2014 FEB

NEWS
01 The International Standard "Wi-SUN"

Directed by NICT is Adopted byElectric Companies as a WirelessSpeciﬁcation for Next Generation
Electricity Meter "Smart Meter"
Hiroshi HARADA / Fumihide KOJIMA

03 An Accessible

Visual Analytics Platform
for Cyber-Physical-Social Data
Hideki MURASATO

05 Reverse Engineering

the Brain−Toward quantitative understandingof the brain via a modeling approach−Shinji NISHIMOTO

07 Awards
09 NICT Speech Recognition Technology Ranks

the Best in the World for Two Consecutive Years

10 Report on the Exhibition at "nano tech 2014"

and Hosting Report on "Nano ICT Symposium 2014"

11 Call for Proposals on

R&D of Social Big Data Technology

Cover image: "Reverse Engineering the Brain"

2

No. 437

The International Standard "Wi-SUN"
Directed by NICT is Adopted byElectric Companies as a WirelessSpeciﬁcation for Next Generation
Electricity Meter "Smart Meter"
Hiroshi HARADA

Fumihide KOJIMA

Director of Smart Wireless Laboratory,
Wireless Network Research InstituteResearch Manager, Smart Wireless Laboratory,
Wireless Network Research Institute
In 1999, he completed a doctoral course in engineering. The
same year, he joined Communications Research Laboratory, theMinistry of Posts and Telecommunications (currently NICT). Since
then, he has been engaged in research and development on 384kbps high speed PHS, low-rate video real-time transmission, ROF
road-to-vehicle multi-service communication, and VHF band
customer-provided mobile communication. Currently, he isengaged in the research and development of PHY/MAC technology in SUN, and in its dissemination activities. Ph.D. (Engineering).

After completing a doctoral course in engineering, hejoined Communications Research Laboratory, theMinistry of Posts and Telecommunications (currently
NICT) in 1995. He is engaged in the research anddevelopment of cognitive radio, software-deﬁned radio,
smart utility networks, mobile communication systems
using millimeter wave, VHF, and UHF bands, as well as
their standardization. Ph.D. (Engineering).

Energy management by next-generationelectricity meter "smart meter"
The smart meter, a meter with communication functions
installed in various lifelines like electricity, gas, and water, allows
two-way efficient controls of lifelines such as automatic metering, remote shut-off and billings is now under research and development and being examined for practical use. It manages energy
by communicating with HEMS (Home Energy Management
System) and BEMS (Building Energy Management System),energy management systems installed in homes and buildings,
or with electric equipment in home (Figure 1). ECHONET
Consortium has established the "ECHONET Lite Standard", aninternational communication standard for energy management
applications. While this standard specifies upper layers such as asession layer, presentation layer, and application layer, it wasn't
intended for lower layers such as a transport layer, network layer,
data link layer and physical layer. As such, NICT has been
engaged in research and development of wireless equipment
related to lower layers as shown in Table 1 with the aim of standardization and dissemination of research results.

HEMS/
HOME
GATEWAY
TEPCO
Route B

Communication between thesmart meter and home energy
management systems (HEMS):
it is called route B by TEPCO
Multiple manufacturers will supply

Home communication
system(Home Area Network)
Multiple manufacturers will
supplyFigure 1 Energy management by the smart meter (e.g. in a house)

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NICT NEWS FEB. 2014

Developed radio device
Figure 2 shows the Wi-SUN radio device, which has been currently developed for ECHONET Lite. Within the device, a radio
module is mounted as shown in Figure 2. Also, the interface
board for connecting to various external devices, and the interface to an antenna, are mounted. Figure 3 shows the basic functions of the radio module. Table 2 shows the specification of thephysical layer. Wi-SUN Alliance, a global industry association,
developed the specification of the physical layer, MAC layer, andTable 1

NICT activity results so far

until
2008

Promoted basic research of smart meters for power-saving wireless communication systems (communication speciﬁcations,propagation characteristics of radio wave, etc.).

from
2009

Proposed standardization of research results to the Institute ofElectrical and Electronics Engineers, USA IEEE802.15.4g/4e
to enact a smart meter for physical layer/MAC layer standard.
Part of proposal adopted for standardization. Led the standardization as vice-chairman of IEEE802.15.4g.

January
2012

Established a "Wi-SUN Alliance" (as of January 2014, joined by
43 companies from Japan and overseas). NICT is a founding
member and a Chair of Board of Promoters, Wi-SUN Alliance.
Established test items based on IEEE802.15.4g speciﬁcation
with interoperability between manufacturers.

March
2012

Conducted research and development related to the lower layersof the "wireless utility" and succeeded in the development of acompact, power-saving wireless utility.

May
2012

In cooperation with four U.S. companies, standardized communication speciﬁcations for wireless utilities as the smart
meter wireless international standard, the IEEE802.15.4g.

November
2012

Set lower layers of IPv6 support and established the committeeof standards for security features for the transmission of "ECHONET Lite standard" applications in the "Wi-SUN Alliance". Led
speciﬁcations as chairman.

February
2013

Wi-SUN speciﬁcation was adopted as the home network communication interface standard (JJ300.10) for ECHONET Lite,
which the Telecommunication Technology Committee (T TC)
developed.

May
2013

Succeeded in developing a "wireless utility" that has ECHONET
Lite and Wi-SUN standard (and JJ300.10).

September
2013

ECHONET Lite for Wi-SUN standard is adopted as the route B
for wireless communication systems of Tokyo Electric Power
Company, Incorporated.

January
2014

Wi-SUN wireless utility NICT developed as one of the Wi-SUN
certiﬁed products for the ﬁrst time.

5th-7th Layer

Application Part[ECHONET Lite]
Wi-SUN Transport Layer Security [PANA]

4th Layer
Wi-SUN Transport Layer Proﬁle [TCP, UDP]

Wi-SUNInterface Part

Wi-SUN Network Layer proﬁle [IPv6, ICMPv6]

Figure 2 Wi-SUN radio device that supports
ECHONET Lite developed in NICT
(Left: wireless utility, Right: radio
module installed in the radio device)

3rd Layer

2nd Layer

Wi-SUN MAC
Layer Part

Wi-SUN MAC Layer Proﬁle [IEEE 802.15.4/4e]interface layer for ECHONET Lite. Using thisspecification, we also specified test items for aninterconnection and conformance test of equipment from various manufacturers. Generally
speaking, once the standardization is completed
by a standardization organization, it often contains too many optional functions. Therefore
standard certification groups and interconnectivity specification setting groups certify thestandard and set inter-connective specifications.
The final product is named after the group whenbeing commercialized. Figure 4 shows the position of Wi-SUN Alliance.

1st Layer

Wi-SUN PhysicalLayer Part

Wi-SUN Physical Layer Proﬁle [IEEE 802.15.4g (920 MHz)]"Wi-SUN" was adopted as thewireless standard for a
new generation electricity
meter "smart meter"

Wi-SUN Adaptation Layer Proﬁle [6LoWPAN]

Figure 3

Wi-SUN functions on the radio module developed in NICT

Standardization
organizations

Standardization Veriﬁcation,
Inter-connectivity Speciﬁcation
Setting groups

Name of the product(trademark ofeach organization)

IEEE802.11
Standard
Wireless LAN

Wi-Fi Alliance

Wi-Fi

IEEE802.16
Standard
Wireless MAN

WiMAX Forum

WiMAX

IEEE802.15
Standard
Wireless SUN

Wi-SUN Alliance

Wi-SUNOur case of standardization
On September 30, 2013, there was an announcement from Tokyo Electric Power ComFigure 4 Relationship between standards body, standard conformance andpany, Incorporated that the Wi-SUN standard
interoperability certiﬁcation body and product namesfor ECHONET Lite would be adopted as thewireless communication system (so-called
Route B) between smart meters, which is to be maintained by thedevices. Also, its encryption and authentication methods werecompany and the in-home energy management systems that is inconsidered sufficiently. In the future, wireless utilities that havehomes or companies (Figure 3). Japan Smart Community AlliWi-SUN standard will be gradually installed in the smart metersance (JSCA), an important advisory body to set standards ofin homes and businesses.
smart meters and promotes national and international smart
community infrastructure, held a HEMS-TF, JSCA Smart
Future prospects
House/Building Standardization and Business Promotion Study
Group.
The results this time have been achieved by NICT having not
In it, three items are under discussion for future prospect:
only performed research and development and international standardization, but also from having worked actively, consistently(1) To set smart meters that support route B in advance.
on standard certification, interconnectivity specification settings,(2) To adopt communication systems that are known and stanpromotion, and practical use. We believe this is a very significant
dard.
result. Along with the adoption of "Wi-SUN" standard, we are(3) To ensure interconnectivity.
Wi-SUN supports international standard IEEE802.15.4g/4e
developing instruments for conformance and interconnectivity
and IPv6, and has high interconnectivity between wirelesstests with private instrument vendors for the future. In addition,
we will proactively host and join tests to check interconnectivity
and compatibility. Also, by promoting activities that stabilize
Table 2 Basic function of the radio module developed in NICT"Wi-SUN" as a standard, we will contribute to realize efficientenergy management in homes and businesses. Furthermore, We
Frequency (Japan)
920MHz band
believe that IEEE802.15.4g is not only for smart meters, but canTransmission power
20mW
be used for various applications such as structural monitoring,
agriculture, the medical field, and so on. We believe that byPrimary modulation scheme
2GFSK
expanding into these different fields, we can contribute to theTransmission speed
50kbps、100kbps、200kbps
realization of social ICT, a goal NICT aims for.

Maximum data length2047octets

Communication distance

About 500m

NICT NEWS FEB. 2014

2

An Accessible
Visual Analytics Platform
for Cyber-Physical-Social Data
Hideki MURASATO

Technical Expert,
Information Services Platform Laboratory, Universal Communication Research Institute
After completing his master's degree and working as an Advanced Telecommunications ResearchInstitute International (ATR) Research Engineer, he has assumed his present post since 2009. He has
been engaged in development of information visualization systems and a search interface.

BackgroundIn recent, the amount of the sensor data that reflect thereal-world natural phenomena and social phenomena has been
growing rapidly. Furthermore, these sensor data are continuously increasing and being widened their usability and values
through the development of sensing technologies and the participation of open data activities.
NICT is developing a participatory sensing platform to help
users to collect, search, share the sensor data, and even discover a new information about real-world occurrences. The
platform consists of 4 components for: data collection, storage, retrieval, and visualization. This article introduces
STICKER, a tool for visual analytics through interactive
visual interfaces.

Visual analytics of interdisciplinary
sensor data
Visual analytics is a sensemaking and reasoning process tomake data more understandable, accessible, and actionable.
Figure 1 illustrates the visual analytics process combining
automated data analysis with parameter refinement and visual

data exploration through human interaction to gain knowledge
from data.
The STICKER (Spatio-Temporal Information Clustering andKnowledge ExtRaction) platform we are developing enables
users to find correlated datasets from heterogeneous sensor
data, and to achieve correlation analysis with human interactions in specified factors (parameters such as time, space,threshold, and keyword). It helps to access data that have a certain spatio-temporal pattern and discover a new correlation indifferent fields where building scientific models is arduous.

Main features of STICKERSTICKER represents data as three-dimensional (3D) geometries in a space-time cube, comprised of the geography base(x and y-axis) and the height axis to represent time (z-axis).
This visualization is a typical way for the display of changesof spatial information over time like animation. In the
STICKER, we support more accessible, interactive and datadriven features to discover and explore hidden correlations
between diffuse data.
Firstly, we transform various types of data into STT(Space, Time, Theme) schema as shown in Figure 2 to
improve data accessibility with a unified manner.
By controlling the attributes in STT schema, theuser can easily select and filter dataset. The
second is a visual aggregation by the interaction
to divide a space-time cube into small STT cellswith equal intervals along each axis. In particular,
the STT-cell model enables the scalable data processing and visual operations by controlling the
granularity of data. Finally, it generates visual 3D
geometries based on selected STT cells thatsatisfy the given conditions and parameters.
Comparing to pre-defined shapes in traditional
methods, we dynamically create a continuous
shape in a spatiotemporal space using result sets.
These features allow refining of parameters thatemphasize distinctive patterns and their combinations.

Figure 1 Process of Visual analytics
The process features data aggregation, visualization, modeling, and user interactions toﬁnd insight.

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NICT NEWS FEB. 2014

Case study:
PM2.5 correlation
Here we demonstrate two use caseson the STICKER. Figure 3 presents ananalysis result on "the strong correlation
among phenomenon—concentrationof PM2.5, precipitation, and social
behaviors in Japan". It shows the distribution of air quality (PM2.5),
observed data of precipitation, andtweets that contain any keywords
related to traffic jams in August 2013
in Japan. Red indicates the area
Figure 2 Data handling for visual analytics by STICKER based on STT format
with 35 μg/m³ or more of PM2.5.
STT format enables data operation and visualization over heterogeneous sensor data with a uniﬁed
While early in August the area spreadmanner. By the interactive update between the operations and the visualizations, users reﬁne aacross the country, in mid-August it
query eﬃciently.
ceased. Light blue shows the regionsof 2 mm/h or more of precipitation andyou can observe how these regions
change to compensate red area. Also,
gray shows the places where people
had traffic-jam-related tweets. You canview the distribution of them from
East to West in mid-August, and it
overlaps with the return rush peak
before and after "Bon" holidays. With
such observations, for example, you
can hypothesize that the concentrationof traffic in summer holidays may
increase the value of PM2.5 to 35 μg/m³.
holidays
From one piece of information, you
can expand the searching and analyzing processes to find clues or counterexamples before establishing a sophisticated and scientific model in the
feedback loop of the visual analytics
process. In addition, the user canobtain the result datasets to achieve
his/her goals.
Figure 3 Data of Phenomena
Figure 4 Data of Phenomena
in August 2013 in Japanin August 2013 in Japan
Figure 4 shows a result of an exploration on "a combination of natural
Red line: 35 μg/m³ or more of PM2.5
Light blue line: 2 mm/h of precipitation
Light blue line: 2 mm/h or more of precipitation
Light blue region: 25 or more tweets with rainand social phenomena that has a
Grayregion:oneor
more
tweetswith
traﬃc-jamrelated keywords per one STT cellstrong correlation for a time period in
related keywords per one STT cell
Japan". This indicates distributions of
the precipitation observations andtweets containing rain-related keywords in August 2013 in
future plans, we will produce real-world awareness information
Japan. There exist overlapping areas between the spatiotemposervices based on this platform. We expect users can easily
ral domains of two datasets. By using their spatiotemporal
access the services to share their data and analyze environmenrelationships, users might find interchangeable sensor data or
tal issues (e.g., air pollution or climate change) and the influsometimes discover similar patterns. In addition, by comparence on society cooperatively. As a result, the platform will be a
ing differences between two areas, heavy area and not-soglobal platform of collective intelligence to interconnect data,
heavy rain area, the user can observe the different reactions ofpeople, and services.
people over tweets about rain (for example, you can examine
Also, we are planning to support big data visual analysis withwhen the number of messages about "Guerrilla Rainstorm"
strong correlation by time, space, and theme (correlation search(unexpected strong rain) increases with data, or where andfunction). We are also developing a focusing function that only
how many mm/h of rainfall occurs).
indicates occurrences of a certain event from massive sensor
data (i.e., abnormal event detection function). In addition, we
will improve the performance and the usability: when users findFuture prospects
missing or lacking data during the visual analysis processes,
The Participatory Sensing Platform aims to collect and anathey can create User Defined Sensor instantly or share the result
lyze various sensor data with social collaboration on Knowlof analysis among many users via the STICKER.
edge and Language Grid (K-L Grid) of NICT. It consists of
4 parts: User Defined Sensor, which provides users a tool to［Acknowledgements］
collect data from a targeting data source by themselves, Event
I would like to show my greatest appreciation to Koji ZETTSU,
Warehouse that stores and manages the data based on STT
Kyoung-Sook KIM, and Teruhiro SHOZEN.
format, sensor data searching technologies, and STICKER. For

NICT NEWS FEB. 2014

4

Reverse Engineering
the Brain−Toward quantitative understandingof the brain via a modeling approach−Shinji NISHIMOTO

Senior Researcher, Brain Networks and Communication Laboratory,
Center for Information and Neural Networks
After completing a doctoral program and serving as a post-doctoral researcher at the University ofCalifornia, Berkeley, he joined NICT in 2013. His current research topics include modeling anddecoding of brain activity under naturalistic perceptual and cognitive conditions.
Ph.D. (Neurophysiology).

Introduction
The ultimate target of communication is the brain. If theintended contents of a brain are transmitted to another brain,
we call it a successful communication. If they are not conveyed correctly, the communication fails. And it is so oftenthat our communications fail in everyday life. You would findthat you can communicate with your spouse or close friends
with more than 90% of accuracy, while you might feel thatwhen communicating with a new face, he or she does notunderstand half of what you say.
One of the reasons for the difficulty in communication
between brains is that we do not understand well enough how
the brain sends and accepts information. If we can quantitatively unravel this—what protocol do brains interpret, what
internal expression do they employ, and how do they process
information—we will be able to realize more efficient communication. Moreover, the accumulation of such insight willlead to a foundation for brain machine interfaces.
In a series of studies from around 2011, including ones at
my former position, I have been conducting research in an
attempt to understand human brain activity quantitatively,

Natural stimuli

Model

Quantitative understanding of information
representation in the brain

Modeling approach allows us to quantitatively elucidate
internal representation in the brain via brain activity recorded
under natural circumstances. To take an example, Figure 2
shows a semantic space showing the relationship between theobject and action category in the brain, revealed by analyzing
the brain activity evoked by natural movies. In this space, categories represented as being similar in the brain are placednear each other and those that do not are placed far away.
Thus, for example, categories related to humans are
represented as a cluster in the semantic space, whichis placed some distance from another cluster related
to animals. However, what exists in between theseclusters is the cluster showing body parts. Thus, theseBrain activity
clusters as a group form a semantic gradient (Figure 2A).
Model prediction
Also, the revealed semantic space shows that text
(character) is represented as a completely separate
thing from the rest of the categories (Figure 2B).
In the past such category representations had been
the subject of research primarily as something discrete. By defining the semantic space representing acontinuous relationship between each as shown inTime
Figure 2, it allows us to quantitatively and continuously understand how the receipt of information isdifferent according to experiences, individuals or
pathology, and cognitive status.

ActivityBrainusing a technique called modeling approach. This approachaims to understand the brain activity in natural conditions
through making an artificial brain (model) that can predict its
behavior (Figure 1). Through a series of studies using a modeling approach, we succeeded in quantitatively identifying thesemantic space in the brain and decoding visual experiencefrom brain activity incorporated by "Big Data". In this article,
I will introduce some of these results, their implications, andthe outlook for the future.

Figure 1 Conceptual diagram of modeling approach

It aims to conduct quantitative analysis on brain functions by constructing a prediction model of brain activity under arbitrary naturalistic perceptual and cognitive conditions.

5

NICT NEWS FEB. 2014

Cluster of animals

Clusterof humans

Clusterof vehicles
Figure 2 Example of semantic space visualizations within the brain
Each dot represents one object/action category such as face, talk, and man. The distance between dots shows the distance between information
representations in a brain. A and B each takes diﬀerent perspective of three dimensional semantic space. Ellipses in A show typical clusters.（Huth,
Nishimoto, Vu, Gallant, Neuron 76:1210‒1224（C）2012 Elsevier. Image used with permission, partially modiﬁed.）

Brain decoding and "Big Data"
By combining the modeling approach with
Bayesian inference*, we can effectively read(decode) brain information. For instance,
Figure 3 shows an example which visualizes
the visual experiences of human brain activity
when watching natural movies. The decoded
image is still quite rough at the moment, yetsuch technology would become a foundation
for a brain-machine interface in the future via
visualization of visual imaginations.
When performing brain activity decoding
Figure 3 Example image of visual experience from the brain activity
as shown in Figure 3, we used about 18 milThe upper column represents the image shown to a human subject. The lower column shows
lion seconds of YouTube video in order tothe visualization of visual experience estimated by the evoked brain activity.
b u i l d a p r i o r d i s t r i b u t i o n a b o u t n a t u r a l （Nishimoto et al. Current Biology 21:1641‒1646（C）2011 Elsevier. Image used with permismovies. Although our study was a relatively
sion, partially modiﬁed.）light example, utilization of such "Big Data"is growing in neuroscience in recent years. In
addition, the Human Connectome Project, which is currently
Future prospects
conducted in the U.S., estimates that the amount of data that a
In this article, we looked at quantitative understanding ofmouse brain produces is about 60 petabytes per animal, andbrain function by a modeling approach, brain decoding, andthat a human brain produces about 200 exabytes (200,000 petatheir relation to Big Data. In the future, by applying similar
bytes) per person. Neuroscience itself is becoming a source ofapproaches to cognitive fields such as emotion, imagination,
large amounts of data. Neuroscience and information/
computer science will be involved closely in the course oflanguage, memory, and decision making, it is anticipated that
effective, high speed data processing and interpretation in thethis research can offer more inclusive understanding of brain
future.
functions and more general brain decoding based on theunderstandings.

＊ Bayesian inference
One of the methods to estimate target variables (e.g. perceptual experiences) from the observed data (e.g. brain activity). In estimation, it employs a
combination of a likelihood model (e.g. what kind of brain activity occurs when it experiences arbitrary perceptual experiences?) and prior distribution (e.g.
what kind of perceptual input is possible in the natural world?).

NICT NEWS FEB. 2014

6

Awards
Recipient● Tomoyuki EGUCHI / Assistant Chief, International Cooperation Oﬃce, International Aﬀairs Department◎Award Date： May 15, 2013

◎Comment from the Recipient:◎Name of Award：

I am so honored to receive the Concept Mapping MPA ScholarAward. Thanks to NICT's support, I was able to join the graduate
class of "Principles of Public Budgeting" at Western Michigan
University. In that class, I developed the map with comparisonsand summaries of concepts which are signiﬁcant in understanding
budget systems, ﬁnancial status, and evaluation systems(Performance Budgeting) of various types of governments in the
United States, for instance, the federal government of the UnitedStates. This time, this concept map was evaluated and led me toreceive the award. I would like to express my gratitude from thebottom of my heart to all the people who supported my study atWestern Michigan University.

Concept Mapping MPA Scholar Award◎Details：

In recognition of having made the map withcomparisons and summaries of concepts which
are signiﬁcant in understanding budget
systems and budget status of various types ofgovernments in the United States◎Awarding Organization：

Western Michigan University School of Public
Aﬀairs and Administration

Recipients ● Takeshi USUI / Research Expert of New Generation Network Laboratory, Network Research Headquarters

Masahiro JIBIKI / Invited Advisor of New Generation Network Laboratory, Network Research Headquarters
Nozomu NISHINAGA / Director of New Generation Network Laboratory, Network Research Headquarters

Co-recipients： Yusuke SAKUMOTO(Tokyo Metropolitan University)
Chisa TAKANO(Hiroshima City University)
Masaki AIDA
(Tokyo Metropolitan University)◎Award Date： June 20, 2013
◎Name of Award：

Internet Architecture Research Award◎Details：

In recognition of "A Server Conﬁguration with
Autonomous Session State Migration to Demand
Fluctuation"◎Comment from the Recipients:

The amount of server access has a large gap
between on and oﬀ-peak period. To save electricity ina large network, the issue is how to ﬂexibly increaseor decrease the number of servers. In this paper, we
proposed a method for optimal consolidation or extension of the server by autonomous decisions only by
locally sharing the information of each server. The
Technical Committee on Internet Architecture
selected this study as the "Committee Recommendation paper". We sincerely appreciate all concerned
persons' support for this study.

◎Awarding Organization：

Technical Committee on Internet Architecture, IEICE

Recipient● Shinobu ISHIGAMI / Research Manager, Electromagnetic Compatibility Laboratory, Applied Electromagnetic Research Institute◎Award Date： July 23, 2013

◎Comment from the Recipient:◎Name of Award：IEC 1906 Award

The IEC 1906 Award is named after the establishment of IEC in 1906, and is given to individuals who
contribute to the international standardization of IEC.
This time, we received the award in recognition of ourhumble contribution to the development of the international standard IEC/TR 61000-2-5 second edition and
IEC 61000-4-20 second edition. Particularly, a new
calibration method for an electric ﬁeld probe, which
NICT proposed, has been added. We thank all concerned
persons for their great support.

◎Details：

Technical contributions to the development oft h e b asi c E M C s t a n d a r d o n e m is si o n a n d
im munit y testing in T E M waveg uides ( I E C
610 0 0 - 4 - 2 0 ) a n d h i s c o n t r i b u t i o n s w i t hrespect to the description of electromagnetic
environments (IEC/TR 61000-2-5)◎Awarding Organization：

International Electrotechnical Commission

Recipient● Eiichiro SUMITA / Director of Multilingual Translation Laboratory, Universal Communication Research InstituteCo-recipients：Teruji KOBAYASHI(FEAT Limited President & CEO)
Makoto NATSUME(NARITA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORTCORPORATION President & CEO)
◎Award Date： August 29, 2013
◎Name of Award：
Minister for Internal Aﬀairs and Communications Awardof 11th Annual Merit Awards for Industry-AcademiaGovernment Collaboration (Awards granted in recognition o f notewo r t hy successes in , and signi ﬁcant
contributions to the promotion of, industry-academiagovernment collaboration), 2013
◎Details：
In recognition of the achievement for industry-academiagovernment collaboration activities over "network
speech translation technology in practical use" andthe contribution to the development of information
communication◎Awarding Organization：
Cabinet Oﬃce, Government of Japan

7

From the left, Nozomu NISHINAGA, Takeshi USUI,
and Masahiro JIBIKI

NICT NEWS FEB. 2014

◎Comment from the Recipient:

We developed a multilingual speechto-speech translation app for smartphones titled "NariTra" in cooperation
with Narita International Airport
Corporation and FEAT Limited, basedon the speech translation technology of
NICT. For the app, we have strengthened the words necessary for a trip orin the airport. And also, we broadly
promoted the app. These activities
were highly evaluated and led to theaward. This award would not be
possible without support from NICT.
We thank everyone from NICT.
Eiichiro SUMITA on the far rightRecipients ● Varga ISTVÁN＊ⅰ

Chikara HASHIMOTO＊ⅲ

Motoki SANO＊ⅰKiyonori OTAKE＊ⅲ

Kentaro TORISAWA＊ⅱ
Jong-Hoon OH＊ⅲ

＊ⅰ Researcher, Information Analysis Laboratory, Universal Communication Research Institute ＊ⅱ Director of Information Analysis Laboratory, Universal Communication Research Institute＊ⅲ Senior Researcher, Information Analysis Laboratory, Universal Communication Research InstituteCo-recipients： Takao KAWAI(NEC Corporation)
Stijn De SAEGER(Nuance)◎Award Date： September 3, 2013
◎Name of Award：

Encouragement award◎Details：

Problem and aid matching during a large scaledisaster◎Awarding Organization：◎Comment from the Recipients：

In this study, we proposed a method of automatically recognizing various problems and their
possible solutions from Twitter during a largescale disaster. We believe that this award represents the recognition that such a system could
play a helping role in assisting victims in case ofwhen such a disaster strikes again. This work isa joined eﬀort of all of our research group members and I would like to express my sincere
gratitude to each and every one of them.

Young Researcher Association for NLP Studies

Varga ISTVÁN on the left

Recipient● Tetsuya KAWANISHI / Director of Lightwave Devices Laboratory, Photonic Network Research Institute◎Award Date： September 18, 2013

◎Comment from the Recipient：◎Name of Award：

The subject of the award is about a study of lightwave modulation technology, which is one of the basic elements of opticalcommunication. The ﬁeld belongs to optical technology, but it is
the frontline area where you apply the knowledge, such as signal
processing, which is cultivated by wireless technology to highspeed optical communication. I think the research results werebrought forth with the accumulation of NICT's continued knowledge from the Radio Research Laboratory. Also, with these powerful techniques we were able to proceed further external cooperation and it was possible to circulate ideas and experience well.
We are extremely grateful to everyone who assisted us.

Electronics Society Award◎Details：

In recognition of the demonstration by thepioneering research of the vector lightwave
modulation technology with a focus on speedingup the process of lightwave modulator, and theuse of multi-level modulation, which enables
dramatic increase in capacity in optical communication system by the technology. Also, thecontribution to opening up new possibilities ofmodulation technology and to development in
the optoelectronics ﬁeld.

◎Awarding Organization：

Electronics Society, The Institute of Electronics,
Information and Communication Engineers (IEICE)

Recipients ● Masato TANAKA / Distinguished Researcher

Kazuhiro KIMURA / Director of Planning Oﬃce, Universal Communication Research Institute◎Award Date： October 10, 2013

◎Comment from the Recipients：◎Name of Award：

The idea of high elevation angle orbit satellite
system that uses an inclined synchronous orbit
was thought to be unrealistic and diﬃcult torealize. For the idea, we established a station keeping method and veriﬁed the validity of the highelevation angle by the experiment using a
non-geostationary satellite that had failed to be put
into geostationary orbit, and named the high elevation angle orbit satellite system the Quasi-zenithsatellite system. This research led to the realization of the navigation satellite "MICHIBIKI" andthe award. We thank those concerned for theirsupport.

Space Development and Utilization Award,
Minister of Internal Aﬀairs and Communications
Award◎Details：

In recognition of remarkable contribution regarding the proposal and research on quasi-zenithsatellite system, in development and utilizationof space as seen from an information communication perspective view

◎Awarding Organization：

Cabinet Oﬃce, Government of Japan

In the center, Yoshitaka SHINDO, Minister ofInternal Aﬀairs and Communications, and on the right
Kazuhiro KIMURA, left, Masato TANAKA

Recipients ● Yuuki TAKANO / Researcher, Security Architecture Laboratory, Network Security Research Institute

Ruo ANDO / Senior Researcher, Security Architecture Laboratory, Network Security Research InstituteTakeshi TAKAHASHI / Senior Researcher, Security Architecture Laboratory, Network Security Research InstituteCo-recipients： Satoshi UDA◎Comment from the Recipients：◎Award Date： October 25, 2013

DNS Ampliﬁcation Attack is one of the DDoS attack
methods that have been actively used recently. In
this study, we reported and investigated Open DNS
Resolver servers, which are used as a steppingstone to DNS ampliﬁcation attack, in detail unprecedented worldwide. We are glad that such a study
towards real-world data was evaluated externally.
In the future, we will continue to perform researchthat faces reality.

(Japan Advanced Institute of Scienceand Technology)
Tomoya INOUE(Japan Advanced Institute of Scienceand Technology)◎Name of Award： Paper Award◎Details：

Research paper "A Measurement Study of Open
Resolvers and DNS Server Version"◎Awarding Organization：

Internet Conferences 2013

From left, Ruo ANDO, Yuuki TAKANO,
Takeshi TAKAHASHINICT NEWS FEB. 2014

8

NICT Speech Recognition Technology Ranks
the Best in the World for Two Consecutive Years−Ranks First Place in English Speech Recognition at IWSLT−

In the 10th International Workshop on Spoken Language Translation (IWSLT) which was held in Heidelberg, Germany, on December 5 and 6, 2013, NICT led the institutes in the automatic speech recognition (ASR) evaluation campaign joined by 10 research institutes (8 research teams) from 7 countries, resulting in the best recognition rates among
them for two consecutive years since 2012.
The ASR systems developed by the attending institutes were tested on transcribing the English lecture speech to texts
and the performance evaluation was based on comparing the word error rates of the systems. Traditionally, speech recognition on long utterances by various speakers is a difficult task. This year's campaign required two more special
challenges; the test data set*1 for this year (as shown in the following table "test data set C") (1) included many lectures
given by non-native English speakers, and (2) had many unknown acoustic events which required a speech activity
detection algorithm before doing any recognition (compared with given speech activity segments from last year). The
task was more difficult, and more advanced techniques were required than that of the previous year.
Concerned with the novelty by comparing with other research institutes, NICT has developed speaker adaptive training on deep neural network (DNN)*2. This technique significantly improved the recognition performance, particularly
on solving the non-native speaker speech problems as mentioned above. In addition, the system developed by NICT
achieved the best performance on the ASR tasks in years 2011 and 2012.
Evaluation results of English speech recognition
The test data set

Number shows word error rate (%)

Participating
research institutions

The test data set A
tst2011(8 lectures)

The test data set B
tst2012(11 lectures)

The test data set C
tst2013(28 lectures)

NICT

7.9

8.6

13.5

KIT

9.3

9.6

14.4

MIT-LL/AFRL

10.6

11.3

15.9

RWTH

10.2

11.3

16.0

NAIST

9.1

10.0

16.2

UEDIN

10.2

11.6

22.1

FBK

13.6

16.2

23.2

PRKE/IOIT

14.6

16.2

27.1

KIT: Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Germany)
MIT-LL/AFRL: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratories/
Air Force Research Laboratory (USA)
RWTH: RWTH Aachen University (Germany)
NAIST: Nara Institute of Science and Technology (Japan)
UEDIN: University of Edinburgh (United Kingdom)
FBK: Institute of Fondazione Bruno Kessler (Italy)
PPKE/IOIT: Pázmány Péter Catholic University (Hungary)/
Institute of Information Technology, Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology (Vietnam)

9＊1

Each test data set consists of TED (Technology Entertainment Design) lecture speech data. TED (http://www.ted.com/)＊2

Deep Neural Networks (DNN): machine learning method using multilayer neural network. This method outperforms conventional methods in speech recognition, and has received a lot of attention in recent years.

NICT NEWS FEB. 2014

Report on the Exhibition at "nano tech 2014"
andHosting Report on "Nano ICT Symposium 2014"
NICT exhibited at nano tech 2014, The 13th International Nanotechnology Exhibition & Conference which took place inTokyo Big Sight from January 29 to 31, 2014. We introduced latest achievement of R&D; high-performance devices andsystems with advanced functions related to nano technology and bio-ICT such as "Superconducting nanowire SinglePhoton Detector (SSPD)", a highly efficient, high-speed response technology that leads to realize quantum communicationand single photon imaging, as well as "cell and molecule sensing system" which takes advantage of the advanced featuresof biological system.
In three days of exhibition, many visitors came to NICT booth, vigorously exchanging ideas with the researchers.

Snapshot of the venue

Compact, lightweight vacuum ion pump

Superconducting nanowire
Single-Photon Detector (SSPD)

EO polymer 2 × 2 switch

Bipolar diﬀerential responselight sensor using biomolecules

Bio-ICT research

On January 29, Nano ICT symposium 2014 was held at the Conference Tower, Tokyo Big Sight, as a side conference/
seminar of nano tech 2014, themed in "Social implementation and deployment of ICT to the practical application of basic
technology research results that combines nanotechnology and new materials". The conference began with a keynote
speech by Dr. Hideo HOSONO, Professor of Tokyo Institute of Technology, who talked about the prospect of transparent
oxide electronics, indicating the importance of developing the new materials as a driving force for innovation. Then six
talks followed, introducing examples of NICT's R&D on gallium oxide, organic electric-optic polymer, and quantum dots
optical device, and their work towards practical implementations. Many participants came to listen to the lecture, actively
joining the conversation in question and answer sessions.
We hope to further strengthen the cooperation between the industry and the academia through exhibitions and symposiums, and seek to inform the public about NICT's research achievement on nano technology and bio-ICT.

Snapshot of the venue

Keynote speech by Dr. HOSONONICT NEWS FEB. 201410

Call for Proposals on
R&D of Social Big Data Technology−Research and Development on Fundamentaland Utilization Technologies for Social Big Data−

Application period: from January 29 to March 31, 2014 (no later than noon)
NICT is focusing on research and development on "Social Big Data" which we position as the axis of our key researcharea making use of Big Data for social contribution to the public.
Our program titled "Research and Development on Fundamental and Utilization Technologies for Social Big Data" isexpected to establish key technologies which help to solve various societal challenges and create new service systems,
verifying the existing issues of social systems, with the active use of Big Data available in the ﬁeld of transportation, disasterprevention, agriculture, health, and so on. We look for a variety of research proposals aimed at practical realization.

Overview of Big Data Technologies

1. Research subject: "Research and Development on Fundamental and Utilization Technologies for Social Big Data"

Subject A

Subject B

Subject C

Research and Development
on Social Applications
for utilizing "Social Big Data"

Research and Developmenton Fundamental Technologies
for utilizing "Social Big Data"

・Research period: from FY2014 to FY2015(2 years, the period may be extended foranother 2 years)

・Research period: from FY2014 to FY2015(2 years, the period may be extended foranother 2 years)

Research and Development
on Implementation Evaluation and Applicationof Cryptographic Technologies
for utilizing "Social Big Data"

・Number of research proposals to be accepted: about 7

・Number of research proposals to be accepted: about 4

・R&D budget: 188,000,000 JPY (maximumof FY2014) for Subject A in total

・R&D budget: 327,000,000 JPY (maximumof FY2014) for Subject B in total

・Research period: from FY2014 to FY2016 (3 years)
・Number of research proposals to be accepted: 1
・R&D budget: 30,000,000 JPY (the maximum for
FY2014)

2. Application details

Please visit the following URL for more information about details of research subjects and application requirements.
http://www.nict.go.jp/collabo/commission/20140129kobo.html (Japanese version only)□ You can catch the latest information about NICT's application opportunities on Twitter. Please check @NICT̲itaku□ For the overview of the NICT's commissioned research program, please visit the following URL.
http://itaku-kenkyu.nict.go.jp/ (Japanese version only)＜Inquiry about application＞
Commissioned Research Promotion Oﬃce, Collaborative Research Department

NEWS

No.437, FEB 2014

Published by

Public Relations Department,
National Institute of Information and Communications Technology<NICT NEWS URL> http://www.nict.go.jp/en/data/nict-news/

Tel: +81-42-327-6011

ISSN 2187-4034 (Print)
ISSN 2187-4050 (Online)
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Tel: +81-42-327-5392 Fax: +81-42-327-7587<NICT URL> http://www.nict.go.jp/en/〈Recycled Paper〉