Science Report WebSite

Akaike Guest HouseThe ROIS publishes an online magazine, Science Report, toinform the audience overseas about Japan’ s latest
academic research activities and achievements. Science
Report focuses on a speciﬁc research topic for six months at
a time with monthly feature articles introducing diﬀerent
aspects of the ﬁeld. The magazine is intended to provide
insights into some of the major ongoing research projects
and how the country uses the Team Japan approach tobring together all the expertise and resources it has to oﬀer
to advance studies incertain areas. The site
oﬀers links to the news
releases and publicationsof various universities
and other academic
institutions from acrossJapan.
https://sr.rois.ac.jp/en/

The ISM opened Akaike Guest
House in June 2010 in thesuburban city of Tachikawa inTokyo to oﬀer researchersv i s i ti n g f ro m o u t o f t h eregion/country a place to staythat has easy access to theirresearch sites. The facility was named after the late Dr. Hirotugu
Akaike, a renowned statistician, to pay tribute to his
wide-reaching and inﬂuential achievements in the ﬁeld of
Statistical Science. We hope Dr. Akaike is watching us over as we
strive to advance science and try to carry on his legacy.
http://www.ism.ac.jp/akaikememorial/guesthouse-e.html

Activities for Gender Equality
The ROIS has the Oﬃce for Gender Equality set up at each of its
research centers to promote a fair and equal work environment
where both men and women researchers can thrive and accessthe support they need. As part of the initiative, the ROIS also
publishes on its website a directory of female researchers who
can be found through the ROIS researchmap search engine.

❶ Inter-University Research Institute Corporation
Research Organization of Information and Systems
Tokyo Head Office
Hulic Kamiyacho Bldg. 2F, 4-3-13, Toranomon, Minato-ku, Tokyo 105-0001, Japan
Phone: +81-3-6402-6200
https://www.rois.ac.jp/english/❷ National Institute of Polar Research●●❷❹❻ Tokyo

10-3, Midori-cho, Tachikawa-shi, Tokyo 190-8518, Japan
Phone: +81-42-512-0647
https://www.nipr.ac.jp/english/❸ National Institute of Informatics

National Institute ofInformatics
Chiba Annex

Kanagawa Prefecture

Chiba
Prefecture

ShizuokaPrefecture❹ The Institute of Statistical Mathematics●❺

10-3 Midori-cho, Tachikawa, Tokyo 190-8562, Japan
Phone: +81-50-5533-8500
https://www.ism.ac.jp/index_e.html
1111 Yata, Mishima, Shizuoka 411-8540, Japan
Phone: +81-55-981-6707(Administration Office)https://www.nig.ac.jp/nig/

❸
●
●
❶

Yamanashi Prefecture

2-1-2 Hitotsubashi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101-8430, Japan
Phone: +81-3-4212-2000(Exchange)
https://www.nii.ac.jp/en/❺ National Institute of Genetics

Inter-U ni versi ty Resea rc h
Insti tute Corporati on

Saitama Prefecture

The Arctic
National Institute of Polar ResearchNy-Ålesund Research Station

National Institute ofPolar Research
Syowa Station

2019 / 2020

❻ Joint Support-Center for Data Science Research(DS)Data Science Building, 10-3 Midori-cho, Tachikawa, Tokyo 190-0014, Japan
Phone: +81-42-512-9254
https://ds.rois.ac.jp/en/

Research Organization ofInformation and Systems

National Institute of Polar Research
Dome Fuji Station

The Antarctic

National Institute of Polar Research
National Institute of Informatics
The Institute of Statistical Mathematics
National Institute of Genetics

https://www.rois.ac.jp/en/
Contact Phone: +81-3-6402-6200
brochure 201912

Joint Support-Center for Data Science ResearchPioneering Research Frontiers in the Data Age
to Solve Modern Society Problems

Joint Support-Center for Data Science Research (ROIS-DS)
ー Better Future through Academic Partnerships and Collaborations ー

President’ s Message
Today, big data and creative use of it hold the key toinnovations as it provides new lenses through which to look at
our society. The ROIS has worked to build a strong foundation
for data and analytics by promoting collaborations among
Japanese universities. As an organization that has been on theforefront of “data science” from day one, I believe the
Research Organization of Information and Systems (ROIS) willplay an increasingly important role within the researchcommunity in solving the world’ s problems.
We intend to become a main resource for data science foruniversities through our eﬀorts in the following areas:• Consolidating and sorting data that are useful to society as
well as research universities• Revolutionizing methodologies for gleaning meaningfulknowledge from big data
• Developing real-time technologies for aggregating andprocessing a large volume of scattered data
• Developing visualization technologies to help people grasp
astronomical amount of high-dimensional data
The ROIS opened in 2004 as an inter-university research
institute, which is a system unique to Japan. Serving as theumbrella institution for four other inter-university
organizations that came together to form the ROIS, we are
well-positioned to leverage the expansive network of expertiseto promote open science and exploration of new researchareas among all national and private universities in Japan.
In 2016, the ROIS created the Oﬃce of Strategic Planning tostrengthen alliances between the ROIS and the research
institutes that it oversees. The ROIS has also founded the
Joint Support-Center for Data Science Research(ROIS-DS) toboost partnerships among academic and other types oforganizations. The Center works to promote the use andanalysis of data in all ﬁelds and provides fellowship
opportunities for all those interested in joint research
projects.

DS Centers and ProjectAt the ROIS, we aredetermined to do ourbest to advance data
science that can beapplied to tackle issues facing modern society. As we take on
the 21st Century challenge, it is critical for us to ensure a free
ﬂow of ideas and knowledge. For this reason, we intend toencourage Japanese universities and research institutions topursue collaborative relationships with their counterparts fromaround the world, as well.
At the ROIS, we are committed to serving as the hub ofresearch related to information and systems in Japan. We hope
you will join us in our eﬀort to advance data science throughthe power of academic partnership.

Ryoichi Fujii
President of Research Organization ofInformation and Systems

An inter-university research institute helps promote researchcollaborations and resource sharing among universities across Japan. It
provides universities with access to cutting-edge equipment, voluminous
academic data and hard-to-ﬁnd research materials that would be diﬃcult
for them to obtain and maintain individually. It also oﬀers them support
for analysis of such data.

The four research institutes that comprise the Research Organizationof Information and Systems have researchers- in-residence fromrespective ﬁelds from various national and private universities inJapan. A total of 2,882 researchers from 530 institutions participatedin the residency programs during 2018.

AﬃliateResearchCenters

Shared Use
Joint Research

Postgraduate
Education
Fostering Researcherswith Specialized
Academic
Knowledge
Departments

NIHU
NINS
KEK
ROIS

Joint Research

ResearchCenters

Private ResearchInstitutions
Corporate ResearchInstitutions
Overseas Universities andResearch Institutions
National Reseachand Development
AgencyBreakdown of organizations to which joint researchers belong
Number of
Institutions

Total

InterNational University
PublicPrivatePublicPrivateForeign
Universities Research Universities Universities Institutions Institutions Organizations Others
Institutes

75
147
154
304
119
530

144
872
453
827
586
2,882

59
415
264
367
334
1,439

5
5
20
17
17
64

8
31
9
52
33
133

19
43
62
234
120
478

Joint Support-Center for Data Science Research (ROIS-DS)

28
255
29
113
37
462

11
67
38
32
8
156

13
32
26
10
37
118

Postgraduate Education
The research institutes provide critical support for The
Graduate University for Advanced Studies (SOKENDAI)
by bringing together cutting-edge research andeducation to develop human resource of the next
generation.

President
Nomination Committee

Auditors

President

Education andResearch Council

Management Council

Board of Directors
Conference of Directors-General

Number of Institutions and Joint Researchers Enrolled in
Joint Research Projects, FY2018

Headquarter
NIPR
NII
ISM
NIG
Total

ROIS as a Hub for Japan’s Academic Societies

Data Sharing Support Groups• Database Center for Life Science: Promoting
developments of open science and databaseintegrations in life science ﬁelds.
• Polar Environment Data Science Center: Promoting
various research collaboration with a synthetic
database and analysis-support-tools for long-term
variation of polar environment in global earthsystem.
• Center for Social Data Structuring: Building aplatform for managing social data, including social
survey data, public opinion data, oﬃcial micro dataand social big data, for providing empirical datathat solve various social issues.
• Center for Open Data in the Humanities: Sharing
data for and from humanities to develop novel
approaches for data science-driven humanities, ordigital humanities, on an integrated platform that
goes beyond organizational and disciplinary
barriers.
Data Analysis Support Groups• Center for Genome Informatics: Supporting
computational analysis of genomic/proteomic data
(e.g. next-generation sequencing data) based on
the state-of-the-art bioinformatics artiﬁces.
• Support Project for Data Fusion Computation:
Supporting simulation and modeling studies basedon statistical methodologies such as data
assimilation and statistical emulation, aiming at
solving practical problems in science and industry.

Sincerely,

Research Hub for Academic Institutions

Universities

2

In these productive
research environments, the ROIS andthe four research
institutes strive tofoster the next
generations of data
scientists at Sokendai,for which they serve
as some of the coreo p e r a ti n g o r g a n i zations.

About Inter-University Research InstituteInter-University ResearchInstitute Corporations

research ﬁelds, including life science, polar environments,social science, and humanities. Our “data analysis support
movement” provides cutting-edge support for data
analysis or data mining that focuses on specialized ﬁeld
such as genome science, and develops and supports
cross-disciplinary high-level mathematical methods.DS
facility invites publicly-oﬀered joint research every year.

The Joint Support-Center for Data Science Research(DS-Center) is an institution that was founded in April 2016
to promote activities of “data science (or Data-drive typeresearch)” , those currently being conducted at academics
as well as industries. The center contributes to thedevelopment and growth of those activities throughmaximizing the abilities and the activities of data science in
the Research Organization of Information and Systems.
Our “data sharing initiative” focuses on a variety of

1
24
5
2
0
32

Students in SOKENDAI, The Graduate University for
Advanced Studies
Schools
School ofMultidisciplinary
Sciences
School of Life
Science

Departments

Number of
Parentacademic
institutes Number degrees
grantedPolar Science

NIPR

25(2)

5

Informatics

NII

20(0)

2

Statistical ScieneISM

65(39)

7

Genetics

NIG

35(11)

12

158(66)26

Total※ The number of students is as of May 1, 2018.
※ The number of the bracket is the number of foreigner

Administration
Oﬃce

Audit
Oﬃce

National Instituteof Polar ResearchOﬃce of Promotion Oﬃce ofStrategic the Research Fraud
Planning
Prevention Plan

National Instituteof Informatics

Oﬃce for
GenderEquality

The Institute of
Statistical
Mathematics

CrisisManagement
Oﬃce

National Instituteof Genetics

PublicRelations
Oﬃce

ROIS
CSIRT

Joint SupportCenter for Data
Science Research

3Four Research Institutes in Pursuit of ScientificPrinciples and Cutting-edge Research

The Institute of
Statistical Mathematics

National Institute ofPolar Research

Polar regions around the South and North Poles are sensitive toglobal environmental changes, including global warming, withresults that will aﬀect the future of human beings. Focusing on
how the global environment forms and how it will change inthe future, based on ﬁeld observations, analysis of materials
and samples, parsing of data, and modeling, the institutepromotes advanced, integrated, and multi-discipline earthsystems science, including geoscience and the environmental,
biological, space and planetary sciences. Furthermore, theinstitute, having observation bases in the Arctic and Antarctic,
plays a core role in the Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition(JARE) and Arctic Challenge for Sustainability (ArCS).

Overviews of the four institutes that are on the
cutting-edge of polar science, informatics, statistical mathematics
and genetics with some highlights of their recent research work

▪ Silica crystallized in the vicinity of the center of the primordial solar disk was
discovered for the ﬁrst time.
▪ Data from Antarctic ice cores conﬁrmed two pathways through which climaticchange propagates from Arctic to Antarctic.
▪ Typhoon track forecasts have been improved by meteorological observations in
the North Pole region.
▪ A new species of fungus was discovered on the world's northernmost manned
island.
▪ When auroras burst, electrons from the Van Allen belt intrude down to 65 km
above the ground.

“Statistical mathematics” refers to a science aimed at
extracting meaningful information from data in order to gain
and develop knowledge that is useful for decision-making.
As the only research institute for "statistical mathematics" inJapan, ISM works on both cutting-edge and basic researches
and accelerates solutions to academic, societal and industrial
problems through the "NOE (Network Of Excellence) Project"
in collaboration with other organizations in diﬀerent sectors.
At the same time, ISM conducts the “Project for Fostering andPromoting Statistical Thinking” to develop professional data
scientists who lead various research activities.

▪ Leading DAT program：We oﬀer an advanced intense course on data science
made of lectures and data analysis tasks. Participants will be certiﬁed if theyattend all the lectures and their submitted report makes the passing mark. It is
possible to enroll only in a lecture separately.
▪ ISM develops the software for materials informatics which equips various APIs
including descriptor library, pre-trained models database, algorithms for material
exploration by machine learning.
▪ ISM singed an MOU with the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN)
to promote the joint research for the evaluation of research capabilities including
the humanities and social science, which is, one of the strategies for strengthening
initiative in Institutional Research (IR).

Fostering
the leader-level
data scientists

Eﬀective
developmentof human resources
The leading DAT
training course

Growth of thehuman resource
platform
The leading DAT lectures

An electron microscope
photograph of the meteorite
Y-793261 from the Antarctic.
(a) Yellow (Si) part on theelement map, and (b) silicate
mineral from which qz on thebackscattered electron image
was discovered.

In-course prediction of Typhoon #10; the casewith (left) and without (right) special
observations.

Climates of the Antarctic andArctic linked by “mail of thesea” and “mobile phone ofatmosphere.”

National Institute ofInformatics

NII promotes research in all areas of informatics – fromtheoretical computer science to such cutting-edge topics as
artiﬁcial intelligence, big data, IoT (Internet of Things) andcybersecurity – to build the way for “future value creation”
in this new study ﬁeld as Japan’ s only academic informatics
research center. In addition to building and operating
networks, such as the Science Information NETwork 5(SINET5), and oﬀering academic online content and services,
NII develops research data infrastructures for open scienceand information security platforms based on interinstitutional cooperation. NII also focuses on collaboration
with universities, research institutions and corporations
both inside Japan and overseas.

(A) V. A microscopic photograph ofellesmerensis (B) V after cultivating in a YM
agar medium at 15℃ for 7 days. Colony ofellesmerensis. (C) M. A microscopic
photograph of hoshinonis. (D) M after
cultivating in a YM agar medium at 15℃ for
7 days. Colony of hoshinonis.

The state of aurora burst around 22:20 on 30 June 2017
UT. Five minutes before the burst (left) and immediately
after the burst (right).

▪ New support for medical care using
information technology (IT): NII is working
on developing a cloud platform of medical
image big data using “SINET5” ; further, NII
is also studying and developing a medical
image analytics technology based on
artiﬁcial intelligence (AI) technology.
▪ Extending formal methods to manufacturing:
NII is applying knowledge from software
engineering that can be referred to as“formal methods” for product development,with an objective to support the creationo f s u i t a b l e s p e c i ﬁ c a ti o n s , d e s i g n s ,manufacturing, and maintenance.
▪ New method for high-speed synthesis of natural voices : Neural source-ﬁlter
model uses neural networks to update classical speech-synthesis methods

L-B1, L-B2, L-S
L-A

Overview of the Leading DAT Program.

“XenonPy” , the software for materials informatics

National Institute of
Genetics"The activity of biological organisms is based on thegenetic information."
Genetics is a science that reveals the mystery of life fromthe viewpoint of genetic information. NIG conducts
state-of-the-art research on cell function, generation/
diﬀerentiation, evolution/biodiversity, and genome/bio
information; simultaneously, it pioneers new research in
the life sciences. Furthermore, NIG, as an international
hub for life science research, operates three research
infrastructure projects: BioResource Project, Advanced
Genomics Project, and Bioinfomation and DNA Data
Bank of Japan (DDBJ) Project.

MOU signed with RIHN

▪ To link environment and microorganism through big data, NIG developed a web
tool, "LEA", which searches microorganisms from the "environment" and also
predicts the "environment" from microorganisms.
▪ DNA polymerase ε modulates replicative helicase activity at the obstacle: NIG
revealed that DNA polymerase ε impedes the unwinding of the protein-bounddouble-stranded DNA by the replicative helicase in the fork-pausing reaction.
▪ Protocadherin links the brain and eye muscle: NIG revealed that brainstem motor
neurons necesarry for eye movements develop using protocadherin 17 protein.

WaveNet-vocoder for 10-bit discrete µ-law waveform

Figure Overview of cloud platform. Medical institutions, universities, and otherorganizations use the cloud platform via a high-performance virtual private network(VPN) provided by the Science Information Network, SINET5.

4

Results of evaluated synthesized sounds using MOS method.

The LEA global map make it easy to explore
patterns in microbial community structures.
(http://leamicrobe.jp/)

DNA polymerase ε (Polε) impedes thereplicative helicase at the obstacle andeventually DNA replication fork pauses.

Succeeded in visualizing the abducens motor neurons(green) innervating eye muscles (magenta) in live youngﬁsh (zebraﬁsh).

5Resource Sharing and Joint Research to
Meet the Needs of Universities

Large-scale Atmosphere Radar at the Syowa Station(PANSY: Program of the Antarctic Syowa MST/IS radar)Ny-Ålesund Research Station (79 degrees north latitude)

Resource-sharing in the Artic Region

Joint research projects are projected to be conducted at the
Ny-alesund observation base in Svalbard Islands, Norway, including
observations of aerosols in the Arctic atmosphere (University ofTokyo, Nagoya University, Fukuoka University) and atmosphericobservations by cloud radar (Chiba University). The base was newly
built in Fiscal Year 2018 and will be active this ﬁscal year (2019).

Polar Science Sample Data

e of
t
u
tit rchs
In seae

ISM promotes establishing networks based on MOUs withdomestic and foreign research institutions and serving as a hub in
the NOE Project in order to advance interdisciplinary research or
create new research ﬁelds for solving complicated problems inmodern society.

Stat The
isti I
cal nSupercomputer System and the Information
resource

ISM provides the "Supercomputer system for statistical science" for jointuse. The information resource includes various kinds of magazines andbooks in statistical science. ISM also provides databases of academic
citations for enhancing IR.

e of cs
tut mati
sti atheM

The Ice Core Research Center at the NIPR provides assistance for
ice-coring and makes coring equipment available. The Institutealso oﬀers ice cores collected at the Antarctic Dome Fuji Station
and analytic data of the samples. In addition, the NIPR provides
samples of meteorites, rocks and minerals to researchers andanalyses conducted on the samples with the use of the Sensitive
High Resolution Ion Micro Probe(SHRIMP) through the Polar
Science Resource Center. The NIPR is the only institution in Japanthat uses large-scale computing machine system for polar scienceand calibrates an optical instrument that uses a large scale
integrating sphere.

NOE (Network Of Excellence) Project

Na t
Pol i ona
ar l
R

Research Collaborations for Antarctic Observation

The 60th party that departed in November 2018 comprised
31 persons from the winter group, 40 persons from thesummer group, and 29 fellow travelers, totaling 100 persons,which was the largest contingent ever.

Sensitive High Resolution Ion Micro Probe(SHRIMP)

We take advantage of the academic research bases as well as global
partnerships to make a wide range of research and educational
support programs available to universities.

Project for Fostering and Promoting StatisticalThinking

The institute also provides advice on statistical analysis
for industries, government, and academia. It provides
various programs, such as “research collaboration
startup” that educates young scientists via OJT and the“data science research plaza” that welcomes researchers
from companies, for fostering the human resources thatare required in the era of big data.

Logical path (primary)
Logical path (secondary)(internal paths omitted)
Node

Node

Node
Node

Node

Node

Node

Science Information NETwork (SINET5) InfrastructureI
al m
ion forNat In

Node

Node

In
eti stit u
cs te of

Nodens
at titu
ics te ofNal e nnatio G

Science Information NETwork (SINET5)

Genetic Information Sequencing

The Advanced Genomics Center oﬀers the latest
sequencing technology and genomic research tools to
the research community. To date, the center has
produced genome information on more than 450
organisms along with 60 collaborative research
projects and implemented human and environmental
metagenomics projects.

As an inter-university research institute, NII coordinates with academic institutions and theresearch community to construct and operate the Science Information NETwork (SINET5), theworld's most-advanced, high-speed network linked to domestic and international sites. It utilizes
this ultra high-speed, high reliability and high performance SINET5 network to develop and provide
cloud infrastructure, an academic content and online services, and promote open science.

Security Systems Grounded on Inter-University Collaboration

NII collaborates with national university corporations to build systems that observe, detect,and analyze cyber attacks waged against SINET. Based on data sharing with related foreign anddomestic organizations, NII also provides helpful information to national universities
depending on the urgency level and risk of attack. Beyond that, NII trains people in charge ofcybersecurity, working to advance their ability to cope with cyber attacks. In this way, we
contribute to the construction of systems that enable our national universities to respondpromptly to security incidents and accidents.

6

Support for the Usage of Genomic
Information
GakuNin RDM(Research Data Management Service)

This service allows researchers to manage research data
and related ﬁles in their daily research activity. In addition
to the basic ﬁle management functionality, a variety of
external research tools and storages can be connected andutilized from this single platform. Managed ﬁles in GakuNin
RDM can be deposited to the JAIRO Cloud by means ofsimple and easy operation, so as to facilitate researcher’ sOpen Science activity in Japan.

Bioresource and Genetic Modiﬁcation

The Genetic Resource Center provides various model organisms, including zebraﬁsh, Drosophila,
and rice. The center also provides a bioresource database containing information on 6.5 million
genetic strains. The division for development of genetic-engineered mouse resource assists inthe production of genetically modiﬁed mice using advanced genome engineering techniques.

The Bioinformation and DDBJ center is the only
repository that contains nucleic acid sequencing data
in Japan, and provides genome sequences,
next-generation sequencer data, and personal genome
information. The center provides supercomputer
optimized for bio-application such as next-generation
genome sequencing analyses and human genome
analyses. Every year, it is used by more than 600 users
in 120 research institutions.

7