Events

WS on Service Robotics Nov.8 (Sun), 2009 Build.No.63, Room 04-05, Nishi-Waseda Campus, Waseda University, Tokyo WS on Medical Robotics Nov.9 (Mon), 2009 Okuma-Shokodo (大隈小講堂), Waseda ......

WS on Service Robotics Nov.8 (Sun), 2009 Build.No.63, Room 04-05, Nishi-Waseda Campus, Waseda University, Tokyo WS on Medical Robotics Nov.9 (Mon), 2009 Okuma-Shokodo (大隈小講堂), Waseda Campus, Waseda University, Tokyo

With the advent of the aging society, there will be an increased demand for the practical application of RT (Robot Technology) in lifestyle-related areas such as healthcare and quality-of-life ......

With the advent of the aging society, there will be an increased demand for the practical application of RT (Robot Technology) in lifestyle-related areas such as healthcare and quality-of-life assurance. It is expected that this demand will lead to the creation of new key industries. The Japanese market only for robots is estimated to be about 6.2 trillion yen in 2025. This estimate, which is about 12 times the current market, strongly indicates the potential for RT to develop into an industry second only to automobiles, electronics, and information technology. To meet these expectations, and to develop a truly intelligent social infrastructure for RT, it is urgent that we foster young researchers to work on RT with an international perspective. Last Summer School focused on the creation of strong, international and interdisciplinary groups, and promoted the communication between their members. The WSK-TNg Robotics School 2009 concentrates on the development of a systematic theory of RT that fashions a new relation between people/society and machine systems and on evolving robotics from an aggregate of several fields into a unified discipline of science, technology, and engineering, while at the same time working to understand related socio-economic issues. Twelve invited speakers from five universities and one company will introduce the topic From Communication to Collaboration to a selected group of students. A variety of subjects within this field will be addressed, such as the basis of RT (mechanical engineering, control engineering, materials engineering, electrical and electronic engineering, information engineering, and ergonomics) and many other disciplines, including medicine, physiology, psychology, and neuroscience, as well as sociology, law, and ethics.

In recent years there is a growing expectation that robotic technology will be more and more important in our life, getting out of the factories (industrial robots) and helping people in a variety of ......

In recent years there is a growing expectation that robotic technology will be more and more important in our life, getting out of the factories (industrial robots) and helping people in a variety of different everyday scenarios (personal robots). The performance of the state of the art robots, however, are far from successfully achieving such ambitious goals, and a lot of work still needs to be done by us researchers. This workshop on Sensory Fusion should help us to better understand the main challenges these robots face, and to better understand how to cope with them. Five excellent speakers from Europe, America, and Asia, will present their points of view on the current status and future challenges of robotics, and how the sensory fusion, i.e. the integration of different modalities such sensors, mechanical design, low- and high- level control, interface design, perception, and so on, could help us to build better robots. Program 13:00 Introduction 13:05 Session I 13:05 Shuji HASHIMOTO, Waseda University, Japan 13:25 Mark CUTKOSKY, Stanford University, USA 14:05 Jun Ho OH, KAIST, Korea 14:45 Coffee break 15:00 Session II 15:00 Ronald C ARKIN, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA 15:40 Giulio SANDINI, Italian Institute of Technology, Italy 16:20 Round Table 17:00 Closing remarks

Most industrialized countries are aging fast due to an increase of life expectancy and a reduction of child birth rate. There is considerable expectation for a growing need for home, medical, and ......

Most industrialized countries are aging fast due to an increase of life expectancy and a reduction of child birth rate. There is considerable expectation for a growing need for home, medical, and nursing care services to assist this aging society, both from the physical and psychological points of view. For this purpose, robots, and in particular robots with the appearance based on the human body, are expected to perform human tasks such as providing personal assistance and social care for the elderly, and cognitive therapy, as well as entertainment and education. In particular, emotion is considered to be one of the most important factors that could crucially influence the success or failure of the presence of personal robots in our human community. In recent years, several robots have been developed to investigate the socio-emotional aspects of human-robot interactions. Among them, we can find animaloid robots, humanoid robots, androids, and even other kinds of robots to explore socio-emotive face-to-face interactions with people to explore face-to-face interactions. The concept behind all these interactive robots is “partnership” Partner robots will act as human peers in everyday life and will provide mental and communicational supports to humans, as well as physical support as mentioned previously. In particular, emotion is considered to be one of the most important factors that could crucially influence the success or failure of communication of robots in our human community. The development of emotional behavior and emotional models for humanoid robots, however, is still an open issue. This full day workshop will address the current challenges and the future perspectives of emotional humanoid robotics, from perception to expression, including modeling and understanding. It will also address the creation of mental and interaction models, and evaluation metrics for the interaction. This workshop will offer a unique opportunity of interaction among leading international researchers from a wide range of disciplines, and will provide to those interested in the field of emotional robotics the possibility to spend a full-immersion day with experts and colleagues, to learn and to discuss personally and interactively.

Waseda University, in collaboration with KIST - Korean Institute of Science and Technology and SSSA - Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna - is organizing a joint Summer School on "Fundamentals of Advanced Robotics".

With the advent of the aging society, there will be an increased demand for the practical application of RT (Robot Technology) in lifestyle-related areas such as healthcare and quality of life. In fact, it is expected that this demand will lead to the creation of new key industries FOr example, the Japanese market only for robots is estimated to be about 6.2 trillion yen in 2025.  This estimate, which is about 12 times the current market, strongly indicates the potential for RT to develop into an industry second only to automobiles, electronics, and information technology.

To meet these expectations, and to develop a truly intelligent social infrastructure for RT, it is urgent that we foster young researchers to work on RT with an international perspective. Waseda-SSSA-KIST Summer School 2008 focuses on the creation of a systematic theory of RT that fashions a new relation between people/society and machine systems and on evolving robotics from an aggregate of several fields into a unified discipline of science, technology, and engineering, while at the same time working to understand related socio-economic issues. 

Twenty invited speakers from seven universities and one company will introduce the "Fundamentals of Advanced Robotics"to a selected group of students. This summer school will cover both the basis of RT (such as mechanical engineering, control engineering, materials engineering, electrical and electronic engineering, information engineering, and ergonomics) and many other disciplines, including medicine, physiology, psychology, and neuroscience, as well as sociology, law, and ethics.

ASMeW International Symposium

Theme: Realizing high quality of life and extension of health life expectancy through the consolidation of advanced science, health studies, and medical ......

ASMeW International Symposium

Theme: Realizing high quality of life and extension of health life expectancy through the consolidation of advanced science, health studies, and medical care

Date: August 27 - 28, 2008

Venue: Waseda International Conference Center, Waseda University

Website: http://www.waseda.jp/scoe/080827intsympo/

Attendance fee: Free

Registration: http://www.asmew.net/sympoI_form/form-mailer.cgi

Scope of the Symposium: On the ethical and social implications at interfaces between Neurosciences and the Consolidated Researches for Biomedical Engineering and Medical Care.

Tokyo ......

Scope of the Symposium: On the ethical and social implications at interfaces between Neurosciences and the Consolidated Researches for Biomedical Engineering and Medical Care.

Tokyo Women's Medical University and Waseda University have advanced cooperation on various interdisciplinary researches across the medicine and engineering for 40 years or more from 1965. In 2000, an agreement of the academic exchange was formally concluded to expect the promotion of advanced researches by the cooperation between Tokyo Women's Medical University and Waseda University.

The symposium ”Neuroscience and Ethics” will be held at “Tokyo Women's Medical University Joint Institution for Advanced Biomedical Sciences” (TWIns) along with the inauguration of this institution.

While many stakeholders expect the progress of the neuroscience, its ethical and social implications became a serious issue in the society including a concern to the privacy or excessive enhancement (improved intervention).

It is very important that both laboratory researchers and scientists participate positively in an ethical and social consideration related to their own technology to assure the development and promotion of science. It could become a basis of further growth of the science in order to meet the social reliability.

In this symposium, we will invite Tamami Fukushi, Ph.D., an eminent researcher in a field of “neuroscience and ethics” from RISTEX / JST and, will give a lecture on the latest trend. Furthermore, we’ll discuss the latest neuroscience and the future relationships with society through the findings and thoughts cultivated from the viewpoints of younger researchers whose specialties are molecular biology, psychology, and robotics. We welcome researchers from other fields to participate in this symposium as well.

ASMeW Symposium ”Neuroscience and Ethics” Organized by Consolidated Research Institute for Advanced Science and Medical Care, Waseda University (ASMeW)/ Global COE for Practical Chemical Wisdom, Waseda University.

Date: Wednesday July 30, 2008

Place: Seminar Room at the 3rd　Floor, the Tokyo Women’s Medical University Joint Institution for Advanced Biomedical Sciences (TWIns), Tokyo

Open to Public / Admission Free

Scope of the Symposium: On the ethical and social implications at interfaces between Neurosciences and the Consolidated Researches for Biomedical Engineering and Medical Care.



【PROGRAM】

13：00－13：05　Opening Remarks Prof. Toru Asahi, Ph.D., Institute for Biomedical Engineering, Executive Office Manager, ASMeW

13：05－13：25　Opening Speech　 Prof. Yutaka Hishiyama, Director, Life Science Divsion, Research Promotion Bureau, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology

13：25－13：35　Scope of the Symposium Assoc. Prof. Naoto Kawahara, Domain of Ethics for Science and Bioengineering, ASMeW

13：35－14：35　Invited Lecture “The Diversity and Possibility of Neuroethics” Tamami Fukushi, Ph.D., Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society (RISTEX), Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST)

14：35－14：40　Coffee Break

14：40－15：05　Lecture: Functional analysis of the candidate gene product for schizophrenia: an approach to the molecular mechanism of schizophrenia Naoya Sawamura, Ph.D., Domain of Molecule-Based Medical Treatment, ASMeW

15：05－15：30　Lecture : The Role of Psychotherapy in the Treatment of Panic Disorder Shuhei Izawa, Ph.D., Domain of Medical Health Care, ASMeW

15：30－15：55　Lecture: Neuroscience and Robotics: Ethical and Social Implications Massimiliano Zecca, Ph.D., Domain of Robotics for Medical Care, ASMeW

15：55－16：35　Panel Discussion （Coordinator: Assoc. Prof. Naoto Kawahara, Domain of Ethics for Science and Bioengineering, ASMeW）
Panelists: Tamami Fukushi, Ph.D., Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society (RISTEX), Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) Naoya Sawamura, Ph.D., Domain of Molecule-Based Medical Treatment, ASMeW Shuhei Izawa, Ph.D., Domain of Medical Health Care, ASMeW Massimiliano Zecca, Ph.D., Domain of Robotics for Medical Care, ASMeW Assoc. Prof. Koji Ishihara, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the University of Tokyo

16：35－16：55　General Lecture Prof. Shigetaka Asano, M.D., Ph.D., Head, Domain of Ethics for Science and Bioengineering, ASMeW

16：55－17：00　Closing Remarks Prof. Toru Asahi, Ph.D., Institute for Biomedical Engineering, Executive Office Manager, ASMeW

Guest Speakers and Panelists

【Opening Speech】
Prof. Yutaka Hishiyama
Prof. Yutaka Hishiyama graduated from School of Public Health, the University of Tokyo. After he joined the Science and Technology Agency in 1985, he has been engaged in various policy-makings related science and technology. He served at the Embassy of Japan in Germany (1995-98) as a First Secretary in charge of Science and Environment. He was the Director of the Office of Bioethics and Biosafety, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (2001-03). He also served as a professor, the National Graduate Institute of Public Studies (2003). Then he was appointed as Director for Research, Secretariat, the Science Council of Japan (2005). From Jan. 2007, he has held an appointment as Director, Life Science Division, Research Promotion Bureau, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. He is also a visiting professor of the National Graduate Institute of Public Studies, and Waseda University.

【Guest Speaker】
Tamami Fukushi, Ph.D.
She graduated from Faculty of Letters, Nara Women’s University. She holds M.S. in Primatology from Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University and Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University. Then she holds Ph.D. in Behavioral Science from Department of Psychology, Hokkaido University (1999). She had various professional activities in Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Department of Neuroscience, University of Minnesota, and so on. She has been also a member of the Society for the Neural Control of Movement, International Brain Research Organization (IBRO)/Japan Neuroscience Society, and Society for Neuroscience. From Aug. 2005, she has held an appointment as a researcher, Center for Research on Brain-Science & Society, Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society (RISTEX), Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST).
【Guest Panelist】
Assoc. Prof. Koji Ishihara, Ph.D.
Assoc. Prof. Kohji Ishihara graduated from the School of Letters, Arts and Sciences I, Waseda University. He holds M.A. and Ph.D. from the Division of Philosophy, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, University of Tokyo. He was appointed to be an associate professor of Faculty of Letters, Hokkaido University. He also was an associate professor of the Creative Research Initiative “Sousei”, Hokkaido University (2005-2007). From Apr. 2008, he is an associate professor of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo.

The First CISM-IFToMM Symposium on Theory and Practice of Robots and Manipulators was held on Sept. 5-8, 1973, in Udine, Italy, not long after IFToMM had been founded in 1969. The first ROMANSY, or ......

The First CISM-IFToMM Symposium on Theory and Practice of Robots and Manipulators was held on Sept. 5-8, 1973, in Udine, Italy, not long after IFToMM had been founded in 1969. The first ROMANSY, or Ro.Man.Sy., as the Symposium used to be referred to, marks the beginning of a long-lasting partnership between two international institutions, CISM, the Centre International des Sciences Mécaniques and IFToMM, the International Federation for the Promotion of Mechanism and Machine Science.

The ROMANSY2008 will preserve this tradition, by encouraging papers that are of a broad interest and a close interaction of the participants during the presentations. In particular, the conference solicits papers providing a vision of the evolution of the robotics disciplines and signaling new directions in which these disciplines are foreseen to develop. Paper topics include, but are not limited to:

1. novel robot design and robot modules/components;
2. service, education, medical, welfare and rescue robots;
3. humanoid robots, bio-robotics, multi-robot systems, embodied multi-agent systems;
4. challenges in control, modeling, kinematical and dynamical analysis of robotic systems;
5. sensor systems for robots, perception;
6. space robots;
7. recent advances in robotics.