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October 2022 Vol. 20 No. 10 |
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View from the Top
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 Yoshiaki Maeda, Senior Executive Vice President, NTT DOCOMO
Abstract
On January 1, 2022, NTT Communications and NTT COMWARE became subsidiaries of NTT DOCOMO, starting the new DOCOMO Group. Under the brand slogan, “Changing Worlds with You,” the new DOCOMO Group is working together with its customers and partners to create innovations and bring changes to society. We interviewed Yoshiaki Maeda, senior executive vice president of NTT DOCOMO, about strategies of the group’s smart life business and his attitude toward work.
Front-line Researchers
- Shingo Tsukada, NTT Fellow, Bio-Medical Informatics Research Center, NTT Basic Research Laboratories
Abstract
Electrocardiograms (ECGs) are widely used in medical institutions for diagnosis, vital monitoring, health checkups, and automated external defibrillators. With the development of information and communication technology (ICT) and advances in information-processing technologies such as machine learning, the application of ECGs is expanding to self-care and other fields. In today’s aging society, the need for in-home medical care and telemedicine using ECGs is rapidly increasing due to the increase in the occurrence of cardiac diseases. We interviewed Dr. Shingo Tsukada, an NTT Fellow who has been conducting interdisciplinary research that integrates medicine and ICT by drawing on his clinical experience as a physician.
Rising Researchers
- Arinobu Niijima, Distinguished Researcher, NTT Human Informatics Laboratories
Abstract
Conventional motor skill learning has been centered on the visual and auditory senses, but for beginners, acquiring the correct way of using one’s muscles like experts takes time. In this interview, we talked with NTT Distinguished Researcher Arinobu Niijima about muscle interface technology for achieving efficient motor skill learning using electrical muscle stimulation.
Feature Articles: Research and Development toward a Well-being Society
- Supporting a Well-being Society that Integrates the Digital and Real Worlds
Abstract
After reviewing the spread of digital technology in society that has accompanied the development of information and communication technology, this article introduces a well-being digital-real fusion society that is necessary today, and the efforts being made by NTT laboratories to achieve it.
- Social Well-being: Connections that Allow Altruistic Coexistence of Individual Autonomy and Collective Harmony
Abstract
This article describes the concept of social well-being, which seeks to facilitate the altruistic coexistence of individual autonomy and collective harmony in a decentralized society that integrates the digital and real worlds. The article also introduces four initiatives that contribute to the accumulation of knowledge in the humanities and social sciences and a technical platform to promote behavioral change.
- Healthcare Science for Lifelong Health—Visualizing Biological Rhythms and Regulating Them on One’s Own
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought dramatic changes to our daily lives and social activities. Anxiety over one and one’s family becoming infected, stress caused by limitations imposed on personal behavior, changes in lifestyle, etc. have greatly affected everyone’s mental and physical condition. This article introduces health science that aims for a society of lifelong health by visualizing one’s daily data covering basic lifestyle habits (eating, exercising, and sleeping) and self-regulating one’s biological rhythms.
- Human Digital Twins for Well-being
Abstract
NTT is researching digital twin technology that reproduces not only the outer states, such as appearance, voice, and movement, but also the inner states, such as values and thoughts, of humans. To actualize a future in which human digital twin technology contributes to the well-being of people and society, it is necessary to examine the ideal path of technology evolution from a broad interdisciplinary perspective. This article introduces research activities to pursue well-being as the Grand Challenges of Digital Twin Computing, i.e., Another Me and Mind-to-Mind Communication.
- Human Information Science Research for Understanding and Improving Our Well-being
Abstract
Our well-being takes on a variety of forms—it can be shaped by many factors such as an individual’s physical and mental states, values, and even relationships with other people. We would like to contribute to improving people’s well-being by comprehensively grasping such diverse forms of well-being, understanding the human information processing mechanisms lying in the background, and devising intervention methods to act upon those mechanisms. This article introduces our ongoing research on understanding and achieving well-being based on human emotions.
Feature Articles: Adapting to the Changing Present and Creating a Sustainable Future
- Communication Science that Adapts to the Changing Present and Creates a Sustainable Future—Aiming to Create Technology that Brings Harmony and Symbiosis among People, Society, and the Environment
Abstract
NTT Communication Science Laboratories (CS Labs) celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2021. From the beginning, we have been engaged in research to construct basic theories that address the essence of human and information sciences and develop innovative technologies that can bring about changes in society. We aim to achieve communication that “reaches the heart” between humans and between humans and computers. In this article, I present the recent research results at CS Labs and efforts toward future advances.
- AI Hears Your Voice as if It Were Right Next to You—Audio Processing Framework for Separating Distant Sounds with Close-microphone Quality
Abstract
When we capture speech using microphones far from a speaker (distant microphones), reverberation, voices from other speakers, and background noise become mixed. Thus, the speech becomes less intelligible, and the performance of automatic speech recognition deteriorates. In this article, we introduce the latest speech-enhancement technology for extracting high-quality speech as if it were recorded using a microphone right next to the speaker (close microphone) from the sound captured using multiple distant microphones. We discuss a unified model that enables dereverberation, source separation, and denoising in an overall optimal form, switch mechanism that enables high-quality processing with a small number of microphones, and their integration with deep learning-based speech enhancement (e.g., SpeakerBeam).
- Personal Heart Modeling Using Mobile Sensing
Abstract
Public expectations for healthcare in daily life using digital technologies are increasing. With this in mind, we first focused our research on biomedical informatics related to the human heart. We have been experimenting with ways to observe the acoustical and electrical signals generated by the living body and how to replicate, in a computer, the state and function of a person’s heart at a particular point in time. In this article, we introduce new technologies for measuring and estimating the activity of the human heart.
- Smart Traffic Coordination via Learnable Digital Twins—Future Possibilities of Distributed Deep Learning
Abstract
Instead of controlling individual systems (Internet of Things (IoT) devices, smartphones, servers, etc.), which is the current mainstream, NTT Communication Science Laboratories aims to coordinate and control an overall system consisting of a set of IoT devices via digital twins. I report on the latest research projects regarding optimal coordination of overall IoT devices using collective intelligence in digital twins, i.e., (i) traffic coordination of autonomous vehicles and (ii) federated learning on datacenter networks.
- Number Theory and Quantum Physics Based on Symmetry—Themes from Quantum Optics
Abstract
The connection between mathematics and physics has produced many successes over the centuries. Modern mathematics is used, for example, in cosmology, high energy physics, and condensed matter theory. However, the connection between the theoretical study of quantum optics and modern mathematics, which is also necessary for the construction of quantum computers, is not always deep. In this article, I introduce the quantum Rabi model, which is the most fundamental theoretical model in quantum optics, and its relationship with modern mathematics, especially number theory, from the viewpoint of symmetry. I discuss the motivation for my research, how it has progressed, and future plans. I also introduce that mathematical conjectures arising from this study.
Regular Articles
Global Standardization Activities
- Standardization Activities for Optical Fiber and Cable Technology in International Electrotechnical Commission
Abstract
The International Electrotechnical Commission Technical Committee 86 (IEC TC 86) is an international standardization organization that prepares and decides on international standards in relation to products used for optical fiber telecommunication. In this article, we provide an overview of standardization activities, introduce topics discussed at the meetings in 2021 and 2022, and describe the Japanese standardization strategy in IEC TC 86.
Practical Field Information about Telecommunication Technologies
- Case Study of Audible Noise on Analog Leased Lines Caused by Electromagnetic Disturbance
Abstract
If electromagnetic disturbances, which are generated from malfunctioning appliances or radio waves, interfere with metallic cables, it can cause telecommunication failures such as audible noise being heard when using telephones and disconnection of digital subscriber lines. This article provides a case study of audible noise interfering with voice-based services, the cause of the electromagnetic disturbances, and a countermeasure against them. This is the seventy-second article in a series on telecommunication technologies.
External Awards
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