Mr. Kumpei Ogawa’s Doctoral Dissertation Final Defense (public session) was held.

The title of the dissertation was “Research on VR Redirection Techniques Incorporating Physical Space Constraints.”

The main research groups of the Interdisciplinary ICT Research Center for Cyber & Real Spaces have expanded their research activities by relocating from the main building of the Research Institute of Electrical Communication to the newly completed Global Connect Hub – Atelier Q∞, located directly south of it.

Dr. Woan-Shiuan (Winnie) Chien, an Incoming Assistant Professor at the Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering of National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU), Taiwan, with whom we are conducting collaborative research, visited us and gave us a talk. The titke of her talk was “Multimodal Interaction Modeling: Bias-Aware Emotion Understanding in Interactive Contexts“.

Prof. Jason Orlosky from Augusta University, School of Computer and Cyber Sciences, with whom we are conducting collaborative research, visited us and gave us a talk. The titel of his talk was “Mixed Reality Interfaces for Industrial Workflows”.

Our joint research project with Asst. Prof. Yang Jianfei (School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering) at Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore) has been accepted for the “Tohoku University-NTU Singapore Joint Research Fund.” This fund was established to promote and encourage joint research between Tohoku University and NTU Singapore. Out of 15 applications, three projects were selected following a joint review by both universities.

• Project Title: Safeguarding Elderly Users in Embodied Task Planning with LLM
• NTU Principal Investigator: Asst. Prof. Yang Jianfei (School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering)
• Tohoku University Principal Investigator: Professor Yoshifumi Kitamura (Research Institute of Electrical Communication)

Article page of Global Engagement Division, Tohoku University

Professor Yasuaki Kakehi from the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, University of Tokyo, gave us a talk. He also visited our research theme demonstrations and provided us with many valuable comments.

December 8
As part of a joint research project (inter-organizational collaboration (international)) with the Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Prof. Rob Lindeman and Dr. Yasas Sri Wickramasinghe from HIT Lab NZ, University of Canterbury, New Zealand, visited us. They gave a presentation and we held a discussion on research themes.

Ryo Ooka’s presentation received the Interactive Presentation Award (Program Committee) At WISS 2025 (the 33rd Workshop on Interactive Systems and Software),

Dynamically Controllable Softness Seat Device
Ryo Ooka (Tohoku University), Kazuyuki Fujita (Tohoku University), Hana Nakamoto (Mitsubishi Electric Corporation), Yusuke Yokosuka (Mitsubishi Electric Corporation), Yoshifumi Kitamura (Tohoku University)

Mr. Manato Abe made a poster presentation at International Conference on Computers in Education (ICCE 2025) held in Chennai, India.

• Manato Abe, Masako Hayashi, Yoshifumi Kitamura. Objective Evaluation Metrics from Behavioral Logs in Metaverse-Based International Virtual Exchange: Total Movement Distance and Learners’ Self-Reported Intercultural Understanding, Proceedings of the International Conference on Computers in Education (ICCE 2025).

We participated in the 59th Joint Relay Race of ECEI and RIEC.

Prof. Yoshifumi Kitamura gave a lecture titled “International Conference Networking Making Use of Unique Venues – from the Perspective of an Academician” at the “International Conference Networking at Unique Venues” event (a Japan Tourism Agency project) held at Sendai Ryokusaikan and Sendai City Museum.

• ユニークベニューでの国際会議ネットワーキング（Poster）

An interview article featuring Professor Yoshifumi Kitamura and others regarding the organization of the international conference CHI 2025 held in Yokohama has been published.

• IkiCHI:Harnessing Ikigai to Find Communal Purpose (CHI 2025)

On November 18, 2025, Professor Yoshifumi Kitamura served as a lecturer for the MICE Business Seminar: Practical Edition, hosted by the Yokohama Convention & Visitors Bureau, held at La Banque du Loa, a Yokohama City-designated Tangible Cultural Property located in Yamashita-cho, Naka Ward. He delivered a lecture titled “The Candid Thoughts of a University Researcher Hosting an International Conference.”

(Program link: https://business.yokohamajapan.com/mice/ja/news/detail/?id=3924)

At the 74th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Stomatognathic Function, held at the Iwate Medical University Hospital, Professor Yoshifumi Kitamura delivered an invited lecture titled “Exploring the Potential Contributions of XR Technologies to Stomatognathic Function Research.”

After the lecture, attendees had the opportunity to experience a demonstration of an XR-based dental cutting training system, presented together with student Yuhui Wang.

(Conference link : https://jssf.umin.ne.jp/news/74_meeting/conf_paper74.pdf)

At the ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology (VRST) 2025, held in Montreal, Canada, Yujian Fang delivered an oral presentation on the paper accepted to the conference:

• Yujian Fang, Manato Abe, Kazuyuki Fujita, Yoshifumi Kitamura:SnapSteer: A Bimanual 3D Manipulation Interface with Limitable Motion Degrees of Freedom,Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology (VRST).

In the Opening Session, Professor Yoshifumi Kitamura, serving as the Steering Committee Chair of VRST, gave the opening address. In the Closing Session, Associate Professor Kazuyuki Fujita announced that VRST 2026 will be held in Sendai, Japan next year.

Project Assistant Professor Miao CHENG and Project Researcher Victor SCHNEIDER presented a poster in the Late Breaking Results program at the 27th ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI 2025), held in Canberra, Australia, from October 13 to 17, 2025.

• Huakun Liu, Miao Cheng, Xin Wei, Felix Dollack, Victor Schneider, Hideaki Uchiyama, Yoshifumi Kitamura, Kiyoshi Kiyokawa, Monica Perusquia-Hernandez: Large Language Models as Perceivers of Dynamic Full-Body Expressions of Emotion, Late Breaking Results, 27th ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI 2025)

A New Database Highlights Cultural Nuances in Emotion-Infused Body Movements — DIEM-A, Intercultural E-Motion Database of Asian Performers

• Database DIEM-A Web Page
  (https://www.cr-ict.riec.tohoku.ac.jp/diem-a/)
• Press release (https://www.tohoku.ac.jp/en/press/new_database_highlights_cultural_nuances_in_emotioninfused_body_movements.html)

Project Assistant Professor Miao CHENG delivered an oral presentation and demonstration of an accepted paper at 13th International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction (ACII 2025) held in Canberra, Australia.

• Cheng, Miao, Chia-huei Tseng, Ken Fujiwara, Victor Schneider, and Yoshifumi Kitamura, Asian Emotional Body Movement Database: Diverse Intercultural E-Motion Database of Asian Performers (DIEM-A), Conference Proceedings of 2025 13th International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction (ACII) (to be published in IEEE Xplore)

We enjoyed craft beers produced by Jokun Brewing Lab.

IVRC award ceremony was held at the 30th Annual Conference of the Virtual Reality Society of Japan.

At the ceremony, ‘ HE|AD:something that gets cut and recovers ‘, created by a team of students from our lab, was selected to participate in the Leap Stage.

Additionally, They received the Unity Award and the CRI Middleware Award as corporate awards, and won the Audience Award on the final day of the exhibition.

・菊池勇吾，金井美桜，佐々木涼，村上聡，伊藤勝徳，尾形優斗，柴藤りん，佐藤生流，西山喜尋，豆|頁：なんかきられてももどるやつ，第 30 回日本バーチャルリアリティ学会大会論文集，IVRC-05，2025．