Contributions to the Local Community｜Academic Year 2011-2012 Iwate Prefectural University Annual Report Table of Contents

　At Iwate Prefectural University, we are moving forward to realize our aspirations to become a university that contributes to the vitality of the region. We seek to achieve this goal mainly through the efforts of the Regional Cooperation Head Office.

　In the 2011 academic year, we cheifly focused on the promotion of Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami reconstruction research. Earthquake disaster reconstruction research conducted by the Regional Policy Research Center will continue in the 2012 academic year along with the development of a website and pamphlet to ensure that the work being done will become widely known.

　The 36 topics selected by the open call regional topics research initiative in the 2010 academic year were continued in the 2011 academic year. In the 2012 academic year we made improvements to the research results verification process and system, and also established a new regional cooperation research initiative (faculty proposition type and local community proposition type).

　As a university that is relied upon by the local community, we will furthermore continue to engage in activities that respond to the region’s needs, such as responding to the new demand to publically release research results as a condition to receiving academic research funds.

　In the 2011 academic year, there was an increase compared to the previous year in terms of the monetary amount and the total number of cases of joint research, commissioned research, and scholarship donations. The Wakate Younger Researchers Step-up Research Fund was established in 2011 to promote applications to Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research. As a result, all 26 recipients applied to the Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research, an 8.8% increase compared to the year before. In particular, efforts to raise research motivation in younger researchers were successful, as evidenced by the fact that graduate students in the Graduate School of Software and Information Science acquired 30 million yen of external funds, which was used for a research assistant system.

　Furthermore, we conducted 31 extension lectures at the Takizawa campus and Aiina – Iwate Citizen’s Information Exchange Center (located at the west entrance of Morioka Station) in order to spread research results to the citizens of Iwate. A total of 2,655 people attended the lectures. Furthermore, various departments held extension lectures and forums to report on earthquake reconstruction support activities and research.

New Selection Rates for Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research	2010 academic year	2011 academic year
Applications (A)	61 Cases	68 Cases
Selections (B)	11 Cases	22 Cases
Selection Rate (B/A)	18.0%	32.4％

Statistics on Extension Lectures Held	Number of Lectures	Number of Lecture Participants
Takizawa Campus Lecture	8	1,319
District Lecture	2	230
Aiina Campus Lecture	21	1,106
Total	31	2,655

　The following 15 research topics were selected by the Iwate Monozukuri and Software Integration Technology Center (i-MOS) for the 2012 academic year.

No.	Research Representative	Research Topic Name	Department
1	SAWAMOTO Jun	Research into weight reduction of brain computer interfaces (BCI) for personal use	Faculty of Software and Information Science
2	HASHIMOTO Koji	Research and development of total disaster management support systems for major disaster situations that use large scale high-definition high-resolution visualization devices	Faculty of Software and Information Science
3	DOI Akio	Research related to the optimization of custom fit template designs for bone fractures	Faculty of Software and Information Science
4	ABE Akihiro	Research of total support systems for regional tourism based on analytical visualizations of tourist activity	Faculty of Software and Information Science
5	INOMATA Toshimitsu	Development of automatic inspection systems to improve the quality of on-board (automobile) software	Faculty of Software and Information Science
6	ITO Kenzo	Research related to bone-conducted hearing systems to support automobile driving	Faculty of Software and Information Science
7	SASAKI Jun	Development of real-time information sharing systems to support visitation home care	Faculty of Software and Information Science
8	SATO Hiroyuki	Acceleration of satellite imagery data management through parallel distributed processing	Faculty of Software and Information Science
9	YAMADA Sachie	Development of hearing aid systems that emphasize the sense of direction of sound	Faculty of Social Welfare
10	OGAWA Akiko	Research of temporary housing security systems that use sensors	Faculty of Social Welfare
11	ARAI Yoshikazu	Driving support interfaces through low sample rate images	Faculty of Software and Information Science
12	SANO Yoshihiko	Research related to the improvement of temporary housing environments in coastal disaster stricken areas	Faculty of Policy Studies
13	SAI Dai	Research and development of low electrical energy consumption high-speed wireless communication methods and embedded system packaging technology	Faculty of Software and Information Science
14	Basabi Chakraborty	Research for improving the practicability of the P300 BCI speller using error-related potential	Faculty of Software and Information Science
15	Goutam Chakraborty	Development of text entry systems for the handicapped using viewpoint measurement	Faculty of Software and Information Science

　8 topics in earthquake disaster reconstruction research and 1 topic in general research were selected in the 2012 academic year as the regional cooperative research topics by the Regional Policy Research Center. Combined with the 15 topics chosen the year before, earthquake disaster research will continue to support the reconstruction of disaster stricken areas by exploring 5 topics in the lifestyle field, 7 topics in the industrial economy field, and 11 topics in the community and local infrastructure field.

Research Classification	Field of Research	Research Representative	Research Topic	Department
Earthquake Disaster Reconstruction Research	Lifestyle Field	OGAWA Akiko	Study of a medicine and welfare coordination plan using ICT centered around careful monitoring and observation	Faculty of Social Welfare
	Industrial Economy Field	SAI Dai	Research of automatic totalization of tourist activity using the “Kataribe Kun” portable terminal and promotion of regional economy	Faculty of Software and Information Science
	Community and Local Infrastructure Field	NAKAYA Takaharu	Research related to the mental wellness of residents from 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami stricken areas – Fact finding surveys on the mental health of citizens post-disaster, using the analysis of health surveys from Kamaishi City –	Faculty of Social Welfare
	Community and Local Infrastructure Field	NISHIDE Junro	Establishment of systems and the creation of social entrepreneur cultivation opportunities through the support of young people	Faculty of Policy Studies
	Community and Local Infrastructure Field	MIURA Mayumi	Practical research related to the creation of living spaces for residents from disaster stricken areas by health support specialists, the nurses of the prefecture	Faculty of Nursing
	Community and Local Infrastructure Field	TAKASHIMA Yuichi	Development of long-term monitoring surveys and analysis methods for qualitative information related to the earthquake disaster reconstruction conditions of Iwate	Faculty of Policy Studies
	Community and Local Infrastructure Field	MURAYAMA Yuko	Construction of a web-based tsunami archive to remember the tsunami	Faculty of Software and Information Science
	Community and Local Infrastructure Field	Basabi Chakraborty	Research aimed at social media to determine the needs of female earthquake victims	Faculty of Software and Information Science
General Research	Environment, Resources and Life Science	CHIBA Keiko	Research related to the nutritional functions of the Kurosengoku black soybean, a local product from Kitakami City, and its use in processed foods	Morioka Junior College