Hello all, this is Ryoko Kato from M1 student.
I finnished my internship in University of Oulu, and I returned to Japan on last Friday. I will write final report in Finland.

I belonged to Professor Petri Pulli’s laboratory, and I am a member of the research of the gamification that how technology can support activate isolated young people. Finally, I submitted the presentation file. Through this internship, I think can improve my English skill and deepen understanding of my research.

In previous article, I wrote about my days in Oulu University or Oulu City, So I will write Finnish culture.

(1)Design
Finnish miscellaneous goods and tableware is stylish and user-friendly represented by Marimekko, Iittala and so on.
I visited Ateneum, Kiasma, Design Museum in Helsinki at weekend, because I am interested in ergonomics and art.
I was surprised we can take the photos freely in museum, because it is different from Japanese museum. I think this is good thing because we can remind the details of art after we go back to our home.
Helsinki architecture is famous in the world, I saw it. There are some trams and cool architecture.

In this section, I will mainly introduce about Design Museum.
Alvar Aalto is famous architecture and designer in the world, he born in Finland.
There are some furniture were exhibited in Design Museum that Alvar Aalto was designed.

These furniture is designed by Aalto to be used in sanatorium. I cannot read instruction(because I can’t have enough time…), but I feel that these furniture is tidy and warmly.

In Japan, we can enjoy the arts using our eyes only in Museum. But in Design Museum, we can touch some arts, for example the telephone. Following photo shows rotary dial.(I used rotary dial in my parent’s house 20 years ago:) )

I felt the earphone is little heavy, and the heavy earphone reminds me of the memories of my childhood.

Now, how the the shapes of telephones changed?

According to this photograph, rotary dial changes to codeless phone and mobile phones.
In design museum, I could see the ergonomic designs.

I think I can feel Finnish culture and deepen understanding of Finnish culture.

In the end of this article, I’d like to thank professor Petri Pulli and IMD professors including Professor Hirokazu Kato for their support for my internship. Thank you very much.

Hello. I am D1 student Oral Kaplan.

During October 9-12, I attended to 2016 IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics conference and presented my work with the title of “In-situ Visualization of Pedaling Forces on Cycling Training Videos”. The conference was held in Budapest, Hungary. There were two hotels designated as conference venues; InterContinental and Sofitel. Unlike all other conferences we focus in our laboratory, this conference governs a much broader spectrum. There is no definitive target, instead it includes Brain-Machine Interface (BMI), Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Robotics, Software Engineering and many more. Although this situation reduces the overall quality of the works, it creates an environment where people can learn about different research fields to broaden their vision.

I participated in many sessions and I believe in general the conference itself was a quite nice experience. The topics that I listened to included eye tracking, advancements in BMI technologies, pattern recognition and image processing, and many more poster sessions about various topics.

There were multiple keynote speakers but maybe the most important one, the opening keynote, was given by Jose M. Carmena from Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute of UC Berkeley, USA. The topic of his talk was about “Advances in Brain-Machine Interface Systems”. The final part of his speech where he explained wireless capture of brain activity was very interesting.

The best student paper award, which I was interested in, was given to the paper titled as “Automated Brain Tumor Segmentation using Kernel Dictionary Learning and Superpixel-level Features”.

I guess this is enough text and enough explanation. I am leaving you with some pictures that I took during the conference and my trip to Budapest.

Enjoy.

Hello, I am M1 student Ryoko Kato.
I study abroad at University of Oulu as internship student.

I arrived in Oulu City, on 26th September, and 14 days have already passed.
I can’t believe that… The time just flew by.

In this article, I’d like to describe about my life in Oulu.
First, I will write about my days in University of Oulu.

Research
I am belonging to the group of professor Petri Pulli in Department of Information Processing Science as internship student.
I am a member of the research of the gamification that how technology can support activate isolated young people. Recently, gamification is used many applications and service. Gamification the application of game-design elements(e.g. ranking, badges, and more) and game principles in non-game contexts so as to encourage users of the non-game systemcan continue to use the system.
Now, I’m searching the papers or journals that describe characters of the isolated young people. There are many cases of application, and I think it is interesting.

Secondly, I will write about my days in daily life.

My days in University of Oulu
University of Oulu has extensive lands. There are not only school buildings, but also a botanical garden, and a church in the school site.
In particular, the botanical garden is known as famous tourist site in Oulu City.
I’d like to visit the botanical garden during the my internship.

This photograph shows autumn color of leaves in the campus, I can see the beautiful landscape everyday.

My days in Oulu City
Next, I’d like to write about my life in Oulu City.

Oulu City is little colder than Ikoma, Nara. Therefore I wear the sweater everyday, like winter days in Japan, but it’s not too cold to live:)

I visited several tourist spot on every weekend.

I’d like to especially write about the aurora.
Fortunately, I can see the aurora in Oulu City on 4th October’s night.
Following photograph is taken by Kushida-san from Optical Media Interface Laboratory.

The right curtain cover the dark sky, and stars blight on the sky…
“Beautiful”, there is nothing else I can say.

If the weather will be gave me a chance, I would like to take photograph of the aurora by my camera.
In the end of this article, I’d like to thank professor Petri Pulli and IMD professors for their support for my internship.

Kiitos!!(Thank you.)