- Principal Investigator: Ian Wilson
TTitle: Dialects of the Aizu Area: Digital Audio Documentation and Phonetic
Analysis
Amount: \319,000
This project is a continuation of last year’s research into the dialects of the Aizu
area. With Japan’s decreasing birth rate and increasing migration of young people
from rural to urban areas, the endangerment of a number of Japanese dialects is inevitable.
Last year, we created a publicly-available audio database of actual speech
samples of the Aizu dialects. In this year’s project, we added to the database, and
did more extensive phonetic analyses of the audio data.
A total of 4 fieldwork trips were made, 1 to Hinoemata and Tateiwa in Minami-
Aizu, 1 to Kaneyama, 1 to Shiokawa, and 1 to Aizu-Bange. A total of 20 language
informants were recorded. Data that was collected included (a) picture card
identification, (b) conversations between Aizu speakers, and (c) culturally-relevant
monologues and songs. Much of the data was uploaded to our Japanese website,
and many samples of our data can be downloaded there. Some of our findings
were written up for the general public twice in the University of Aizu Relay Essay
(Fukushima Minpo Newspaper). Two senior undergraduate students wrote their
theses on acoustic research that they did on the Aizu dialect. One of these students
co-presented a paper at the 90th Meeting of the Dialectological Circle of Japan at
Japan Women’s University (Tokyo). News of this presentation was featured in the
Fukushima Minpo Newspaper.
- Principal Investigator: Kazuyoshi Mori
Title: On Public Lectures for Building Personal Computers with Using LGA1366-
type CPU
Amount: \553,000
In this project, we investigate the lecture for building a personal computer with
LGA1366-type CPU. The lectures holds 5 times in the academic year. In the
lectures the CPU we use is Intel Core i7, which uses the socket LGA1366. A
personal computer with Intel Core i7 is built in the lecture as a demonstration. A
a result, participants obtained the know-how of the way to attach the CPU.
- Principal Investigator: Haruo Terasaka
Title: Research for local weather forecasting System in Fukushima Prefecture (with
a central focus on Aizu area)
Amount: \1,930,000
Results from the project activities are summarized as follows.
(a) Local weather simulation
By using a non-hydrostatic weather model, RAMS, local weather calculations
around Fukushima prefecture were carried out and compared with the observational
data. Four different grid sizes were used to clarify the effects of
resolution on the local terrain conditions. The temperature obtained from the
finer grid could capture well the precise distribution.
(b) Qualification of two-way nesting capability
Qualification tests for our prototype high-resolution model were conducted
and validity and accuracy of its two-way nesting capability were satisfactorily
confirmed.
(c) Benchmark test
Benchmark test of MPI parallel computation was conducted. Several test
programs written by Fortran90 were run on our Cluster computer which was
enhanced by this fund. The test results confirmed that the computer achieved
performance we planned.
- Principal Investigator: Keitaro Naruse
Title: Development of Robot Educational Kits with the Dynamic Passive Walking
Robots
Amount: \964,000
The objective of this research project is to develop a robotic education kit based
on the passive walking robot, which is a walking device composed of a pair of pendulums.
It can be a good device to understand the physics because the oscillation
phenomenon directly results in a walking motion.
In this project, the procedure for building the passive walking robots has been
established by investigating their mechanical characteristics and by manufacturing
and evaluating several instances of the robots. The developed kit has been tested
and verified with university students and junior high school students.
- Principal Investigator: Takafumi Hayashi
Title: Construction of Academic and Educational Information Infrastructure by
Content-Based Networking
Amount: \1,691,000
The project studied the architecture, framework, and related engineering aspects
of a future intelligent infrastructure. The proposed intelligent infrastructure will
provide the function to integrate various services of academic and education information.
The infrastructure also provides a secure structured overlay network, so
called messaging network. Several academic conference papers were published and
some sample implementation of the proposed scheme was constructed.
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