Updated on 2024/03/27

写真a

 
KUBOTA Tomonori
 
Organization
Graduate School of Engineering Information and Communication Engineering 2 Assistant Professor
Graduate School
Graduate School of Engineering
Undergraduate School
School of Engineering Electrical Engineering, Electronics, and Information Engineering
Title
Assistant Professor
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Degree 3

  1. Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering ( 2022.3   Osaka University ) 

  2. Master of Engineering ( 2019.3   Osaka University ) 

  3. Bachelor of Engineering ( 2017.3   Osaka University ) 

Research Interests 3

  1. Human-Robot Interaction

  2. Human-Agent Interaction

  3. Social Robot

Research Areas 3

  1. Informatics / Intelligent informatics

  2. Informatics / Intelligent robotics

  3. Informatics / Human interface and interaction

Research History 6

  1. Nagoya University   Department of Information and Communication Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering   Assistant Professor

    2023.10

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    Country:Japan

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  2. Osaka University   Division of Systems Science and Applied Informatics, Department of Systems Innovation, Graduate School of Engineering Science   Visiting Faculty

    2022.4

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    Country:Japan

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  3. Nagoya University   Department of Information and Communication Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering   Designated assistant professor

    2022.4 - 2023.9

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    Country:Japan

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  4. Kyoto Women's University   Part-time Lecturer

    2020.10

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    Country:Japan

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  5. Japan Society for Promotion of Science   Research Fellow (DC2)

    2020.4 - 2022.3

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    Country:Japan

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  6. Osaka University   Graduate School of Engineering Science   Specially Appointed Researcher S

    2017.7 - 2020.3

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    Country:Japan

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Awards 2

  1. Student Encouragement Award

    2024.3  

    Ryoma Mitsuoka, Tomonori Kubota, Kohei Ogawa, Satoshi Sato

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    Award type:Award from Japanese society, conference, symposium, etc.  Country:Japan

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  2. Best Paper Nominee

    2023.12   The 11th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction (HAI 2023)   Investigating the Intervention in Parallel Conversations

    Shota Mochizuki, Sanae Yamashita, Kazuyoshi Kawasaki, Reiko Yuasa, Tomonori Kubota, Kohei Ogawa, Jun Baba, Ryuichiro Higashinaka

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    Award type:Award from international society, conference, symposium, etc. 

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Papers 6

  1. Effects of the Behavior of a Para-operated Robot on the Impression of the Operator: a Preliminary Online Study Considering the Robot-operator Distance Reviewed International journal

    Tomonori Kubota, Kohei Ogawa

    Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction     page: 356 - 358   2023.12

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    Authorship:Lead author   Language:English   Publishing type:Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher:ACM  

    While research and applications of operated social robots that can be used as operators’ avatars have been conducted, a para-operated social robot has also been proposed, in which the robot and its operator exist in the same space, and the operator, robot, and interlocutor can interact with each other. From the findings of human-human-robot interaction research, it is known that the robot’s behavior influences the interpersonal relationships of the people involved in the dialog. However, there is no knowledge of how the operator is perceived by the interlocutor when the operations by the operator are unveiled. This paper reports preliminary results from two online surveys conducted to investigate the following question considering the robot-operator distance; Does the impression of the operator improve in unveiled para-operation when the operator operates the robot and has it say favorable utterances? The results of the two video surveys conducted at different distances between the robot and the operator show that the impression of the operator was improved by the robot’s favorable humorous utterances when the distance was close, but not when the distance was further apart. We consider that the findings contribute to the potential application of unveiled para-operated robots and suggest the importance of considering the distance factor in the influence of robots on human-human relationships.

    DOI: 10.1145/3623809.3623924

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  2. Investigating the Intervention in Parallel Conversations Reviewed International journal

    Shota Mochizuki, Sanae Yamashita, Kazuyoshi Kawasaki, Reiko Yuasa, Tomonori Kubota, Kohei Ogawa, Jun Baba, Ryuichiro Higashinaka

    Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction     page: 30 - 38   2023.12

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    Language:English   Publishing type:Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher:ACM  

    In recent years, a framework of parallel conversations has been proposed to facilitate efficient conversations through cooperation between humans and dialogue systems. This approach aims to enable simultaneous conversations with multiple users by enabling the system to handle basic conversation and human operators to intervene when problems arise in the system’s conversation. Previous studies on parallel conversations have primarily focused on delegating simple exchanges such as greetings and acknowledgments to the system, with humans taking over for more complex interactions like providing guidance. Recent advancements in large language models may change this situation, enabling dialogue systems to engage in more advanced interactions. In this study, to examine which interventions will be made when large language models are utilized, we placed six dialogue robots based on large language models in an actual facility and conducted a field experiment involving parallel conversations for about a month. Our analysis of the collected data on dialogues and interventions showed that the most frequent interventions were made for supporting interactions when the system failed to react to the user utterances, indicating the limitations of using large language models alone and clarifying our next steps for facilitating smoother parallel conversations.

    DOI: 10.1145/3623809.3623863

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  3. Investigating the Effects of Dialogue Summarization on Intervention in Human-System Collaborative Dialogue Reviewed International journal

    Sanae Yamashita, Shota Mochizuki, Kazuyoshi Kawasaki, Tomonori Kubota, Kohei Ogawa, Jun Baba, Ryuichiro Higashinaka

    Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction     page: 316 - 324   2023.12

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    Language:English   Publishing type:Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher:ACM  

    Dialogue systems are widely utilized in chatbots and call centers. However, it is often difficult for such systems to deliver fully autonomous dialogue. For users to have a better dialogue experience, a framework for human-system collaborative dialogue is proposed in which a human operator takes over the dialogue when needed, engaging in conversation with the user instead of the system (we call this process intervention). Operators join the dialogue in the middle; therefore, it is believed that dialogue summarization can be helpful for interventions. However, it is currently unclear whether dialogue summarization is actually useful. Therefore, in this study, we aim to investigate the usefulness of dialogue summaries for interventions through a field experiment conducted at an actual facility combining an aquarium and a zoo. The results of the field experiment revealed that dialogue summaries were more useful for intervention than dialogue history. Furthermore, we found no differences in the word categories included in the operator utterances during interventions irrespective of whether the dialogue history or dialogue format summary was presented to the operators, suggesting that dialogue format summary has content similar to that of dialogue history but improves the usefulness in intervention.

    DOI: 10.1145/3623809.3623889

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  4. Alignment of the attitude of teleoperators with that of a semi-autonomous android Reviewed International journal

    Tomonori Kubota, Kohei Ogawa, Yuichiro Yoshikawa, Hiroshi Ishiguro

    Scientific Reports   Vol. 12   page: 10473   2022.6

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    Authorship:Lead author, Corresponding author   Language:English   Publishing type:Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher:Nature Portfolio  

    Studies on social robots that can communicate with humans are increasingly important. In particular, semi-autonomous robots have shown potential for practical applications in which robot autonomy and human teleoperation are jointly used to accomplish difficult tasks. However, it is unknown how the attitude represented in the autonomous behavior of the robots affects teleoperators. Previous studies reported that when humans play a particular role, their attitudes align with that role. The teleoperators of semi-autonomous robots also play the role given to the robots and may assimilate their autonomous expression. We hypothesized that the attitude of teleoperators may align with that of robots through teleoperation. To verify this, we conducted an experiment with conditions under which a participant operated a part of the body of an android robot that autonomously expressed a preferential attitude toward a painting and a condition under which they did not. Experimental results demonstrated that the preferential attitude of participants who teleoperated the android aligned statistically significantly more with that of the robot in comparison to those who did not teleoperate it, thereby supporting our hypothesis. This finding is novel regarding attitude change in teleoperators of semi-autonomous robots and can support the implementation of effective human-robot collaboration systems.

    DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-13829-3

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  5. Development and Verication of an Onsite-operated Android Robot Working Cooperatively with Humans in a Real Store Reviewed

    Tomonori Kubota, Takamichi Isowa, Kohei Ogawa, Hiroshi Ishiguro

    The Transactions of Human Interface Society   Vol. 22 ( 3 ) page: 275 - 290   2020.8

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    Authorship:Lead author   Language:Japanese   Publishing type:Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher:Human Interface Society  

    While the potential of adopting robots interacting with humans in stores was shown in the previous studies, however robots that can work with people in stores and provide services have not taken root in society yet. In this paper, we realized an android robot which can help the duties of the salespersons at a boutique as well as provide mental support by cooperating with them. We considered that it is important for such robots to not only serve the customers but also support the salespersons. Therefore, we first interviewed salespersons at a boutique to find out what they expect from the robot. The result of the survey showed that they mainly expect three points from the robot: 1) reducing the workload of salesperson, 2) providing mental support for salesperson, and 3) assisting salesperson to establish a good relationship with the customer. To deal with these issues, we implemented an onsite-operated android. Through an 11-day field experiment in a boutique, in which the salespersons used the android, it was observed that the android could contribute to the salespersons in some situation of the work, and more possibilities for the android to contribute to the salespersons in some different aspects was investigated.

    DOI: 10.11184/his.22.3_275

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  6. Implementation and Evaluation of Chat-oriented Dialogue System for an Android Robot in Live Streaming Media in Which Users Can Speak at Any Time Reviewed

    Tomonori Kubota, Kohei Ogawa, Hiroshi Ishiguro

    Transactions of the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence   Vol. 33 ( 1 ) page: DSH-G_1-13   2018.1

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    Authorship:Lead author   Language:Japanese   Publishing type:Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher:The Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence  

    In this study, we developed and evaluated a dialogue system which enables an android robot to have a chat with users on Niconico Live provided by Dwango Co., Ltd. which is a live streaming service. In Niconico Live, broadcasters can talk to users who write comments displayed on the video stream. Therefore, by using Niconico Live chat, we eliminated speech recognition errors which can occur during speech conversations. In addition, the dialogue system can keep consistency of conversation by selecting the comment to which it can correctly respond because many comments are shown simultaneously on the video stream. The dialogue system was designed as a retrieval-based one which finds the appropriate response to user's utterance from a dialogue corpus. Therefore, we collected a dialogue corpus containing 4,460 pairs of comments and robot responses by teleoperating the android robot talking with users, as a first step. In the next step, we completed the dialogue system on Niconico Live integrating the dialogue corpus into it. To evaluate the performance of the dialogue system, we recorded the conversation between the android and users while running the designed system. After that, we showed the recorded conversation to evaluators and asked them how they feel about the naturalness and consistency of the conversation. Results of the experiment indicate that Niconico Live users perceived the responses of the dialogue system to be natural and found the chat with the android entertaining. Through this study, we demonstrated the applicability of the dialogue system on Niconico Live. However, it is difficult to discuss its effectiveness when applying it to other situations or other communication media such as a humanoid robot or a virtual agent. Therefore, as a future work, conducting a comparative experiment might lead to better understanding of the effectiveness of the dialogue system for androids.

    DOI: 10.1527/tjsai.DSH-G

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MISC 2

  1. 博士論文集 2021.10~2022.9授与 "Studies on Cooperation Between Tele/Para-Operatable Semi-Autonomous Robots and Their Operators"

    Tomonori Kubota

    Journal of the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence   Vol. 38 ( 1 ) page: 52 - 52   2023.1

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    Language:Japanese   Publishing type:Book review, literature introduction, etc.   Publisher:The Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence  

    DOI: 10.11517/jjsai.38.1_46

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  2. ワタシの論文読みどころ "人と共働する近接操作型アンドロイドロボットの開発と実店舗での検証"

    Tomonori Kubota

    Journal of Human Interface Society   Vol. 22 ( 3 ) page: 32 - 32   2020.8

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    Language:Japanese   Publishing type:Book review, literature introduction, etc.   Publisher:Human Interface Society  

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Presentations 10

  1. 固有表現を対象とした小説登場人物検出

    Kazumi Oshima, Tomonori Kubota, Kohei Ogawa, Satoshi Sato

    2024.3.12  The Association for Natural Language Processing

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    Event date: 2024.3

    Language:Japanese   Presentation type:Oral presentation (general)  

    Venue:Kobe International Conference Center   Country:Japan  

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  2. Voice Volume Gauge to Encourage Appropriate Vocal Adjustment of an Operator of a Teleoperated Social Robot: Development and Preliminary Evaluation

    Keigo Matsushima, Tomonori Kubota, Kohei Ogawa, Satoshi Sato

    Human-Agent Interaction Symposium 2024  2024.3.5 

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    Event date: 2024.3

    Language:Japanese   Presentation type:Oral presentation (general)  

    Venue:Shizuoka University   Country:Japan  

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  3. Anomaly Detection in Human-Robot Interaction using Multimodal Information

    Shota Mochizuki, Sanae Yamashita, Reiko Yuasa, Tomonori Kubota, Kohei Ogawa, Ryuichiro Higashinaka

    Human-Agent Interaction Symposium 2024  2024.3.5 

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    Event date: 2024.3

    Language:Japanese   Presentation type:Poster presentation  

    Venue:Shizuoka University   Country:Japan  

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  4. Semi-autonomous touching method toward realization of touch therapy robot

    Ryoma Mitsuoka, Tomonori Kubota, Kohei Ogawa, Satoshi Sato

    Human-Agent Interaction Symposium 2024  2024.3.6 

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    Event date: 2024.3

    Language:Japanese   Presentation type:Oral presentation (general)  

    Venue:Shizuoka University   Country:Japan  

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  5. Perception of Complex Emotion from an Android Robot's Body and Vocal Expressions

    Hisako W. Yamamoto, Kohei Ogawa, Tomonori Kubota, Moi Katsuma, Misuzu Yamazaki, Takashi Minato, Hiroshi Ishiguro, Akihiro Tanaka

    The 40th Annual Meeting of Japanese Cognitive Science Society  2023.9.7  Japanese Cognitive Science Society

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    Event date: 2023.9

    Language:Japanese   Presentation type:Poster presentation  

    Venue:Future University Hakodate   Country:Japan  

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  6. Proposal for Semi-Auto Touching Method for Realization of Active Touching Robot

    Ryoma Mitsuoka, Tomonori Kubota, Kohei Ogawa, Satoshi Sato

    Tokai-Section Joint Conference on Electrical, Electronics, Information, and Related Engineering  2023.8.28 

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    Event date: 2023.8

    Language:Japanese   Presentation type:Oral presentation (general)  

    Venue:Toyohashi University of Technology   Country:Japan  

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  7. Method for Building an Autonomous Dialogue Agent with an Ability for Interaction Adapted to the Characteristics of the User Community

    Atsushi KOBAYASHI, Tomonori KUBOTA, Kohei OGAWA, Satoshi SATO

    The 37th Annual Conference of the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence  2023.6.7  The Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence

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    Event date: 2023.6

    Language:Japanese   Presentation type:Oral presentation (general)  

    Venue:KUMAMOTO-JO HALL + Online   Country:Japan  

    An autonomous dialogue agent is expected to engage in live chat like Virtual YouTubers or to give classes and lectures in application of one-to-many dialogue where the agent interacts with multiple interlocutors forming a community. In one-to-one dialogue, the effectiveness has been shown that an agent interacts with its interlocutor adapting to their characteristics. However, in one-to-many dialogue with community members, no method has been established to realize an agent with the dialogue ability adapted to the characteristics of the community. In this study, we proposed a two-step method to build such an agent: (1) collecting dialogue examples from chat in which community members operate an agent to interact with the other members, (2) developing the agent by using these examples. We conducted experiments to verify this method with our developed system enabling dialogue examples collection and agent implementation. The results suggested that it is possible to collect dialogue examples that reflect the characteristics of a community and to realize an agent capable of dialogue adapted to the characteristics.

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    Other Link: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/pjsai/JSAI2023/0/JSAI2023_2K4GS903/_article/-char/ja

  8. Investigation for measuring and controlling an operator’s sense of operation/direction for a semi-autonomous robot

    Yuki AMEMIYA, Tomonori KUBOTA, Kohei OGAWA, Satoshi SATO

    The 37th Annual Conference of the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence  2023.6.8  The Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence

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    Event date: 2023.6

    Language:Japanese   Presentation type:Oral presentation (general)  

    Venue:KUMAMOTO-JO HALL + Online   Country:Japan  

    A semi-autonomous robot is becoming important because it can accomplish practical tasks through collaboration between the robot’s autonomy and human operation. However, it is still unclear how a semi-autonomous robot is recognized by its operator who collaborates with it, and understanding this point is critical for application of the robot.For example, the attribution of responsibility for task failure or success may be affected depending on whether an operator treats the robot as a sidekick or a mere tool.In this study, we developed a psychological scale to measure whether an operator feels a sense of operation (tool-likeness) or direction (human-likeness) when they command it. Then, we conducted the experiment to investigate the hypothesis that the degrees of abstractness of the command affect the operator's recognition of a semi-autonomous robot. The results showed that high and low abstractness tended to evoke a sense of direction and operation, respectively.

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    Other Link: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/pjsai/JSAI2023/0/JSAI2023_3I5OS4c04/_article/-char/ja

  9. An Attitude of a Teleoperator Manipulating a Part of an Android’s Body Gets Close to an Attitude the Android Autonomously Expresses International conference

    Tomonori Kubota, Kohei Ogawa, Yuichiro Yoshikawa, Hiroshi Ishiguro

    The 1st International Symposium on Symbiotic Intelligent Systems  2019.1.24  Symbiotic Intelligent Systems Research Center

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    Event date: 2019.1

    Language:English   Presentation type:Poster presentation  

    Venue:Osaka   Country:Japan  

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  10. Androidol U: Steps towards a chat-oriented dialogue android on Niconico Live for acquisition of its socially significant presence

    Tomonori Kubota, Kohei Ogawa, Hiroshi Ishiguro

    The 31st Annual Conference of the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence, 2017  2017.5.24  The Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence

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    Event date: 2017.5

    Language:Japanese   Presentation type:Oral presentation (general)  

    Country:Japan  

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    Other Link: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/pjsai/JSAI2017/0/JSAI2017_2N23/_article/-char/ja/

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Other research activities 1

  1. Research Assistant, Autonomous Robots Research Group, JST ERATO ISHIGURO Symbiotic Human-Robot Interaction Project

    2017.7
    -
    2020.3

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Research Project for Joint Research, Competitive Funding, etc. 2

  1. International Exchange Grants for the second semester (International Conference Presentation)

    2023.12

    Tateisi Science and Technology Foundation  International Exchange Grants for the second semester (International Conference Presentation) 

    Tomonori Kubota

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    Grant type:Competitive

    Grant amount:\624000 ( Direct Cost: \600000 、 Indirect Cost:\24000 )

  2. 牧誠記念研究助成

    2023.4 - 2024.3

    牧誠記念研究助成 

    窪田 智徳

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    Authorship:Principal investigator  Grant type:Competitive

    Grant amount:\1000000 ( Direct Cost: \1000000 )

KAKENHI (Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research) 1

  1. Realization of a practical semi-autonomous social robot focusing on the effectiveness for both its teleoperator and its interlocutor

    Grant number:20J13662  2020.4 - 2022.3

    Japan Society for the Promotion of Science  Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Fellows  Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Fellows

    Tomonori Kubota

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    Authorship:Principal investigator 

    Grant amount:\2100000 ( Direct Cost: \2100000 )

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Teaching Experience (On-campus) 2

  1. Fundamental Computer Programing with Exercises

    2023

  2. Experiments on Electrical, Electronic and Information Engineering 2

    2023

Teaching Experience (Off-campus) 1

  1. Introduction to Robotic Society

    2020.10 Kyoto Women's University)

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    Level:Undergraduate (liberal arts)  Country:Japan

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Social Contribution 2

  1. Let's talk with android "U"

    Role(s):Organizing member, Demonstrator

    The National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation  Demonstration experiment  2022.8

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    Type:Seminar, workshop

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  2. Special Exhibit of Android

    Role(s):Appearance, Planner, Demonstrator

    Osaka University  Lalaport EXPOCITY  2018.11

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    Type:Science festival

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Media Coverage 4

  1. ⼈型ロボの態度、操作者に影響 Newspaper, magazine

    Nikkei Inc.  NIKKEI BUSINESS DAILY  p. 7  2022.9

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    Author:Other 

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  2. アンドロイドの態度、操作者の心理に影響 名古屋大学 Internet

    Nikkei Inc.  The Nikkei  2022.8

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    Author:Other 

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  3. ロボットが示す好み 操作者も同調の傾向 Newspaper, magazine

    The Science News Ltd.  The Science News  2022.7

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    Author:Other 

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  4. ロボットの自律動作が遠隔操作者の心理に影響を与える、名大などが証明 Internet

    Mynavi Corporation  TECH+  2022.6

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    Author:Other 

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