Search

In a hot strip finishing mill, an unstable lateral steel strip movement called strip walking causes the strip to crash into side guides placed at the entrance of the stand mill, resulting in a tail pinch where the strip is pressed into a folded state. Therefore, strip walking should appropriately be suppressed to prevent tail pinches, requiring adequate strip steering control. To this end, various strip steering control methods have been proposed. Among them, model predictive control, which explicitly considers the motion of a steel strip and constraints on the actuator’s speed, is expected to be of great practical use. However, the disadvantages of this control are that the model’s accuracy affects control results, state variables must be estimated, and its optimization computation is time-consuming. Hence, this paper proposes a method to overcome such disadvantages by adopting a model describing adequately strip walking, model predictive control using discretized inputs, and a deadbeat current observer to estimate state variables. Subsequently, we demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed method using several numerical simulations together with setting discrete values for the discretized inputs and setting weights in the cost function to be minimized in the model predictive control. In conclusion, it is clarified here that the selection of a set of discretized control inputs, which maximize the leveling speed in minimum time and the proper selection of weights in the evaluation function are crucial for the practical use of model predictive control to prevent strip walking.

This paper presents an analysis of the motion of a motorcycle at high-speed using a motorcycle dynamics model that considers the compliance of the frame components. Several motorcycle nonlinear dynamics models have been proposed in previous studies and in the industry. However, these models do not consider the compliance of the frame components, which affects the maneuverability and stability of motorcycles. Moreover, there is not any researches that analyzes the effect of such compliance on motorcycle dynamics in a domain that includes turning. In this paper, we derive a nonlinear dynamics model of a motorcycle that takes into account the compliance of the frame components and analyze the effect of such compliance on the vehicle body motion during high-speed straight riding and turning. For the dynamics model, the Kane’s equation is constructed based on multi-body dynamics analysis. In conclusion, we demonstrate that the compliance corresponding to the lateral torsion of the front forks is the most dominant factor in improving stability in the high-speed region, both in straight riding and in turning.

Overhead contact lines (OCLs) are subjected to longitudinal displacement due to factors such as temperature changes and external force. Excessive longitudinal displacement may prevent the tension balancers from performing their proper tension adjustment function. It is therefore important to develop a method for calculating the longitudinal displacement of OCLs and to make it possible to predict the longitudinal displacement in response to changes in temperature and external forces. This paper presents a model to represent the longitudinal displacement of OCLs on a curved track installing tensioning devices and hinged cantilevers at each support point and proposes calculation methods to find the equilibrium points of the longitudinal displacement of the OCL. Furthermore, the validation of the proposed calculation methods was confirmed by scale model tests.

Chalmers University of Technology, located in Gothenburg, Sweden’s industrial center, is known as an entrepreneurial university. Leveraging regional technology seeds and business resources, Chalmers has spawned numerous high-survival, prominent spin-offs. This paper discusses the unique entrepreneurial ecosystem in the local city, distinct from Silicon Valley, using examples of “surrogate” and “non-surrogate” startups. In the “surrogate” model, typically seen among master’s level entrepreneurship program participants, student teams aim to commercialize sourced internal and external technology seeds into new products and services. In the “non-surrogate” model, postdoctoral researchers and scientists pursue business opportunities commercializing their own intellectual property. The university provides investments and incubators, while local angels, company executives and successful alumni serve as mentors to support young founders, establishing an ecosystem benefiting both startup types. With minimal foreign VC funds, these lean startups practice disciplined fundraising and conserve managerial resources. As exemplified by two life science ventures, they enlist medical specialists as technical advisors to promote novel therapies, while also licensing technologies and pursuing custom manufacturing for revenue diversification.

Counterfeit luxury goods refer to goods that closely resemble the original luxury goods, and consumers purchase these goods while being aware that they are counterfeits. To explain this consumer purchasing behavior, existing research has explored consumers’ motivations for purchase of counterfeit luxury goods. However, no study has thoroughly reviewed the latest trends in this field. Therefore, this paper selects the ten latest articles published in major academic journals in the field of marketing and organizes them from four perspectives: social, moral, cognitive, and online behavioral. The paper also identifies two future directions for research in this area: exploration of the impact of secondary markets and subscription services for luxury goods on counterfeit purchases, and exploration of the impact of the experiential value offered by luxury goods on counterfeit purchases.

Avoiding failures in the service delivery process is challenging, even for outstanding service companies. Service failure refers to the situation where the provided service falls short of customer expectations. Customer responses to such failures range from direct or indirect expression of dissatisfaction to negative word-of-mouth. These responses are collectively referred to as “customer complaining behavior”. With a focus on the cognition-emotion approach, this paper synthesizes two crucial bodies of prior literature on customer complaining behavior. The first concentrates on the conceptual development of this behavior, revealing its multifaceted nature. The second examines the antecedents of customer complaining behavior, considering cognitive, emotional, personality, and situational factors. By systematically organizing these bodies of prior research, this paper elucidates the theoretical advances in understanding customer complaining behavior and identifies research gaps. In particular, the paper proposes three directions for future research to advance scholarly inquiry and deepen understanding of the complexity of customer complaining behavior in service environments.

Wondertrunk & Co., founded in 2016, is an inbound company with a mission to transform local regions in Japan into global travel destinations. Based on the difference between tourism marketing, which considers tourist destinations as products, and conventional marketing, this paper examines Wondertrunk & Co.’s approach in the context of tourism marketing. This approach targets wealthy Western travelers to fulfill the objectives of Japan’s tourism policy of “sustainable tourism,” “expansion of consumer spending,” and “promotion of regional tourism”. The analysis focuses on destination marketing campaign projects carried out in collaboration with the Japan Tourism Agency and local governments, as well as the tourism business tailored to wealthy Western travelers. This paper concludes that the key success factors are (1) comprehensive marketing analysis and STP strategy development, (2) relationship building with international travel agencies, and (3) customization of luxury tourism services.

Tatami is a traditional Japanese flooring. The industry has declined due to the westernization of housing. Generally, tatami stores operate by establishing their business with deep roots in the local community. Their markets are geographically restricted because tatami cannot be supplied without skilled craftsmanship. Therefore, achieving economies of scale is challenging in this industry, and product differentiation is difficult. The tatami industry is a typical fragmented industry. The Kuboki tatami store sells coasters made of tatami mats for restaurants throughout Japan, and is expanding its business overseas. This paper examines new business ventures and overseas expansion of tatami stores, as well as the positive impact these ventures have had on the existing tatami mat business.

This paper discusses the design of the mechanism for an artificial mastication device that reproduces the formation of the food bolus by humans. A novel mechanism, the enclosure area expansion and reduction mechanism, that can gather fragments of food is proposed. In the proposed mechanism, multiple movable walls with common shape and sizes form a symmetrical enclosure area that contains the food fragments. Driven by a single actuator, all walls move coordinately so that the enclosure area reduces and expands for gathering the fragments. We first show the mathematical formulation of the geometrical conditions of the movable walls. We then design the movable walls and power transmission system for a prototype installed in the artificial mastication device. Finally, we present the experimental results, which validate the proposed method.

In recent years, environmental concerns have led to a demand for sustainable materials, and natural rubber (NR) reinforced with cellulose nanofibers (CNFs) has been attracting attention as one such material. When CNFs are added to NR, the elastic modulus is greatly improved. This is considered to be caused by deformation constraint of NR by reinforcing CNFs. On the other hand, it is known that there exists a region around reinforcing fibers where the rubber is tightly connected to the surface of fibers, which is called bound rubber. The volume fraction of the bound rubber is usually measured by swelling tests using organic solvent. In this paper, we focused on the relationship between the tensile properties of NR reinforced with CNFs and the volume fraction of bound rubber. Firstly, cyclic tensile tests were performed using plate specimens of CNF-reinforced NR and the effect of reinforcing CNFs on the tensile properties of CNF-reinforced NR and their change with loading cycles were investigated. Then, the swelling tests were conducted for similar specimens and the volume fraction of the bound rubber was evaluated. It was found from a series of experimental results that tensile deformation resistance of NR increased largely by adding 5 phr (4.8 mass%, 3.2 vol.%) of CNFs but that this increase decreased from the second loading cycle. Moreover, a clear relationship was found between the tensile deformation resistance of CNF-reinforced NR and the volume fraction of bound rubber. These results suggest that the tensile deformation resistance of CNF-reinforced NR can be evaluated by swelling tests.

The objective of this paper is to clarify the influence of the structural characteristics of organizations in Japanese enterprises on market-oriented behavior, starting from a study to grasp the market orientation of organizations represented by Kohli and Jaworski (1990) from the behavioral perspective. This paper focuses on the centrality of the influence of marketing decision-making, formulation of strategy, and task conflict among departments as precedent factors affecting market-oriented behavior, which are strongly related to management of marketing strategies. The paper takes an empirical approach using structural equation modeling based on a survey of marketers in the Japanese manufacturing industry on how the combination of preceding factors affect each other, after segmenting the process of market-oriented behavior into the generation and diffusion of market information and the reaction. The results showed that (1) the market-oriented behavior process does not persist as a seamless process, and (2) it is difficult to design an optimal organizational structure that satisfies all conditions in improving market-oriented behavior, and it is necessary to adjust the organizational structure according to the situation.

This paper addresses a method for devising an undamped periodic structure that suppresses energy propagation due to a specific wave mode based on the Wave and Finite Element (WFE) method. Then, structural modifications to reduce the active transmitted power are derived by solving an inverse eigenvalue problem of the WFE method. In solving the inverse problem, it is important that the solution is feasible in the sense that it is low-cost and easy to fabricate as an actual mechanical structure. Therefore, in the proposed method, the designer specifies the regions in which structural modifications may be made before solving the inverse problem. As a result, the solution of the inverse problem is approximated within these regions. Finally, the method allows us to suggest feasible structural modifications necessary to reduce the amount of active transmitted power for a given wave mode and a given frequency. However, this method cannot consider the changes in wave numbers due to structural modification. It should therefore be noted that this method cannot be used to achieve significant reductions in active transmitted power due to large-scale structural modification.

From the machining center (MC) user’s point of view, this paper, as the second report of a systematic study, proposes a practical approach to estimate the trajectory error of a circular arc interpolation cutter path produced by the NC linear acceleration/deceleration (Acc/Dec) processing to interpolation segment and the feed axis servo control for a target MC. A simple and convenient motion model is established for describing the behavior of the servo axes corresponding to a circular arc segment of any length processed by the linear Acc/Dec operation. Based on the model and a linearity assumption on the dynamics of servo system, an efficient simulation method is developed to precisely calculate the cutter path trajectory and the servo axis speed from the motion parameters commanded in NC program. The verification experiments have been performed on the target MC, in which the specially designed cutter paths were inspected by a cross grid measuring device, and the measured motion trajectories were compared and discussed with the ones simulated by using the same motion parameters, from different perspectives. The examination results sufficiently demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model and simulation method if the adopted feed rate is within the commonly used range at the production site. Therefore, as a useful tool, the approach provides a potential application possibility, i.e. beforehand estimating the influence of the NC Acc/Dec processing and the servo control on cutter path accuracy or judging the motion conditions for the machining purpose without performing an actual machining with the target MC. Moreover, a reverse compensation principle of the cutter path motion error based on the simulation results is presented and examined through an actual example. The result has proved the possibility of practical application of the principle and suggested the direction of future effort.

High-speed and high-precision actuator control is required for industrial manufacturing equipment. In such systems, the control operation cycle needs to be shortened to 100 μs or less. Recently, the quantity of sensors and actuators is increasing because new control methods have been developed. Therefore, the amount of information input/output to/from sensors and actuators is also increasing. Any electromagnetic noise occurring inside the equipment due to using high-voltage power or various actuators affects the system performance. The authors are thus developing a network communication system for high-speed and high-precision mechatronics control considering electromagnetic noise. The network communication adopts an original protocol operating in the 40-MHz band with 8B10B coding for SerDes logic implemented on an FPGA. In this paper, a method for the K-code usage of 8B10B coding to reduce packet transmission overhead is proposed, as well as a data transfer scheduling method that can reduce communication delay by setting a communication period for each data and distributing the amount of data transfer per communication cycle. Evaluation results show that the cycle-to-cycle jitter in sampling between the main controller and the control device was 260 ns. In addition, the data transfer scheduling reduced communication delay by 36% compared to the case without the scheduling.

Vibration performance is the one of the important performances in automotive product because of related to not only ride comfort and control performance of vehicle but also durability and noise performance. However, it is difficult to design efficiently because the performance is determined by the influence of all components constituting of a whole structure. In previous paper, we presented an effective way to design vibration performance based on an inverse method for structural modification that keeps one specified eigenfrequency and its eigen vector of the whole structure the same. In this paper, we propose a new method to keep the specified multiple eigenfrequencies and their eigen vectors the same. Firstly, the matrices for structural modification are calculated as dynamic stiffness matrix variation from the zero-divisors of the specified multiple eigen vectors. The design of dynamic stiffness matrix variation is simplified by representing the matrix variation as just stiffness matrix variation which is independence on eigen frequency. Furthermore, it is possible to represent the calculated matrices redundantly by using an arbitrary non-zero weighting matrix. However, the matrices are generally calculated as fully populated and non-symmetric matrices. Therefore, secondly, we transform the matrices calculated as the zero-divisors into the sparse matrix of reduced row echelon form in advance. This transformation simplifies building symmetric and sparse matrices for realizable structural modification. This sparse matrix, redundantly represented by a weighting matrix, allows a value analysis to select among alternative structural changes to simplify structural complexity while keeping several performances originated from vibration performance. Finally, the proposed method was applied to a numerical case study.

The purpose of this paper is to construct a methodology which can produce a lightweight panel structure while being satisfied with more than one constraint by using some simple model. In this study, we chose a problem including bending stiffness and the 1st order eigen frequency as constraints and volume minimization as objective function among basic performances which a vehicle requires. So far, we have been trying to solve the problem by using a method consisting of Fully Stressed Design (FSD) and Genetic Algorithm (GA). FSD is an optimization which evaluates only stiffness of a structure based on relationship between thickness and stress, while GA, a broad array method, can have various number of objective functions and constraints. Prior to this study, the authors found a process was effective that stresses on the elements were to be equalized in the 1st step by applying FSD that made an individual superior on static stiffness. In this study, proposed method, which includes a process of equalization on normalized stresses on eigen vibrations, are added to that of static stresses in the 1st step. In the 2nd step, GA is selected. GA conducts operations, such as select, crossing, and mutation repeatedly until this attains a final solution. As for the model, we chose a sandwich panel which is equipped with top and bottom plates and interlayer lattice stiffeners. The reason for this selection is that the sandwich panel is lightweight and superior to stiffness, dumping, and strength. As a result, the obtained model presents a lightweight structure while being satisfied with the requirements of both stiffness and eigen frequency. Moreover, the proposed method attains optimized results earlier than GA without using FSD.

This paper proposes a method for machining a miniature Gaudi-screw and nut for a miniature differential drive mechanism with an ultra-small diameter and ultra-long lead based on a square cross-section. A miniature Gaudi-screw with a square cross-section of 2 mm on one side, a 10 mm lead (57.9 degrees slope angle), a total length of 40 mm (aspect ratio 20), and a square cross-section of right and left helix nuts are developed. First, the geometry of the proposed Gaudi-screw and the reasons why it is suitable for miniaturization are explained. Then, the configuration and kinematics of the mechanism using the Gaudi-screw as a two-input, two-output differential screw mechanism are described in preparation for the operation verification experiment. Next, the minimum radii of curvature of the Gaudi-screw and nut surfaces are derived using three-dimensional surface geometry, and the ball end mill tip diameters for cutting the miniature Gaudi-screw and nut are calculated. For the machining of long miniature Gaudi screws with small diameters, a machining method that suppresses deformation during machining due to machining reaction forces are proposed, and the results of actual machining using a 5-axis NC machine are shown. In addition, a parting and assembling method for miniature nuts are proposed, and the results of actual machining are shown. A prototype of an experimental device to motorize the miniature Gaudi differential screw mechanism was fabricated, and its operations were verified.

Instrumented wheelsets are widely used in the railway industry for the purpose of measurement of the wheel-rail interaction forces, which are crucial factors in a running safety assessment. Information on lateral contact position between wheel and rail is also an important factor when discussing the wheel-rail contact conditions, such as the friction coefficient at the contact point. However, it is difficult to measure the contact position by using ordinary instrumented wheelsets since they are specialized only for the measurement of interaction forces. Therefore, the authors have proposed a signal processing procedure to extract information of contact position from bridge circuits constructed for the measurement of the lateral forces between wheel and rail by using bending and shear strains of wheel webs in a previous work. The purpose of this paper is to develop an online processing system which implements the proposed signal processing procedure. The original procedure requires long computational time and is not suitable for an online processing. As the first step to develop the processing system, this paper proposes a faster algorithm of signal processing procedure based on frequency analysis for extracting information of contact position from instrumented wheelset at first. Using the faster algorithm, a multi-rate processing system was developed to acquire the strain data at a high frequency and to execute the signal processing at a low frequency. The performance of the developed system was evaluated with a single-wheelset roller-rig test.

Condition monitoring technology has advanced remarkably in recent years in various areas, including railways. Since the overhead catenary system and the pantograph in railway does not have enough redundancy, failures of the overhead catenary system or the pantograph will result in long downtime in railway operations. For preventing such failures efficiently, it is effective to apply condition monitoring methods to detect the pantograph failure on the overhead catenary system. To Achieve stable current collection, although the lift characteristic of the pantograph must be maintained within an appropriate range, the monitoring method of lift of pantograph in actual use has been not established so far. Therefore, the authors developed a method to measure the lift of pantographs with sensors on the overhead catenary system. According to this method, the lift is obtained from the sum of hanger forces and vertical components of the tensile force of contact wire. However, this method has some problems to solve in terms of measurement error and easiness of implementation. Therefore, in this paper, the authors focus on the wave equation for each wire of the overhead catenary system to propose new four measurement methods of the pantograph lift. The proposed methods will solve the problems of the previous methods. The methods are verified using dynamic simulation of the overhead catenary system and the pantograph. It also reports that the proposed method is effective even when two pantographs pass continuously.

As the number of elderly people increases, the demand for electric wheelchairs is increasing. Among them is a joystick-type 6-wheel electric wheelchair. It has three wheels, the central wheel of which is the driving wheel in side view. This structure allows the left and right drive wheels to rotate in the opposite direction, resulting in an extremely small turning radius compared to other types. On the other hand, it is difficult to ensure the grounding performance of the wheels, including the drive wheels, due to changes in the road surface outdoors because it has 6 wheels, so it is mainly intended for indoor use. In this paper, I studied how to improve the grounding performance of the drive wheels and other wheels by using a newly devised passive link. I devised a parallel double rocker link mechanism that connects six wheels with four sets of rocker links. I found a way to improve it. As a result, it was confirmed that the prototype vehicle using the parallel double rocker link satisfies the JIS requirements.

The drum cable engines with DO/HBs (Draw off hold back gear) have been indispensable equipments to lay and recover the optical submarine cables and the optical submarine repeaters. When use them, the back tensions by the DO/HB have been set at relative high tensions because of the empirical knowledge to pass repeaters and cable couplings safely through the drum. However there had been no papers on the minimum back tensions for the DO/HB. If we could know them for the various kind of repeaters, the preparation and operations of the drum cable engines and DO/HBs would be improved and get security. Therefore the author solved forces and moments acting on the repeaters and the cable couplings on the rotated drum cable engines using the linear system of equations. And found that there were the negative longitudinal axial forces acting on the repeaters when the repeaters passed around 85 to 100 degrees from the top of the drum of the first turn in the lay, and around 80 to 110 degrees from the top of the drum of the last turn in the recovery if the back tensions by DO/HB were set below specific values. If there were the negative longitudinal forces, the repeaters would not face the drum and not be wound correctly on the drum. Then here the author clarified the minimum DO/HB back tensions for the drum cable engines based upon more than zero longitudinal axial forces acting on the optical submarine repeaters during lay and recover. These calculations can apply to almost all kind of repeaters if they are connected to the cable coupling with the gimbals joints.

This article explores how vernacular aesthetics have been re-appropriated from pictorial to modern documentary photography over the past century to instigate a modern collective imagination of the industrial disintegration in the Chinese urban milieu. Within the scope of a discursive visual process, Jean Philippe Gauvrit (b.1963) documents the departure of the industrial urban society in his photo-essay Shanghai in JP Gauvrit (2008). The paper claims that Gauvrit’s documentary photography can be understood as a visual critical discourse of several representational perspectives of time that render visible anachronistic and new social structures that come into being: between utopias of the past and visions of the future in an alternative chronotopic ‘present’ cartography. Drawing on Bakhtin’s (1981) conception of chronotope, in this study, the sublime industrial comes to be represented as an intelligible reconfiguration of linear and cyclical time. By linking that socio-economic reality of that time with a collective consciousness, documentary photography can serve as a chronotope that reveals both the tension and the assimilation relating to the historical myths that lie between the fall of an industrial mode of production and the birth of a post-industrial cultural city in an era of de-industrialization.

This paper discusses the nature of Confucian ethics and its tense relations with modernity through analysing the arguments contained in Chen Lai’s 陈来 Confucian Theory of Virtue. The author points out that Confucian ethical theory is a kind of virtue ethics and that the distinction between public virtue and private virtue in modern moral projects necessarily leads to the elimination of the latter by the former. This is a general predicament of virtue ethics faced by modern societies.

There has been an impressive revival of virtue ethics as a rival to deontology and consequentialism in contemporary Western normative ethics. Correspondingly, many comparative philosophers have shown a great interest in finding virtue ethics potentials in other philosophical traditions in the world, the most impressive of which is Confucianism. While the result of such comparative studies is equally impressive, in almost all these studies, scholars tend to use a historical example of virtue ethics in the Western philosophical tradition, particularly the Aristotelian one, as the ideal type of virtue ethics, to measure historical examples of virtue ethics in other philosophical traditions. The result is thus conceivably skewed: however great these non-Western examples of virtue ethics are, they are perceived to be deficient in one way or another in comparison with the Aristotelian one. In this paper, I first construct an ideal type of virtue ethics in its contrast with ideal types of consequentialism and deontology: a normative ethics in which virtue is primary. I then use this ideal type of virtue ethics to measure Aristotle’s virtue ethics and Zhu Xi’s virtue ethics, both regarded as historical types of virtue ethics, concluding that Zhu Xi’s is closer to the ideal type of virtue ethics than Aristotle’s.

Wang Baoxuan’s 王葆玹 argument that Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty respected the Five Confucian Classics and tolerated non-Confucian schools because the “supremacy of Confucianism” (獨尊儒術) was not implemented until the reign of Emperor Cheng can be disputed. Additionally, Wang’s premise that masters learning (子學) in the Warring States period was the source of classics learning (經學) in the Western Han dynasty, and the extinction of masters learning during the supremacy of Confucianism led to the decline of classics learning, can also be debated. This paper proposes that with regard to the supremacy of Confucianism, the focus was on the second founding of the Han dynasty, not on the relationship between classics learning and masters learning. Both the Qin dynasty and the Western Han dynasty had masters learning as their guiding ideology, but Emperor Wu found that solely relying on masters learning, which was a collection of ideas by important thinkers, was not sustainable. Instead, the Han dynasty needed to be based on classics learning, which represented the traditional Chinese civilization that was inherited from the three ancient and sacred Chinese dynasties of the Xia, Shang, and Zhou. The supremacy of Confucianism was thus a means of ensuring the continuity and stability of the Han dynasty that was applied by Dong Zhongshu and Emperor Wu.

The aim of this paper is to examine how smart roasters, one of the forms of Digital Transformation (DX) in the field of coffee bean roasting, are involved in the process of building branding in the specialty coffee business, with a focus on the interaction between coffee roasting profile data and roasters. In recent years, as the specialty coffee market has expanded in Japan, an increasing number of roasters and coffee shops have introduced smart roasters. In this paper, we focus on smart roasters that promote DX of coffee roasting as a major element supporting the specialty coffee business and examine how they engage in the construction of coffee branding. To this end, we clarify the positioning of the specialty coffee business in the coffee industry in Japan. Through case studies, we describe how smart roasters are involved in the branding of specialty coffee shops and the role roasters play in this process.

This paper discusses how generative AI can contribute to human creativity. We conducted a review of creativity research in marketing, psychology, and cognitive science to examine the behaviors and processes that create human creativity, and developed a hypothesis based on similarities with the mechanism of generative AI. Three hypotheses were developed and tested: (1) use of generative AI contributes to the creativity process, (2) step-by-step presentation of information created by generative AI contributes to creativity, and (3) creative entities with greater expertise in the task are more likely to use generative AI and demonstrate creativity. We prepared a total of 12 designs, 6 with AI and 6 without AI, and conducted expert interviews with three package designers, a quantitative survey of 85 package designers, and a user survey of 200 users. The results of the user survey showed that the generative AI contributed to creativity. In contrast, the quantitative survey of 85 package designers showed no contribution to creativity from the step-by-step provision of information. The quantitative survey also indicated that generative AI improves creativity for designers with less experience, whereas for designers with more experience, AI-generated images contribute to creativity even if they are distant from the objective.

Advertising music is an important component of advertisements that influences consumer responses as a non-verbal cue. Extensive research on this music has been conducted since the 1980s. This paper reviews these advertising music studies by focusing on the theoretical foundations upon which they rely. The review classifies research on advertising music into three categories based on: (1) classical conditioning theory, (2) elaboration likelihood model, and (3) processing fluency. The findings suggest potential future research directions, including (A) research on the effects of music in internet advertising and (B) research focused on improving processing fluency through the congruence of various factors such as consumer factors and marketing information factors, with an emphasis on unconscious information processing.

Among sustainability efforts, there is increasing attention on the circular economy (CE), in which resources are recycled after use and then reused as resources. This paper presents a case study of Patagonia, which was one of the first companies to establish business and marketing based on a CE model. The analysis uses the customer journey, which has developed in the field of service design and has been referenced in marketing research in recent years. This approach focuses on maintenance and repair, reuse, refurbishment, and recycling in the post-purchase stage of the customer journey. We found that Patagonia has designed the customer experience related to its products after use in the post-purchase stage in a way that adapts to the CE model, while at the same time transforming its marketing through direct channels with its customers.

The interior noise characteristics of railway vehicles vary depending on the position of the cabin. In general, interior noises are louder in the area directly above bogies (ends of the cabin) than in the center of the cabin. It has been known that structure-borne sounds from bogies contribute greatly to the interior noises directly above bogies. This paper describes, using measured data obtained with the rolling stock test plant at Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI), the application of the operational transfer path analysis (OTPA) to determine the contribution ratio of each transmission path of vibration from bogies to cabin floors. It is considered that structure-borne sounds from bogies propagate mainly through the parts connecting the bogie and car body such as single-link-type traction devices (traction links), yaw dampers, and air springs. As a result of applying the OTPA and determining the contribution ratios, it has been confirmed that the contribution ratios varied depending on the position of the floor and the frequency band. In addition, the validity of the contribution has been verified by examining the linearity of input/output data and the correlations of input data using multiple coherence functions and partial coherence functions. Although a bogie vibrates rigidly in the low frequency range with the very high correlation between the vibrations of the bogie and the parts connecting the bogie and car body, the correlation becomes low in the high frequency region. Therefore, it is expected that the contribution of each transfer path can be well estimated by applying the OTPA in the high frequency range for structure-borne sounds from bogies.

OBJECTIVES The primary objective of this study is to clarify the concepts of physical education and sport from a philosophical perspective and propose the potential of kinesiology as a promising alternative. METHODS The method of philosophical argumentation was employed to carefully examine the logical consistency of physical education, sport, and kinesiology. The conceptual tools of connotation and denotation were used to analyze these definitions, and their compatibility was thoroughly assessed. RESULTS Through deductive analysis, it was discovered that both physical education and sport face inherent challenges of limited externalization and excessive externalization. These challenges hinder the accurate representation of reality or weaken the distinct identity of the disciplines. Conversely, it was argued that kinesiology possesses the conceptual capacity to encompass both physical education and sport as a discipline. CONCLUSIONS Considering the apparent conceptual constraints of physical education, it becomes reasonable to reassess the nomenclature of our field. This paper has demonstrated the philosophical significance of kinesiology and its potential as a viable alternative. However, since philosophical arguments may not always perfectly align with practical reality, further exploration and evaluation from diverse perspectives are necessary to determine the suitability of adopting the term ‘kinesiology’ as an alternative.

Making requests (irai) is a genre of spoken interaction that is taught from the basic level of learning Japanese as a foreign language. A request is one of the speech acts that may raise face-threatening potentials. Understanding the stages of request appropriate to Japanese culture is thus essential for Japanese learners to achieve successful conversation. Therefore, conversation pedagogy by using a discourse approach is essential. This study investigates a potential structure gap in Japanese making-requests conversations realized in actual settings and textbook conversational models. By employing genre theory and interpersonal discourse of “Negotiation” as a qualitative discourse analytic method from the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) perspective, this paper describes the gaps and some factors that potentially influence the structure of Japanese making-request conversation. Data were obtained from conversational texts in the Japanese language corpus named Japanese Natural Conversation Corpus and Japanese textbooks for elementary and middle adult learners. Regarding the structure, the results show no difference between conversations in textbooks and authentic ones at the stage level, but both differ at the phase level. There is no introduction to the problem, additional explanation, and confirmation phases in textbook conversational models. In addition, the absence of the phases, the differences in pre-condition content between textbook and authentic conversations, also the length of the reasoning phase, are assumed to be influenced by relational status between participants (tenor) as well as the imposition degree of the requested object.

Drawing insights from Japan’s inspiring initiatives, this article uncovers the valuable lessons that can be learned in addressing suicide issues with collective responsibility. This study attempts to investigate the importance of cooperation in Japan’s effectiveness in promoting collective responsibility for suicide prevention. Suicide is a significant public health issue around the world, and Japan has historically had high suicide rates. However, by employing several initiatives that prioritize shared responsibility and community involvement, Japan has recently achieved impressive strides in reducing suicide rates. This paper analyzes the crucial elements such as cultural elements, social support networks, and government initiatives that have contributed to Japan’s success. It also looks at how these strategies affect suicide prevention and emphasizes the lessons that other countries can learn from Japan’s experience. According to the study’s findings, the power of unity in combination with targeted therapy can effectively address the challenging issue of suicide prevention.

Since abnormal posture of the trunk due to aging decreases walking ability, the use of a trunk device is required to maintain and improve posture. Wearable assistive devices for the purpose of extending healthy life expectancy must be lightweight, have a simple mechanism, and have a drive system that cooperates with human movements. In our previous study, we developed an adjustable stiffness mechanism to correct the posture of the trunk. In this study, we propose a rotation mechanism that can support trunk rotation during walking and posture correction. The mechanism is a simple structure consisting of a bearing mechanism to reduce rotational resistance and a plastic block connected to pneumatic soft actuator bellows. Using a pneumatic soft actuator provides high adaptability to sudden human movements. This paper explains the outline of the proposed mechanism and the mathematical model of the actuator, followed by a description of the rotational stiffness adjustment method to support trunk rotation movements. Finally, the validity of the proposed mechanism and the effectiveness of the stiffness adjustment method are described based on the results of evaluation experiments.

Marman clamp band separation mechanism is often used to separate a satellite from a launch vehicle. During the separation, the Marman clamp band releases its clamped force and to expose the satellite to a harsh environment of high-magnitude acceleration with high-frequency in a short period of time, which is named by shock environment in spacecraft developments. Estimation of the shock environment is necessary to specify the equipment design condition which is used to design the equipment’s capability to endure shock environment. Empirical methods based on past development shock test data, due to their convenience and simplicity, are often used to estimate the shock environment. However, the accuracy of empirical methods derived by the past shock test data may be affected by the different structural characteristic of the satellite which was not involved in the methods. There are two typical empirical methods, named by conventional empirical methods in this paper, which are widely used in space development. However, there are no discussions and comments regarding the uncertainty of the estimation and this unknown uncertainty will lead to over conservation safety margin assigned when applying the estimated results to specify the design condition of equipment. To answer the questions as mentioned about the conventional empirical methods, first, we investigate the applicability of conventional empirical methods by two different structural characteristics of JAXA satellites, and second, we propose the improved empirical methods for the two different types of structural characteristics based on shock test data during Marman clamp band separation test. Furthermore, a margin used to envelope the uncertainty of individual test data is statistically derived and its applicability is demonstrated from the test data.

As products become large-scale and complex, manufacturing industry faces problems in communication between workers. Among the information to be communicated, design rationale, such as reasons for decided design and the process of consideration leading to the decisions, is rarely expressed in shared design data. This paper proposes a information extraction method of design rationale. While design are conducted, conversations are recorded. Recorded sounds are transcribed using the voice input functions in Google Docs. The transcribed data is analyzed by TF/IDF, which evaluates importance of each word in the script by its frequency and rarity. By extracting sentences that contains important words, it is assumed that most design rationales can be depicted. The proposed method was applied to the design of scissors. The case shows that the proposed method has potential for extracting design rationale.

An Excel program that uses tri-diagonal matrix algorithm (TDMA) is proposed to calculate one dimensional steady heat conduction. The program gives analytical exact solutions to calculate multi-layered symmetric flat plate, solid cylinder, sphere, double-sided flat plate, hollow cylinder, and spherical shell geometries. Three different boundary conditions and arbitrary heat generation rates can be applied. Most existing numerical analysis methods use the finite difference approximation. When the thickness and physical properties of adjacent layers are extremely different in the vicinity layers, accurate values cannot be obtained without a very large number of calculation meshes. A large number of meshes increases calculation time, even for simple geometries. However, the analytical method described in this paper does not affect the accuracy of the analysis even if the adjacent media have extremely different thicknesses, because an exact solution is obtained. The effectiveness of the program is demonstrated by solving an example using this Excel program. Furthermore, the method is applied various engineering problems to show how to make simplified heat transfer models to the realistic engineering problems. By using this program to perform heat transfer calculation examples described in JIS, laws and regulations, it was easy to confirm the validity of the regulations and standard settings. The excel program is open to the public for engineering design.

This study unveils the effect of ion beam (IB) irradiation on mechanical properties and adhesion of titanium nitraide (TiN) thin films on ultrafine-grained WC-Co cemented carbide substrates. TiN thin films are used for improving wear resistance and lubricity of molds and cutting tools consisted of WC-Co cemented carbides. It is known that the ion beam assisted deposition (IBAD) improve the adhesion strength between the coatings and substrates. In this paper, TiN coatings were deposited on the ultrafine-grained WC-Co cemented carbide substrates by IBAD method that titanium was evaporated by an electron beam (EB) and nitrogen gas was introduced with/without IB. The chemical composition of TiN coatings deposited by IB were investigated by EPMA, XRD and XPS. The nitrogen ratio of TiN increased by IB irradiation in deposition process. The mechanical properties of TiN coatings with/without IB were evaluated by nanoindentation tests and ball-on-disc tests. Dynamic hardness and Young's modulus of TiN deposited by IBAD was 100% and 50% higher than that by conventional vapor deposition (VD), respectively. Friction coefficient of TiN deposited by IBAD was lower than that by VD. The adhesion of TiN coatings was measured by scratch tests. The adhesion strength of TiN deposited by IBAD was 21% higher than that by VD.

The purpose of this paper is to examine which coating material on tool edges is best for cutting spheroidal graphite cast iron containing 35% Nickel (Ni) and to understand the relation between friction properties of the coatings and cutting ability. Heat-resistant alloy materials, such as Ni-based alloy steels and Ni-based alloy cast irons containing a large amount of Ni, are known as difficult-to-cut materials due to high high-temperature strength, low thermal conductivity, and work hardening. In this study, austenitic spheroidal graphite cast iron containing 35% Nickel (FCDA-Ni35) was used as a work material, and shaper machining tests were performed for evaluating cutting abilities of TiN and CrN-coated tools. Furthermore, the friction properties of each coating were compared and evaluated by a ball-on-plate test. It was found that the ploughing force component of the CrN-coat was smaller, and the chip thickness was thinner than that of the TiN-coat, so the cutting ability was good. As a result, the CrN-coated tool has smaller cutting resistance and ploughing force component than the TiN-coated tool, and the friction coefficient of the rake face is smaller. Furthermore, the CrN-coated tool has stable chip formation, thin chip thickness, and good cutting ability on cutting for FCDA-Ni35.

With the recent spread of 3D printing, its application has been widely discussed from automotive industries to small-scale and individual manufacturing. In general, additive manufacturing is used as a 3D printing process. Using this process, defects in one layer can easily spread to the next layer, deteriorating the overall quality of the final product. Therefore, to ensure the quality of 3D printers while maintaining a large workspace, it is important to monitor the process online. In this paper, a coarse-to-fine strategy is implemented for Fused Deposition Modeling via the dynamic compensation module attached to an industrial robot arm, and the 3D printer-specific multi-ROIs image processing method is proposed for printing monitoring and compensation. The dynamic compensation module consists of two high-speed cameras, an extruder, and a 2-axis actuator that can monitor previously printed material to compensate for the movement of the main system as a high-frequency sub-system. For evaluation of the developed system, a defection detecting test using the multi-ROIs method and dynamic compensation tool path planning test was made. Consequently, it was shown that the dynamic compensation system can be applied by dynamic compensation of the developed 3D printer system, and the prediction and inspection can be made simultaneously by using the multi-ROIs method.

In the construction work, flat plates for building materials are transported by a suspension mechanism using wires in air flow. Then, a flutter could be caused to the suspended plates due to the interaction between plate motion and fluid flow. The violent vibration due to flutter loses the efficiency and safety of the operation. To improve the efficiency and safety of the operation, a detailed understanding of the flutter characteristics is crucial. In this paper, the flutter analysis and experiments of a flat plate suspended by wires in air flow are carried out. In the flutter analysis, the Doublet-point method based on the unsteady lifting surface theory is used to calculate the unsteady fluid force acting on the plate surface. The equation of motion of the plate suspended by wires considering restoring force due to gravity is derived based on the Lagrange equation. The flat plate is modeled as a rigid body. The flutter velocity and frequency are examined through the root locus of the characteristic equation of the system with changing the flow velocity. Moreover, wind - tunnel experiments are conducted to verify the analytical results. The influence of a suspending angle on the flutter velocity, frequency and mode are investigated in detail. Finally, the work done by the fluid force acting on the plate surface is examined.

In this paper, the mechanical properties of two-dimensional linked zig-zag structure subjected to in-plane compressive load was investigated. This structure has two counterphase layers consisted of inclined plate. The stiffness and the stored strain energy during the deformation were solved analytically based on the flexible bar theory proposed by Frisch-Fay(1962). In particular, the effects of micro-architecture of the zig-zag model on these mecahnical properties were discussed. The obtained theoretical results agree fairly with FE results. In addition, three cases of the compressive response of a connected zig-zag structure were examined in order to clarify the effective parameters on the equivalent elastic modulus and strain energy stored under certain constraining conditions.

To evaluate stresses including stress concentration at weld toes for fatigue evaluation of complex shape welded structures such as railway bogie frames, previous studies proposed the stress assessment procedure through measuring strains of actual structures by attaching strain gauges with its edges to be at weld toes. This paper evaluates design fatigue strength in terms of the measured stress from published fatigue data and re-analysis of those fatigue tests. The obtained fatigue strength fell into danger side by 12-29% if compared to the fatigue strength estimated based on the current version of JIS. The result also showed that fatigue strength at 2×106 cycles with 0.13% failure probability had a similar value with that at 1×107 cycles with 2.3% failure probability. The fatigue strength in terms of the aforementioned strain measuring system was comparable with those in terms of structural hot-spot stress approach.