In today’s highly complex society, it is difficult to realize the value that each seeks without transcending the traditional boundaries between the public and private sectors, or between providers and consumers, and integrating each other’s resources. In this laboratory, we are conducting research on the ideas and methods of service design that enable to cross boundaries from conventional standpoints, and on the possibility of co-creating new value through their utilization. We are aiming for practical research that overcomes barriers that hinder the revitalization of organizations and regions, such as diffused hotels that renovate vacant houses and stores into lodging facilities and transform entire town into hotels.

Let me introduce the second topic of my research interests:
Consider a situation in which we wish to select items or variables so as to delete the redundant variables or to make a small dimensional rating scale to measure latent traits, variable selection in principal component analysis (PCA) is necessary to identify a subset of variables that represents all variables as much as possible.
In the figure below, the left-hand plot is a scatter plot of the 1st and 2nd principal components (PCs) obtained based on all 19 original variables, and the right-hand plot is based on seven selected variables. Little difference exists between the two configurations of PCs. This illustrates the meaningfulness of variable selection in PCA since selected variables can provide almost the same result as the original variables if the goal of the analysis is to observe the configuration of the PCs.

We can perform the variable selection in PCA as a prior analysis in big data analysis, and apply the proposed selection procedures to other multivariate methods such as factor analysis and correspondence analysis.In this topic, we also study on how to deal with categorical/qualitative data (for the first topic), and how to improve the computation effectively (for the third topic).

Satisfactory communication with others enables us to reduce interpersonal relationship stress and to enhance well-being.
Towards providing communication training that can help people communicate well, I have been studying verbal and nonverbal behavior of dyad, triad or small group in face-to-face and computer-mediated communication. For example, I examined what verbal and nonverbal channels were used by senders, and their channels had effectives on receivers in interpersonal persuasion.
I am currently studying communication behaviors and psychological safety during consensus building.

In sports, which continue to evolve with the development of technology, the focus on sports analytics is increasing year by year, and at the same time, we often see sports analysts with such skills in action. On the other hand, there are still many issues regarding the effective use of data and technology.
In sports analytics, there are two types of information that can be used as weapons: subjective information obtained from experience, intuition, and human relationships, and highly objective information using video and data. Based on this idea, I am working on research to solve problems in the field of sports analytics using data science.

In response to the crisis of social, cultural, and economic sustainability in rural areas caused by declining birthrates and aging populations, the regional management movement, in which industry, academia, government, and the private sector collaborate to solve problems, has attracted attention.
In this laboratory, we support the construction of marketing databases for tourism marketing organizations that practice regional management, while analyzing the information obtained from these databases and examining effective regional management strategies.
There are two topics in this laboratory,
(1) Research on the relationships and roles among entities in effectively functioning regional management,
(2) Research on the construction of a marketing database that contributes to the formulation of regional management strategies and on evaluation indices for regional management.

In Japan, Eigyo is often confused with sales and treated as a subordinate concept of marketing. However, in reality, Eigyo in a company plays a broad role in “connecting” the company with its customers, each department within the company, each department within the customer’s company, partner companies, domestic and overseas, and even society. Our research focuses on Eigyo as a process of business transformation and social problem solving, rather than simply selling products and services, and as a value-creating entity.

I am researching regional revitalization through sports tourism at facilities that utilize local natural capital and public goods. The area has capital that can be used as sports facilities such as sea, hills, rivers, waterfalls, earth lakes, parks, and roads. There are many in Okayama! In addition to large-scale facilities such as stadiums and arenas, we are working to create a playground by utilizing these regional capitals and to attract tourists from cities and overseas to the region.

The environment surrounding sports is changing along with changes in working styles and living conditions. We believe that the power of sports can further improve its attractiveness and enrich people’s lives by collaborating with local communities. We are conducting research on the promotion of sports and local communities, including collaboration between local communities (government, businesses, educational institutions, etc.) and professional and amateur sports clubs, and the creation of sports businesses. We are also engaged in research on the promotion of sports and regional sports businesses.

I collect various data on people’s behavior, attitudes, and psychological states, and conduct research to explore relationships among variables. I focus on social science research methods such as questionnaires and online experiments, but I also aim to conduct research in collaboration with adjacent fields such as humanities and engineering.
In particular, I am interested in understanding mechanisms by which people in a position to evaluate and make choices, such as consumers and users of services, compare objects and make decisions. I am currently focusing on the following research topics. (1) Research on mechanisms by which consumers compare and select products and services bearing brand names or proper nouns such as names of places or people. (2) Research on mechanisms by which tourists, current residents, and prospective residents evaluate attractiveness of regions such as prefectures and municipalities. (3) Research on mechanisms by which users evaluate satisfaction with SNS, the Internet, and services using 5G technology.

There are good times and bad times in sports, so it is said that in the sports business, you should not think on the premise of “victory.” Of course, it’s good for the team to win a lot, but if you rely on it to do business, it’s easy to reduce the number of spectators and sales of goods when the team can’t win very much. Therefore, it is important to have fans who support the team. Those fans are absolutely indispensable when thinking about sports business.
Therefore, I think that if sports fans can clarify the characteristics, sports teams can do “strong management” regardless of their performance, so I research it every day.

Graph representation methods are very useful for data analysis. Our research focuses on devising and developing new visualization methods to visually represent the characteristics of multivariate data and the characteristics of clusters.For example, we have proposed and developed expanded constellation graphs based on the concept of constellation graphs, and have examined its usefulness.
The figure below shows the flavor characteristics evaluated by applying the expanded constellation graph to the flavor data of Scotch whiskey. The graph shows that each cluster is clearly classified. In addition, the lines (paths) show the characteristics and trends of the data.

[Health promotion and lifelong sports]
The important thing is to keep exercising. Sports are also important from the perspective of release stress and mental health. Wearable devices have made it possible to measure heart rate and walking distance during exercise. I promote research that contributes to health promotion and lifelong sports.
[Choice reaction time and performance]
The study of choice tasks leads to improved sports performance. The study of reaction time improved prevent accidents. I am studying reaction time and selection tasks.
[Environmental temperature and physiological stress]
Physiological stress during exercise in a hot or cold environment is evaluated using indices such as heart rate and body temperature. I am studying against heatstroke and prevention of hypothermia.

Financial accounting is an accounting method that companies use to disclose information to the outside world. Since the information is disclosed to external stakeholders, which can be regarded as the company’s performance, the reliability of the information is very important. There are various mechanisms to ensure or enhance the reliability of financial information, and internal audits are one of them. So my research questions are “how do internal audits affect the quality of financial information?” and “what is the relationship between external and internal audits?”. I use statistical methods based on publicly available data from companies to answer those research questions.

I am researching on Value Co-creation Marketing, targeting tourism industry and it was found by providing service of society. The research is related to the SDGs “Goal 17 achieving the goals of parteners. Goal 17-17 promotes the public, public-private and civil society partnerships effectively. It based on the experiences of various partnerships.”
It is important that not only contains hospitality spirit of traditional Japanese, but also to estabilish a system of practice. Therefore, I am going to devote to format the partnership between all participants undering case study. Providing conceptualization and theorization of “realiation of happiness “system to clients (e,g,tourists).

The effcts of chemical substances on living organism depend on animal species and developmental stage. A lot of unexplained subjects exist in these reserch topics. I tackle researches in order to clarify the pathogenesis of lesions induced by chemical substances in various aminal species, such as rat, quail, chicken, medaka and newt in different developmental stages.

Novel technologies to efficiently and safely disinfect agricultural products have been studied. We aim to contribute to food safety and security by developing innovative disinfection methods..

In addition, we have studied the effect of disinfectants against a range of pathogens on different materials, including influenza virus and feline calicivirus (a surrogate of human norovirus) as well as prions (most resistant pathogen). We also analyzed the likely mechanism of pathogen inactivation. Given our focus of research, we would like to collaborate with companies to assist in evaluating products as well as developing new technologies.

(1) I have been studying the prescriptive grammars compiled in the 18th century. I have especially focused on James Buchanan’s works, such as grammar books, dictionaries, and so on, who flourished in the middle of 18th century, in the terms of historical sociolinguistics. One of my main investigating points is that why prescriptive grammars were needed and how grammar books affected the then society and the education in the 18th century. I have also been studying the differences between the usages used by the 18th century authors and the ones in prescriptive grammars, analyzing Buchanan’s grammar books.
(2) I have been studying the contemporary English grammar and usages. Researching the large corpus data of the contemporary English, I have been surveying the differences between the grammar and usages in “school grammar,” that is, prescriptive grammar, and the real ones. The results from the survey have been applied on my teaching English in my classes.

The old cat gradually has decreased kidney function, and many cats often die for chronic kidney disease. Therefore, I can extend the expectation of life of the cat by detecting the decrease of the renal function on the earlier stage, and managing it. I focus on urinary a very small amount of protein excreted as a renal function marker of the earlier stage. I am going to establish simple and easy diagnostic procedure in the chronic kidney disease of the earlier stage by creating the recombinant protein of its marker, and making a monoclonal antibody, and establishing of measurement system. Furthermore, Hyperparathyreosis to be complicated for chronic kidney disease causes mineral metabolism abnormality. We find that parathyroid hormone is connected directly with various symptoms to appear for chronic kidney disease. Therefore I establish simple and easy early diagnostic method of hyperparathyreosis and research the method of use of various phosphate binders which are its therapeutic drug.
Also, in recent years calcium oxalate calculosis increases to a companion animal similar to humans. Therefore I research the mechanism that a calcium oxalate calculus is formed by all things (food, supplement etc) to ingest, and I research a method to inhibit the formation of the calcium oxalate calculus.

Mammalian immune system consists of innate and adaptive immunity. Innate immunity can broadly recognize invading pathogens through various pathogen sensors and responds rapidly. On the other hand, adaptive immunity is more specific and recognizes the peptide from antigens. An antigen presenting cell, dendritic cell, can link innate and adaptive immunity. Recently, it has been revealed that immune responses are involved in and affect various types of diseases including not only immune disorders like autoimmune diseases but also metabolic syndromes, diabetes, neurological disorders, cancer, and so on. I am analyzing immunological and pathological roles of innate immune system, including dendritic cells, in immune disorders and various diseases with genetically modified mice.

We study on the biological characteristics of fish parasites with the aim of disease control. Also, many fish parasites in seafoods have been subject to complaints by comsumers. However, fish parasites normally live in wild environments, and it is crucial to discriminate between harmful and harmless for humans.
To improve the quality of farmed fishes, we try to feed grape pomace, effluent from winemaking, on the immunity and health condition in cultured fishes.