Transient absorption spectroscopy measures the changes in the absorbance of short-lived species generated by photo-irradiation, and gives us the information about dynamic processes in materials or chemical compounds. Rate constants are also determined by measuring time-profiles of the concentration of excited molecules.
By using this method, we can investigate molecular dynamics after photo-irradiation.

We investigate various biological characteristics such as genetics, morphology, physiological reproduction, and nutrition of wild animals, especially small mammals, through breeding and preservation of their breeding stock (e.g., suncus and voles). To elucidate the diverse biosystems in humans and other animals, we aim to create unique animal resources that enable us to obtain knowledge that is difficult to obtain with common laboratory animals (e.g., mice and rats) and to improve their added value.

The final goal of our research is to converse with ants. Ants have long been thought to engage in detailed communication using chemical substances such as pheromones. However, our researchis revealing that acoustic signals are also important toos of communication.We conducte detailed analyses of organs such as “ears” and “sound-producing organs”. It will be able to control the behavior of ants like leaf-cutting ants, which are significant damage against human society.

We have been collaborating with various stakeholders such as the Fukuoka City, Fukuoka Prefecture, and the Ministry of the Environment to control invasive alien ant species such as the red imported fire ant, the yellow crazy ant, and Argentine ant. In Okayama Prefcture, there have been reported of the little fire ant (Wasmannia auropunctata) at Mizushima Port, and we will continue to control and manage these ants.

By using silk produced by silworms, which domesticated in China 6,000 years ago, and the silks spun by black Japanese weaver ant in Okinawa, we conduct research to create new fabric sheets. We hope that as this research progresses, the black Japanese weaver ant can be a symbolic relationship with humans as the fourth demesticated insect.

Japanese quail are the second most reared animal in the world poultry industry (meat and egg production), after chickens. Although suitable environments to improve productivity of domestic quail have been studied, not much is known about their biological characteristics, such as whether they are monogamous or polygamous, how females and males are involved in child rearing, and how they select partners. A better understanding of these issues will contribute to further improvement of quail productivity, and we are conducting behavioral and genetic research by actually raising and observing quail.
We also conduct population genetic and phylogeographic studies to understand how wild animals adapt to and live in their habitats, with focuses on wild animals.

The engine is an essential piece of machinery that is used in vehicles, electricity generators, ships, and so on. However, fossil fuels are limited in their amount and engines exhaust carbon dioxide from the burning of hydrocarbon-based fuels, which is treated as a cause of global warming. Therefore, in order to deal with these problems, an alternative fuel is proposed that is comparable to fossil fuel in terms of fuel properties such as ignitability, calorific value, cold flow properties and oxidation, but which is environmentally friendly. In this laboratory, a study is conducted on the production and optimal usage of alternative fuels such as biofuel (e.g., biodiesel), gaseous fuel, and so on. Combustion technology for engine systems for low fuel consumption rate using natural gas and hydrogen is also studied.

Various industrial products are made of solid materials such as metals, polymers, and ceramics. Although all solid materials deform elastically and plastically when forces are applied, their deformation behavior strongly depends on deformation mechanisms. Therefore, it is indispensable to understand their deformation properties to produce useful machines and durable apparatuses. Our laboratory has been working on subjects that aim to apply solid materials for various engineering applications; clarification and evaluation of deformation properties of engineering materials, study on influences of microstructure upon deformation properties of solids, and development of new forming techniques.

There exist three states of matter, i.e. gas, liquid and solid and a flow in which two or three of these states are mixed is called a multi-phase flow. We analyze the flow and heat transfer of multiphase flows using numerical simulations and visualization systems. The thermal flow in the garbage incinerator and the dough mixing in the noodle dough kneader are analyzed as a flow of mixed solids and gases. Bubbles generated in the molten solder bath are analyzed as a flow of mixed liquid and gas. For such problems, we use open source code e.g. OpenFOAM for simulation. In order to visualize heat and flow, PIV, large-diameter Mach-Zehnder interferometer, system schlieren, and infrared thermal image analyzer are utilized.

Mechanisms that allow humans to recognize and understand 2D drawings in 3D have long been actively studied in the fields of artificial intelligence and mechanical engineering. However, there is no real system until now. In our research, its automation methods have developed. Currently, the main themes are: (1) Sketches are often used to draw new ideas such as mechanical parts. We have developed a method to automatically convert them into 3D models. (2) In the civil engineering and construction industry, IT techniques are being promoted, but it is difficult until now. We have developed a system to automatically convert its 2D drawings into 3D models.

Machine elements such as screws, gears, bearings, shafts, and springs are components needed for mechanisms. The performance improvement of machine elements is essential for that of the mechanical device. Therefore, in the machine design laboratory, we work toward the high performance and high strength of machine elements in terms of materials, machining, and surface treatments. Specifically, we are working on the performance evaluation of plastic gears using gear testing machines, the rolling contact fatigue life evaluation of bearings with a ball-on-disk contact tester, the sliding characteristic evaluation of steel using a high temperature tribometer.

Bone histology is the study of internal bone tissues, and provides important clues to physiological and ecological aspects of extinct animals such as the growth rate, longevities, potential metabolism and aquatic adaptation.
I am currently conducting researches on bone histology of large tetrapods (e.g., dinosaur, mammal and amphibians) to understand their gigantism, dwarfism and aquatic adaptations.

In the case of metal materials are machined, the surface of materials are plastic defomed. Cristal structure of metal surface is strained by plastic deformation. The crystal structure strain changes the chemical property of surface. This phenomenon is called a mechano-chemical reaction. We study the mechano-chemical reaction and the relationship of machining process and material property.

In order to improve the performance of various industrial devices and to make effective use of energy, it is important to understand and control the mechanisms of momentum, heat, and mass transport by turbulent flows. Understanding of turbulent transport phenomena is also essential for accurate prediction of meteorological phenomena. Our specific research topics include: experiments and numerical simulations to elucidate the mixing mechanism of scalars in liquid-phase turbulent jets; measurements of momentum, heat, and mass transport across wind-wave air-water interfaces to improve the prediction accuracy of typhoons; experiments to elucidate the behavior of droplets and bubbles in turbulent flows; and the development of novel devices (plasma actuators) to reduce fluid friction drag.

The mechanical and electro-magnetic characteristics of metals are dependent on microstructures such as crystal orientation and grain diameter. In recent years, comprehensive studies have been carried out on thermo-mechanical control processing to improve physical properties of metallic materials without adding rare elements in order to save energy and resources. For example, high performance metals, such as ultrafine grain steel and magnetic steel, are developed by a combination of rolling and heat treatment. These metals exhibit uniform characteristics. However, it is more efficient if suitable characteristics can be generated at required positions. In our research, a new technology to control only material surface microstructure is being studied.

Global motion in images arises with video camera movement. Estimation of global motion is required for image stabilization, image coding, moving object detection, and so on. We develop a fast and accurate method to estimate global motion from an image sequence that contains moving objects (local motion).

With the spread of Mobile Mapping System (a vehicle equipped with GNSS, laser scanners and cameras), huge point clouds are being accumulated rapidly. My study is to make effective use of this data in current road-related measurement system. And also I’m trying to display this as a high-speed 3DCG via the Internet.

Metaheuristic algorithms such as simulated annealing, iterated local search, genetic evolutionary algorithms are known to be effective optimization methods that can be used for various problems in engineering field. Our research interests are developments, improvements and analyses of high-performance evolutionary algorithms and metaheuristic algorithms based on local search for optimization problems such as Maximum Clique Problem, Graph Coloring Problem, Quadratic Assignment Problem, Facility Location Problem, Vehicle Routing Problem, Scheduling Problems, etc.

Real-world oriented interface is a research field that aims to realize computers supporting our work in the real world. In our laboratory, we are working on the realization of real-world oriented interfaces.

Although computer performance continues to improve, a very long time is required to solve complex calculations such as deep learning, big data processing, and physics simulation. Therefore, we are researching to improve the computing performance of such complex and large-scale problems by parallel processing using GPUs and many-core CPUs.
Moreover, we are developing reconfigurable computing systems based on FPGA technologies and finding efficient computing algorithms with hardware/software co-processing.

I make a study on reliable, efficient and secure information transfer. In recent years, such as digital communication and digital recording device, it is increasingly digitized in a variety of systems. For improving the reliability of the digital system, error control coding technique is used. These areas of research is the field called coding theory. Error control coding techniques have been actually used in such as mobile phones, DVD, QR code, digital TV broadcasting. Decoding methods suitable for hardware implementation for low density parity check codes, and efficient coding methods for digital storage device such as flash memory are studied. we evaluate the performance by computer simulation.

In recent years, almost all digital systems have operated in synchronization with the clock pulse. However, high-frequency clock pulses not only increase the power consumption but also cause instability in the system. In our laboratory, we are working on the applications of an asynchronous circuit without clock pulses, for example, improving the performance of large-scale digital systems and reducing the power consumption of biometric signal processors. The proposed architectures are designed and implemented in the reconfigurable programmable gate array (FPGA), and we are also working on the FPGA-based image processing accelerator for surveillance camera systems and medical diagnostic imaging systems.