Search

Since 2013, we have been implementing a global project-based learning (PBL) course of our own design. The global PBL course is an engineering education project for fostering innovation and global-mindedness among engineers and scientists. The course is multidisciplinary and multinational, involving industry-academia collaboration in project-focused learning. Project themes are related to sustainable development goals and real-world industry problems. Global PBL programs include two project types: faculty projects and student projects. To implement the global PBL program, the faculty must perform certain project activities such as designing an educational program to improve the international learning environment while implementing, controlling, and continuously improving educational activities. Project deliverables and activities are organized as a work breakdown structure (WBS) prior to the commencement of the project. This process involves defining faculty member roles, preparing a schedule for the preparation phase, and implementing the global PBL program. The faculty plans, executes, monitors, and controls the project. At the end of each year’s global PBL course, the Keep-Problem-Try (KPT) method is used to implement continuous improvement of the course. At the end of the course, the faculty describes the KPTs in line with the WBS items. The KPTs are then collected and shared among the faculty, leading to continuous improvement.

Engineers are required to work in a culturally diverse environment. Many institutions have begun including a global perspective as a part of their education and introduced various types of study abroad programs to improve student’s competencies. The authors conducted a multifaceted evaluation of learning outcomes of short-term courses. These discussions indicated that students who have studied abroad multiple times show higher performance in global competence. It was suggested the evaluation of the programs should also consider the impact on students’ motivation for another study abroad as a process in the educational cycle. This paper presents a case study of a survey that explored how students conceive of a short-term study abroad program and motivate themselves to gain further global experience. The data are based on a quantitative and qualitative questionnaire survey with a sample of 79 participants. The analysis is based on a comparison of students who had previous experience of study abroad with those who participated for the first time. Findings show that short-term programs can enhance student motivation for further global experience, in particular for those who participate as the first step in studying abroad. Participants who have frequently studied abroad tend to be able to acclimatize to a cross-cultural environment and engage deeply with the content of the program.

Since there is improved awareness of the importance of global human resources development at the upper level of organizations, there is a growing demand for developing the top talents across all sectors. To meet the global demand, business schools across the world are stressing on Executive Education, which, according to the Financial Times, has increased by 10% in the 2 years from 2016 to 2017. Business schools are trying to meet the demand mainly by recruiting diverse participants and quality faculty in educational methods. From 2015 to 2018, study data were gathered from 16 business schools across six countries. The survey results on global business schools that focus on Executive Education for senior business leaders are presented. The present study discovered how the business schools improve the senior leaders’ global communication skills to maximize their leadership capabilities in the complex and boundaryless world. This study suggests that Executive Education attracts and develops global top leaders by providing latest education on leadership, strategy, critical thinking, and technology effectively in a diversified environment with quality faculty and global participants.

Professional communication skills are essential to achieve success in career for engineering graduates. Currently, many employers are looking for graduates with strong professional communication skills. The criteria for accreditation of engineering programs by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) also require that communication skills should be integrated into the graduate curriculum. In this study, we present some examples of engineering programs in two Asian universities, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT) in Thailand and Shibaura Institute of Technology (SIT) in Japan, where the professional communication skills of students are developed through university–industry collaborations. Both KMUTT and SIT have implemented educational programs through collaboration with industries to prepare students to deal with globalization and the ever–expanding innovative ecosystem. These programs are designed to help students acquire the required skill sets and work experience as part of their curriculum.

Global communication skills are essential so that engineers can function successfully in global settings. To properly evaluate the outcomes of global communication education for engineering students, we need a measurement tool that incorporates the global communication elements of engineers' professional practice. In this study, the authors developed a list of Can-do statements which measures foreign language communication competency in engineering settings. In the development, the authors adopted the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment (CEFR), and then used the English scores of more than 1800 working engineers and university students to validate the level separation of the Can-do list, which has ten competency levels (from CEFR A1 to C2 with sub-scales) for reception, production, and interaction activities in communication. With the Can-do list, we surveyed 100 personnel managers at Japanese global engineering companies and identified the minimum communication competency levels from engineers. This list has also been used to compare the communication competency of students who participated in global PBL programs with students from different countries. The analysis of the student assessment outcomes suggests that Japanese engineering students need more opportunities or training to enhance their self-evaluations of global communication competency.

This paper describes method and results of assessment of global competency in engineering students who participated in a multicultural and multidisciplinary project based learning course. Subjects are total of 73 students with 14 nationalities from different fields of major. Assessment of collaboration and leadership competency under the global environment were evaluated by plural procedures. It became clear that the course had a certain efficiency to strengthen the global competency in engineering students. The results of correlation analysis suggested that possible factors which can bring out students' abilities under the global environment should be clarified as developing technical communication skill and providing global collaborative working.

To shield the leakage flux densities of 3 T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) higher than 1.5 T MRI and to reduce the degradation of magnetic properties during construction, the design of an open-type magnetically shielded room (MSR) combined with square cylinders made of magnetic and conductive materials should be improved. This paper reports on an optimal design for magnetic cylinders to improve the shielding effect, while also considering ease of construction with a view to practical use. Firstly, the structure of the magnetic cylinders, such as their opening width and the slit width were optimized using a 3D linear magnetic-field analysis. Using optimal magnetic cylinders, when the relative permeability (μ_r) of the magnetic material is larger than 10 000, the reluctance of gaps between the cylinders is the main contributor to the leakage flux. So, the required (μ_r) of the magnetic material is 10 000 and oriented silicon steel is adopted instead of the non-oriented type. Secondly, as an optimal construction method, it was determined by experiment that oriented silicon steel sheets, annealed after bending, should be laminated so that the effect of gaps on butt joints between steel sheets on the magnetic property of the cylinder becomes smaller. This enables the relative permeability of 10 000 when the maximum flux density of the material in the cylinder is less than 1.7 T. Finally, the minimum thickness of oriented silicon steel sheet of cylinders depending on the distance from a 3 T MRI is obtained using linear magnetic analysis under the condition that the maximum flux density of the material of the cylinder is less than 1.7 T. In the case of the thickness of 3.8 mm, the leakage flux density of 3 T MRI is decreased to less than a guideline (0.5 mT) when the distance between the cylinders and the center of MRI is larger than 2 750 mm. This indicates that the optimal design and construction method of an open-type MSR for 3 T MRI composed of magnetic square cylinders are realized.

To improve the comfort of hospital patients, we have developed a new open-type magnetically shielded room (MSR) for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), constructed by stacking square cylinders composed of magnetic material on the inside and a conductive material on the outside. The magnetic cylinder shields against leakage of the magnetic field from the MRI, while the conductive outer cylinder prevents intrusion of the electromagnetic field from outside by waveguide attenuation. First, the optimal design of the magnetic cylinder was determined, using 3-D magnetic field analysis with a simple cubic MSR. Second, the validity of the analysis and the practical realization of the designed MSR were investigated using a small experimental model. Finally, from a design perspective and the standpoint of saving space, the optimal combination of electromagnetically shielded glass and conductive cylinders made of aluminum was studied by measuring the electromagnetic shielding effect. As the optimal design of an open-type MSR for an MRI, we have adopted a combination of single-layered electromagnetically shielded glass together with stacked cylinders. These cylinders are made of a square cylinder, 144 x 144 mm and 300 mm long, made of silicon steel (thickness t =1 mm) and divided into three parts along the axial direction, placed inside a second square cylinder made of aluminum, 150 x 150 mm and 300 mm long (t = 3 mm). This MSR construction technique creates an open, spacious feeling inside the facility and can be easily fabricated at low cost.

This article consists of one slide from the authors' conference presentation. Some of the topics discussed include: What is SDN and why?; What is Lagopus vSwitch?; Packet processing on multi-core CPUs; Issues of CPU centralized processing; Designing concept and architecture; FPGA flow classification & dispatch empowered by SDNet and flow director; Performance vs. Power Dissipation; and Demonstration.

To shield magnetic noise, magnetically shielded rooms (MSR) are used for biomagnetic measurements, etc. To evaluate the shielding factor SF (SF=B n / B s , B n and B s are the flux densities at the center of the room without and with MSR, respectively), the magnetic noise is applied by coils. However, SF depends on the size and position of the coils, so the standard of JEITA (Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association) EM-4502, in which the shielding factor (SF o ) of MSR for the uniform magnetic field in the extremely low-frequency region of less than 1 Hz without eddy current effect is estimated using coils within 10% error [1-2], has been already published [3]. Currently, a standard method for the low-frequency region, e.g. 50 Hz, with eddy current effect is being discussed. In a previous work [4], it was shown that the coil should be placed in front of the door of MSR and a much larger estimation error than 10% should be permitted for practical use in the standard to estimate SF o for the low-frequency region.

In this study, the authors conducted an experiment to see how a background color of Web-based tests (WBTs) can affect the performance of Web-based test takers and their brain activities. Twenty one subjects in their twenties took Web-based English grammar tests and also performed circle-counting tasks on a computer screen with white and light blue backgrounds. Two dimensional images of hemoglobin (Hb) concentration changes in the brain of each subject were recorded by using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). On average, the subjects scored higher on both the English tests and the counting tasks with the light blue background when texts and symbols were presented in black. The NIRS images obtained in the experiment showed that areas in the brain associated with linguistic tasks tended to have higher Hb concentrations for the light blue background than the white background. Also, the brain areas related to eye movements showed higher Hb concentration changes while the subjects were looking at the screen with the white background. Even though the NIRS signals were not analyzed in details, these results suggest that white color may not be the best choice for a background color of a WBT.

In this study, the author conducted a survey on personnel development at small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Tokyo to determine whether they provide their employees with training on international communication. The author has so far interviewed five company owners in Ota City (Tokyo) about their personnel development programs and on-the-job training for new employees in particular. Analysis of the interview responses suggests that there has been a change in SME owners' attitudes toward global communication. Many SMEs now realize that it is very important to give their employees an opportunity to enhance their global communication skills, including for English language, in order to compete in the global marketplace. The results also indicate that SMEs have been forced to react to circumstances created by the dramatic appreciation of the yen. However, the interviews with the SME owners also reveal that they do not have clear strategies for implementing such training. The author will suggest what types of support may be the most effective for international communication programs at SMEs to be successful, and how such support can be integrated into their personnel development programs.

Due to the rapid globalization of the manufacturing industries, the importance of an international company webpage has been increasing for Small and Medium sized Manufacturing companies (SMEs) in Japan. The author conducted a survey on the corporate web pages of SMEs in Ota City, Tokyo to see if the percentage of SMEs having their web pages in foreign languages has changed since 2007. The percentage of SMEs having a foreign language web page was larger in 2010 than the percentage found by a similar survey in 2007, and the number of web pages in English or Chinese had also increased. A result of this study shows that five percent of the SMEs which had their corporate websites only in Japanese in 2007 were put out of business or merged with other corporations, while none of the SMEs having a corporate web page in a foreign language did.

The authors conducted a questionnaire experiment to evaluate a set of pictograms for communication in manufacturing settings. In the experiment, two questionnaires (Questionnaires A and B) were presented to two groups: one group of Japanese-speaking subjects and another group of Thai-speaking subjects. Questionnaire A contained the pictograms with the objects of the intended actions, and Questionnaire B had the pictograms without the objects. The subjects were asked to write the meaning of each pictogram and their interpretations were evaluated and given scores from 0 to 5. Both language groups interpreted the meanings of the pictograms with the objects more correctly than the ones without the objects. The results suggest that the pictograms with properly abstracted signs of the objects can be utilized effectively to help engineers with different language backgrounds communicate with each other at production sites or in maintenance work. The comparative analyses between the two groups show that the Thai-speaking group tended to comprehend the meanings of the tool pictograms less correctly, especially when they were presented without the objects. The analyses also indicate that the comprehensibility of a pictogram using a tool sign can be influenced by language or cultural backgrounds and a clear object sign for the tool sign can lessen the impact of those influences.

To improve amenity for patients in hospitals, we have proposed an open-type magnetically shielded room (MSR) composed of magnetic and conductive cylinders for a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The design method of the opening part, that enables the leakage flux densities outside to be less than 0.5mT, is discussed taking account of magnetic saturation. First, the homogenization technique is applied to the design method of the opening part to reduce the number of elements for cylinders. Moreover, the magnetic characteristic of the opening part is assumed to be linear to obtain the ideal flux distribution. Next, the thickness of the magnetic cylinders is determined using the flux distribution in the real model reproduced from that in the homogeneous model so that the magnetic cylinders are not saturated. Finally, the design method is verified using the realized open-type MSR.

The author conducted a questionnaire survey to investigate the international communication needs of small and medium sized manufacturing enterprises (SMEs) in Ota City in Tokyo. One hundred eighty five companies responded to the questionnaire and representative from twenty six of them were interviewed. The analyses of the survey results showed that many SMEs had shifted from operating merely as a subcontractor to the manufacturing of their own in-house products in order to cope with the globalization of the industry. Although their operations were mainly domestic or connected to Asian countries, about half of the companies responded that English is the most important communication language at the workplace. The analyses revealed that SMEs holding a patent had more business with overseas companies and considered communication in English more important than companies without a patent. On the other hand, many SMEs in Ota City expressed passive attitudes toward overseas operations due to their lack of qualified personnel for international communication.

One of the key elements of a successful presentation is the smooth and clear linking of ideas in and between slides. To achieve this, a presenter needs to know the appropriate language and effective strategies for signaling transitions. With the aim of providing better guidance on signaling transitions in presentations, in this study we will first review the advice given in popular self-help guides aimed at native and nonnative speakers of English. Next, we will compare this advice with the actual language and strategies used by experienced presenters at international conferences through an analysis of presentation transcripts and video footage. Finally, we will discuss some of the implications of this research for instructors of scientific and technical presentation courses.

In a pico-cell architecture, co-channel interference between adjacent cells can cause serious problems. With a centralized control approach based on interference information reported by each subscriber station (SS), we propose a novel channel allocation algorithm applying the graph theory. This method directly determines the optimal channel allocation and minimizes inter-cell co-channel interference. Both computer simulations and experiments based on the implementation demonstrate that our proposed algorithm is effective.

New dielectric materials are being used for reducing electromagnetic interference (EMI) and improving signal integrity (SI). Examples include using high dielectric constant materials for decoupling and thin dielectrics for managing return currents. As the frequency of the signals being propagated through such materials increases, the frequency dependent material properties become very important. We present a method to extract the frequency-dependent dielectric constant and loss tangent of such materials using rectangular power/ground planes. We have also developed a rapid plane solver for fast extraction of material properties and a causal modeling methodology based on the vector fitting algorithm.

The electrical performance of both digital interconnects and embedded RF passives mostly depend on the electrical properties of dielectric materials used in packages and printed circuit boards. The dielectric constant and loss tangent vary as a function of frequency. They need to be accurately extracted in a broad frequency range for successful design of high-performance systems. In this paper, we present a new extraction technique based on the measurement of a rectangular plane pair and curve fitting using a rapid solver. This method is especially applicable to extremely thin dielectric materials that have become available recently. We show the sensitivity of the method to variations in the materials properties, as well as the development of a causal model consistent with Kramers-Kronig relations. This method can be applied to materials with both low and high dielectric constants.

In order to assess how real-world problems in the Q& A segments of international conference presentations are being addressed in English and Japanese self-help guides, the advice given in fifteen English and seven Japanese books were compared with actual difficulties identified in nine transcribed conference presentations. Results show that the English self-help guides virtually ignore the language difficulties encountered by non-native speakers. The Japanese self-help guides, on the other hand, almost completely ignore strategies for a successful Q&A session, instead focusing on set phrases and sentences that appear to have limited value in real-world settings. Recommendations for more appropriate instruction are then provided.

Thin dielectrics with a high dielectric constant are very attractive for improving the decoupling performance of digital and mixed-signal systems. Accurate estimation of the dielectric constant and the loss tangent is important to calculate the impedance profile or the cavity resonances. Extracting the electrical properties of thin and high-K dielectrics is difficult using conventional methods such as microstrip or ring resonators with gaps, as the coupling through the gap becomes very small for an accurate measurement. We present a method to extract the frequency-dependent dielectric constant and loss tangent of such materials using rectangular power/ground planes. We have also developed a rapid plane solver for fast extraction of material properties from such measurements. We applied this rapid solver method to characterize a thin high-K material, but we believe it can be used for thick or low-K materials as well.

In machine tool control, it is known that using the contour errors which are defined as tracking error component orthogonal to desired contour curves, as feedback signals is effective for precision contouring. Since the exact feed drive dynamics must be known in the conventional contouring controller design, we propose a design of robust contouring control system in this paper. We firstly introduce a controller design by which we can assign the controller gain for reducing the contour error independent of tangential error component to the desired contour curves. A robust contouring controller is then designed based on the variable structure control. The effectiveness of the robust controller is demonstrated by experimental results.

Establishing secure channels between a pair of hosts is an attractive way when they want to exchange important data directly. Especially in an IPv6 environment, end-to-end secure communication is required because IPv6 hosts can get global IP addresses easily. IPsec provides various security services for the traffic at the IP layer so it seems to be best suited for this purpose. However, IPsec is difficult to use because there are many parameters to set up for secure channels, and the configuration for IPsec is complicated. This paper proposes an automatic configuration method for setting up the end-to-end secure channels between hosts to use IPsec easily. We also describe the detail design of our proposed method.

At the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, a zero magnetic field is required to test the magnetic characteristics of spacecrafts, satellites and to calibrate magnetometers. This zero-magnetic field is realized by means of a three-axis coil system which can cancel the uniform earth's magnetic field, but cannot cancel magnetic disturbance because of no magnetically shielded room. Therefore, the magnetic disturbance within and in the vicinity of the zero-magnetic field of a Spacecraft Magnetic Test Site (SMTS) is investigated by comparing the results of three-dimensional (3-D) finite-element analysis with measurements. Distributions of the magnetic disturbance due to three hemispherical objects-the roof, the foundation made of concrete, and the hole in the ground for the SMTS building-are analyzed and compared with those measured by a proton magnetometer. Consequently, it is shown that the hemispherical hole in the ground for the SMTS building, which has weak magnetism and is a little higher than that of concrete, generates a weak magnetic disturbance in the zero-magnetic field of the SMTS

Excimer lasers are currently applied for factory manufacturing of poly-Si TFT panels. Compared with excimer lasers, DPSS green lasers have stable pulse energy and infrequent maintenance and they are better suited for mass production of poly-Si TFT panels with higher quality and lower cost. Since the prototype had just insufficient beam length of less than 30 mm for poly-Si TFT panel production, we have developed 100-200 mm long beam homogenizer. In this paper, we present the developed long beam homogenizer optics and the large area lateral Si grain growth process using the practical long beam. This crystallization technique is aimed for manufacturing of poly-Si TFT of LCD (liquid crystal display) and OLED (organic light emitted display)

Electromagnetic radiations of power bus with embedded decoupling capacitor composed of different insulator thicknesses were investigated for two case: with on-board global capacitors and without them. In order to distinguish the common mode radiation of the power bus due to shoot-through current from normal mode radiation, two different lengths of signal traces were compared. It has been proved that radiated emission due to shoot-through current was reduced over the wide frequency range by the PCBs with thinner insulators without on-board global capacitors, and was reduced in the limited frequency range by the PCB with relatively thick insulator and on-board global capacitors.

When a disaster occurs, as so many people try to confirm the safety of disaster victims, network sometimes becomes congestion state. Also, at the time of calamity, network infrastructure may break down. To cope with the situation, we propose a disaster communication system, which can rapidly reconstruct the network infrastructure, and dose not force disaster victims unusual operations. We adopt WAPL (Wireless Access Point Link), that is an original mesh network, and QMS (Quasi-Mail Server) that works as a mail server. Disaster victims do not need to be aware of the existence of WAPL and QMS. We have implemented the basis of the system, and confirmed the operations.

This paper describes the optimal design of magnetically shielded room used for measurements of extremely weak magnetic fields such as biomagnetic measurements, in which the higher shielding factor is required in the frequency range from 0.01 Hz to several ten Hz at a low cost. The 3-D magnetic field analysis is carried out by using the finite element method taking account of eddy currents to estimate an effective combination of magnetic and conductive layers for the design of wall and door. It is confirmed that as regards the wall design, an Al layer itself can increase the shielding effect by a sandwiched PC-Al-PC (PC: permalloy, Al: aluminum) combination even at frequencies at which only Al layer has no shielding effect. When the wall is composed by four layers [PC (inner)-PC (middle)-Al-PC (outer)], the door composed by the Al and outer PC layers is supposed to be optimal from the standpoints of shielding effect and cost. Its shielding factor is comparable to that of the door composed by Al, inner and middle PC's.

This paper first discusses the objectives of connectionless cell switching services within Broadband ISDN which is to be developed as an ATM connection-oriented network. It then pro- poses networking techniques for the support of connectionless cell switching services. Schemes which are especially discussed here are addressing and routing mechanisms, and message-based connectionless cell transer schemes suited to connectionless message transportation between users such as LANs and MANs. Finally, this paper presents nodal architectures in which a message switch is proposed to realize an efficient andflexible deployment of connectionless switching, along with a performance evaluation based on an M/G/I queueing model. The connectionless cell switching schemes described in this paper are intended to provide high performance data com munications in B-ISDN for the use of LAN and MAN, which are considered to be a potential initial application of B-ISDN.

A Superconducting Magnetically Shielded Room (SMSR) has been developed. Superconducting panels are soldered to form a shielding wall of which the soldered connections have normal conduction. Therefore, the Shielding Factor (SF) of the SMSR degrades especially at low frequency, which is different from a superconducting shielded room without a normal conductive connection. A permalloy box is combined inside the SMSR to improve the SF. The combination (CMSR) shows a SF of 2,000 at 0.3 Hz and 100,000 at 10 Hz. The SF of the CMSR exceeds the product of the SF of the SMSR with the SF of the permalloy box. This peculiar tendency of the CMSR is validated by a 3-D magnetic field analysis. The maximum SF is obtained with zero distance between the walls.

In this paper, we describe the initial research and results of a project designed to investigate the literature and practice of oral presentations in international contexts, where the language of delivery is English and the presenters or members of the audience include nonnative speakers. Advice from books and journal articles on oral presentations, published in English or Japanese, was gathered and compared, and then contrasted with observations made on actual presentations by computer science faculty. The research revealed where similarities and differences exist among the publications, as well as where similarities and differences exist when compared to actual practice. General guidelines for making successful oral presentations were generated, along with a list of problematic issues, which require further investigation.

This work describes the research and results of a project designed to identify significant problems in English research papers authored by Japanese researchers, for whom English is a foreign language. Research text written by Japanese students, faculty, and corporate researchers in a wide range of scientific and technical fields was obtained in draft or final form for analysis, along with input from research writing instructors and editors working in Japan, to discover persistent language problems and describe them for educational purposes. The problems identified were also compared with those commonly covered in writing handbook designed for native or normative speakers to evaluate the suitability of popular texts to address these problems. Results from the study provide useful and reliable information, for Japanese writers as well as for teachers and editors of Japanese writers, which greatly clarifies significant gaps in writer knowledge that will likely need to be addressed at advanced levels of English research writing instruction specifically tailored for Japanese researchers.

Effective integration of heterogeneous databases and information sources has been studied as the most pressing challenge in various fields; such as, corporate data management and life sciences. In this paper, we present an information integration system for drug discovery by employing grid technology. Drug discovery involves a number of stages including disease modeling, target protein identification, lead compound identification, and clinical trials. Each stage requires its own specific type of data and many of them are stored in their databases. However, those databases are independently operated and their schema and data description are much diverged since they are based on various data domains and research backgrounds. Furthermore, the amounts of the databases have been increased very rapidly due to the completion of the human genome project. To cope with these issues, we utilize grid technology for integrating various information and develop metadata for describing relationships between heterogeneous data that belong to different domains (such as, protein-compound interactions). The effectiveness of our system is demonstrated by evaluating results of several example queries and by measuring processing times against geographically separated databases.

Now that the human genome project has been completed and the human genes have been identified, genome-based drug discovery is starting to play a major role. It involves the process of target and lead identifications; identifying proteins (or drug targets) causing the disease, and identifying the lead compounds that would counteract them. We have developed a system for accelerating drug discovery, especially focusing on the lead identification. The system is based on Globus Toolkit3/OGSA-DAI and is accessible through the OGSA grid data service. In this system, we have designed meta-databases for integrating information on disease, proteins (drug targets) and ligands (lead compounds). Using this system, one could easily screen a large library of compounds for ligands of a given protein, just by specifying the protein sequence. The effectiveness of our system is demonstrated by measuring the performance of the lead identification of several target proteins, such as nuclear receptors.

We have been developing robots as a communication media. This paper focuses on the latest development named GestureMan 2. We used ATLAS, which was developed at ATR to control the robot in proportion to a remote person's walking and head movement. Our experiment with the system showed that co-present persons got better impression on the robot when it was controlled with a conventional joystick. From this result, we noticed that for this kind of robot to have an affinity to people, not only its figure but also its motion should be properly designed.

Although many tele-medicine experiments have been conducted, the project reported here takes different approach. Equipment specifically developed for medical use has often been introduced in previous tele-medicine projects. This project aims to evaluate how common products and technologies of the Internet can be utilized in tele-medicine applications. Our experiments show that products such as Wireless LANs and video-telephony over Windows PCs can be utilized for tele-medicine in rural islands. Useful observations on the promotion of Internet based tele-medicine are also presented.

Summary form only given. In order to grasp the area at which biomagnetic measurements (BMM, >10/sup -12/ T) and ion beam plots (IBP, >10/sup -7/ T) for semiconductors are affected, a method of predicting the amplitude of fluctuations of magnetic fields (IMF) at low frequencies is investigated. Such IMF occurrs due to the movement of objects composed of magnetic materials such as doors and elevators in buildings. In the proposed method, the 3-D finite element method is applied to the calculation of magnetization M in the object, and then Biot-Savart's law is used to evaluate the flux density B far from the objects.

Summary form only given. The shielding effect of a magnetically shielded room (MSR) should be designed for biomagnetism by taking into account the S/N ratio of the biomagnetic signals and the environment magnetic field noise (EMFN), (generated by the movement of automobiles), and for semiconductors by the ratio of the noise level required by the integration of ion beam plots to the EMFN. This paper describes the characteristics and method of predicting the amplitude of the fluctuation of magnetic field (FMF) at any distance and height due to automobile movement.

In our previous work (1998) we have shown that walking can be implemented on quadrupeds with stiff legs and only one actuated degree of freedom in the hip, based on the concept of controlled momentum transfer. In this paper we show via simulations and experiments on two different quadruped robots that dynamically stable and robust walking can be achieved via an open loop controller which is active only during the back leg support phase.