Research & Staff

Program of Spatial Information Science

Prof. TAKAHASHI Takaaki
Urban and Regional Ecoomics


I study, from the viewpoint of spatial economics, what forces determine the locations of economic activities. Current topics include:
(1) research on the provision of public services by regional governments - discusses the economic implications of the strategic competition among regional governments who provide public goods or services.
(2) research on the interdependence between economic geography and transportation - discusses the effects of the location of economic activities upon the mode of transportation adopted in an economy.
(3) research on the trade-off between manufacturing activities and transportation - discusses the allocation of resources between the two activities, in particular, its mechanism and implications on the social welfare.

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Prof. SEZAKI Kaoru
Location-based Service, Mobile Ad-hoc Network


Our laboratory aims at constructing an architecture for flexible context aware services, where numerous sensors and computers are provide in the buildings, business district or greater areas, and where intent of users are proactively recognized and their activities are properly and comfortably supported. The related research field includes the techniques for the identification of physical location, flexible and efficient dilvery of information to human being using the environmental information aquired by sensors and positioning devices and the innovation of flexible and user friendly multi modal interfaces. Though not mandatory, those who would like to join our laboratory should have the basic knowledge of information and communication engineering.

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Prof. YAMADA Ikuho



My research interests lie in development and applications of spatial analytical methodology to investigate and understand various spatial phenomena occurring in urban spaces. As an application field, I currently focus on urban environments that support healthy lifestyles of residents, for example, neighborhood walkability.

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Prof. KOBAYASHI Hiroki
Animal Computer Interaction


Our relationship with nature is constantly evolving to maintain human civilization. And yet, nature is being destroyed in the process of urbanization. The environmental movement, which promotes conservation areas for preservation purposes, has ironically increased the demand for tourism in these areas and thus accelerated the speed of environmental destruction. Nevertheless, a sense of connection with nature is indispensable for emotional balance. Japanese Zen Buddhism, for example, encourages deep meditation in order to achieve a sense of being at one with nature. Distancing ourselves from the technologies of modern life and evoking the beauty of nature can help us slow down the pace of daily life. The sounds of singing birds, buzzing insects, swaying leaves, and trickling water in a beautiful forest implicitly imprint the beauty of Nature in our minds. When we are emotionally stressed, recalling the beauty of nature can the help us recover a sense of well-being. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a concept, a method, and an interface, Sustainable Interaction with Ecosystems, by which we can achieve a feeling of belonging to nature without causing environmental destruction and in which human and nature can coexist.　This study is not intended to propose a solution to any one single problem. Rather, it proposes a new view of Human Computer Biosphere Interaction (HCBI) based design and interfaces to support our future society in a multidisciplinary approach.

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Prof. SEKIMOTO Yoshihide
Digital smart city, Big data, People behavior changing, Sensing, Simulation


Even though so much technology and data accumulation has progressed, it is a distant goal for Japan to digitize entire cities by itself, maintain them in a sustainable manner, and activate and make citizens and businesses in each community happy. How can we build the foundation for an autonomous, sustainable digital smart city? We are conducting such research.

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Lecturer NISHIYAMA Yuuki

Mobile/Wearable Sensing, Lifelogging, Human Behavior Change, Well-being


We are researching systems to support people live in a more physically and mentally healthy state—also called wellbeing. Currently, IoT, mobile, and wearable devices are ubiquitous, and their use in our daily life is increasing. These devices produce large amounts of data, which, although continually generated, are not fully used to empower our lives. By extracting higher-level contexts, such as emotions, place atmospheres, and safety contexts, from these data and utilizing them, our aim is to improve people's wellbeing. For this purpose, we develop mobile and wearable sensing platforms and context-aware systems using machine learning and data analytics. The higher-level contexts are also used to create methods for promoting behavioral change using data visualization and just-in-time interventions.
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Lecturer YOSHIDA Takahiro


The foundation of all our research interests lies in geographical information sciences. Our more specific interests are: (1) spatial data analysis; and (2) mitigation and adaptation to climate change in urban areas. (1) The former research aims to establish analysis techniques and frameworks applicable to various geospatial phenomena. We are investigating to incorporate ideas from compositional data analysis, which is developed in geology and statistics. (2) The latter aims to contribute mitigation and adaptation to climate change in urban area by integrating various spatial data of urban planning, built environment engineering, traffic engineering, remote sensing, and other urban-related fields. We are dealing with spatially and temporally high-resolution data enough to investigate the relationship urban morphological indicator and environmental conditions at the individual buildings and roads scale.