Secom Science and Technology Foundation
Research Grant Report - Executive Summary
FY2007 to FY2009

Title: Proposal and Implementation of Synergetic Interfaces
For Broad Area Natural Disasters

June 30,2010

Shogo Nishida
Trustee, Vice President, Professor, Osaka University

(Summary)
The Great Hanshin Earthquake revealed many problems on broad area natural disasters.
Although many researchers have been working on the problems, insufficient countermeasures werestill seen in the JCO accident in Tokaimura and in the Great Niigata-Chuetsu Earthquake. We can saythat the problems are not still solved at the current moment. In this research, we focus on thefollowing three functions for broad area natural disasters: (i) the prompt support of situation
recognition, (ii) the appropriate support to the suitable stations, and (iii) the support of flexible
actions. We define specifications of these functions concretely and develop core technologies. We
call the framework integrating these functions as "synergetic interfaces" and aim to establish thedetailed implementation methodology.
For the prompt support of situation recognition, the most important thing for broad area
natural disasters is that the operators in the disaster-prevention center grasp what is happening in thereal-world as soon as possible and determine the action to take using the limited resources. In thisresearch, we focus on information filtering and visualization interface to support operators torecognize the situation. In information filtering, the system selects important information forgrasping the situation from a lot of information which occurred in the event of the disaster and after
the event. In visualization interface, the system shows the selected information in the manner thatwill allow operators to grasp the situation intuitively. We implemented a prototype system of theabove functions and conducted a user experiment to see the effectiveness of the functions. We expectthat our developed functions will realize the adequate support of operators to grasp the situation in
the real world.
Regarding the second subject "the appropriate support to suitable stations", we havedeveloped a support method for the volunteer coordination (VC) in broad area natural disasters since
the activities self-organized by rescue volunteers get important after the initial rescue activities forlifesaving. The assignment of volunteers to victim's needs has been done by experts called volunteer
coordinators so far. However, the work was not always good enough because of the unbalance ormismatch between volunteers and victim's needs. In this research, we have designed andimplemented a system which consists of 3 parts: visualization of status of human resources,
evaluation of compatibility between volunteers and victim's needs and a support of the volunteer
coordination based on VC evaluation criteria. Communication between volunteers was easily
implemented since we employed a SNS (Social Networking Service) as a platform of the system. We
also carried out user testing for the evaluation of our system. And we confirmed that our systemeffectively worked.
In case of broad area natural disasters, it is frequently observed that the situation changes
very quickly, and the decision determined at some moment has to be changed at the next moment.
Here we focus on the third function, “the support of flexible actions” in broad area natural disasters.
To realize the support of flexible actions, we proposed and implemented two functions; one is toprovide “Semi-fixed terminals with camera and Visible Light Path Laser Projector” to enhanceremote collaboration, and another is to provide “By-pass information channel through the Internet as1

communication HUB”. The semi-fixed terminals have the capability of information acquisition indisaster-field and direct instruction to disaster-field-workers. It is expected that, smooth remotecollaboration between decision-makers in disaster prevention center and disaster-field-workers isrealized by the function. On the other hand, By-pass information channel is expected to speed up
decision making by compensating communications-bottle-neck derived from the lack of man powerin the middle layer of the hierarchy. We evaluated both functions by experiments, and it is confirmedthat the system worked effectively.
The “synergetic interface” framework is proposed to realize coordination among the above
three proposed functions, “the prompt support of situation recognition,” “the appropriate support tosuitable stations” and “the support of flexible actions”. The SRK (Skill, Rule and Knowledge) modelis introduced as a basic model for the integration. Human behavior in disaster is classified into threetypes of behavior in the model. Skill-based behavior is defined as unconscious and routine one,rule-based behavior is defined as one based on manuals and rules, and knowledge-based behavior as
one based on trial-and-error problem solving. A prototype system is designed, is implemented on thePC, and is evaluated by the local government. Furthermore the hierarchical multi-agent architecture
is proposed as system architecture, .in which each support function is implemented as a software
agent. The architecture is also evaluated through computer simulation, and its effectiveness isconfirmed by applying the architecture to the Kyoto City case.

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(Research Organization)
Project Leader:Shogo Nishida (Trustee, Vice President, Osaka University)
Group 1(Support of Situation Recognition)
Yoshinori Hijikata (Associate Professor, Graduate School of Engineering Science, OsakaUniversity)
Kimihide Atumi (Professor, Center for the Study of Communication-Design (CSCD), OsakaUniversity)
Group 2(Appropriate Support to Suitable Stations)
Hirokazu Kato (Professor, Graduate School of Information Science, Nara Institute of Science andTechnology)
Eko Yagi (Designated Associate Professor, Center for the Study of Communication -Design(CSCD), Osaka University)
Group 3 (Support of Flexible Actions)Nobuchika Sakata (Research Associate, Graduate School of Engineering Science, Osaka
University)
Mie Nakatani (Designated Associate Professor, Center for the Study of Communication-Design(CSCD), Osaka University)
Group 4 (Synergetic Interfaces)
Yoshio Nakatani (Professor, Ritsumeikan University)
Kyoko Itoh (Research Associate, Center for the Study of Communication-Design (CSCD), Osaka
University)
Dr.Takao Kurokawa (Designated Researcher):He joined all the Groups in the subject of Interface Design and Usability Assessment.

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