Cybernics plays a significant role in coping with an aging society using state-of-the-art technologies from engineering, clinical medicine and humanities. This new interdisciplinary field studies technologies that enhance, strengthen, and support physical and cognitive functions of human beings, based on the fusion of human, machine, and information systems. The design of a seamless interface for interaction between the interior and exterior of the human body is described in this book from diverse aspects such as the physical, neurophysiological, and cognitive levels. It is the first book to cover the many aspects of cybernics, allowing readers to understand the life support robotics technology for the elderly, including remote, in-home, hospital, institutional, community medical welfare, and vital-sensing systems. Serving as a valuable resource, this volume will interest not only graduate students, scientists, and engineers but also newcomers to the field of cybernics.

The International Symposium of Robotics Research (ISRR) continues to be the premiere meeting of the International Foundation of Robotics Research (IFRR). The 13th International Symposium of Robotics Research took place Novemb3r 26-29, 2007, in Hiroshima, Japan, and was organized by the two editors of this book. This volume brings a collection of a broad range of topics in robotics. The content of these contributions provides a wide coverage of the current state of robotics research: the advances and challenges in its theoretical foundation and technology basis, and the developments in its traditional and novel areas of applications. Historically, the proceedings of the ISRR have featured ground-breaking work of the highest caliber, which influenced generations to come. The present volume promises to be no exception. The collection of scientific articles in this volume provides new insights to important problems in robotics, written by some of the leaders in the field.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third International Conference on Simulation, Modeling, and Programming for Autonomous Robots, SIMPAR 2012, held in Tsukuba, Japan, in November 2012. The 33 revised full papers and presented together with 3 invited talks were carefully reviewed and selected from 46 submissions. Ten papers describe design of complex behaviors of autonomous robots, 9 address software layers, 8 papers refer to related modeling and learning. The papers are organized in topical sections on mobile robots, software modeling and architecture and humanoid and biped robots.

Following the rapid development of connected technologies, which are now highly sophisticated and spread across the globe, Society 5.0 has emerged and brought with it a dramatic societal shift. In 1998, Kodak, the world leader in photographic film, had 170,000 employees. It thus seemed unthinkable that just 3 years later, the majority of people would stop taking photographs to paper film and that Kodak would have disappeared. These are the stakes of this new society that is taking shape. This book, which does not seek to critique current politics, management or marketing literature, aims to fight against the excesses of this often-misunderstood Society 5.0 and to present the ideas and associated technologies that comprise it, all working towards societal improvement. Among these technologies, artificial intelligence, robotics, digital platforms and 3D printing are undoubtedly the most important, and thus receive the greatest focus.

This book explores the ways in which socio-technical settings in medical contexts find varying articulations in a specific locale. Focusing on Japan, it consists of nine case studies on topics concerning: experiences with radiation in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Fukushima; patient security, end-of-life and high-tech medicine in hospitals; innovation and diffusion of medical technology; and the engineering and evaluating of novel devices in clinical trials. The individual chapters situate humans and devices in medical settings in their given semantic, pragmatic, institutional and historical context. A highly interdisciplinary approach offers deep insights beyond the manifold findings of each case study, thereby enriching academic discussions on socio-technical settings in medical contexts amongst affiliated disciplines. This volume will be of broad interest to scholars, practitioners, policy makers and students from various disciplines, including Science and Technology Studies (STS), medical humanities, social sciences, ethics and law, business and innovation studies, as well as biomedical engineering, medicine and public health.

The book highlights recent developments in human biometrics, covering a wide range of methods based on biological signals, image processing, and measurements of human characteristics such as fingerprints and iris or medical characteristics. Human Biometrics is becoming increasingly crucial in forensics security and medicine. They provide a solid basis for identifying individuals based on unique physical characteristics or diseases based on characteristic biomedical measurements. As such, the book offers an essential reference guide about biometry methods for students, engineers, designers, and technicians.

In recent years, debates over healthcare have accompanied rapid advances in technology, from the expansion of telehealth services to artificial intelligence driven diagnostics. In this book, Shawn Bender delves into the world of Japanese robots engineered for care. Care robots (kaigo robotto) emerged early in the 21st century, when roboticists began converting assembly line technologies into responsive machines for older adults and people with disabilities. These robots are meant to be felt and programmed to feel. While some greet them with enthusiasm, others fear that they might replace a fundamentally human task. Based on fieldwork in Japan, Denmark, and Germany, Bender traces the emergence of care robots in Japan and examines their impact on therapeutic practice around the world. Social science scholarship on robotics tends to be either speculative—imagining life together with robots—or experimental—observing robot-human interaction in laboratories or through short-term field studies. Instead, Bender follows roboticists developing technologies in Japan, and travels with the robots themselves into everyday sites of care, tracking the integration of robots into institutional care and the connection of care practice to robotics development. By exploring the application of Japanese robotics across the globe, Feeling Machines highlights the entanglements of therapeutic practice and technological innovation in an age of more-than-human care.