In order to conduct animal experiments with due consideration for animal welfare, we are improving to improve experimental techniques and management methods for experimental animals, and the breeding environment. Since we humans and animals can only communicate non-verbally, we are interested in assessing the needs of animals. We are studying pain assessment and temperature management in postoperative mice by setting up an environment that is selective for the animals.
We also view dog walking as a “joint activity between owner and dog,” and research the health promotion of dogs and their owners through dog walking. Dog walking have been reported to have a positive effects on the physical and mental health of dogs and their owners. We are currently researching heat stroke prevention for dog owners and dogs during dog walking from the perspective of safe health promotion.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is one of the major causative diseases for dementia. Characteristic AD pathology, such as amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles, are observed in aged animal brains, suggesting that AD pathology would be the sign of brain aging. Zoobiquity is an approach to investigate and treat diseases without any distinction of species. I have been working on the studies to clarify the mechanism of brain aging and the pathogenesis of AD by using nonhuman primates. I am also interested in how neuronal activities affect membrane traffic system in neural cells.

When injection substances such as anesthetics to experimental animals, they should be pharmaceutical or veterinary grade or the Japanese Pharmacopoeia products, and scientific justification is required for the use of non-pharmaceutical grade compounds. Pentobarbital sodium has been used as an anesthetic for small laboratory rodents because of its rapid on set of effect, rapid loss of consciousness, and low cost compared to other anesthetics. However, this anesthetic is no longer marketed, and it has become necessary to find an alternative anesthetic to pentobarbital sodium. In this study, we will devise new anesthetic methods by combining anesthetics, sedatives, and analgesics that are currently manufactured and marketed as drugs.

Quantitative analysis of histopathological changes and brain atrophy using volumetric MRI in BSE prions to cynomolgus macaques. Our results point out that C-BSE and L-BSE infected monkeys could be compatible models of vCJD and sCJD of human.
Administration of the compound in macaques infected with BSE slowed down the development of neurological and psychological symptoms. The de novo rational design of chaperone compounds could lead to therapeutics that can bind to different prion protein strains to ameliorate the pathology of Prion disease.

The overall purpose of my study is to examine the syntheses, structures, and electronic structures of unique complexes containing commodity organic molecules. The concrete target is finding novel complexes out of the combination of commodity organic molecules and commodity metal ions in the periodic table, preparing the crystals (powder or single crystal), determing the X-ray structures, calculating the electronic structures by first principle, and measuring the physical properties (spectroscopic property etc.).

In statistical inference, testing for normality is one of the most fundamental problems traditionally. The below left figure is the probability density function of the normal distribution. We have obtained a grahical method of testing for multivariate normality based on the pricipal component score and an approximate joint distribution of sample skewness and kurtosis. We illustrate our method for Fisher’s iris data in the below right figure.

◆Research◆
The purpose of our study is the elucidation of the function of biomolecules by the computer simulation. We have carried out large-scale biomolecular quantum chemical computations, fragment molecular orbital (FMO) calculation and first-principles calculation, using the supercomputer FUGAKU. Our present works are (1) to explore the relationship between drug effects and side effects by analyzing the interaction of drugs and proteins, (2) to elucidate the function of proteins by analyzing of electrionic states of proteins and to develop new materials, (3) to elucidate the enantioselectivity and reactivity of the enzyme in organic synthesis by the biomolecular computational simulations of the complexes of lipases with organic compounds.
◆Social activity◆
・Group sub-leader of Enzyme WG of FMO Drug Design Consortium

I am working on the development of statistical methods, especially methods for regression problems. We are also creating the program (package). A regression problem is to estimate the relationship (regression function) between explanatory variables and the expected value of a response variable. I am interested in techniques for selecting some explanatory variables that are influencing the response variable. I am studying how to select variables when assuming a parametric model and a non-parametric model for the regression function. Regression analysis is used to estimate causal effects, for example in the analysis of covariance. I am also conducting research on the application of the developed methods to causal inference.

A semiconductor is the key material of the electronics. Most semiconductors are a substance suitable for one-electron approximation. However, in the strongly correlated electron systems,one-electron approximation can not be applied. These substances indicate the interesting characteristics that are not found in normal materials. Based on the study of strongly correlated electron systems, We aim to development of new material and new device with a focus on rare earth hydride semiconductor.

While using mechanical engineering (fluid dynamics, thermal engineering), applied physics (magneto science), and econometrics, I am conducting research on material informatics that integrates engineering and informatics. Practically, I analyze medical data using the methods of data mining and multivariate analysis. In the field of magneto science, I progress a technology called a “magnetic force booster” and succeeded in realizing a completely containerless protein crystal growth (see the photos). By the use of a magnetic levitation technique, I have also established in measuring the thermal properties of protein crystals.

We aim to contribute to the development of the wine industries and education, through our research.
Research and invstigation into wine, Japanese sake, fruits and functional foods. Invesigation of volatile compaounds in wine and its produvtion mechanisms. Especially, advanced analysis and evaluation of wine.Wine has favorable and characteristic flavor. We indentify the characteristic compounds in wine and investigate their production mechanisms.
Wine have multiple health functionalities since it is a fermented material. We investigate the health functionality of wine and fermented foods in vitro.And, we investigate the health functinalities of functinal components fermented foods.

Most of the reserch on grape is about table grapes in Japan. Because wine grapes are not cultivated so much before. However, recently many wine grapes have been cultivated, and high quality wines are produced in several wineries in Japan. Until now engineers in wine makers have studies in the wine developped countries such as France and brought back the wine making techniques to Japan. But, Japanese climate and soil type are quite different from those of foreign countries. Then it is required to the Japanese original techniques in viticulture and enology. It is the most important thing in wine making that wine grapes are cultivated by the suitable conditions in Japan. Our institute of viticulture and enology aims to be a base for technology and information for engineers in wineries of the surrounding ares.

We are developing soft actuators and soft sensors with flexibility and safety in life support devices and human frendly robot that act directly on humans. In addition, we are developing a pipe inspection robot that has a flexible structure by itself using a pneumatic actuator that can run on its own in complicated pipe and can be used in a wet narrow space. Then, in order to reduce the weight and labor of the peripheral equipment for driving the robot, we have devised a control valve with excellent cost performance and a new propulsion mechanism of the robot, and are considering making the inspection robot compact. Furthermore, we are developing local structure control technology by using burnishing as research on processing technology.

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.

We propose a high-performance computer system called a Hybrid-Cluster and are conducting applied research. It provides a common framework for easy cooperation between computers and consumer electronic devices, such as controlling consumer electronic devices from computers and vice versa. In addition, in the field of educational technology, we are working on practical education, such as efforts to increase students’ self-study time and team development of software in lectures.