Social Communication Laboratory

Professor: Yoshio Nakatani, Ph.D.

Research themes of our laboratory includes disaster mitigation information systems, intelligent transportation systems (ITS), community support systems and other systems based on cognitive engineering technologies.

Current Research Themes:

1. Fond memory retrieval support and management system for those who have lost triggers of memories by disasters
2. Navigation support system that considers driver’s spatial cognitive features (poor sense of direction)
3. Case-based snow clearance direction support system for unskilled directors
4. Multi-agent based evacuation support framework in closed public spaces (e.g., underground shopping centers)
5. Evacuation support framework for visitors who have less knowledge of a city
6. Disaster education system that teaches potential troubles in daily lives by using past trouble cases
7. Disaster shelter management system that predicts necessary goods based on similar shelters in past disasters
8. Disaster volunteer management system that considers importance of required skills by using AHP
9. Music recommendation system that considers emotion by color selection
10. Evacuation simulation system of vehicles and people
11. Advanced electronic disaster manual which simulates officer’s tasks and group interactions in disaster
12. Business Continuity Management (BCM) support systems

Yoshio Nakatani Profile:

1981 B.A. in Sociology (Social Psychology) at Osaka University
1981 Mitsubishi Electric Corp. Central Research Lab.
1989 Mitsubishi Electric Corp. Industrial Electronics and Systems Lab.
1989 Ph.D. in System Science at Kobe University
1991-1992 Visiting Researcher at Center for the Study of Language and Information of Stanford University in USA
1999-2001 (temporal transfer) Dosys corp. (highway consultant)
2001-2002 Mitsubishi Electric Corp. Kansai branch of Social Information System Technology Department
2002-2004 Mitsubishi Electric Corp. Public Use e-Solution Center

2004 Ritsumeikan University

Research Topics:

The main theme to research of Social Communication Lab have been summarised in PDF.
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Research Themes of Nakatani Lab.

Previous Research Themes:

• Evacuation simulation based on human cognition and leadership
• Large area evacuation support system considering why people will not evacuate
• Time-series analysis of evaluation structure of elevator users
• Learning method of elevator user traffic patterns
• Office analysis tool by task interaction simulation
• Design support system of elevator control by case-based approach
• Case-based helpdesk support system of water-treatment system
• Rule-base tuning method by case-based approach
• Fault diagnosis of plant control systems by fault cases and diagnosis rules
• Design evaluation system of central control panel of nuclear power plant by simulating operators’ cognition and behavior
• Maintenance support system of plant equipment by augmented reality
• 3D visualization of plant parameters
• Application user support by intelligent interface agent
• Analogy based learning support environment for novice users of UNIX
• Advanced road management system by introducing ITS technologies
• Tsunami hazard mitigation system from the viewpoint of human interface