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JST Press Release

March 30, 2015
Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST)
5-3, Yonbancho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102-8666

JST to fund 3 coordinated Japan-U.S. research projects within
"FY2014 Strategic International Collaborative Research Program (SICORP)"

On 30 March 2014, Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF)*1 announced that they would commence support for 6 coordinated projects on the topic of “Big Data and Disaster Research (BDD)”. This support, within the framework of JST-NSF Coordinated Research, will be provided as an activity of JST’s FY2014 Strategic International Collaborative Research Program (SICORP)*2. The selected projects are as follows:

(1) “Human-Centered Situation Awareness Platform for Disaster Response and Recovery”

(Asanobu KITAMOTO, Associate Professor, Digital Content and Media Sciences Research Division, National Institute of Informatics and Cyrus SHAHABI, Director, Integrated Media Systems Center, University of Southern California)

The project aims at solving the problem of information scarcity and overloads that decision makers need to tackle with during disaster response, and developing human-centered situational awareness platform to support collection, analysis, and sharing of information among stakeholders.

(2) “Efficient and Scalable Collection, Analytics and Processing of Big Data for Disaster Applications”

(Takahiro HARA, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, Osaka University and Sanjay Kumar MADRIA, Professor, Department of Computer Science, Missouri University of Science and Technology)

This project aims to develop fundamental technologies of collection, analytics, and processing of big data for disaster applications. The developed technologies are expected to significantly improve share and reuse of disaster information, and thus, to support various applications such as disaster prevention planning, evacuation route detection, and rescue operations.

(3) “A Big-Data Computational Laboratory for the Optimization of Olfactory Search Algorithms in Turbulent Environments”

(Yosuke HASEGAWA, Lecturer, Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo and Tamer ZAKI, Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University)

We will develop algorithms to identify scalar sources in turbulent environment for disaster prevention through big-data analyses of velocity and scalar fields reproduced by numerical simulation.

(4) “Dynamic Evolution of Smartphone-Based Emergency Communications Network”

(Junbo WANG, Associate Professor, University-Business Innovation Center, the University of Aizu and Krishna KANT, Professor, Computer and Information Sciences (CIS) department, Temple University)

The project focuses on emergency communications networks, consisting of adhoc links between mutually reachable smart phones, surviving portions of the cellular network, and the communication capabilities provided by the specially deployed emergency equipment. The project will study how to monitor the evolution of the networks through the analysis of big data from smart phones via emergency apps, social media etc., to provide the best possible coverage and communications capability as the disaster situation evolves.

(5) “Disaster Preparation and Response via Big Data Analysis and Robust Networking”

(Yusheng JI, Professor, Information Systems Architecture Research Division, National Institute of Informatics and Guoliang XUE, Professor, School of Computing, Informatics, Decision systems engineering, Arizona State University)

In this project, we study novel approaches to disaster preparation, response and recovery using survivable communication networks and big data analysis of social media data, etc. This research will lead to more efficient and reliable mechanisms for disaster relief.

(6) “Data-Driven Critical Information Exchange in Disaster Affected Public-Private Networks”

(Xuan SONG, Project Associate Professor, Center for Spatial Information Science, The University of Tokyo and Tao LI, Professor, School of Computer Science, Florida International University)

A key reason that businesses fail to operate after a disaster is the lack of information on the availability of power and supplies, the road conditions, and so on. The goal of this project is to design and develop solutions to achieve intelligent (context-aware and user-specific) information delivery and analysis in disaster management.

*1 NSF:
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950. An annual budget is $7.3 billion (FY 2015), approximately 24 percent of all federally supported basic research conducted by America's colleges and universities. For more details, please visit the NSF homepage:
http://www.nsf.gov/
the NSF press release: http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=134609
*2 Strategic International Collaborative Research Program (SICORP):
SICORP is a “top-down type” program that provides support to international research projects with countries and regions, in fields of cooperation designated by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, and Science and Technology (MEXT) on the basis of intergovernmental agreements.
For more details, please visit the SICORP homepage:
http://www.jst.go.jp/inter/english/sicorp/index.html

Appendices

Appendix 1: "FY2014 Strategic International Collaborative Research Program (SICORP)" Japan-U.S. Research Projects

Appendix 2: "FY2014 Strategic International Collaborative Research Program (SICORP)" Japan-U.S.Research Projects Japanese Advisory Board Members

Reference: "FY2014 Strategic International Collaborative Research Program (SICORP)" Japan-U.S. Research Projects Overview of the Program and the Evaluation

Contact

Hideo NAKAJIMA (Dr.)
Department of International Affairs, JST
K’s Gobancho, 7, Gobancho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102-0076
Tel:+81-3-5214-7375 Fax:+81-3-5214-7379
E-mail:

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