Brain Dynamics and Neuroinformatics (NI)
- Understanding and Investing Mechanisms of How We Think

A hypothesis-driven approaches is necessary for scientific findings, and then data-driven approaches are expected to help in integrating them in the form of “data-driven ontology discovery.” In this project, as an automated hypothesis-driven approach will be developed as a linkage system for multi-dimensional data for a meaningful reconstruction of what the whole structure represents as a scientific evidence. As a grand design, the event/hypothesis-driven semantic primitive integration framework was proposed to be able to enrich metadata for obtained experimental data. The metadata mark-up language was introduced for binding multi-data recourses obtained from human brain data such as simultaneous recording of EEG, gaze and motion in the dynamic environment.

Keywords: computational neuroscience, neuroinformatics, metadata, EEG measurement, eye-tracker, motion capture system

Biomechanics and Multibody Dynamics (MBD)
- Intelligence in Mechanics and Assistive Technology

Our activity is supported by the body, and its morphology and characteristic changes are important factors for the achievement of the body movement, which is recognized as a specific function. Muscle is necessary for the movement of the limbs, as an element, but different elements have to be finely coordinated to provide the "function" in the sense of the whole system. In addition, dynamic interactions are truly necessary to achieve intelligent and adaptive movements.
Conventional robotics based on the rigid body mechanics tends to fall into an element-reducing modeling, such as replacing it with a simple combination of rotary joints, which cannot reproduce the original complex and flexible body deformation. In this research, we have introduced multibody dynamics as a systematic method that flexibly replaces and reconstructs the components of the system and facilitates comparative analysis. Similarly, the ANCF method (simply saying, a kind of integration of FEM and MBD) is also introduced to integrate the materials analysis with the rigid body mechanics.
We believe that our approach has effective consistency with methods in rehabilitation in the field of physiotherapy, and it largely contributes for creating new paradigms to provide tools and methods for training in parasports (especially wheelchair basketball) and physiotherapy.

Keywords: computational biomechanics, multibody dynamics, absolute nodal coordinate formulation　（ANCF), carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP), computation in CAD, 3D printing technology

Cyber-Physical Spaces (CPS) and Advanced Methdology
- AI for Industrial Fields

CPS is a statement to focus the importance of the integration between the informatized virtual world "Cyber" and the real world "Physical" that requires physical interactions. Seemingly unrelated phenomena and events in the real world may have hidden complex relationships. Semantics and conceptual treatments in the virtual world will be required as well as brain (mind)-body issues. A local optimization is possible in the conventional information processing systems and automation (robotization); however, trade-off issues, such as environmental issues, where maximizing a benefit is inevitably accompanied with drawbacks in other factors. We are tackling issues of how a global optimization can be achieved from an overall perspective. For the purpose, it is necessary to consider an integration of continuous and discrete (analog and digital) schemes, metadata and semantics, and designing a system to understand the situation. Fundamental theories and implementation methods are developing now to solve those issues.

Keyword: optimization theories, sparse modeling, morphological component analysis (MCA), non-linear dynamics, oscillator synchronization

Knowledge-Based AI and Autonomous Planning in Robotics
- Ontology and Implicit Knowledge

According to the expectation of the next-generation artificial intelligence to support intelligence in robotics, we have been devoted to the development of core technologies for the safety assurance in automated driving systems during years of experience. The knowledge-based AI has developed, and it is utilized for intelligent robots to be able to collaborate with humans in a specific task. The achievement of an autonomy of situation- and context-dependent planning is highly important and it can be provided as an integrated AI technology such as the data-driven AI and logic knowledge type AI has been built to overcome the AI black boxing issue, which cannot explain its reason in the decision-making for human experts. By using this architecture, the machine-readable expert knowledge in the site is reconstructed in the form of the hierarchical information for solving the target problem with various constraints such as the environment, tasks, mobility and contraindications of the robots, and it enables to visualize the logical judgment process and provide the effective autonomous procedure. It changes the world in the sense of Society 5.0.

Keywords: description logic, ontology, robot operating system (ROS), RDF/OWL, Horn clause, Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL)

The Starting Point

Living things and people are vulnerable, and substances and structures can be lost.

It is an inevitable fate, but living things commonly have the power to overcome various difficulties for survival and create necessary knowledge to solve problems they faced in their environments. The power of individuals and organizations to overcome the challenges is called "intelligence," and in this laboratory we deeply consider where intelligence comes from, what it is, and where it goes. As well as questions in the origin of the universe and life, we seriously pursue a way to elucidate the deep question an important research topic. I believe that science and technology has a capability to irradiate vulnerable and fragile properties of living things.

The research subject we are concentrating on is "the principle of intelligence emerged in interactions of the body with the world." Living things have restrictions and limits coming from properties of the body and the environment in senses of space, time, and resources. In the ever-changing environment and situation, they have to provide an appropriate answer in the decision-making process for survival. We want to know the fundamental principles of information processing of the world in which the own body encounters, which includes a prompt generation of expressions of others, relationships, situations and task dependences. increase. In other words, it is a kind of mind-and-body issue and a problem in computational neuroscience.

No theory and method are perfect. Any theory and method have advantages and disadvantage. Therefore, the fact raises the question of when, where, who, for whom, for what, how, how much, which range the theory and method will be applied to the target issue.
It implies that the intelligence emerges depending on situations or contexts.

I understand that life has been destined to be a system for creating context-dependent solutions since it was born in this world. It probably won't change until the end of this universe.
In scientific terms, it is an action against the "law of entropy enhancement (the second law of thermodynamics)", which forms a new order for survival. Entropy means "messiness" and without resistance forces, everything will be scattered in space due to the basic principle in the universe.

A similar structure appears in problems in life-sustaining processes such as the formation of biological tissues, substance transportations between living organisms, metabolism, energy transformation, and information transfer. In short, it is a conflict between the global solution and local solutions in the same system, which requires a process of coordination of them. It also appears in social activities such as processes of productions with operating, and consuming in the physical world, especially in manufacturing industries. Suppose that each person wants to be economically prosperous, it may vie for a specific resource. If the resource is limited, the competition comes off the division of persons who got and failed to get. If the roles are fixed, the competition builds an unequal society.

Amazing Nature

Interestingly, the natural world is not unequal society because of the ecological cycle. The water of the sea evaporates, becomes rain, falls on the ground, freshwater springs from the mountains, and the river flows, so that many lives can survive, and that water flows into the sea again and then returns to its original state. This is the ecological cycle. Indeed, life resists the entropy enhancement by maintaining energy transformation in circulation processes inside and outside their bodies. Imagine a gymnast spinning a large wheel on a horizontal bar. Or, a swinging pendulum hanging from the bar. In principle, with the exception of the initial force applied to the pendulum, once it starts to rotate, the potential energy is obtained when the rotator is at the top according to the falling gravity, and the energy is converted to the kinetic energy when it goes at the bottom to rotate. However, this is the case when there is no energy consumption due to a friction and air resistance. The gymnast keeps spinning because it applies the minimum amount of pendulum force during a fall at the moment where the potential energy is converted to kinetic energy, to compensate the energy loss. In the ecological cycle, the extraterrestrial heat from the sun compensate the loss of energy on the globe to maintain the sustainable cycle. The lifespan of the sun and the earth is exceedingly longer than that of living things on the earth, so there is no problem in supplying the energy consumed by life.

The fact we realized is that the generation of a cycle is the starting point of life, and in order to maintain it, they need to compensate for what is lost during the cycle from external resources. If it is an artificial machine, the pendulum can rotate mechanically by supplying the energy all the time. It is a prodigal expenditure. Amazing nature allows life to be autonomous, which has the ability to create and maintain cycles on its own, and to supplement the minimum amount of energy lost in the cycle. The "intelligence" is a methodology that living organisms can take as a mechanism to generate, maintain, and stabilize their activities.

Reason why people think that the disparity is evil because they know the periodic circulation in life, energy exchange and coexistence in the limited world under natural conditions. Similarly, if the power of a country or organization restricts the freewill of individuals and abuse the human rights, it is not an intellectual activity. If someone says, "Stop breathing everyone! Because lack of air," it's scientifically and socially nonsense. Oxygen is endlessly produced from the life activity of plants and is inexhaustible. The life activity of the earth is maintained in the whole ecological system, and the activity of breathing by each individual is indispensable for the life activity of an individual. I don't think there is a future in a society where individuals are living dead under the condition to maximize the whole benefit. The natural world teaches us that the fixation of roles and profits is unnatural, and it is denied by our destiny as life. On the other hand, it is considerable that the desire to secure stable profits comes from the fundamental "fear" of individuals, families, organizations, and political groups that share their benefits or interests. In order for a life cycle to be sustainable, the process requires saving energy and accumulation to prevent risks to stop the cycle unexpectedly. However, the act of storing benefits and energy in an inexhaustible way is like a cancer cell that proliferates infinitely in the body, and eventually the death of the individual in the living environment has come to an end. It is not a realistic solution indeed.

Living Activity in Restricted Time and Space

In summary, living things share resources with other individuals for survival in the same environment. They commonly use space and time, share places and opportunities dependently and independently. Throughout the process in the ever-changing environment and circumstances, they provide an appropriate answer for survival.

I believe that the process of creating knowledge inspired from complex and diverse life activities goes beyond the principle of creating the solution from the sense of the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Calculating the simple summation by ignoring time and space is convenient for an estimation of remuneration in the society and designing brief economic indexes, while it does not directly affect individual action plans, solutions or guidelines in people being proud and confident in their work and living with their own values in the society. In daily life, we are living in time and space, and acknowledge things as a consequence succeeded one another from past to present to future.

If a unification to evoke totalitarianism and respect to free will enhancing individualism are only two alternative options, there is no solution in the world. I think that the intelligence has a capability to intermediate them for taking a step toward a contribution to build a realistic material-mind society that respects individual values and free will and considers social development in a form of ecological cycles.

It is realized that the hint to elucidate the intelligent mechanism can be found in mathematics dealing with time and space.

Our Ambitions

Toward the vision of "a circulating society that respects individual values and free will and considers social development and contribution," the specific mission of our laboratory is mathematical and implementation (experimentally) that handles these problems in a unified manner, such as laws of physics. The method will be completed as a field of brain information engineering (or phenomenological computational neuroscience), and the emergent process of intelligence can be reconstructed in a testable way as scientific verifications. "

We call this approach as "Brain-Based Embodied Intelligence," and focus relationships as follows.

・ Self and the world (environment)
・ Self and others
・ Self and tasks

We are working on "elucidation of the intelligence created by the body's involvement with the world".

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