJ)” has been used as the common evaluation database for spontaneous speech and the authors used it for their recognition experiments. From the results, the proposed methods demonstrated a significant advantage in that task.

E-Cocreation of Knowledge through Informal Communications

It is pointed out that the 21st century is an era of knowledge creation where productivity of knowledge is more important than the productivity of things. Therefore, improvement of the productivity of knowledge is an urgent demand from public organizations i.e., industry, academia and government as well as personal individuals. As a method to achieve it, knowledge management systems have recently been studied and developed. However, there have been few cases that could successfully improve the productivity of knowledge; many systems have been installed but not used. One of the principal problems of the ordinary attempts is, I think, the unbalanced way for sharing the knowledge. For example, experts are required to voluntarily provide their professional knowledge to create and to maintain a knowledge-base with many efforts so that novices as free riders can readily exploit the knowledge-base without any efforts. In order to solve and/or to avoid this problem, I focused on informal communications by chance as places for sharing knowledge and my laboratory has been constructed various e-cocreation systems to support sharing and creating knowledge in the informal communications. This chapter introduces some of the research efforts conducted in the author’s laboratory.

Parallel Computing for Mining Association Rules in Distributed P2P Networks

Distributed computing and Peer-to-Peer (P2P) systems have emerged as an active research field that combines techniques which cover networks, distributed computing, distributed database, and the various distributed applications. Distributed Computing and P2P systems realize information systems that scale to voluminous information on very large numbers of participating nodes. Data mining on large distributed databases is a very important research area. Recently, most work for mining association rules focused on a single machine or client-server network model. However, this traditional approach does not satisfy the requirements from the large distributed databases and applications in a P2P computing system. Two important challenges are raised, one is how to implement data mining for large distributed databases in P2P computing systems, and the other is how to develop parallel data mining algorithms and tools for the distributed P2P computing systems to improve the efficiency. In this chapter, a parallel association rule mining approach in a P2P computing system is designed and implemented, which satisfies the distribution of the P2P computing system well and makes parallel computing become true. The performance and comparison of the parallel algorithm with the sequential algorithm is analyzed and evaluated, which presents the parallel algorithm features consistent implementation, higher performance, and fine scalable ability.

Advances in Privacy Preserving Record Linkage

However, even though many solutions have been proposed towards addressing this problem, a new side effect rises regarding the privacy of the data which usually has to be protected during linkage. Sensitive information such as names, addresses, and illnesses, especially in cases of medical data, should not be revealed without further evidence to any participant of the merging procedure. This raises the need of creating new techniques for linking data while, at the same time, the privacy of the subjects described by these data is preserved. This need led to the evolvement of a new research area called privacy preserving record linkage. This chapter will attempt to present the state of the art of the methods proposed to address the privacy preserving record linkage problem and provide a taxonomy of these techniques based on their core characteristics.

The Role of Semiconductor Distributors in the Japanese Semiconductor Market

In 2009, the global semiconductor market was worth $219.6 billion. Japan has the third largest semiconductor market at $38.3 billion, behind America and China. Japan has a unique semiconductor distribution system based on close relations between semiconductor distributors and major IDMs (integrated device manufacturers), electronics manufacturers, and automobile manufacturers. Because of this, it is difficult for overseas semiconductor manufacturers and fabless semiconductor companies to enter the market. Semiconductor distributors play a significant role in Japan’s semiconductor distribution system. The semiconductor market here has four main characteristics. These characteristics are the reason why Japan’s semiconductor distribution system has developed the way it has.