Sachi Urano’s research while affiliated with University of Tsukuba and other places

We propose a new communication system by which niche people can obtain cross-cutting information and communicate with other people based on each personality. The system graphically displays the degree and direction of other people’s hobbies who are interested in the keyword niche people input, and relation between the knowledge e.g. movies, music, animation, history, geography using nodes. So, we can search friends who have similar interest and direction in hobbies. From the demonstration experiments, we obtained good results that the system could help niche people to gain and exchange useful information.

We present a new method to evaluate the impression of paintings, in terms of a mathematical modeling and quantitative assessments of impression in western painting. The present method is based on a detailed modeling of various factors and elements that consist of the composition of the painting. Impressions of 20 subject-people for 50 paintings are measured using the semantic differential method, which are compared to the impressions calculated with the present method. Their correlation is analyzed with Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC) standard. A strong correlation is obtained.

We present a new game system that provides both general knowledge and regionally specific disaster risks in a fun and interesting way. Users can experience disaster simulations on the go, as the game system detects the user’s position and movement using available GPS and acceleration sensors found in most current Smartphones. This application is intended to increase the user’s knowledge and understanding of disaster risks while maintaining the user’s motivation to continue playing and learning. An assessment experiment of the game was clearly beneficial to understand Risk Perception and support the user’s motivation of a muster drill.

According to data from Statistical Research on Shopping Centers (SC), the number of SC in January 2012 was 3050, which is 1.41 times that of Y2000. Despite gathering the impact on the custom absorbency power, there are some spaces with a negative atmosphere where crowds of people gather together at the same time in what could be considered as inactive dead spaces. In this paper, we propose two entertainment systems which display animations by object detection to improve these negative atmospheres of particularly large SCs. We survey the changes in customer impressions by placing these systems in SC and verify that these systems deliver better impressions on the spaces.

Imagine being able to approach any object in the real world and instantly learn how to read and pronounce the name of the object in any other language. This paper proposes the use of a system that simulates this idea by utilizing the video game medium in a way that makes learning a new language simple and fun. The system was designed specifically for the new technologically-inclined generation that might benefit greatly from learning within a game environment. The process of learning a new language with this system strays from previous and conventional methods in that it employs a more visual-spatial approach to learning. Additionally, this system engages the player through the use of industry-standard video game elements such as a 3D environment, controllable main character, item collection system, scoring system, and complex rewards system. By keeping in line with what people expect from standard video games, this game is capable of holding the player's attention for longer periods of time than when compared classes, textbooks, or tutors.