Professor Yuko Itatsu, Professor Yujin Yaguchi, and Associate Professor Ai Hisano participated in the Global University Summit for the Rome Call for AI Ethics held on October 26 and 27, 2022, on the campus of the University of Notre Dame.
Profs. Itatsu, Yaguchi and Hisano belong to the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies at the University of Tokyo and are members of the Mid- and Long-term Research Project " B’AI Global Forum: Research on norms, ethics and praxis for a truly gender equal society and a guarantee of rights for minorities in the AI age ".

The summit featured presentations of the latest research, keynote speeches, panel discussions, and networking events aimed at examining the role of universities through research, education, and policy in developing ethical approaches to artificial intelligence (AI).
Professor Yaguchi was invited to talk at the panel discussion of the Session 3 on the 26th, representing the Institute for AI and Beyond, while Professor Itatsu and Associate Professor Hisano shared a poster presentation highlighting the approaches of both the B’AI Global Forum and the Institute for AI and Beyond.

＜Related Links＞
・Global University Summit for the Rome Call for AI Ethics
https://techethicslab.nd.edu/news-and-events/rome-call-for-ai-ethics-a-global-university-summit/
・Rome Call for AI Ethics
https://www.romecall.org/
・B'AI Global Forum HP
https://baiforum.jp/en/

Project Professor Yukie NAGAI of the university’s International Research Center for Neurointelligence (IRCN) was awarded the “Women in Robotics Engineering and Science (WiRES)” at IROS 2022 (The 2022 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems), one of the largest and most influential research conferences in robotics in the world, for her contributions in cognitive developmental robotics and robot learning research. She was invited to give a talk in a special session dedicated to WiRES awardees with four other renowned women researchers on October 25 at IROS.

Professor Nagai has also been named one of the 50 most prominent women in robotics in the world by the journal, Analytics Insight, in June 2020.

Professor Nagai is the project leader of the Basic research project (AI and Society) entitled "AI x Tojisha-Kenkyu: Computational Neuroscience for Systematic Understanding of Cognitive Individuality” at the Institute for AI and Beyond of the University of Tokyo.

・IROS Kyoto 2022 HP
https://iros2022.org/
https://iros2022.org/program/iros-35th-anniversary-forum/
・Analytics Insight
https://www.analyticsinsight.net/analytics-insight-names-worlds-50-most-renowned-women-in-robotics/
・Dr. Nagai’s profile page
https://developmental-robotics.jp/en/members/yukie_nagai/

Dr. Nagai becomes one of 35 women to be honored with a 2022 Women in Robotics Engineering and Science Award.

Associate Professor Yoshiho IKEUCHI of the Institute of Industrial Science (IIS) of the University of Tokyo gave a lecture from the UTokyo New York Office, along with Teruo FUJII, President of the University of Tokyo who joined the event online, and other invited speakers at UTokyo-IIS Seminar “Delivering the Vision – Closing the gap between academic research and society” held in a hybrid format on June 13, 2022, New York time.　

Associate Professor Ikeuchi is the research leader of the basic research project “Understanding human brain through constructing organoid circuit tissues” at the Institute for AI and Beyond.

For detail about the seminar, refer to the following URL:
https://www.iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/news/3871/

UTokyo-IIS Bulletin Vol.10 covering the event published on September 1, 2022 :
https://issuu.com/utokyo-iis/docs/utokyo-iis_bulletin_vol10_web_220831/6

A research team including Professor Kenichi OHKI of the Institute for AI and Beyond, the Graduate School of Medicine and the International Research Center for Neurointelligence (IRCN) of the University of Tokyo and Assistant Professor Tomonari MURAKAMI also of the Graduate School of Medicine of the University of Tokyo has successfully elucidated a new mechanism of the brain by which a complex neural network, including interareal connections in the cerebral cortex, is efficiently formed during development. This is the first study investigating comprehensively how interareal connections among cortical and thalamic regions are formed during development.
　
This study is expected to be applied in the future to treatments for diseases such as congenital blindness and to circuit formation algorithms to improve an artificial intelligence.

The research result was published in the online edition of Nature on 3 August 2022 (UK time).

Professor Ohki and Assistant Professor Murakami are Project Leader and Researcher respectively in the Basic Research Project entitled “Development of next generation AI by modeling brain information ” at the Institute for AI and Beyond.

The full press release (in Japanese only) in PDF.
https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/content/400193638.pdf

Related link: UTokyo HP
https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/focus/ja/press/
https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/focus/en/press/z0508_00240.html

Abstract URL (Title: Modular strategy for the development of hierarchical networks in the mouse visual system)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05045-w

The article about "Gendered Innovations" covering Professor Yuko ITATSU's research was published at nikkei online on August 1, 2022.

The URL of the article:
https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQOUC0627Q0W2A700C2000000/

The article is available in Japanese only.
Registration is necessary to read the full article online.

Professor Itatsu is the sub-leader of the basic research project "B’AI Global Forum: Research on norms, ethics and praxis for a truly gender equal society and a guarantee of rights for minorities in the AI age (Project leader: Professor Kaori HAYASHI)

A team of researchers including Professor Masahiro TAKADA of the Institute for AI and Beyond, and Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU) of the University of Tokyo, led by Postdoctoral Research Associate Yosuke KOBAYASHI at the University of Arizona combined machine learning technique, a neural network method with numerical simulation data by the supercomputer “ATERUI II” at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) to successfully generate theoretical predictions of the power spectrum, and then measure the most fundamental quantities which characterize properties of the universe such as the amount of dark matter.

The emulator developed in this study is expected to be applied to galaxy maps that will be captured by the Prime Focus Spectrograph, under development, led by the Kavli IPMU, to be mounted on NAOJ’s Subaru Telescope, to study dark matter mass and the nature of dark energy, leading to new discoveries beyond the current understanding of the universe.

Details of their study were published in Physical Review D on April 20, 2022

Professor Masahiro TAKADA is the Sub-Leader of the Basic Research Project entitled “New developments in AI through study of evolution of the Milky Way from initial quantum fluctuations to its assembly” at the Institute for AI and Beyond of the University of Tokyo.

Related Links：
・Full press release at Kavli IPMU official website
https://www.ipmu.jp/en/20220721-emulator
・Paper Abstract in Physical Review D
https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.105.083517

Professor Tatsuya HARADA of the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology （RCAST）of the University of Tokyo was awarded the Science and Technology Award in the Science and Technology Promotion Category for the 2022 Commendation for Science and Technology from the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) jointly with Professor Shinichi SATO of National Institute of Informatics (NII) and his research collaborators on April 20, 2022 for the contributions made by the “Medical Big-Data Cloud Platform and its application to AI automated diagnosis research”.

The "Commendation for Science and Technology from the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology" is awarded to persons who have made outstanding achievements in research and development, promotion of understanding related to science and technology.

Professor Tatsuya HARADA is the Project Leader of the Basic Research (Advancement of Fundamental AI) project entitled "Automatic Learning of High Accurate Prediction Models from Limited Supervised Data" at the Institute for AI and Beyond of the University of Tokyo.

・MEXT Homepage: Selected the 2022 Commendation for Science and Technology (Awards for Science and Technology in Research Category) by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (only in Japanese).
https://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/houdou/mext_00989.html
・Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo (only in Japanese):
https://www.rcast.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ja/news/release/20220408.html
・National Institute of Informatics (NII) News Release
https://www.nii.ac.jp/news/release/2022/0408.html

Professor Masashi SUGIYAMA, Sub-Leader of the Basic Research (Advancement of Fundamental AI) entitled "Automatic Learning of High Accurate Prediction Models from Limited Supervised Data" (Project Leader, Professor Tatsuya HARADA), was selected for the 2022 Commendation for Science and Technology (Awards for Science and Technology in Research Category) by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT).
The Award Ceremony will be held on April 20 at the auditorium of the Ministry.
The "Commendation for Science and Technology by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology" is awarded to persons who have made outstanding achievements in research and development, promotion of understanding related to science and technology.

Awarded research:
Weakly Supervised Machine Learning for Building Reliable Artificial Intelligence

On 14th March 2022, Professor Eiji Saitoh, the leader of the Basic Research “Analysis of materials’ quantum properties using AI” received the Japan Academy Prize.

Japan Academy Prize
The Japan Academy Prizes is awarded to persons who have achieved notable research landmarks or who have authored particularly outstanding academic papers or books.

About awarded research
Pioneering Research on Physics of Spin Current

Related Links
Japan Academy: Recipients of the Imperial Prize, the Japan Academy Prizes and the Duke of Edinburgh Prize elected
https://www.japan-acad.go.jp/en/news/2022/031401.html

Faculty of Engineering, The University of Tokyo:
【Awards and Commendations】Professor Eiji Saitoh, Department of Applied Physics, received Japan Academy Prize
https://www.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/foee/topics/setnws_202203161143454127410294.html