Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology

We present for the first time a hybrid platform combining a Thin-Film Transistor Microelectrode Array (TFT-MEA) and a Micro-Pillar Array (MPA) for simultaneous, label-free analysis of electrophysiological and contractile activity in cardiomyocytes. Validation with isoprenaline confirmed the system's sensitivity to pharmacological effects, supporting its use in drug screening and cardiotoxicity studies.

This paper aims to identify bottlenecks in learning lathe operation and find ways to reduce the workload of the identification, in order to analyze effective and efficient learning processes for lathe operation training for beginner students. This paper considers bottlenecks suitable for practical training and proposes a method for measuring bottlenecks using an eye tracker to reduce the workload required for identification. Based on this method, bottlenecks during student training are identified and discussed.

In modern society, where drastic transformations of social structures are occurring, relearning new knowledge and skills for adults is becoming progressively vital thanks to the widespread proliferation of various educational methods. Under these circumstances, our study aims to analyze the underlying factors of study motivation of adult learners. To reveal the factors and relationships between before enrollment and after graduation, we performed multivariate analysis on a questionnaire targeted at general adult learners. Based on these observations, we created a questionnaire aimed at the graduate students of our affiliation. Factor analysis has yielded five factors reflecting the curriculum of our institute. Besides the questions analyzed in our previous work, we also posed a question about usefulness for work, which could be an important clue to evaluating the effectiveness of our curriculum. Therefore, in this paper we performed cluster analysis to examine the tendency in the graduates’ career changes after graduation. In executing cluster analysis, three sets of feature values were analyzed with four clusters. As a result, it can be suggested that among clusters with high competence, the entire opposite groups can be observed; that is, some graduates stay in the same organizations as before, while others seek new environments.

Abstract Thermal infrared imaging by Longwave Infrared Camera (LIR) aboard JAXA's Venus orbiter Akatsuki has revealed horizontal structures of large‐scale topographic gravity waves (mountain waves) and thermal tides in the Venusian atmosphere. For quantitative analysis of these waves, we developed a radiative transfer model for an atmosphere perturbed by a gravity wave, which represents the mountain waves and the thermal tides in the equatorial region. Combining the infrared images with temperature profiles from the Akatsuki radio occultation, the cloud particle scale height, as well as the vertical wavelengths and growth rates of mountain waves and the semidiurnal thermal tide were determined. The cloud particle scale height around the cloud top was estimated to be approximately equal to the atmospheric scale height, indicating a vertically well‐mixed layer of the cloud particles near the cloud top in low latitudes. It was demonstrated that the brightness temperature amplitude observed by LIR is approximately half of the atmospheric temperature amplitude at the cloud top. The waves' impact on the mean flow above the cloud top was assessed by estimating their momentum deposition. The results show that mountain waves can induce an intense but localized deceleration of tens of m s −1 /day or larger above 80 km, while the semidiurnal tide provides a global and persistent deceleration that increases with height to reach the order of 1 m s −1 /day at 80 km. These results reveal two important but distinct mechanisms that contribute to the momentum budget of the Venusian upper atmosphere.

Navigating unknown three-dimensional (3D) rugged environments is challenging for multi-robot systems. Traditional discrete systems struggle with rough terrain due to limited individual mobility, while modular systems—where rigid, controllable constraints link robot units—improve traversal but suffer from high control complexity and reduced flexibility. To address these limitations, we propose the Multi-Robot System with Controllable Weak Constraints (MRS-CWC), where robot units are connected by constraints with dynamically adjustable stiffness. This adaptive mechanism softens or stiffens in real time during environmental interactions, ensuring a balance between flexibility and mobility. We formulate the system’s dynamics and control model and evaluate MRS-CWC against six baseline methods and an ablation variant in a benchmark dataset with 100 different simulation terrains. Results show that MRS-CWC achieves the highest navigation completion rate and ranks second in success rate, efficiency, and energy cost in the highly rugged terrain group, outperforming all baseline methods without relying on environmental modeling, path planning, or complex control. Even where MRS-CWC ranks second, its performance is only slightly behind a more complex ablation variant with environmental modeling and path planning. Finally, we develop a physical prototype and validate its feasibility in a constructed rugged environment. For videos, simulation benchmarks, and code, please visit https://wyd0817.github.io/project-mrs-cwc/.

An inclusive society has a growing demand for support systems that can accommodate the diversity of human physical and mental functions and the diversity of living environments. This study focuses on preventing home accidents involving young children as a concrete example of methodologies for observing, modeling, and controlling "living situations," which are complex systems composed of people and their environments, where interactions between people and environments change over time. Although previous research has proposed technologies for recognizing children’s behaviors and detecting environmental risks, few have integrated behavior and environment to predict accident pathways and time to occurrence. In this study, the authors propose a system that integrates home data scanned in three dimensions acquired through smartphones, child position data obtained using posture recognition technology, and epidemiological accident databases (N=358,715 cases) collected by the Tokyo Fire Department in Japan. The system estimates accident risks based on the relative positions of furniture and children, and visualizes the predicted paths and expected arrival time to high-risk objects in real-time. The evaluation based on national accident statistics confirmed that the system’s object recognition covers approximately 70% of furniture types involved in serious accidents. By conducting experiments for a six-year-old child and 55 three-dimensional scanned data obtained in actual living environments, the authors also demonstrate the feasibility of risk visualization considering the individuality and dynamic nature of living environments.

TRIM48 is a human-specific tripartite motif (TRIM) family protein with E3 ubiquitin ligase activity that plays a significant role in the oxidative stress response and tumor suppression. However, the mechanisms regulating TRIM48 expression remain unknown. In this study, we demonstrate that TRIM48 is targeted for ubiquitination-dependent degradation by S-phase kinase-associated protein 1 (Skp1)-Cullin1 (Cul1)-F-box protein (SCF) ubiquitin ligase complex, containing F-box protein 22 (FBXO22) as a substrate recognition subunit. We found that TRIM48 is a rapid turnover protein, as evidenced by the fast and drastic decrease in its protein expression level in the presence of a protein synthesis inhibitor cycloheximide, which was suppressed by knocking down either Skp1, Cul1 or FBXO22. Exogenous FBXO22 expression promoted K48-linked polyubiquitination and degradation of TRIM48. FBXO22 deficiency accelerated oxidative stress-induced activation of apoptosis signal-regulating kinase 1 (ASK1) and cell death, which was reversed by additional TRIM48 knockdown. Collectively, our findings identify the FBXO22 SCF complex as a key negative regulator of TRIM48-driven ASK1-activation and cell death under oxidative stress. The dysregulation of this axis may underlie human-specific pathologies, such as tumorigenesis and oxidative stress-associated disorders, highlighting its potential as a target for novel therapeutic interventions.