No abstract

Secondary ion mass spectrometry can analyze all elements and has high versatility. In our laboratory, we have established a method of sputtering the whole sample from the side by using partial primary beam called Shave-off method, which increases spatial resolution and eliminates an effect originated by surface roughness. Furthermore, designing the ion optics that can enlarge and converge the emitted secondary ions from the cross section of the micro sample on the detector, high-precision three-dimensional distribution data with surface resolution of several nanometer level and depth direction resolution of several tens of nanometer level can be obtained at high speed. However, the secondary ions trajectory and the ion aberration caused by the lens in the Shave-off condition have not been verified. In this study, we have constructed a simulation of calculating the trajectory of emitted ions from the Shave-off cross section. It is expected that the simulation will be of great help and powerful tool for future development.

This paper describes data-glove-driven vocal tract configuration methods. Unlike direct mapping from hand gestures to sounds using a data glove, intuitive manipulation of the data glove was applied to configure the vocal tract shape. Two manipulation methods were proposed and then evaluated in terms of the vocal tract area function, resulting formant frequencies and ease of manipulation. It was revealed that although both methods were capable of producing the resulting formant frequencies with reasonable accuracy for steady vowel production, the method with three fingers enabled users to easily configure the vocal tract shape. Moreover, the effect of training in manipulating the data glove to configure the vocal tract shape for continuous vowels was evaluated in terms of their sound spectrograms and the distribution of the resulting formant frequencies. An experiment to evaluate the effectiveness of training proved that beginners were able to produce continuous vowels within about three training sessions.

Our research focuses on the social aspects of teleoperated androids as new media for human relationships and explores how they can contribute and encourage people to associate with others. We introduced Telenoid, a teleoperated android with a minimalistic human design, to elementary school classrooms to see how children respond to it. We found that Telenoid encourages children to work cooperatively and facilitates communication with senior citizens with dementia. Children differentiated their roles spontaneously and cooperatively participated in group work. In another class, we applied Telenoid to remote communication between schoolchildren and assisted living residents. The children felt relaxed about continuing their conversations with the elderly and positively participated in them. The results suggest that limited functionality may facilitate cooperation among participants, and varied embodiments may promote the learning process of the association with others, even those who are unfamiliar. We propose a teleoperated android as an educational tool to promote socialization.

Rhythm is an essential element of music, but how we acquire it has not been investigated in detail. Some argue that learners acquire rhythms mentally, and others argue that body movements are involved. This study, therefore, investigated how body movements affect the rhythmic performances of learners in the course of rhythm acquisition. We used accelerometers to measure the arm and lumbar accelerations of 17 participants who took samba lessons regularly for 10 months. Detailed analyses revealed that all learners who learnt to play the shaker to a samba rhythm exhibited samba-like rhythmic patterns in both lumbar and arm movements. This indicates that the coordination contributing to the lumber movement has something to do with the acquisition of samba rhythm, and this is consistent with the argument that body movements are involved in acquiring rhythms.