Safety and Security ( -FY2006)

Activities of the R&D Focus Area ended in March 2007.

Program Supervisor

HORII Hideyuki

Professor, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo
(until 2005.2 KOMIYAMA Hiroshi Professor, School of
Engineering, The University of Tokyo)
(as of the completion of the R&D Focus Area)

In recent years, we have frequently experienced incidents threatening our safety and security. The background factor of many of these threats is scientific and technological development, such as defects and immaturity of technology, misuse and abuse of man-made systems, aggravation of natural disasters triggered by environmental changes and human activities, frequent occurrence of pests and diseases, occurrence and recurrence of infections and threat of terrorism. These threats involve a huge number of social activities. Moreover, they are unable to be sufficiently addressed by specific individual technological fields alone or unable to be ironed out with system technologies that coordinate related technologies. Addressing them with all aspects of human activities, starting from technology to social system development (including laws and regulations, economization) and even to behavioral patterns described as “culture prioritizing safety and security” is the approach needed. In this R&D area, we pursue research from this perspective.

While contributing to society by providing individual solutions to complex and diverse safety and security issues, we expect to acquire meta-knowledge relating to safety and security by attributing the output to establish fundamental knowledge.

“Construction of a safe and secure society” is announced as the government’s science and technology policy philosophy and its goal. In “Third Science and Technology Basic Plan,” principle 3 reads “protecting health and safety” and goal 6, “country where safety is a source of pride.” “Advisory Committee Report on Science and Technology Policy Contributing to the Establishment of a Safe and Secure Society” (Apr. 2004) of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Technology’s also emphasizes the importance of this goal. It is an urgent R&D subject as a social technology.

Goals

In this R&D area, we define "social technology" as technology of solving social issues and facilitating operations in society, in the broad sense. The following is our five goals.

1. Develop social technologies to build a safe and secure society
2. Develop fundamental knowledge and methods to serve this purpose.
3. Build a methodology to develop social technologies.
4. Build a methodology to modify social technology for society implementation
5. Disseminate the concept of social technologies to enhance their implementation

Research Area Structure

Mission Program I : "Building a knowledge system for solving social issues related to safety"(FY2001-2005)

R&D Theme Outline

1. The Research and development has been conducted with the following goals: 1) Develop social technologies to solve social issues related to safety, 2) Build knowledge base serving this purpose, 3) Build a general methodology for developing social technologies.

The research unit consists of: a research team that covers "safety" areas, an interdisciplinary research team, and a comprehensive study team that coordinates the entire research. Researchers from engineering, medicine, law, economics, social psychology, and other fields have collaborated to conduct comparative research and interdisciplinary research.

The following is the main results of our research and development.

  • Social technology development to solve social issues related to safety
    • Medical care navigation system to achieve medical safety
    • Metrics system for evaluating traffic accident countermeasures using accident risk analysis model
    • Psychological device designed for violation prevention: Emergency response multi-agent simulation system
    • Support system for forming social "safety consensus" between academic society and industries.
    • Earthquake damage visualization technology
  • Knowledge base building required for social technology development
    • Knowledge distribution method utilizing failure knowledge on knowledge distribution support system using oral communication
    • Technology based on ontology to buttress knowledge social sharing
  • General methodology building for developing social technologies.
    • Methodology for socio-technical design
    • Frameworks for legal system design to ensure safety and security
    • Risk issue analysis and governance form planning

Safety and Security Research Unit (FY2005-2006)

Objective

1) Comprehensively systemize safety and security research program results and employ them for administration support
2) Identify administration needs relating to safety and security and utilize them in research programs
3) Develop a methodology to assist administration with safety and security issues.

Research Group

  1. Security Research
    Modelling of security in society by extracting factors that affect security feeling and studying the process where security feeling is generated to cooperate with administration in measure organizing that contributes to security
  2. Research on "Seeds" and Needs Matching
    Matching technological "seeds" involved in safety and security issues with administrative needs to develop a methodology to support administration based on the correspondence between the two,
  3. Research on Knowledge Network Building
    Crisis network establishment to swiftly locate experts and expertise needed for countermeasure implementation.
  4. Research on Science and Technology Policy Support
    Exploring how to develop and take advantage of science and technology to ensure safety and security of Japan from the perspective of national security or in a medium-and long term standpoint.
  5. Analysis of Interdependence among Social Systems
    Analysis of city function interdependence and damage propagation/ expansion in the event of a disaster to assist in measure drafting to minimize damage.
  6. Research on Emergency Information Sharing
    Practical study on how to share information that brings about safety and security in an emergency.
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