Information-Technology Promotion Agency

BackgroundDementia poses serious challenges for individuals and communities. We first piloted a 12‐month multidomain program—encompassing exercise, nutrition, cognitive training, social engagement, and vascular risk management—in O City to assess feasibility. Building on these results, we then revised the intervention into a 6‐month basic course plus a 6‐month continuation class for H Town, aligning with municipal needs and the common practice of transitioning participants to self‐directed groups. We also trained local instructors and assessed a structured process for participant enrollment and follow‐up.MethodIn 2023, we conducted a one‐arm trial in O City with 80 community‐dwelling older adults (aged 65–86). We defined feasibility as attendance at ≥60% of sessions over 12 months, and measured acceptability on a five‐point scale. Cognitive function was monitored via the Japanese version of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA‐J; range 0–30), and food diversity was evaluated using a standardized questionnaire. In 2024, we implemented a revised format in H Town featuring a 6‐month basic program followed by a 6‐month continuation class. We employed a structured enrollment protocol comprising (1) identifying older adults with hypertension or hyperglycemia, (2) mailing invitations (n = 801), and (3) conducting an informational session. Three local instructors were trained, and we recorded participant enrollment and willingness to continue.ResultIn O City, 75% of participants met the 12‐month attendance criterion, and the mean acceptability score was 4.4 out of 5. Mean MoCA‐J scores remained stable (22.8 ± 3.1 to 23.1 ± 3.5), while food diversity improved significantly (7.5 ± 2.8 to 8.4 ± 2.5; p = 0.008). In H Town, 33 older adults (4.1%) attended the informational session, and 19 enrolled. More than 70% indicated willingness to continue at personal cost after completing the revised program.ConclusionFeasibility and acceptance of this multidomain dementia‐prevention program were demonstrated in two municipalities through distinct implementation models. Findings from O City informed the 6‐month structure in H Town, which aligns with local practices for transitioning participants to self‐directed groups. Future controlled studies should further clarify cognitive and health outcomes and refine recruitment and follow‐up strategies for broader community impact.

Over the last few decades, lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries have become widely recognized for their high energy density, stability, safety, and long cycle life, making them a popular choice in electric vehicles and energy storage systems. However, a significant phenomenon that affects their performance is the open circuit voltage (OCV) hysteresis, which occurs due to the differences in voltage during the charge and discharge cycles. This paper discusses a detailed analysis of the OCV hysteresis effects in LFP batteries, modeling approaches, and its impact on battery performance and efficiency. A detailed review of the hysteresis model of lithium batteries is done and the different factors affecting hysteresis effects are discussed. Furthermore, various models are discussed elaborately such as the empirical, phenomenological, and electrochemical models. A proposed model developed to simulate and predict dynamic hysteresis voltage during charging and discharging, cumulative hysteresis losses in cycles and OCV hysteresis was developed. Finally comparative results are shown with RMSE errors to verify the model. The review highlights the practical implications of hysteresis on battery management systems (BMS), energy efficiency, and state of charge (SOC) estimation for rechargeable batteries. This comprehensive review aims to enhance the understanding of OCV hysteresis in LFP batteries and provide a foundation for optimizing their performance in real-world applications.

Although hyperplasia of the anorectal transitional zone (TZ) has been reported in mouse models of ulcerative colitis, the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon are not fully understood. We characterized keratin subtypes and examined the expression of stem cell markers in the TZ. Dextran sodium sulfate-treated mice showed abnormal repair of the anorectal region, which consisted of mixed hyperplastic TZ and regenerating crypts. Liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry from the paraffin-embedded TZ in the treated mice revealed that the major keratins were type I cytokeratin (CK)13 and type II CK5, but notable expression of type I CK10 and CK42 and type II CK1, CK4, CK6a, CK8, and CK15 was also detected. Hyperplastic TZ was characterized by the expression of tumor protein 63, sex-determining region Y-box 2 (SOX2), SOX9, and leucine-rich repeat-containing G-protein coupled receptor 5 (Lgr5). Lgr5 was highly expressed in the TZ in the early stages of colitis, followed by higher expression levels of SOX2. The TZ-derived organoids expressed LGR5, SOX2, and SOX9. The present study suggests that transitional zones showing abnormal keratin assembly and stem cell activation may interfere with rectal crypt regeneration, leading to pathological anorectal remodeling in severe colitis.

Electric field catalysis using surface proton conduction, in which proton hopping and collision on the reactant are promoted by external electricity, is a promising approach to break the thermodynamic equilibrium limitation in endothermic propane dehydrogenation (PDH). This study proposes a catalyst design concept for more efficient electroassisted PDH at low temperature. Sm was doped into the anatase TiO2 surface to increase surface proton density by charge compensation. Pt-In alloy was deposited on the Sm-doped TiO2 for more favorable proton collision and selective propylene formation. The catalytic activity in electroassisted PDH drastically increased by doping an appropriate amount of Sm (1 mol % to Ti) where the highest propylene yield of 19.3 % was obtained at 300 °C where the thermodynamic equilibrium yield was only 0.5 %. Results show that surface proton enrichment boosts alkane dehydrogenation at low temperature.

DX is a must for Japanese companies to cope with Japan's 2025 Digital Cliff. To promote DX initiatives, self-assessment is necessary to make their position recognized. However, conventional manual assessments have high costs, hindering their DX promotion. We noticed that progress in corporate DX can be reflected in the amount of related information on the Web, and there is no reported method of utilizing this relation for DX assessment. This paper proposes WISDOM-DX, a system that accumulates information on corporate activities on the Web using a question-answering system, and ranks companies regarding DX initiatives. We compared WISDOM-DX with two baselines Prize and Google. The precision of WISDOM-DX, Prize, and Google were 56.3%, 45.8%, and 22.9%, respectively. The rate of DX-related award winners or certified companies obtained by WISDOM-DX and Google were 91.7% and 64.6%, respectively. The Area Under the Precision-Recall curve (AUPR) of WISDOM-DX, Prize, and Google were 0.540, 0.359, and 0.181, respectively. An opinion survey showed 60.7% positive and 32.1% neutral responses regarding the agreeability of WISDOM-DX's rankings, and 46.4% positive and 39.3% neutral responses regarding the usefulness of WISDOM-DX. These results showed WISDOM-DX's promising performance and the prospect of automating large-scale assessment regarding corporate DX initiatives.

The oxidative dehydrogenation of propane using CO2 (CO2 -ODP) is a promising technique for realizing high-yield propylene production and CO2 usage. Developing a highly efficient catalyst for CO2 -ODP is essential and beneficial to the chemical industry and for realizing net-zero emissions. Many studies have investigated metal oxide-based catalysts, revealing that rapid deactivation and low selectivity remain limiting factors for their industrial applications. In recent years, metallic nanoparticle catalysts have become increasingly attractive due to their unique properties. Therefore, we summarize the performance of metal-based catalysts in CO2 -ODP reactions by considering catalyst design concepts, different mechanisms in the reaction process, and the role of CO2 .

An improved radiometric calibration algorithm by extending the Mitsunaga and Nayar least-square minimization based algorithm with two major ideas is presented. First, a noise & outlier removal procedure based on the analysis of brightness transfer function is included for improving the algorithm's capability on handling noise and outlier in least-square estimation. Second, an alternative minimization formulation based on weighted least square is proposed to improve the weakness of least square minimization when dealing with biased distribution observations. The performance of the proposed algorithm with regards to two baseline algorithms is demonstrated, i.e. the classical least square based algorithm proposed by Mitsunaga and Nayar and the state-of-the-art rank minimization based algorithm proposed by Lee et al. From the results, the proposed algorithm outperforms both baseline algorithms on both the synthetic dataset and the dataset of real-world images.

A virus infection situation can be considered a kind of emergency or disaster. Although such a situation is an area applicable to psychology, there has not yet been any report of specific studies in this field. Furthermore, in the field of information security, even though an individual might intend to take protective action, it is an observable fact that many people do not actually do so. Research on individual behavior and decision making in a virus infection situation is important in developing information security protection. We implemented a virtual game based on collective intelligence to investigate experimentally the awareness that users with infected PCs have of information security. By analyzing the experiment data in combination with questionnaire results, we have investigated why many people do not take appropriate recovery action against virus infection, and also the personal profiles which indicate that people are likely to take such recovery action.

Defects in information technology (IT) services will have greater negative impacts on social and economic activities in the future, since the risks of such defects are increasing due to their wider applications and the growth of IT systems' complexity and scale. In this paper, upon surveying the current state of affairs and seeing that little progress has been made towards understanding and reducing defects in IT services that influence social and economic activities, despite a number of efforts including upgrading software and hardware quality, we propose a new approach to understanding the dependability of IT services by discussing a dependability model. The model consists of not only functions for legacy system dependability but also two types of functions (additional safety and safety operation). Next we evaluate the efficacy of these two types of functions relative to IT dependability, both qualitatively and quantitatively, by using 42 actual cases of IT accidents obtained by the Information-technology Promotion Agency, Japan. Moreover, based on the verification, we examine the ways in which improvement of IT dependability associated with social and economic infrastructure, previously dependent on the skill of individual engineers, is eventually achieved as a result of organizational activities.