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Sign up Login | Sign Up Time Extension Guest "I didn't know anything about what other people in the gaming industry were doing" In December 1996, Sony Computer Entertainment published the video game PaRappa the Rapper in Japan – a groundbreaking title about a paper-thin rapping dog on a quest to win the heart of his beloved (a humanoid flower named Sunny Funny) Developed by NanaOn-Sha – a game company that was founded several years earlier by the Japanese pop star Masaya Matsuura (of the band Psy•s) – the title went on to become a worldwide sleeper hit and has since acquired a passionate fanbase thanks to its charming visuals (designed by the American artist and graphic designer Rodney Greenblat) and its memorable tunes featuring catchy lyrics about everything from learning karate (“Kick It's all in the mind”) to needing the restroom It has also – more importantly – been credited as the title that kickstarted the rhythm game genre, establishing a bunch of design elements that would later appear across various games that followed like Sega’s Samba De Amigo, various “Bemani” projects, and the Rock Band and Guitar Hero franchises In addition to this, we also got to hear his opinions on how he approached music, spoke to him about why he was initially reluctant to dive headfirst into the making of PaRappa the Rapper 2 and how he hopes the Nintendo Switch 2 is a “mental switch” that turns a new light on for him Below is our conversation (edited and condensed for clarity) Time Extension: Before working in video games you had a successful music career with your band Psy•s Could you talk us through how you originally became interested in pursuing a music career so it was natural that I started playing and creating music Music is often synonymous with and inseparable from a fairly wide range of things that exist in the human world and some people may think of these as something other than music but I feel them first and foremost from the perspective of music Time Extension: Could you elaborate on this Do you mean like the famous John Cage quote Matsuura: I don't think I fully understand what John Cage means by this statement so you mean instances where music is present So some people may watch a musical or a film and see it as a complete package but you experience it primarily through music it is quite difficult to enjoy and evaluate music by separating it from other things I sometimes try to ignore as many elements as possible that accompany the music and listen to it purely from the sound alone (I call this "Hazushi-giki") That’s how much I want to concentrate on music on a daily basis Time Extension: Early on in your musical career you were introduced to a digital synthesizer called the Fairlight CMI which was the first machine to coin the term “sampling” How did the Fairlight CMI broaden your horizons as a musical artist Matsuura: There's no doubt that digital sampling methods played a big part in the foundation of my early musicality [and I learned a lot from the Fairlight because of how expensive it was...] However I still continue to think about and [try to] communicate the merits and demerits of various digital audio which I have been holding for the past three years the audience listened to my demo of the same sound source changing it from an ultra-low bitrate state to 96k/24bit I wanted [to show them] that the recording process is inherently full of latent changes and how positively you interpret that could have been the driving force behind the creation of a work like The Art Of Noise I think that my experience in the low-bitrate sound quality era motivated me to think about this issue Time Extension: Given your background in music – what was your exposure to games prior to working on them We’ve noticed in previous interviews never hear you speak about your experiences of playing games It seems like you’re quite unique in that regard as an artist as your interest in the space seems to be an extension of your fascination with music not a desire to emulate a particular company’s games (Nintendo etc) or fit into pre-defined genres or stereotypes Matsuura: I think your point is correct. I think games naturally overlapped with my musical expression. Most of my experiences with gaming were from the 1980s when I was in my 20s. Pong, Space Invaders, Xevious Time Extension: Did you ever feel self-conscious about having this different approach to your peers Or did you see it as a strength to come from this other world "Entering the gaming world" was a result of the PaRappa the Rapper becoming a hit I didn't know anything about what other people in the gaming industry were doing at the time I only know my own music better than others and I think I lack the generalized musical skills that are useful for a job Time Extension: Looking online, it seems that the very first titles you are created as working on are the 1993 PC Engine shooter Metamor Jupiter, and the Macintosh game The Seven Colors: Legend of PSY・S City (which served as an interactive accompaniment to your band’s music) Could you tell us more about what it was like working on those earlier titles Matsuura: For the former, I only provided music, but it seemed like the production side featured my involvement in the advertising making it look like I was more involved I think we ended up making something game-like but we had no active awareness of what category it belonged to Time Extension: Do you remember how the idea originally came about to create an interactive accompaniment to Psy・S’s music Matsuura: Music videos were at their peak at the time and I think there was a desire to do something new to replace them but I have believed since relatively early on after the advent of personal computers that music should be "the program itself," rather than "data" that records and plays back performances as digitized sound recordings and frequency and time information I worked on dynamically changing music data using a program But I have not yet been able to fully realize this mission The recent AI boom has been met with criticism from people in the music industry I think AI may be one step closer to my idea that "music should be a program." The reason is that in the past there was only a one-way world where a program would spit out data and that was the end of it AI learns from data and produces new results meaning that a new cycle is created in which the data is again learned by the AI ​​program This may be one step closer to my idea that "music should be a program." Time Extension: How successful was The Seven Colors in your opinion but I don't think it was a success in terms of business the sales rep complained to me that they had a hard time getting it into [game stores] Time Extension: So they could only get Seven Colors into music stores Matsuura: [It was slightly more complex than that] it couldn't be distributed through music distribution it was a mystery as to whether it was a game or not so it couldn't be distributed through game stores either there were shops that sold CD-ROMs for Apple Macs Time Extension: We’d also love to ask you some questions about Tunin’ Glue - NanaOn-Sha’s first game which was released for Macintosh computers in 1996 how did that project initially come about following Seven Colors so I had some interaction with the Apple people so this time my involvement with Pippin came through the Apple people It was a project full of various discoveries the hardware environment was close to the minimum required for it to run so the app had to save memory to the extreme just as the launch of the hardware (which I thought was complete) was drawing near they decided to add copy protection encryption to the software Time Extension: Was there anyone who worked on Seven Colors with you who went on to work at NanaOn-Sha on Tunin’ Glue Matsuura: Yes, there was. Ohmori-san We worked together almost until he retired from Sony Music Entertainment I think he played a role similar to that of Roger Nichols in Steely Dan What do you think made your collaborations with Ohmori-san work so well Did you both come from the same kind of musical background or share the same ideas about music I think we were both people who thought in a scientific way he participated as a recording engineer for Sony Music and I think I was very grateful that he was sympathetic to others' lack of understanding and misunderstanding about making music with an unknown monster like the Fairlight Time Extension: PaRappa the Rapper obviously came out on the Sony PlayStation in 1996 how did you first become aware of the PlayStation What were your first impressions of the console Matsuura: I first met Kutaragi-san's team when they were still developing the Nintendo sound chip I went to the first presentation that gathered licensees in which he described the project as "our undertaking," or in Japanese Time Extension: Were you aware of Sony’s other experiments in the realm of music video games? There was an interesting title called Fluid (released as “Depth” in Japan in 1996) which was part underwater exploration game It lets users create their own tracks from a bunch of unlockable samples Did you ever meet anyone working on that game Fujisawa-san is one of the producers of PaRappa the Rapper He is also known as the composer of the PlayStation boot sounds I imagine this title probably started from a similar starting point as PaRappa the Rapper - the market just recognized one as a game and the other not Time Extension: You’ve mentioned before in interviews that Sony was initially unsure of how to market PaRappa the Rapper after it was finished Did that shake your confidence at all in what you had created I always have a strong feeling and conviction for what I want to create but I can only have it because it is a unique expression so it is usually difficult for people to understand such things Time Extension: How long did it take before you realised the project was a success Matsuura: I think it was about a year. Sony Computer Entertainment's promotion was very smart. Hayashi-san from the promotion planning department ran advertisements and other things Time Extension: Rodney Greenblat has previously said you avoided doing a typical sequel straight away, as it wasn’t your style. He said you always wanted “to turn everything upside down and do it backwards” and stated that if it was up to him he would probably have done a sequel to PaRappa straight away why did the idea of Um Jammer Lammy excite you more than PaRappa 2 at the time I didn't think a sequel to PaRappa the Rapper would be made Matsuura: PaRappa the Rapper 1 depicted the highlight of a once-in-a-lifetime important youthful period of a sensitive boy I never felt like making music or gameplay that was linked to it that idea is the opposite of what I thought it would be my brain was empty and I was in a daze for a long time PaRappa the Rapper 1 depicted the highlight of a once-in-a-lifetime Time Extension: What changed to make you want to work on PaRappa The Rapper 2 Matsuura: It was because there was a strong request from fans and Sony I was able to revive the circuits and emotions in my head That allowed me to reassemble PaRappa the Rapper again Time Extension: Following PaRappa the Rapper I believe I first encountered the game through a promotional demo disc released alongside Official PlayStation Magazine It really surprised me with just how different it looked to everything else on the console What was the development of that game like in comparison to PaRappa Time Extension: I guess to narrow things down then You mentioned PaRappa the Rapper “depicted the highlight of a once-in-a-lifetime important youthful period of a sensitive boy.” In comparison what were you hoping to convey with Vibri and their journey Matsuura: There's almost no story in Vib-Ribbon I think this was a measure to avoid intruding too much on the player's existing memories and impressions Time Extension: When you were testing Vib-Ribbon were there any CDs/artists in particular whose music you found yourself generating levels with Matsuura: I was looking for Brian Eno or classical music or whatever sound source that would not create many obstacles there were cases where not a single obstacle would appear throughout the entire disc you revisited the concept a few times on successors like Mojib-Ribbon and Vib-Ripple But one other game you worked on in this style that rarely gets brought up is Rhyme Rider Kerorican for the WonderSwan Color Time Extension: Can you elaborate on what made the project fun or interesting for you We’ve heard Vib-Ribbon took you many years of work and had you overcome a bunch of challenges what was making Rhyme Rider Kerorican like in comparison Matsuura: Even if there are a lot of hard things at the time you may be able to look back and think it was fun This is generally the case with creative work you can talk about the hardships in a humorous way but there are also cases where this is not the case This is a simple answer that contains complex feelings Was there ever any conversation about doing more with the game In terms of bringing it to other more handheld platforms publisher Bandai had not yet decided to supply titles to the Nintendo platform Time Extension: Would you ever consider rereleasing it Time Extension: Do you like revisiting your past work in general Or are you someone who prefers to look forward Matsuura: It depends on the subject and the situation no matter how many times you perform your own composition in front of an audience it will never be the same; it is a new experience each time Whereas in the old days of physical packages for games only passive changes would occur unless a sequel was made So someone who played PaRappa the Rapper as a child may have a different emotional reaction to it as an adult They might find themselves relating to the situations the character finds himself in a little more or becoming nostalgic about that period of their own life but I don't have a strong motivation [to revisit my past games] it seems like the majority of the games you’ve created in the past fit the same basic theme of bringing people brand-new ways to experience music It would be interesting to hear if you have your own “Mount Rushmore” of rhythm games What are the rhythm games that you personally feel do the best job of achieving this goal Matsuura: "Bringing new ways to experience music" - that's true I'm sorry to be talking about a very narrow range of games I've played but I've never been passionate about other rhythm games I've thought that maybe it's because I don't feel like the same musician is designing both the gameplay experience itself and the music Matsuura: Music has an aspect where similar things can coexist with different people the strength of the connection between a person and their musical expression is very important I think that when a musician composes a rhythm game I think that even if the gameplay is similar to others you seem to be mostly focused on your music career again is there any chance of you returning to games in the near future Time Extension: Are you not tempted at all by the arrival of the Nintendo Switch 2 It’s been a while since you released a game on a Nintendo platform I believe ‘Major Minor's Majestic March’ was the last project Matsuura: I'm not interested in a "switch" itself I am interested in the darkness that is illuminated by the light that it turns on Time Extension: So you’re more interested in the act of creation rather than the tools themselves but creation without tools is almost impossible I want a mental switch that will turn on a new light inside me Time Extension: Thank you for again your time Matsuura-san! (To our readers, if you want to find out more about Matsuura-san’s work, you can follow him on Facebook and Instagram He's also told us his latest live show is scheduled to be released on Amazon Japan soon.) UPDATE: We now have more details on the ultra rare machine The game sadly never reached North America "The deepest crunch development I've ever done" Prev Next Jack has a particular fondness for point-and-click adventure games he’s written about lost games from studios like Sony Manchester and has made a habit of debunking video game rumours who was never very good at it but thinks it has done a world of good for games as a medium I loved reading Matsuura's perspectives We should all be so curious about our craft and how we can push it further (I'm gonna politely disagree with him on the potential of AI I'd have liked him to open up a little more I was shocked to see my old tweet of a print ad for Seven Colors half way down the page So Masaya thinks music should be distributed as a fluid program mostly because it's nothing new and it had already been done years before his first game I recently stumbled across such alternative distribution back in 1989 where some music was distributed as MIDI files on a CD so that the listener could adjust the playback to their taste I even found recording of one of the albums https://twitter.com/gingerbeardman/status/1908277494400040990 Show Comments Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment.. 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Show More © 2025 Hookshot Media, partner of IGN Entertainment | Hosted by 44 Bytes | AdChoices | Do Not Sell My Personal Information Volume 7 - 2013 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00221 Impaired self-monitoring and abnormalities of cognitive bias have been implicated as cognitive mechanisms of hallucination; regions fundamental to these processes including inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and superior temporal gyrus (STG) are abnormally activated in individuals that hallucinate A recent study showed activation in IFG-STG to be modulated by auditory attractiveness but no study has investigated whether these IFG-STG activations are impaired in schizophrenia We aimed to clarify the cerebral function underlying the perception of auditory attractiveness in schizophrenia patients Cerebral activation was examined in 18 schizophrenia patients and 18 controls when performing Favorability Judgment Task (FJT) and Gender Differentiation Task (GDT) for pairs of greetings using event-related functional MRI A full-factorial analysis revealed that the main effect of task was associated with activation of left IFG and STG The main effect of Group revealed less activation of left STG in schizophrenia compared with controls whereas significantly greater activation in schizophrenia than in controls was revealed at the left middle frontal gyrus (MFG) A significant positive correlation was observed at the right TPJ and right MFG between cerebral activation under FJT minus GDT contrast and the score of hallucinatory behavior on the Positive and Negative Symptom Scale Findings of hypo-activation in the left STG could designate brain dysfunction in accessing vocal attractiveness in schizophrenia whereas hyper-activation in the right TPJ and MFG may reflect the process of mentalizing other person's behavior by auditory hallucination by abnormality of cognitive bias Auditory hallucinations and thought disorder are the main symptoms of schizophrenia, and these symptoms profoundly affect the neural basis of social communications as well as behavior (Brune et al., 2008; Bucci et al., 2008; Wible et al., 2009; Kumari et al., 2010; Granholm et al., 2012; Waters et al., 2012) In order to understand these psychiatric symptoms in schizophrenia it is important to verify the pathophysiology of cerebral function in auditory communications If patients with schizophrenia mistake unfavorable greetings through their distorted thinking while listening to favorable greetings social isolation and emotional withdrawal could be produced if schizophrenia patients have auditory hallucination misjudgment of favorable/unfavorable greeting may be induced by abnormality of cognitive bias it is unclear whether schizophrenia patients with auditory hallucinations have impaired abilities to differentiate between favorable and unfavorable greetings this right-lateralized pattern was even more pronounced These findings indicate that cerebral laterality for emotional prosody in schizophrenia patients could be shifted in comparison to the typical right-lateralized activation in normal control subjects no study has ever investigated the cerebral response to auditory attractiveness in schizophrenia The aim of our research is to clarify cerebral response to auditory attractiveness when patients with schizophrenia are listening to greetings. Greeting conversations are crucial to maintaining social interactions. An fMRI study of social perception indicated that the left prefrontal and left IFG were activated when the subjects judged whether two people were friends or enemies (Farrow et al., 2011) Since the recognition of friendliness and favorability is essential for greeting conversations the patients with schizophrenia could change cerebral function due to psychiatric symptoms such as auditory hallucinations we compared cerebral activation when the subjects judged favorability (recognition of auditory attractiveness) and cerebral activation when the subjects judged gender (recognition of non-auditory attractiveness) we hypothesized that cerebral functions underlying the perception of auditory attractiveness could be impaired in STG and IFG by occurring auditory hallucination Mean (± SD) EHI in right-handed 14 patients was 90.4 ± 13.0 The EHI score of the 4 left-handed patients was −85 and mean (± SD) EHI was 96.1 ± 4.7 As a sample for clarifying emotional response in voice recognition Japanese greetings were recorded from 6 native speakers (3 males Ten greetings were recorded: Ohayo (Good Morning) These 10 greetings were recorded expressing favorable emotion (positive greeting) The voice was recorded using an IC recorder (Voice-Trek DS-71 In both the preliminary experiment and the fMRI experiment all speakers were unknown to all participants we asked 32 different control volunteers (16 males and 16 females) to judge the favorability of all 180 greetings (60 favorable and 60 neutral greetings) using a questionnaire with a 10-point scale We defined “favorable” if the scale approached 10 whereas “unfavorable” if the scale approached 0 greetings were considered positive if their average score was higher than 6.5 Neutral greetings were defined as being located within the average score range of 4.5–5.5 each speaker's greeting was evenly selected for the favorable Stimuli were presented by the use of Media Studio Pro (version 6.0 Ulead Systems Subjects listened to the sound stimuli through headphones attached to an air conductance sound delivery system (Commancer X6 The average sound pressure of stimulus amplitude was kept at 80 dB Experimental design of fMRI Part A is Favorability Judgment Task (FJT) Part B is Gender Discrimination Task (GDT) The images were acquired with a 1.5 Tesla Signa system (General Electric Functional images of 264 volumes were acquired with T2*-weighted gradient echo planar imaging sequences sensitive to blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) contrast Each volume consisted of 20 transaxial contiguous slices with a slice thickness of 6 mm to cover almost the whole brain (flip angle Favorability was rated by 32 different control volunteers using a scale of 1–10. Figure 2 shows the distribution of the rating of favorability Based on the definition of favorability (Materials and Methods: Preliminary Examination) 30 favorable vocalizations (rating average more than 6.5; 12 males and 9 females) 60 neutral vocalizations (rating average between 4.5 and 5.5; 17 males and 18 females) 30 unfavorable vocalizations (rating average less than 3.5; 7 males and 13 females) were selected The mean ratings (± SD) of favorability were 2.3 ± 0.6 (unfavorable) Analysis of variance (One-Way ANOVA) was significantly different [F(2 Multiple comparisons were also significant (unfavorable vs The figure shows the distribution (mean ± SD) of rating favorability for portraying favorable and unfavorable greetings in preliminary experiment The vertical axis represents the rating score of favorability (1–10) *Indicates that multiple comparison was significant and judgment of same gender and different gender (FAV controls: 93.5 ± 7.6%; FAV patients: 94.1 ± 6.2%; NFV controls: 94.7 ± 6.1%; NFV patients: 90.0 ± 6.0%; SAM controls: 98.3 ± 2.4%; SAM patients: 95.7 ± 5.6%; DIF controls: 97.2 ± 3.8%; DIF patients: 95.0 ± 4.2%) No significant difference was observed between controls and patients [FAV: t(34) = −0.24 Three-Way ANOVA was calculated for the effect of Group Task effect was significantly observed [F(1 whereas Group effect and Within-task effect were not observed [Group: F(1 Interaction effect was not observed in the effect of Group × Task [F(1 p > 0.05] and the effect of Group × Within-task [F(1 The figure shows the error bar (mean ± SD) of the accuracy in the fMRI experiment The vertical axis represents the accuracy of the experiment Shows the mean ± SD of accuracy and response time in fMRI experiments and judgment of same gender and different gender [FAV controls: 2.41 ± 0.78 s; FAV patients: 2.17 ± 0.17 s; NFV controls: 2.01 ± 0.13 s; NFV patients: 1.89 ± 0.15 s; SAM controls: 2.15 ± 0.78 s; SAM patients: 1.93 ± 0.14 s; DIF controls: 1.99 ± 0.53 s; DIF patients: 2.07 ± 0.13 s] Significant difference between controls and patients was observed in NFV and DIF [NFV: t(18.4) = 3.49 p > 0.05; DIF: t(22.8) = −2.31 whereas no significant difference was observed in FAV and SAM [FAV: t(18.6) = 1.29 Interaction effect was significantly observed in the effect of Group × Task [F(1 whereas interaction effect was not significantly observed in the effect of Group × Within-task [F(1 FMRI data was analysed based on the 2 × 2 × 2 full factorial model with the three factors: Group (control subjects/schizophrenia patients) GDT: SAM/DIF) (FDR-corrected voxel-level threshold of P < 0.05) Two-Way ANOVA was calculated by main effect of Group and Within-task the strength of BOLD signal (beta estimates) in patients under the FAV and NFV conditions was significantly greater than that in controls [L MFG: F(1 whereas that in bilateral STG was significantly greater in controls than in patients [L STG: F(1 BOLD signals of patients under SAM and DIF conditions were significantly greater than in controls [L MFG: F(1 Significant difference of LI was observed in the amygdala and occipital lobe under SAM and DIF conditions [amygdala LI: F(1 whereas significant difference in the other regions was not observed (p > 0.05) The figure demonstrates the results of main effect of Group (controls/patients) in analysis of 2 × 2 × 2 full factorial design Upper pictures show cerebral activation on main effect of Group (p < 0.05 Gray bars in the upper row represent the distribution of beta values (mean ± SE) in controls (dark gray color) and patients (light gray color) **Indicates p < 0.05/5 (Bonferroni correction by 5 ROIs) Color bars in the middle row represent the distribution of beta values (mean ± SE) on 5 ROIs and contralateral symmetrical 5 ROIs under FAV (red) Color bars at the bottom represent the distribution of laterality index (mean ± SE) on the 5 ROIs z) and their z-values of cerebral activation by full factorial design analysis with Group effect (controls and patients) Main effect of Task (FJT/GDT) was significantly observed in the left precentral gyrus (PrCG), left MFG, left IFG, right insula, bilateral STG, left claustrum, and left cerebellum (p < 0.05, FDR-corrected, Figure 5 and Table 3). Cerebral activation in the left IFG and bilateral STG was significantly greater in FJT than in GDT [Figure 5; L IFG: t(70) = 3.92 Interaction effect between Group and Task was not significantly observed at a threshold of p < 0.05 The figure represents cerebral activation on main effect of task [(FJT/GDT): p < 0.05 Color bars show the distribution of beta values (mean ± SD) under FJT (red) and GDT (gray) z) and their z-values of cerebral activation by full factorial design analysis with task effect (controls and patients) Positive correlation between psychiatric symptom and cerebral activation under FJT > GDT contrast (univariate analysis) Positive correlation between PANSS and cerebral activation under FJT minus GDT p < 0.0001 uncorrected (p < 0.25 Positive correlation between severity of hallucinatory behavior and cerebral activation under FJT > GDT contrast Positive correlation between the severity of hallucinatory behavior and cerebral activation under FJT minus GDT We examined the correlation between handedness and cerebral activation. The beta value of ROI analysis in main effect of Group was used in this analysis. Cerebral activations in most ROIs were not correlated with the handedness score, but activation in STG was significantly negatively correlated with the handedness score (Figure 8) differences in LI between 18 controls and 14 patients were analysed after removing 4 left-handed patients significant difference in the LI was not observed The figure shows the distribution of correlations between activation in STG (in main effect of Group) and handedness score (EHI) in all participants and the horizontal axis shows EHI score (−100 represents extremely left-handed; 100 represents extremely right-handed) In the ROIs of main effect of Group, correlation was analysed between the beta value of FJT at left STG and accuracy. A significantly positive correlation was observed (r = 0.346, p < 0.05, Figure 10) The other areas were not significantly correlated with accuracy These findings suggest that the less the accuracy is the less the beta value of FJT at left STG is Summary of cerebral response to auditory attractiveness and psychiatric symptom in schizophrenia: red circle shows the area of positive correlation between cerebral activation and total PANSS score; red dashed line shows the area of positive correlation between cerebral activation and hallucinatory behavior; light blue area represents greater activation in patients than in controls; pink area represents less activation in patients than in controls Correlation between beta value of FJT at left STG and accuracy The rectangles show schizophrenia patients our results showed left STG-IFG activation in the recognition of auditory attractiveness including social communications These reports indicate that prefrontal regions are associated with the judgment of favorability and friendliness hyper-frontality and hypo-temporality in schizophrenia patients could designate the dysfunction of left STG-IFG when they judged favorability less activation in schizophrenia could represent impairment of favorability judgment in auditory processing whereas greater activation in schizophrenia may reflect disturbance of attention bias toward internally generated information by the appearance of auditory hallucination These previous findings support that the right MFG/IFG-IPL region associates with the recognition of social communications such as judgment of favorability These activations could be attributed to representing the dysfunction of the fronto-parietal region in the processing of social communications by auditory hallucinations when cerebral function in auditory attractiveness including social conversations was investigated cerebral activation was revealed in the left STG and left IFG less activation was observed at the left STG compared with control subjects greater activation in schizophrenia was confirmed in the right fronto-parietal region cerebral response in this region was correlated with the severity of auditory hallucinations These findings suggest that dysfunction in the left fronto-temporal regions is related to the ability to appropriately assess the attractiveness of vocal communications in schizophrenia The right fronto-parietal region could offset cerebral dysfunction to auditory attractiveness including social communications The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest We gratefully acknowledge the staff of Asai Hospital and Nippon Medical School Hospital; Section of Biofunctional Informatics Tokyo Medical and Dental University; and Voice Neurocognition Laboratory This work was supported by a Health and Labor Sciences Research Grant for Research on Psychiatric and Neurological Diseases and Mental Health (H22-seishin-ippan-002) from the Japanese Ministry of Health Misattribution of external speech in patients with hallucinations and delusions Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text A fast diffeomorphic image registration algorithm Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Altered lateralisation of emotional prosody processing in schizophrenia Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Examining the effectiveness of an outpatient clinic-based social skills group for high-functioning children with autism Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text Implicitly perceived vocal attractiveness modulates prefrontal cortex activity Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Reduced language lateralization in first-episode schizophrenia: an fMRI index of functional asymmetry Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text An fMRI study of theory of mind in schizophrenic patients with “passivity” symptoms Pubmed Abstract | 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vocal attractiveness and auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia: a functional MRI study Received: 18 February 2013; Accepted: 08 May 2013; Published online: 24 May 2013 Copyright © 2013 Koeda, Takahashi, Matsuura, Asai and Okubo. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License distribution and reproduction in other forums provided the original authors and source are credited and subject to any copyright notices concerning any third-party graphics etc *Correspondence: Michihiko Koeda, Department of Neuropsychiatry, Nippon Medical School, 1-1-5 Sendagi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8603, Japan. e-mail:bWtvZWRhQG5tcy5hYy5qcA== Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher 94% of researchers rate our articles as excellent or goodLearn more about the work of our research integrity team to safeguard the quality of each article we publish Your browser does not support JavaScript, or it is disabled．Please check the site policy for more information Nagasaki Prefecture—This city in northwestern Kyushu represents another municipality that saved itself from possible oblivion by promoting a local specialty dish has recast itself as a gastronomical “pilgrimage site” using a common meal eaten everywhere in Japan the “Home of Aji Fry” (deep-fried horse mackerel) city officials and chefs have tweaked the usual recipe The result has been a sharp increase in tourist numbers and rising donations received under the central government’s “hometown tax” program “Home of Aji Fry” banners flutter around this quiet seaside city less than a two hours’ drive from downtown Fukuoka 40 to 50 horse mackerel were swimming in a fish tank used a net to scoop up some fish and quickly prepared and deep-fried them The aji fry were ready to serve in just five minutes Matsuura was once a prosperous coal-mining city with a population of 60,000 in 1960 including towns that have since been merged into Matsuura That figure dropped to 20,000 by the latest count But Matsuura has continued to boast Japan’s largest hauls of horse mackerel Yoshiyasu Tomoda won the Matsuura mayoral election in 2018 with a pledge to make the city the Home of Aji Fry City authorities made the declaration in 2019 A passage in the “Matsuura Aji Fry Charter” says signatories will serve aji that have never been frozen after being caught or have been frozen only once after being covered with bread crumbs That is because repeated freezing may generate a bad smell or spoil the flavor the city has differentiated Matsuura’s aji fry from others around Japan by using fish of sashimi-grade freshness The campaign’s achievements are visible numerically The city has 37 “partner restaurants” that abide by the charter Cars with license plates from other prefectures are seen parked outside some of those restaurants Lines of customers form outside them on weekends According to Nagasaki prefectural government figures 1.16 million tourists visited Matsuura in 2023 up about 300,000 from the pre-declaration level in 2018 The amount of tourism-related spending was 13.4 billion yen ($87 million) City authorities assessed the economic ripple effect from the Home of Aji Fry project at 3.065 billion yen in 2023 and estimated that about 60 percent of visitors had come to the city for the aji fry to the quality of our aji fry,” said Toshiyuki Kihara who was a city government section chief in charge of the Home of Aji Fry campaign when it began “The sashimi-grade freshness made an impression on those who ate them.” said many residents of the main island of Honshu have visited Matsuura during tours across Nagasaki Prefecture The Matsuura Aji Fry is now venturing out of its “home” with help from Sanyo Co. a Fukuoka-based fisheries company that markets frozen aji fry prepared at a dedicated plant near Matsuura Port The company opened an outlet of its Sanyo Shokudo restaurant chain in Fukuoka three years ago and another one near Tokyo Station last summer The Matsuura government is offering frozen aji fry as an optional gift in exchange for “hometown tax” donations The city received more than 200 million yen in similar donations in 2023 Although happy that Matsuura’s aji fry are eaten across Japan city officials are slightly concerned that people could stop coming to Matsuura if the dish is served closer to them “We hope to further liven up our campaign so people will say that aji fry tastes best in their homeland,” said Daisuke Kimura a 42-year-old official in the city government’s culture and tourism division is another example of a successful local delicacy promotion campaign Local restaurants that specialize in “karaage” deep-fried chicken united to declare the city the “holy place” of the dish in 2010 Some of the restaurants have now aggressively expanded outside Nakatsu’s borders Local governments have tried to draw on local delicacies to revitalize their communities but many have failed to win broad public recognition a University of Nagano professor of public policy who is well-versed in food-themed local revitalization efforts said success or failure of these campaigns hinges on whether the food is loved in the local community He cited as examples of successful local delicacies the Utsunomiya Gyoza from the capital of Tochigi Prefecture and Fujinomiya Yakisoba (fried noodles) from the eponymous city in Shizuoka Prefecture “Things that local people eat appear delicious to outsiders as well,” Tamura said things that locals don’t eat will not be eaten by tourists It is essential to work persistently without trying to do more than what could be done.” GOHAN LAB/ Spicy and sweet horse mackerel: Refreshing dish will help you make it through the hot summer GOHAN LAB/ Horse mackerel marinated in vinegar: Stocking up just in case Recipe to get you through the darkest days Hiroshima’s savoury pancake wins new fan in Britain’s Sunak TASTE OF LIFE/ Croquette in bacalhau style: Get a feel for Portugal with popular fish finger food dish TASTE OF LIFE/ Acqua pazza of dried fish: Aha Flash of intuition led to restaurant-style home cooking Information on the latest cherry blossom conditions Please right click to use your browser’s translation function.) A series based on diplomatic documents declassified by Japan’s Foreign Ministry Here is a collection of first-hand accounts by “hibakusha” atomic bomb survivors chefs and others involved in the field of food introduce their special recipes intertwined with their paths in life A series about Japanese-Americans and their memories of World War II In-house News and Messages Copyright © The Asahi Shimbun Company. All rights reserved. No reproduction or republication without written permission. Clinical Trial Registration:UMIN Clinical Trials Registry, identifier UMIN000036667. Volume 8 - 2021 | https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2021.633076 This article is part of the Research TopicInteraction in Robot-Assistive Elderly CareView all 9 articles Social interaction might prevent or delay dementia but little is known about the specific effects of various social activity interventions on cognition This study conducted a single-site randomized controlled trial (RCT) of Photo-Integrated Conversation Moderated by Robots (PICMOR) a group conversation intervention program for resilience against cognitive decline and dementia PICMOR was compared to an unstructured group conversation condition Sixty-five community-living older adults participated in this study The intervention was provided once a week for 12 weeks Primary outcome measures were the cognitive functions; process outcome measures included the linguistic characteristics of speech to estimate interaction quality Baseline and post-intervention data were collected PICMOR contains two key features: 1) photos taken by the participants are displayed and discussed sequentially; and 2) a robotic moderator manages turn-taking to make sure that participants are allocated the same amount of time one of the subcategories of cognitive functions verbal fluency significantly improved in the intervention group a part of the subcategories of linguistic characteristics of speech the amount of speech and richness of words and answers in total utterances were larger for the intervention group This study demonstrated for the first time the positive effects of a robotic social activity intervention on cognitive function in healthy older adults via RCT The group conversation generated by PICMOR may improve participants’ verbal fluency since participants have more opportunity to provide their own topics asking and answering questions which results in exploring larger vocabularies PICMOR is available and accessible to community-living older adults Clinical Trial Registration:UMIN Clinical Trials Registry determining the effectiveness of social activity intervention on cognitive health is necessary Cognitive changes in older adults are highly variable from person to person which may also lead to diversity in the level and manner of participation in a group conversation and of outcomes If there is enough of an imbalance in the amount of speech for the participants the participants may end up participating in functionally different cognitive tasks no study so far has measured the manner of participation in a group conversation or its differential effects on cognition in healthy older adults the number of spoken words contributed by the participant or interviewer serves as a metric to improve the standardization of the individual interviewers' interview skills the number of words spoken by each participant during conversation sessions has not been reported which are oriented to eliminate older adults’ communication difficulties with healthcare professionals but they are applicable to the communication among older adults as well Specific recommendations are the use of photos as supports giving each participant equal opportunity to talk and verifying comprehension through question and answer sessions The design of the robot-guided intervention proposed here—specifically the control on the amount of speech from each participant—is based on the recommendation that each participant has equal opportunity to talk We assume that the amount of speech or the number of words in each conversation intervention is a fundamental variable representing intensity which is equivalent to the amount of weight in resistance training This paper addresses the lack of quantification of conversation intervention in the existing studies The objectives here are to propose PICMOR as a protocol designed to guarantee the intensity of conversation intervention and then to discuss the effect on cognition in the light of linguistic characteristics This study’s purpose was to gather evidence of the effects of PICMOR on cognition in healthy older adults and to validate PICMOR using a randomized controlled trial (RCT) We will discuss the effects and their possible sources Group conversation without guidance or feedback was used in the control group; conversation was encouraged in both groups (instead of using a control group with less conversation) to allow variation in speech amounts among participants to emerge and examine the possibility that balanced speech may have positive effects on the cognition of older adults This paper first focuses on the primary and secondary outcome measures of the trial we explore process outcome measures: linguistic characteristics of speeches in both groups to compare interaction quality and the number of photos taken and memory recall scores of the intervention to estimate engagement Our hypothesis is that participants who complete the PICMOR intervention will show subsequent improvement on certain subcategories of cognitive functions and quality of life from baseline to post-treatment compared to participants in the active control program There were no drop-outs to follow-up during the intervention The assessors were not involved in the intervention delivery Intervention group participants received weekly 30 min intervention sessions each followed by 30 min of explanation about the intervention The active control sessions in the control group involved 30 min of weekly unstructured conversation among the group and 30 min of health education about successful aging The common instruction to both groups is “Please talk as usual as possible although you do not know each other in the beginning.” Each group was divided into four-person subgroups with both men and women formed on the basis of participants’ availability The Institutional Review Board approved this study All participants provided written informed consent This study was registered after the onset of participant enrollment The participants were community-living healthy adults aged over 65 years recruited from the Silver Human Resources Center The exclusion criteria were as follows: dementia; neurological impairment; any disease or medication known to affect the central nervous system; MMSE-J score less than 24 PICMOR is an integrative intervention program supporting the preparation of conversation topics, time management, and turn-taking in conversations, and reflection on the topics. The PICMOR program consists of three phases: preparation, conversation, and recall (see Figure 2). A block diagram of RCT based on the PICMOR program is shown in Figure 3 In order to make participants well-prepared and focused during the conversation preparation and recall phases precede and follow the conversation Experimental setup for Photo-Integrated Conversation Moderated by Robots (PICMOR) A block diagram of the RCT based on the PICMOR program 24 photos were used for each participant during the 12 weeks of intervention The photos were used rather than video clips or sounds because participants can talk while the photos are displayed during the moderated conversation phase it’s time to start a conversation session.” is given in the beginning of the first round “Thank you very much for active conversation to you all.” is given at the end of the second round The instruction named “x” is given occasionally when the imbalance of the amount of speech among participants is observed A block diagram of the moderated conversation phase in the PICMOR program Each participant wore a headset-microphone that recorded his/her voice to measure each participant’s speech precisely This audio data was transmitted in real-time from the microphones to a computer via cables to precisely measure and balance the amounts of speech and to transcribe the speech for linguistic analysis we also recorded videos to capture the details of each conversation Participants were filmed from behind to protect their privacy The primary outcome measures in the present study were cognitive performance measures evaluated by standardized neuropsychological tests conducted by well-trained examiners. The following tests were selected hypothesizing that the conversational intervention would lead to improving memory, attention, executive function since conversations are reported to require these functions (Ybarra et al., 2008; Ybarra and Winkielman, 2012) and Digit Symbol Coding tests were also used Digit Span Forward assesses simple memory span and Digit Span Backward assesses working memory capacity The Digit Symbol Coding test assesses the process speed and memory in digit symbol coding performance which requires the subject to write down each corresponding symbol as fast as possible letter fluency was evaluated to measure verbal function; specifically participants were asked to pronounce as many words as possible starting with the Japanese character “ka” in 1 min and then the total number of words was counted The secondary outcome measures covered subjective physical and mental status and quality of life. The Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology-Index of Competence (TMIG-IC) (Koyano et al., 1991), the Japanese version of the Geriatric Depression Scale short form (GDS-15-J) (Sugishita et al., 2017), and the WHO Quality of Life questionnaire 26 (WHO QOL 26) (Tazaki and Nakane, 1997) were used Welch’s t-test was used to compare the means of continuous variables (Age and TMIC-IC) and Fisher’s exact test was used to compare frequency distributions of categorical variables (Gender and Education) between groups To estimate the intervention effects on the aforementioned outcome measures, linear mixed models with random-effect intercepts for participants were performed for all outcome measures using the “lmer” function in the R package, “lme4” (Bates et al., 2015) we quantified the conversational characteristics for each participant as a simple index based on the number of unique words the speech contains much more information in terms of the number of vocabulary items We also assigned tags indicating the defining characteristics of the Coimagination method to each utterance we checked the data for any correlations between each participant’s total number of utterances and their percentages of tags to ascertain whether those who tended to provide their own topics also had a higher total number of utterances In addition to this analysis at the individual level we also conducted a similar analysis at the aggregate level; that is according to the total number of utterances (hereafter referred to as the “Higher” and “Lower” subgroups We did this with the data for both the intervention and control groups pooled participant’s data within them and then analyzed the differences in the proportions of the tags between the subgroups we were able to examine the extent to which speech characteristics differ according to the total number of utterances and the conditions (i.e. We conducted these analyses with R Ver. 3.4.3 (R-Core Team, 2020) We evaluated participants’ engagement in preparing topics for future conversations based on the number of photos taken per session per participant under the assumption that more photos indicated more effort to find topics for the next conversation session We also referred to the participants’ comments on why they took a large or small number of photos We evaluated the accuracy rates of the photo recall tasks If the accuracy rate of the immediate recall task was high we assumed that attention and short-term memory were functioning well if the accuracy rate of the delayed recall task was high recent memory was estimated to be well-functioning Seven participants were excluded at screening because they meet our exclusion criteria. Therefore, a sample of 65 people was divided into intervention and control groups (intervention: n = 32, control: n = 33). Participants in each group were divided into eight subgroups of four to five participants. Basic characteristics of study participants at baseline are presented in Table 3 The only significant difference found between groups was a significantly higher GDS-15 score in the control group All participants completed the program and post-measurement Table 4 summarizes cognitive test scores within participants (pre- and post-experiment) and between participants (intervention and control groups) In Logical Memory I and II and Digit Symbol tests overall scores significantly improved after the intervention there was no significant time × group interaction on the scores neither main effects nor interaction effects were found a significant time × group interaction was obtained The regression coefficient of time × group associated with verbal fluency was 2.024 (f2 = 0.017) meaning the number of generated words between pre- and post-experiment was approximately two words more than in the control group—from 11.8 at pre-experiment to 13.6 at post-experiment—while there was little change in the control group from pre-experiment (11.4) to post-experiment (11.2) and WHO QOL26—no intervention effects were found Comparison of Pre/Post cognitive test scores in intervention and control groups The linear mixed model (random effect of group) suggests that logTTR in the intervention group was larger than in the control group (p = 0.029) The results demonstrate that the program intervention led the speech to contain more diverse information robot Bono-05 can promote and suppress speech during the session The average number of instances of promotion and suppression of speech by the robot during each session per participant was 1.20 (SD = 1.81) and 0.95 (SD = 1.67) Boxplots for results of conversational analysis (B) standard deviation (SD) of number of words ***p < 0.001 Supplementary Table S1 presents the total number of utterances per participant and the breakdown of the tags. The percentage-stacked bar plot for the data is shown in Figure 6. In the analysis at the individual level for this data, we found no clear tendency for those who tended not to provide topics to also have a lower total number of utterances. However, suggestive results were revealed at the aggregate level. As shown in Table 5 which gives the proportions of the four types of tags within the intervention and control groups the intervention group has higher percentages of topic provision even among the subgroups of participants with the fewer utterances in the intervention and control groups the differences in the percentages of these tags between the Higher and Lower subgroups is small the percentage of questions is even higher in the Lower subgroup We implemented Fisher's exact tests to compare the differences in proportions of the three focal tags (i.e. and reply) and their complements within the subgroups of intervention and control groups 1) the Higher and Lower subgroups of the control group 2) the Higher and Lower subgroups of the intervention group 3) the Higher subgroups of the control and intervention groups and 4) the Lower subgroups of the control and intervention groups All the differences were significant at the 5% level except for the reply tag in the case of 2) The percent stacked bar plot for four types of utterances The horizontal axis stands for the rank order of the total number of utterances (the person on the left has the most utterances and the person on the right has the least) within the control and intervention groups The numbers and proportions of four types of utterances within the subgroups All participants in the intervention group successfully used smartphones to take photos it was their first time using a smartphone The number of photos per session per participant ranged from 2 to 116 (M = 15.43 Participants who took many photos mentioned that they were interested in or excited about taking photos while those who took few photos said that they were busy The total number of photos taken was 5,924 The average scores on immediate and delayed recall tasks were 98.88 and 97.60% Robots assisting older adults with cognitive impairment or dementia have been studied but they didn’t aim at improving cognitive functions Two of the common points regarding the conversational protocol of the previous studies as compared to that of the PICMOR program are that 1) topics are set such as “childhood memories,” “hobbies,” “siblings and parents,” and “movies/books,” and 2) a daily picture prompt is used The intention in using these topics and prompts was to stimulate the conversation to get spontaneous responses in order to take full advantage of this synthetic aspect of conversation Differences between the two conversational protocols include the following: 1) the role of participants in the previous studies was that of a speaker (answering the questions asked by interviewers) while the PICMOR program participants were both speakers and interviewers (alternating between the two); 2) the amount of speech was regulated by the trained human interviewers in the previous studies but by the robot moderator in the PICMOR program; 3) pictures were provided by the researchers in the previous studies while photos were taken by the participants in the PICMOR program; 4) only the PICMOR program had a recall phase conversation length was a common factor among all the studies web-based conversational interventions were more intensive while the PICMOR program lasted for 12 weeks and were weekly Considering the common points and differences verbal fluency improvement may have resulted from spontaneous speaking where the amount of such speech was regulated by the protocol Even though the PICMOR program was less intensive the preparation of topics and taking photos beforehand and the asking questions and recalling the photos while conversing may have increased concentration and engagement so as to amplify the intervention effect Further investigation into the essential parts of the protocol is needed which declines significantly at the onset of dementia may gain some time to go below the level of dementia in later life this intervention may increase verbal fluency our analysis at the aggregate level found that the intervention group had higher percentages of utterances relevant to the Coimagination method (characterized as topic provision with a smaller total number of utterances in the intervention group No clear correlations were found at the individual level These results suggest that the intervention created an environment in which even those who speak less can talk relatively more about relevant things The results also provide the following possible explanation of the mechanism of improvement of verbal fluency through our intervention program by talking about their own topics (providing topic tags) participants retrieved vocabulary they had already had by actively listening to and asking questions about topics provided by other participants (question tag) the vocabulary triggered by other participants’ utterances was retrieved by actively listening to and answering questions about their own topics (reply tag) the vocabulary that they had had was further retrieved The scores of both groups improved significantly after the Logical Memory I and II and Digit Symbol tests The major reason may be that both intervention and control conditions included active group conversation Another reason may be that the tests had learning effects The trial will be conducted with a less active control condition to clarify the main reason for these improvements The interesting point is that both groups engaged in conversations but the manner of participation was different This might have led to the difference in verbal fluency which was reported to improve in previous conversational intervention studies The implication here is that the manner of participation in conversations is a key to the gaining of cognitive benefits from them that the lack of conversation intervention quantification in the existing studies is a problem and that controlling the amount of speech for intensity management is effective PICMOR is applicable to practice and measurement support using methods with group sessions such as cognitive stimulation therapy and group reminiscence therapy Methods with group sessions generally require at least one trained facilitator per group leading to increased training and hiring costs PICMOR may increase scalability by obviating the need for human facilitator per group A human instructor can remain to support participants who have special needs several group conversations can be coordinated by one human instructor operating multiple robots building robots should also become cheaper at increased scale This study was of relatively short length and held infrequent (i.e., weekly) sessions. Thorough investigation of the demonstrated effect of PICMOR warrants a longer study with more frequent sessions: for example, two or three times a week for two years, as in FINGER, the multi-modal lifestyle intervention study (Ngandu et al., 2015) This should also increase the visibility of the effects A follow-up study is planned to investigate whether PICMOR may slow down cognitive decline and delay dementia for years While the verbal function improvement is certainly an effect of conversation some of the effects of PICMOR may be caused not by group conversation but by using photos and robots The purpose of this study is to propose an effective and reproducible intervention program in which group conversation characterized by balanced speech production is realized The effect of each item should be further studied to make clear which aspect of PICMOR is essential for positive effects to occur The datasets presented in this article are not readily available because a joint research agreement is required for data sharing, but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. Requests to access the datasets should be directed to MO-M, bWlob2tvLm90YWtlQHJpa2VuLmpw The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by RIKEN The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study ST: the robot platform for the experiment and manuscript writing KW: manuscript concept and manuscript writing HS: data collection and manuscript writing All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (17H05920; 18KT0035; 19H01138 the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JPMJCR20G1) TKi has received consultant fees from Otsuka and speaker’s honoraria from Banyu TKu has received speakers’; honoraria from Dainippon Sumitomo and has received research funds from Suntory We are deeply grateful to Yoshinori Fujiwara (Tokyo Metropolitan Geriatric Hospital and Institute of Gerontology) Hiroyuki Suzuki (Tokyo Metropolitan Geriatric Hospital and Institute of Gerontology) The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frobt.2021.633076/full#supplementary-material Supplementary Table 1 The numbers of four types of utterances and their sum per participant Compensatory mechanisms in higher-educated subjects with Alzheimer's disease: a study of 20 years of cognitive decline PubMed Abstract | CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Sex differences in exercise efficacy to improve cognition: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials in older humans CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Bartoń, K. 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This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited in accordance with accepted academic practice distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms *Correspondence: Mihoko Otake-Matsuura, bWlob2tvLm90YWtlQHJpa2VuLmpw Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher. 94% of researchers rate our articles as excellent or goodLearn more about the work of our research integrity team to safeguard the quality of each article we publish. A TBI clinic at a US military installation. MHS beneficiaries underwent 6 sessions of CBTi and a 1-month post-treatment follow up session. Data was collected at each treatment session as part of routine clinical care. A total of 69 US MHS beneficiaries seen at a TBI clinic with a diagnosis of insomnia began CBTi. Attrition rate at the end of the CBTi program and 1-month posttreatment session was 35% and 48%, respectively. Results demonstrated that sleep onset latency (SOL) and wake after sleep onset (WASO) decreased during treatment (p's < 0.001). Further, symptoms reported on the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) improved during CBTi (p < 0.001). Findings demonstrate how CBTi used in conjunction with a CBTi smartphone application can be used to effectively treat insomnia for MHS beneficiaries seeking care for TBIs. This evaluation provides the basis for further research on how CBTi may improve care within TBI programs. Volume 2 - 2023 | https://doi.org/10.3389/frsle.2023.1268967 This article is part of the Research TopicImproving Behavioral Sleep Intervention OutcomesView all 5 articles Objectives: While the association between insomnia and traumatic brain injury (TBI) is well established TBI rehabilitation programs that focus on sleep as a primary target are limited Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBTi) is an effective treatment for insomnia however; its use within TBI clinics is relatively unknown our aim was to evaluate the implementation of CBTi used in conjunction with a smartphone app for insomnia within a US military TBI program to improve care within this setting Setting: A TBI clinic at a US military installation Methods: MHS beneficiaries underwent 6 sessions of CBTi and a 1-month post-treatment follow up session Data was collected at each treatment session as part of routine clinical care Results: A total of 69 US MHS beneficiaries seen at a TBI clinic with a diagnosis of insomnia began CBTi Attrition rate at the end of the CBTi program and 1-month posttreatment session was 35% and 48% Results demonstrated that sleep onset latency (SOL) and wake after sleep onset (WASO) decreased during treatment (p's < 0.001) symptoms reported on the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) improved during CBTi (p < 0.001) Conclusion: Findings demonstrate how CBTi used in conjunction with a CBTi smartphone application can be used to effectively treat insomnia for MHS beneficiaries seeking care for TBIs This evaluation provides the basis for further research on how CBTi may improve care within TBI programs specifically CBT skills for sleep to an educational program in which the CBT program demonstrated greater improvements in self-reported sleep quality compared to the educational program the implementation of CBTi as part of routine care in TBI programs should be further evaluated to better understand its effectiveness with this population Despite having several promising features to improve treatment adherence and sleep in general little is known as to how effective a CBTi program would be for MHS beneficiaries seeking care within TBI clinics our aim is to describe how an in-person CBTi protocol was implemented in the context of a multidisciplinary clinic for TBIs we will also describe how CBTi Coach can be utilized as a treatment aid to improve patient care we will provide initial pilot data on the utility of CBTi used in conjunction with CBTi Coach for MHS beneficiaries being seen in a TBI clinic Observations on adherence to the CBTi treatment program are also discussed and recommendations for future research on CBTi for those who sustained TBIs are described This evaluation was reviewed and approved as a quality assurance/quality improvement project by the Tripler Army Medical Center quality assurance/quality improvement review board and the Deputy Commander for Quality and Safety at Tripler Army Medical Center Data was collected during patients' treatment sessions and documented in their medical record as part of routine clinical care Patients were US MHS beneficiaries (i.e., SMs, family members, retirees) aged 18 or older diagnosed with chronic insomnia disorder or unspecified insomnia disorder per the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – Fifth Edition (DSM-V) criteria through a semi-structured interview (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) MHS beneficiaries were evaluated and treated at a TBI clinic at a US military installation Patients were initially seen by the TBI primary care manager who subsequently referred each patient to medical subspecialties (e.g. clinical psychology) based on their initial assessment Patients with medical or psychological comorbidities as well as those who were using psychotropic medications for sleep were included in the analyses Patients who were included in this study were seen in the clinic as part of their routine clinical care The CBTi program was implemented as follows: Week 1 (sleep education) week 3 (sleep restriction/stimulus control) week 6 (skills review and relapse prevention) The CBTi Coach app for iOS or Android platforms was used by patients depending on what mobile service provider they were associated with Hoffman et al. (2013a,b). Both versions of the app are licensed software owned by the VA. Features on the app are used to increase patient engagement in CBTi and improve adherence to treatment (Kuhn et al., 2016) Patients were instructed to use features on the app to complete sleep diaries and practice relaxation exercises The sleep diary feature included questions to obtain self-reported sleep behavior data such as total sleep time All patients were asked to complete a sleep diary throughout treatment Sleep behavior data collected at each session included: total sleep time (TST) Patients input sleep diary data either using the CBTi Coach app or using a pencil-and-paper sleep diary Sleep dairy data from each night was obtained by a CBTi clinician and mean scores were calculated for TST and WASO and recorded as weekly averages for this project Insomnia severity index (ISI) is a 7-item self-report questionnaire used to assess the severity of sleep related difficulties (Morin, 1993) Items on the ISI assess the following: Severity of sleep onset and maintenance satisfaction/dissatisfaction with current sleep pattern interference with daily functioning due to sleep problems how noticeable sleep problems are to others Responses are evaluated using a 4-point Likert scale (response descriptions vary per item) Items are summed for a total score (total score range from 0 to 28) The ISI was administered at each session as part of routine clinical care Epworth sleepiness scale (ESS) is an 8-item questionnaire that is used to evaluate daytime sleepiness in adults (Johns, 1991) Items are presented as eight ordinary life situations (e.g. watching TV) and users rate their likelihood of sleeping in these situations on a 4-point Likert scale (0 = No chance of dozing – 3 = high chance of dozing) Items are summed for a total score (range from 0 to 24) The ESS was administered at each session as part of routine clinical care Daily sleep diary data was computed into mean scores for each week. Total scores for ISI and ESS were computed each week. Repeated measures mixed effects analyses were used to examine changes in mean levels of treatment outcome data over time, followed by pairwise comparisons among time points if the overall effect of time was significant. Table 1 presents summary statistics based on raw data for each variable Because data for SOL and WASO were highly skewed for analysis these two variables were transformed to the log scale to enhance normality and transformed back to the original scale and presented as geometric means in the text A significance level of 0.05 was used for all analyses with a Tukey Kramer adjustment to account for multiple comparisons among time points Error bars in charts represent 95% confidence intervals on the means Summary statistics based on raw data for each variable seen at a TBI clinic with a diagnosis of insomnia At the time of data analysis 45 patients (65% of total patients) had completed the full 6 six-week session CBTi protocol and 36 patients (52% of total patients) completed the 1-month post-treatment follow up session All 36 who came to the week-10 follow-up provided data for ISI and ESS Use of sleep medications was recorded during treatment 41 patients were taking sleep medications (59%) compared to 16 of 42 patients at session 6 (38%) and 16 of 36 patients at 1-month post-treatment follow up (44%) 55 out of 68 (81%) patients had completed their sleep diary at session 1/week 1 (54 used CBTi Coach 24 out of 36 (67%) patients continued to complete their sleep diary (23 used CBTi Coach repeated measures analyses found that mean levels of SOL and WASO differed significantly over time (p < 0.001 for both) Pairwise comparisons showed lower mean levels at weeks 6 (treatment end) and 10 (1 month follow-up) compared to the initial treatment session (geometric mean SOL = 39 min There was no significant difference in mean levels for TST over time Mean levels for ISI also differed significantly over time (p < 0.001). The mean ISI dropped from a score of 17 at week 1 to 13 at week 6 and 12 at week 10 (p < 0.001 for pairwise comparisons vs. week 1) (Figure 1) No statistically significant changes on ESS scores were demonstrated among patients Mean Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) score over 10 weeks from initiation of CBTi intervention (Week 1 N = 69 No statistically significant changes between week 6 and week 10 were found on any sleep diary or questionnaire outcome measure results from this project found that patients who were being evaluated for TBIs at a military TBI clinic and completed CBTi improved during and after treatment on several sleep treatment outcomes Improvements in treatment were found for SOL This project has several limitations that warrant mention these findings are limited as this was not a formal research study and was instead approved as a performance improvement project to determine whether an evidence-based treatment program for sleep was feasible in the context of a multidisciplinary care for TBIs the project is limited in terms of study design and data collection a control group was not used in this project conclusions on the effectiveness of CBTi for patients being seen in TBI clinics is limited sleep diary data was not verified by a second reviewer as data was collected entirely as part of each patient's clinical care this project evaluated MHS beneficiaries as an entire group and therefore did not examine treatment effectiveness among separate beneficiary subgroups such as SMs conclusions on how military personnel responded to CBTi are limited anecdotal accounts from TBI clinic leadership indicate that SMs comprise of ~90% of all patients being seen in the clinic at any point in time may be a promising treatment to address insomnia for those seeking care in TBI clinics and warrant further evaluation on the effectiveness of this treatment for individuals who have sustained TBIs smartphone assisted CBTi may become a standard of care in military TBI programs The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors The studies involving humans were approved by the Tripler Army Medical Center Human Protections Exempt Determinations Review Board The studies were conducted in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements Written informed consent for participation was not required from the participants or the participants' legal guardians/next of kin because Project was determined to be a quality improvement evaluation of a clinical program as part of routine clinical care and not a research study and only de-identified data was used CC: Writing–review & editing The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research This study was supported by the Tripler Army Medical Center Lee-Ann Thomas for their assistance with data collection for this study All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher The views expressed in this manuscript are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy of the Department of Defense 1. ^Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Healthcare System (n.d.) 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Matsuura, anVzdGluLnQubWF0c3V1cmEuY2l2QGhlYWx0aC5taWw= « Back Volume 14 - 2022 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2022.867417 Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) enables the investigation of white matter properties in vivo by applying a tensor model to the diffusion of water molecules in the brain Using DTI metrics including fractional anisotropy (FA) an attempt has been made to detect age-related alterations in the white matter microstructure in aging research the use of comprehensive DTI measures to examine the effects of cognitive intervention/training on white matter fiber health in older adults remains limited we developed a cognitive intervention program called Photo-Integrated Conversation Moderated by Robots (PICMOR) which utilizes one of the most intellectual activities of daily life To examine the effects of PICMOR on cognitive function in older adults we conducted a randomized controlled trial and found that verbal fluency task scores were improved by this intervention we collected in this pilot study diffusion-weighted images from the participants to identify candidate structures for white matter microstructural changes induced by this intervention The results from tract-based spatial statistics analyses showed that the intervention group who participated in PICMOR-based conversations had significantly higher FA values or lower MD including the left anterior corona radiata who participated in unstructured free conversations a larger improvement in verbal fluency task scores throughout the intervention was associated with smaller AD values in clusters including the left side of these frontal regions The present findings suggest that left frontal white matter structures are candidates for the neural underpinnings responsible for the enhancement of verbal fluency Although our findings are limited by the lack of comparable data at baseline we successfully confirmed the hypothesized pattern of group differences in DTI indices after the intervention which fits well with the results of other cognitive intervention studies To confirm whether this pattern reflects intervention-induced white matter alterations longitudinal data acquisition is needed in future research although the fibers considered to reflect intervention/training effects differ among studies possibly due to differences in intervention/training methodologies a consistent pattern can be seen in the DTI indices of the post-intervention period: larger FA values or smaller values in other metrics in the intervention group compared to the control group conversations among group members are prompted and chaired by a robot The robotic management enables equal allocation of speaking time to everyone and each participant is encouraged by the robot to talk about a topic within the allocated time The system also enables giving everyone equal discussion time and the participants are required to ask and answer questions the robot monitors the utterances of each participant in real-time and automatically encourages and stops their utterances to guarantee equal amounts of speaking time The nature of this communication task involves exercising executive functions by encouraging the participants to talk within a limited time to have a flexible discussion by asking and answering questions to temporarily store and manipulate information necessary to ask questions and to refrain from interrupting other group members we expected that cognitive ability involving executive functions such as the ability to produce words within a certain length of time would be better trained by group conversations employing the PICMOR method than by conventional group conversations had differential functional connectivity between the two groups The purpose of this pilot study was to identify candidate structures for white matter alterations induced by conversation-based interventions which were also associated with enhanced verbal fluency by examining the hypothesized pattern in DTI measures after the intervention period 65 people were enrolled and randomly assigned to the intervention or control groups The intervention period lasted for 12 weeks during which both the intervention and control groups participated in group conversations once a week The intervention period was followed by a post-assessment of cognitive function For group conversations during the intervention period both the intervention and control groups were divided into eight subgroups each with four members (except for one control subgroup with five members) and instructed to talk with other members of the subgroup In the group conversation provided for the control group participants joined unstructured free conversations where they talked freely among subgroup members the group conversation provided for the intervention group was controlled by a robotic assistive system in which a robot acted as a chairperson and assisted the conversation by encouraging each participant to describe their daily life experiences and discuss them with other group members Each participant was prompted by the robot to talk about an event along a predetermined theme for 1 min using a photo displayed on the screen they had taken beforehand The 1-min talking period was repeated to explain another event related to the same theme using another photo the other members of the subgroup were required to listen carefully and ask questions later during which the participant had to answer questions raised by other group members The 2-min discussion period was repeated to discuss the second event the robot monitored the utterances of each member in real-time and controlled the conversations by encouraging or stopping utterances to balance the amount of talking time for each person strict time management and automatic turn-taking based on the actual speech time of each participant were achieved All members were provided with 1-min talking periods and 2-min discussion periods the dwi2mask command was executed to generate a whole-brain mask from the preprocessed dataset Using the preprocessed data and whole-brain mask a diffusion tensor model was fitted at each voxel using FSL’s dtifit program a part of the FMRIB’s Diffusion Toolbox (FDT) The default outputs of this procedure included whole-brain maps of AD respectively) corresponding to the three directions of water diffusivity as follows: The RD maps were created using the fslmaths command lower values in FA or higher values in the other three metrics in the intervention group relative to the control group White matter fiber tracts showing significantly higher FA values in the intervention group than in the control group (displayed in red) The results are overlaid on the mean FA skeleton (shown in green) and the standard MNI152 T1 1-mm3 brain template The value of z in the horizontal plane represents the MNI z-coordinate White matter fiber tracts showing significantly lower MD values in the intervention group than in the control group (displayed in blue) White matter fiber tracts showing significantly lower AD values in the intervention group than in the control group (displayed in blue) White matter fiber tracts showing significantly lower RD values in the intervention group than in the control group (displayed in blue) White matter structures showing significant differences in DTI metrics between the intervention and control groups We found no significant correlations between increased task scores and other metrics Negative correlation between increases in verbal fluency task scores throughout the intervention period and AD values in the cluster including the left ACR and ALIC (displayed in blue) The cluster is overlaid on the mean FA skeleton (shown in green) and the standard MNI152 T1 1-mm3 brain template MNI coordinates of the peak voxel are x = –24 White matter structures whose AD values showed negative correlations with increases in verbal fluency task scores throughout the intervention period This pilot DTI study aimed to identify candidate structures for white matter alterations possibly induced by the PICMOR intervention program and comprehensive DTI metrics including FA and RD were compared between the intervention and control groups We found significantly larger FA values or smaller values in the other three indices in the intervention group compared to the control group in numerous white matter fiber tracts no region showed the inverse DTI index pattern larger improvements in verbal fluency task scores from baseline to follow-up were associated with smaller AD values in several white matter regions These findings suggest that conversation-based cognitive interventions have the potential to maintain or improve white matter fiber health in older adults and that left frontal white matter structures are candidate regions that contribute to the enhancement of verbal fluency by this intervention the PICMOR method could have a beneficial effect on older adults’ health at both the behavioral and neural levels and RD in the intervention group were observed in both left and right frontal regions although a significant correlation with task scores was identified only on the left side these findings could be interpreted as evidence that conversation-based cognitive interventions have the potential to induce structural and functional changes not only on the left side of the frontal area as a core region for verbal fluency but also on the right side of this area as a supplementary region that indirectly supports verbal fluency This idea should be further examined in future studies by employing equivalent criteria for statistical significance among different modalities we cannot rule out the possibility of baseline differences To examine whether the possible white matter alterations identified in this pilot study were indeed induced by PICMOR-based conversations it is necessary to collect longitudinal DTI data including both pre- and post-intervention periods and to compare longitudinal changes between intervention and control groups we successfully identified the hypothesized DTI pattern intervention-induced increases in FA or decreases in MD which should be confirmed by future research using a longitudinal study design Although we cannot conclusively identify the neural underpinnings of the beneficial effects of PICMOR on cognitive function due to the lack of DTI data at baseline this pilot study successfully identified candidate structures by comparing comprehensive DTI metrics at follow-up between the intervention and control groups The observed DTI pattern is consistent with those identified in other cognitive intervention studies Taken together with ample evidence from aging research that normal aging is associated with changes in DTI indices the present findings suggest that conversation-based cognitive interventions have the potential to maintain or improve white matter fiber health in adults affected by age-related alterations the findings from the regression analysis suggest that left frontal white matter structures are candidates that contribute to the intervention-induced enhancement of verbal fluency Definitive conclusions may be obtained by comparing in future research longitudinal changes in DTI measures from baseline to follow-up in candidate regions The datasets presented in this article are not readily available because joint research agreement is required for data sharing. Requests to access the datasets should be directed to Hikaru Sugimoto, aGlrYXJ1LnN1Z2ltb3RvQHJpa2VuLmpw This study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board of RIKEN The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study HS collected and analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript under the supervision of MO-M This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI (Grant Numbers JP16H06280 and JP20H05574) and the Japan Science and Technology Agency (Grant Numbers JPMJCR20G1 and Kiyotaka Nemoto for their kind guidance regarding the analysis of diffusion-weighted images We also thank the staff of the Advanced Imaging Center Yaesu Clinic for their technical assistance with MRI scans International Consortium of Brain Mapping; JHU Japanese version of the Mini-Mental State Examination; MNI Photo-Integrated Conversation Moderated by Robots; RCT A systematic review and meta-analysis of structural magnetic resonance imaging studies investigating cognitive and 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semantic and letter fluency in post-stroke aphasia flexible and open software framework for medical image processing and visualisation Diffusion MRI noise mapping using random matrix theory Denoising of diffusion MRI using random matrix theory A coordinate-based ALE functional MRI meta-analysis of brain activation during verbal fluency tasks in healthy control subjects Associations between modifiable risk factors and white matter of the aging brain: insights from diffusion tensor imaging studies Permutation inference for the general linear model Brain structural changes after multi-strategic metamemory training in older adults with subjective memory complaints: a randomized controlled trial Citation: Sugimoto H and Otake-Matsuura M (2022) Tract-Based Spatial Statistics Analysis of Diffusion Tensor Imaging in Older Adults After the PICMOR Intervention Program: A Pilot Study Received: 01 February 2022; Accepted: 26 April 2022; Published: 03 June 2022 Copyright © 2022 Sugimoto and Otake-Matsuura. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) *Correspondence: Hikaru Sugimoto, aGlrYXJ1LnN1Z2ltb3RvQHJpa2VuLmpw By Leila Fujimori Obituaries The former state senator from Hawaii island was also a businessman helping shape some of his political positions later in life the younger Matsuura successfully ran for his late father’s seat in 1998 who took over the family’s orchid business He died Saturday at age 57 in Honolulu of a stroke “He kind of fit the pattern of my father — the same way he was visionary and very faith-based and very generous “He always wanted to do big projects and big things.” Although unable to physically be with him in the intensive care unit a niece and longtime friends and unlikely political allies who served together in the state Senate — Colleen Hanabusa Jonathan Chun and Jan Buen — said their goodbyes to Matsuura Matsuura was part of the “Five Freshmen,” also dubbed the “Rat Pack,” which included Bob Nakata Together the diverse group left their mark from 1999 to 2002 on the Senate by finding common positions although they had varying reasons for their stances even staging a coup against the Senate leadership The group helped to defeat the confirmation of Attorney General Margery Bronster The five would meet for breakfast once a week “That special bond we had lasted,” Hanabusa said While chairing the Senate Health Committee whose father died in 1997 after a battle with pancreatic and liver cancer initially refused to hear the death-with-dignity bill and later heard the bill but without the piece about medical aid in dying said health care professionals did not want the law changed and that advance care directives would allow for treatment to relieve pain even if it hastens death Matsuura ran a second successful campaign but lost to state Sen in part because of the reapportionment of the district The Democrat took the unusual step in 2010 of endorsing Republican gubernatorial candidate Duke Aiona “David was a very independent soul,” Hanabusa said “He did what he thought was the right thing to do.” She said political analyst Dan Boylan told her “he never understood the relationship because in his mind we were all so different we survived the interaction over time.” and David ended up running Orchid Isle Nursery from 1985 until it closed due to foreign competition Peter Matsuura said their father was a horticultural missionary which helped modernize agriculture and eliminate a lot of the hunger and starvation in India was second to the youngest and moved to Hilo in 1971 when his family returned there He later earned degrees in agricultural and managerial economics from the University of California “Dad did his own thing,” said Peter Matsuura “All the kids did whatever they were drawn to do Dad didn’t groom him or any of us for politics.” “In high school he was the big man on campus,” his brother said and I guess he would take a van full of girls around “He was a natural leader back then,” adding that he was charismatic Matsuura remained involved in the community “He was extremely generous to a fault He was very good about connecting people.” husband and grandpa we could ever have asked for … and showed us the Father’s heart in everything he did,” daughter Grace Matsurra said Matsuura is survived by wife Liz; children Joy Faith and Hope; three grandchildren; mother Ruth; brothers Peter Stephen and Andrew; and sisters Marlene and Caroline "The Walking Dead" star Eleanor Matsuura was a little nervous when filming for the show's final episode started to run long while she was far along in her pregnancy with her second child "It started to go and go — and things get pushed because it's a job and it gets busy my belly's getting bigger and bigger and bigger," Matsuura told Insider on the series finale red carpet 'Am I gonna have to ask Norman Reedus to deliver this baby Am I having my baby surrounded by walkers?' I don't want that to happen," Matsuura added Matsuura, who played Yumiko on the show since season nine, shared a photo of her child with her husband, Trevor White, a week after their birth on Instagram in May "The Walking Dead" wrapped filming on the last day of March you gotta be done with me on this date because it's gonna be weird if all of a sudden there's one day I'm pregnant and the next day I'm not," Nicotero said "Thankfully we finished just in time and then I went and had the baby," Matsuura said in this episode where you can definitely see a pregnancy." if you look closely at Yumiko as she's picnicking with her girlfriend "Do you think they'll be able to write it in the show?" Matsuura said unless they're dealing with an immaculate conception.'" is a doctor in the Commonwealth community and that maybe in vitro fertilization wasn't out of the question in the future of the apocalypse Matsuura said it was a possibility she didn't consider until we brought it up He could've slipped me this little IVF treatment," Matsuura said It's possible that could've been the show's intention all of them but Yumiko cheer with glasses and a bottle of wine I don't know if another job I'll ever have will compare to this experience." When asked if there's a chance we could see Yumiko again on a "TWD" spin-off since she survived the series "There's nothing in the works right now," Matsuura added Yumiko's one of those characters that could easily fit into any of those spin-offs You can follow along with our "TWD" coverage here This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page Soh Matsuura Elevated to Assistant Coach October 04 Akihiko Matsuura from UNI Global Union’s Japanese affiliate has been confirmed as the new President of UNI Asia and Pacific (Apro) at a regional online Executive Committee meeting today Brother Matsuura takes over the leadership mantle from Minao Noda of ICTJ Japan who have served as the region’s President since 2015.  Along with the committee members who conveyed their congratulations extended his warmest welcome to Brother Akihiko Matsuura His rich and extensive union experience will enable us to bring UNI Asia and Pacific in our next phase of building forward for a stronger labour movement.” “The pandemic has made people realise that trade unions play a crucial role in protecting workers Our efforts have made people realise that unions are necessary in these challenging times We need to organise more workers and to demonstrate our influence in Asia Pacific which is a region of rapid economic growth our region is seeing a serious attack on democracy such as that taking place now in Myanmar Many Asian countries are still refusing to recognize trade union rights and many workers suffer poor working conditions there are many other issues that will bring about major changes in the future of our labour including the progress of new technologies such as AI and robots “I feel a very heavy responsibility to take on the role of the President during such challenging times but I will do my best to work with the UNI Apro Regional Secretary and together with the affiliates to strengthen our solidarity to defend human rights and to protect workers’ rights and to strengthen UNI Apro as a regional organization.”       The members of the 29th UNI Apro Executive Committee expressed their utmost appreciation to outgoing President Minao Noda “Since my election at the UNI Apro regional conference six years ago in Kuala Lumpur I have tried my best to visit every country to understand the situation and to speak with the leaders The pandemic over the last two years has regrettably hindered the face-to-face interactions we have enjoyed There is a positive and unique quality about UNI Apro and I hope the new president can continue to enhance that I sincerely wish all the best to UNI Apro and that it will prosper in the future under Brother Matsuura’s new leadership.”  expressed her gratitude for the exemplary leadership of Brother Noda during his presidency “You led us through our transition period and I cannot say how much I appreciated your support during this time….You have also been a great leader at UNI APRO ICTS You have given quite a bit of your time and energy to our great UNI project I really thank Brother Noda for his strong support to us I wish him a very good retirement and hope he can continue to extend to us his rich experience in the future.” The meeting also confirmed Yasutoshi Namiki is confirmed the UNI Vice President for UNI Apro and Sister Mio Susai Deputy President of UNI Apro Women Committee has been confirmed as the member representing women at the UNI Apro Management Committee The UNI Apro Executive Committee members express their firm conviction that UNI Apro remains in good hands and are confident that the renewed leadership will lead the UNI Apro family smoothly out of the pandemic crisis 1984               Teijin Company 1992               Executive Committee Member 2000               Assistant Secretary 2002               Assistant Secretary 2008               Central Executive Standing Committee Member and Secretary 2010               General Secretary 2012               General Secretary 2016               President 2016               World Executive Board Member 2016               Vice President 2017               Chairperson 2018               Executive Committee Member 2021               Deputy President Subscribe to our newsletter to receive regular updates from UNI Global Union Elliott Matsuura’s Tim Franklin (right) receives an award for number of Hurco machines sold from Hurco General Manager Scott Camloh “With a tenured distributor network that exceeds an average of 20 years throughout the U.S. Hurco distributors have the experience and responsiveness that save job shops and machinists time from the initial purchase process to training and service for the lifetime of the Hurco CNC machine,” said Hurco Senior Marketing Director Maggie Smith aviation and aerospace engineering company Flying S was established with the intention of building high-quality parts As the five-axis parts they made became more complicated it became clear that greater machine capability was needed to achieve reliable unattended operation.  “Many of our space fittings require tight-tolerance features,” says manufacturing engineer Peter Bowman “Our lack of reliable positional accuracy and repeatability due to thermal growth or other variables really took a toll on our efforts to consistently make a good first part and subsequent parts after that.”  But as demands on the shop grew and expectations of its long-held single-shift schedule remained and past positive experiences with its local distributor gave the shop confidence to purchase the Matsuura five-axis MX-520 PC4 and MX-850 PC4 These machines quickly proved to be a good fit for Flying S’ needs Multiple pallets enabled the shop to run unattended with great process reliability shopfloor personnel were already familiar with the FANUC control the machines provided 0.000039-inch repeatability and repeatability of each rotating axis A/C is ±2 arcseconds which is important for large workpiece manufacturing Yamazen trained the shop engineers in CAMplete and machine functionality and continues to support Flying S’ new Matsuura machines through phone and email support as needed Flying S ran its standard accuracy test block which includes multiple intersecting five-axis bores on the MX-520 and came away impressed by the near-perfect accuracy of the part “We were also impressed with the spindle uptime we were able to achieve and we began running 24-hour shifts within the first week of install,” Bowman says With the Matsuura machines achieving first part much faster and with much less effort than in the past the shop’s next challenge became addressing a newly created bottleneck in the inspection department. Flying S had to physically expand the size of this department to accommodate final part inspection as a result of the volume of parts being produced by the Matsuura machines Flying S made 533 parts on the MX-520 and 144 on the MX-850 running a total of 5,187 hours with just two machinists This is roughly the same output as four of their other five-axis machining centers attended by three to four machinists within the same timeframe To illustrate the Matsuuras’ ability to handle high-mix low-volume production with the right planning and execution Flying S highlights the accomplishments of the MX-520 Factoring in 533 parts with an average batch size of seven means that 75 setups went to first part while maintaining 75% spindle uptime one Matsuura machine produced more spindle hours than the other five-axis machines they’ve owned for five years a typical five-axis setup to first part would require one initial part to check for offsets and then a second part would have a 50% chance of being correct Subsequent parts would have an 80-90% chance of remaining error-free throughout the process This lengthy process burned through a great deal of man-hours and bottlenecked inspection resources Flying S made 677 parts with an average batch size of seven, roughly entailing 100 setups to first part the shop has been achieving first part integrity over 90% of the time on the first attempt when machining with the Matsuuras not a single part on either Matsuura has been scrapped due to any machine-related error Flying S could not use the five-axis competitor machines it owned for additional setups of other parts during inspection of the first part all tooling had to be built and loaded into those machines fresh every time The Matsuura machines commonly have two or three different first parts inspected at the same time from the same machine The machines have additional tool changer capacity, which worked well with Flying S’ tool libraries Flying S also made use of Lang zero-point workholding combining it with the accuracy of the pallet locating feature to make part probing unnecessary Machine shop supervisor Ben Parish has particularly positive remarks about the Matsuura MX-520 PC4 and MX-850 PC4 He is pleased at “essentially not having to worry about machine positional accuracy eliminating several of the most concerning risks of creating non-conforming products.” He also compliments Matsuura’s control interface while noting that it provides the option for a traditional FANUC interface for operators who have experience in that interface and prefer it “CAMplete is a true comfort,” Parish adds. “The combination machine definition/postprocessor/NC code verification software helps to further eliminate potential issues and collisions It also provides the ability to customize the post and include toolpath refinement to improve cut quality while really tightening down on feature accuracy and surface quality.” Flying S’ five-axis Matsuura MX-520 and MX-850 machines have drastically increased the shop’s productivity even as it worked on difficult-to-machine space flight parts that required multiple operations From its 2001 founding in Palestine, Illinois, aviation and aerospace engineering company Flying S was established with the intention of building high-quality parts But as demands on the shop grew and expectations of its long-held single-shift schedule remained, Flying S began looking into new, multi-axis technology. Matsuura caught the shop’s eye, and past positive experiences with its local distributor, Yamazen An aluminum flight component in the MX-850 PC4 is ready for the final operation Much of what Flying S produces can’t be shown for ITAR compliance molds and fixtures for composite work are also often made on their Matsuuras The page you’re on features premium MMS editorial content To get quantum computers out of the lab and into the effort to solve real-world challenges, Intel plans to address each layer of a full quantum stack, according Anne Matsuura, director of Quantum & Molecular Technologies, Intel Labs at Intel Corporation. Matsuura addressed the crowds gathered virtually at Intel Labs Day 2020 on some of those challenges and some of the opportunities for “quantum practicality,” a term Intel uses to describe ways that quantum computers can be used in the real world, such as assisting with drug design and materials research. “Today’s hundred qubits — or even a thousand qubits — will not get us there, however,” she said. “We will need a full-stack, commercial scale quantum computing system of millions of qubits to attain quantum practicality for this type of ambitious problem-solving.” The reason that those large numbers of qubits will be needed is due to the exponential computing power — and super sensitivity — of qubits “A quantum computer power grows exponentially with the number of qubits,” Matsuura explained we would be able to access more states than any possible super computer we could represent more states than atoms in the universe at the same time Noise or information causes a loss of information we’ll need hundreds of thousands — or even more likely — probably millions of high quality qubits for a commercial-sized quantum computer.” commercial scale quantum computing system of millions of qubits to attain quantum practicality for this type of ambitious problem-solving.” which has a long history of fitting more and more semiconductors on smaller and smaller chips “It is inherent to how we approach technology and innovation — and quantum is no different,” said Matsuura To address the challenges of mastering qubit technology Intel is focusing on spin-qubit technologies cryogenic control technology and full-stack innovation Intel believes that spin-qubit technology lends itself to the scaling challenge compared to other approaches It also is an approach that leverages Intel’s current manufacturing capabilities She added that this also addresses a key challenge of delivering that quantum practicality — building quality qubits that can be manufactured in large volumes but ones that also have long lifetimes and produce sufficient connectivity between qubits Qubit control is another challenge and it’s one that Intel is making progress qubits are controlled by racks of control electronics with complex wiring leading to the qubit This would take millions of wires if the design would scale to needed dimensions Intel’s cryogenic qubit control chip technology is developed to maximize qubit control Matsuura also said that Intel has a plan to address error correction “We are developing noise-resilient quantum algorithms and error mitigation techniques to help us run those algorithms on today’s small qubit systems,” she said The final challenge is building a scalable full stack quantum computer “Since quantum computing is an entirely new type of compute that has an entirely new way of running programs software and applications developed specifically for quantum,” said Matsuura “This means that quantum computing requires new components at all levels of the stack — from the application Intel is develop all components of the full quantum computing stack.” More information about Intel’s quantum program is available here For more market insights, check out our latest quantum computing news here Keep track of everything going on in the Quantum Technology Market One of our team will be in touch to learn more about your requirements You have successfully joined our subscriber list Subscribe to our industry leading leading newsletter for the latest in quantum news and insights Already have an account? Sign in Already have an account? Sign In Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Read now Download our Professional Engineering app Subscribe to Professional Engineering newsletter Opt into your industry sector newsletter Please enable Javascript on your browser to view our news Flexible spaces at our head office in Westminster Any time "The Walking Dead" showrunner Angela Kang called star Eleanor Matsuura who has played Yumiko on the series since season nine Am I dead?'" Matsuura said when she received a call in the fall of 2020 from Kang.  'Oh no,' but she told me that it was gonna be the final season," Matsuura recalled "It was surreal because I remember getting that phone call .. right in the middle of the pandemic," Matsuura said living my other normal real life back in London I'm just glad to be back doing the final season," Matsuura added Matsuura joined the series as a member of an entirely new group of survivors from the comics, after Rick Grimes' final episode in season nine With Michonne's departure from the show a season later Matsuura's character has taken over part of her story from the comics finding a long-lost relative at the Commonwealth community where life has returned to some semblance of pre-apocalyptic normalcy and survivors are attending galas as if the dead don't exist outside their walls Though Yumiko is thriving in the Commonwealth as counsel to Governor Pamela Milton (Laila Robins) The badass has been reduced to a lowly waitress serving the wealthy Matsuura says that weighs heavily on Yumiko "The Commonwealth presents something that we haven't dealt with before on 'The Walking Dead,' which is class," Matsuura said of the arc shaking up the show "Everyone before has been fighting as equals we're kind of put back into this world where your class matters and somehow you're divided up into these categories as if that's somehow important." "I think Yumiko really struggles with that I don't think that sits easily with her," Matsuura continued hinting that her new loyalties with the Commonwealth may clash with those she has to her perceived family "She takes the role of Pamela's lawyer to survive and I think she does her best to acclimatize to the Commonwealth but she can't unsee or unexperience what she has in the past few years in the apocalypse," Matsurra said I think we're gonna see her really struggle with that," Matsurra said "I think her heart is always gonna be with her original group outside the Commonwealth walls." You can follow along with our "TWD" coverage all season long here.  Last Wednesday (May 4), the Federal Reserve issued the US’s biggest interest rate hike in 22 years The following day, the UK’s Bank of England raised its own rates for the fourth time since December, as its Governor, Andrew Bailey, warned Brits of a “sharp economic slowdown” in 2022 the music industry was showing its strength The bull case for music assets was robustly summed up by that spread of numbers now incorporates the aforementioned interest rate rises everything involving borrowing just got more expensive mortgages… and buying music assets for megabucks prices (using debt) Yet at least one music business company – right at the center of the modern catalog rights acquisition boom – isn’t breaking a sweat Nari Matsuura is Partner and co-leader of the Music Economics and Valuation Services practice (formerly Massarsky Consulting) at Citrin Cooperman Last year alone, the New York-headquartered Massarsky/Matsuura practice valued music assets worth over $6.5 billion in total. Massarsky and Matsuura’s practice has also become well known in industry circles as the ongoing valuer of Hipgnosis Songs Fund’s NAV [net asset value] To understand Matsuura’s calculations on her team’s music biz valuations – and why interest rates don’t affect them as much as you might think – we first need to explain what a Discount Rate (DR) is A Discount Rate is a tool factored into valuations by practices like Citrin Cooperman during discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis Calculating future pain points related to interest rates that may render an asset worth less than it first appears with a Discount Rate of ≈8.5% set in stone for some time Citrin Cooperman has comfortably protected its clients from over-valuations – and from losing their shirts on interest rate rises As Matsuura confidently puts it: “We will not have to raise our Discount Rate again we are protecting all of our clients: valuations will not go down.” Matsuura (pictured inset) explains precisely how Citrin Cooperman came to its Discount Rate decision and why it spells good news for music funds keeping a watchful eye on the Fed… music valuations are trading at high multiples And there’s a lot of investment money being poured into this asset class People are understandably asking a lot of questions given the current rising interest rate environment Will that have an impact on the Discount Rate “Our Discount Rates do not change [in tandem with] a purchaser’s ability to buy… We remain completely agnostic to the buyer’s profile.” it’s important to make sure people know that [Citrin Cooperman] conducts market valuations We need to provide an objective view of the market value of each asset our Discount Rates do not change [in tandem with] a purchaser’s ability to buy or if a purchaser has a lower rate of return – or a higher rate of return – required for their investors We remain completely agnostic to the buyer’s profile We represent a wide array of investors – anywhere from pension funds [i.e long-term investors looking for a steady ROI] to private equity [i.e shorter-term investors looking for a more spectacular ROI] These two types of companies’ hurdle rates might be very different: 4% versus 14% [A ‘hurdle rate’ is the minimum rate of return required by an investor.] We thought our [starting Discount Rate] should be the middle point of this range This obviously isn’t a technical calculation We were simply looking at the range of the market and arriving at the midpoint “We decided to lower the discount rate by half a percent [to 8.5%] We considered that to be a conservative adjustment.” We were using 9% [as an average ROI rate for music investors] in 2019, into 2020… and then COVID hit. And in March 2020, that month we all remember, the Fed interest rate dropped to near 0%. They cut it by 1.5%. We as a company want the music market – and the individual catalog [performance] – to guide valuations What is taking place across these income streams But the question was raised: what do we do with our Discount Rate And we decided to hold where we were [at 9%] We didn’t know where things were going and we didn’t want to just react for the sake of reacting – because every time you react with a new Discount Rate you’re going to have a tremendous effect on valuations before deciding to lower it by half a percent [to 8.5%] That lowering [of 0.5%] was a third of what the Fed did to interest rates at that time (-1.5%) We considered that to be a conservative adjustment the Fed was not going to stick with a 0% interest rate forever when the Fed started adjusting rates upward again – which we knew it would eventually – we also knew we wouldn’t have to do the same thing to the Discount Rate If you end up increasing your Discount Rate [having prematurely/overly lowered it in the past] you’re going to lower your valuations [of music assets] for all of the different inputs into the [calculation] And we ended up in the same region.” we moved into phase two: a full blown technical analysis of our [music asset] Discount Rate using all of the different inputs available to us And we ended up in the same region [of 8.5%] we’d already decided upon the first step is to calculate the Cost of Equity The Cost of Equity is composed of a few inputs: (i) the Risk Free Rate; (ii) the Beta; and (iii) the Equity Risk Premium So if you then just roll through those numbers (2.5% + 0.89 X 5.5%) the Cost of Equity becomes 7.4% Then we put the Cost of Equity into the Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC). And then we added a cost of debt, the source of which was Professor Damodaran of NYU And then [to calculate the Discount Rate] we assumed an aggressive proportion of financing [in acquisition funding] of equity versus debt at 75% / 25% But a rate can’t just take the present into account it has to take the future into account too By this point, Goldman Sachs had already raised its forecast [i.e a prediction of how much the Fed would increase future interest rates] to include eight to ten rate hikes of 25 basis points each That’s a total [projected interest rate rise for the Fed] of 2% to 2.5% “If you take the Discount Rate that we calculated (6.2%) and you add the average of Goldman’s forecast – 2.25% – you get to an approximate Discount Rate of 8.45% And that’s what we’re using.” [Basis points are a common unit of measurement for interest rates: one basis point is equal to 1/100th of 1% So if you take the Discount Rate that we just calculated (6.2%) everything-calculated-fastidiously version we will not have to raise our Discount Rate we are protecting all of our clients: valuations will not go down we put in a really conservative debt-to-equity profile in our calculation of 75% / 25% If we shift that to something that resembles more like what the market [typically uses to fund acquisitions] that’s 50% / 50% [i.e Debt to equity in certain deals might be 35% / 65%; it might even flip the other way around But let’s just say 50% / 50% for the time being we started to play around: We played around with the Beta we played around with the Equity Risk Premium and we played around with the Cost of Debt And then we built in an Equity Risk Premium of 6% And I’ll just say right off the bat: the equity risk premium has risen above 6% only three times since 1960 But even when you put all of this together Valuations are being lifted by the growth in the music industry which is just continuing to barrel through Everybody asks what’s going to happen in a rising interest rate environment Is that going to lower the values of these catalogs We think that we have positioned these catalogs – using the Discount Rate that we did – such that none of that will come to pass.Music Business Worldwide Stay on top of the real stories shaping the music industry: Join over 60,000 industry professionals who rely on MBW's FREE daily newsletter and alert emails for essential insights and breaking news (From left) Elliott's Frank Bolieiro shakes hands with Vicivision President Niels Schwarz “Vicivision America is excited about our new partnership with Elliott to sell and support our products in Canada," said Niels Schwarz Keiji Kaneko hit it off with Yataro Matsuura with whom he had an interview in "Kofukubure Techo The finished product is an oxford regular-collar shirt which was created after a long discussion between the two let us ask the couple to tell us the story behind its birth photography meets technology in the ‘withered plant’ series by japanese artist tomoya matsuura which captures decaying botanical life using a scanning electron microscope the decomposition and decay of flowers and leaves are poetically portrayed through vivid monochrome photos ‘one seems to catch a glimpse of the mystery and dynamism connecting the cycle of life in the finely etched traces of existence in the microscopic world’ matsuura describes black and white compositions reveal intricacies and details otherwise invisible to the naked eye where each plant is revealed in its final phases – petals curl and furl into distorted shapes stems shrink in size and and leaves shrivel into near oblivion the project seeks to make people aware of the fundamental link between humans and nature and that we and plants are all part of the same natural world AXOR presents three bathroom concepts that are not merely places of function but destinations in themselves — sanctuaries of style National Report Nagasaki Prefecture—The city government here has issued a certificate of residence to a same-sex couple listing their relationship in the same way as those in a de facto marriage applied to combine their separate households into one They requested that Matsuura be registered as “head of the household” and Fujiyama as his “unregistered husband.” Such a description is used in cases of de facto marriages of opposite-sex couples on administrative documents The couple said the recognition of their same-sex de facto marriage in administrative documents is of great significance “The possibility of obtaining rights equivalent to those of de facto marriages will arise,” Matsuura said A representative of the city explained the decision “The city confirmed the handling of the case and responded for the applicants.” Although many local governments across Japan issue certificates for gay couples that give them certain rights the central government still does not legally recognize same-sex marriages A representative of the internal affairs ministry said about the Omura certificate of residence: “This is the first time I have heard of this I think it is an individual decision made by the municipality.” the city of Kurayoshi in Tottori Prefecture began a system that allows same-sex partners to be listed as “unregistered wife or husband” in the column indicating their relationship on the certificate of residence a sociology professor at Waseda University who specializes in same-sex issues said she knew about cases in which gay partners were listed as “cohabitant” or “related person” on the certificate of residence But she had never heard of case in which they were listed as an unregistered husband or wife “If more local governments adopt the same practice as in this case the actual situation is expected to become more visible,” Kamano said “It remains to be seen whether they will have the same rights as heterosexual couples in de facto marriages but it may be the first step toward receiving the same legal guarantees.” (This article was written by Takashi Ogawa Couple married abroad fights for same-sex marriage rights in Japan Transgender American and her wife sue over gender registry Top court rules same-sex couples eligible for crime victim benefits No reproduction or republication without written permission president of Renishaw Canada (left) and Vince D’Alessio celebrate their companies' new partnership agreement Elliott Matsuura Canada, Oakville, Ont., has partnered with Renishaw (Canada) to represent and promote Renishaw's additive manufacturing (AM) machines in Canada "We are confident that the relationship between Elliott and Renishaw has a bright future Renishaw’s AM product line together with Elliott’s 70 years of selling experience in Canada is a winning combination We have broadened our metal 3D printing offerings in the Canadian market” said Vince D’Alessio “Renishaw is excited about our new partnership with Elliott to promote Renishaw AM products in all of Canada Their depth of support and experience is a perfect match for our company,” said Dafydd Williams Elliott Matsuura Canada has been supplying and supporting equipment to the Canadian manufacturing market since 1950 It carries a range of metalworking machinery The company also provides engineering support as well as plant and equipment layout support a fully owned subsidiary of U.K.-based Renishaw PLC PaRappa the Rapper released on the original PlayStation in 1996 and starting today you can play the iconic rhythm game on PlayStation 4 To celebrate the release of PaRappa the Rapper Remastered please enjoy this special interview between the father of PaRappa and the president of SIE Worldwide Studios The original PlayStation version of PaRappa was released on December 6th 1996 in Japan Both went onto become international hits and iconic mascot characters for PlayStation Watch the video above to see part of the interview between these two friends and read on for the full version of their talk (plus a special opportunity to get a PaRappa PS4 Dynamic Theme for free while supplies last) Yoshida: I have met Matsuura-san a number of times but there are still times when I hear something new you had been performing in a band called “PSY.S” I too have had the opportunity to revisit that question countless times over I was signed with CBS Sony (currently Sony Music Entertainment) but I had tried counting once or twice to see what kind of platforms the music I had worked on was being used the one that had increased its presence was the interactive field and CD-ROM interactive software was selling well That was an era where there was a lot of focus on interactive media There was also one more preliminary factor I think everyone will be quite disappointed (laughs) a period of time that was revolutionary in the music industry It was a time when MTV started becoming popular It was a time when people didn’t just listen to music There are musicians who are suited for this and musicians that are not… the record company was going through some hard times and I think they had narrowed down a variety of ideas for me (laughs) I just could not see myself appearing in videos While it is nice to have others enjoy listening and seeing my songs I recall myself just feeling out of place when it came to me appearing in videos so it was fun doing collaborations where I create music and others create the CG When these new themes of multimedia and interactive (software) came about I can avoid having to be in music videos!” (laughs) Yoshida: When did development for PaRappa begin Upon completing PaRappa and gearing up for promotion I had a discussion with the staff from Sony Computer Entertainment about how we should go about promoting the game I remember that many of the staff at that time saying that it was not clear to me either if this was a game or not it was a completely new type of game that didn’t fit into any genre say it is unclear if PaRappa was a game or not Matsuura: I would have never thought that PaRappa would have had such a good reception for this long we were able to establish a crucial position for “music games” as a genre in gaming worldwide It had so much of an impact that it managed to keep music games going by continuing to stimulate other music game creators to create successor hit titles in the genre the staff at that time was not sure what kind of game they should treat this title as Matsuura: There were not that many discs manufactured anyway and I thought that it would just end there and then Yoshida: So that is how you felt until it was released but for another six months after release as well Matsuura: The initial number of copies we pressed was in the tens of thousands I remember talking to some staff back then and asking them how long they thought it would take to sell through all the copies Yoshida: I was a producer on Crash Bandicoot The PaRappa team marketing rep and sales rep were both really fired up about the game I was so jealous of that passion and sense of unity But I have no recollection of the game becoming a hit Even after the initial shipment units sold through we only managed to sell a few copies at a time following that So this was not a title that sold through a lot right away It was selling at about a few thousand each week we may have sold about a few hundred thousand units so compared to those I thought this was fairly subdued The thing I was most surprised about was that players actually considered PaRappa as an actual game The result of that was the opportunity for me to enter into the game industry Yoshida: The release of PaRappa made me realize just how much fun it is to make games Did you feel like you threw away your exit strategy at that point Yoshida: PaRappa was received as a character that represented PlayStation around the world While this was the start for spreading rhythm games around the world Which came first – the game or the characters Matsuura: The rhythm game portion was first it’s not that difficult to create a prototype on your own Matsuura: We decided that we would use Rodney’s illustrations We wanted to make something on the PlayStation And that was when a SCE producer approached and asked us how we felt about making something together It was from there that I studied the PlayStation environment and made the prototype from scratch Yoshida: How long was the development cycle Yoshida: Did you decide on what the gameplay was going to be from the beginning Matsuura: I had already decided to use rap Sampling technology itself was from the 80s but the most interesting thing about sampling was people’s voices I remember having the idea about wanting to create a music game using voices Yoshida: How did the PaRappa character come about Matsuura: I explained the content of the game to Rodney and then asked him to draw a character that raps for us Yoshida: You didn’t tell him to make PaRappa a dog Matsuura: I believe the proposal for a dog design came about somewhere along the way the proposal was to have a shrimp that raps So it wasn’t a matter of you specifically asking for a dog but more of a request to make several variations of characters that can rap Rodney already had several characters that he owned But we didn’t have a main character needed for a brand new game so we started with having him create that character Yoshida: There sure were a lot of unique characters Matsuura: Masters for each stage were all new characters including Chop Chop Master Onion These were all characters that came about after PaRappa’s inception Yoshida: Were all of the songs created by yourself Matsuura: There were artists who created DJ-type songs so I was able to have them assist me with this the demo backtracks that I initially created were all samples of existing songs we could not use these in the game due to licensing so I rewrote all the songs into originals while maintaining the concept of each tune Yoshida: The story for each of the levels is connected but was there any possibility of not utilizing this game design perhaps Matsuura: Some people suggested we should have stories in the game early on all of the ideas were discussed flexibly and we were pretty much free to do as we pleased Yoshida: Where did the idea come about for PaRappa’s line Matsuura: There was a member on the development team who came up with the rap lyrics he suggested that we should use that phrase he was boasting in a post-launch interview about how he was the one who had given that line to PaRappa there were so many music games that came about but there was one thing I was skeptical about where expression and music are meant to be free I believe that the freedom of expression is something that leads to satisfaction So it is not enough to just learn the rules of the game and to just gain more points by playing by those rules it is important that music be a freedom of expression It is a little unfortunate that there were music games that came out after PaRappa that focused on getting 100 out of 100 points Yoshida: So I am hearing that you wanted to see more music games where players could express themselves I would have liked to have had (those games) relay the message of enjoying music and expression I am okay with the game system itself being one to get 100 points out of 100 points was there anything you wanted to do but could not achieve at the end Maybe because this game was fueled with our message that imagination and expression should be free If I look back on PaRappa and wonder if there is anything I could not accomplish as a person who is supposed to know PaRappa best I cannot say that I know everything about it a sequel would have been made after the hit of PaRappa the Rapper you decided to make another title instead — UmJammer Lammy There are certainly similarities between the two titles but UmJammer Lammy took up a new challenge: playing guitar using analog sticks Did you want to try a new thing because PaRappa was brought to completion Matsuura: I just did not think about taking over the same thing And I never thought of making a first piece of work in expectation of a sequel which is often the case with recent movies and such maybe we gave everything to perfect PaRappa Yoshida: PaRappa and his friends have been loved for a long time Matsuura: I cannot really find the answer for this either But maybe it is because we created this game communicating with people outside of our comfort zone I felt this game still offers a fresh experience Matsuura: I was in awe at how beautiful it looked Yoshida: PaRappa’s art and concept are fresh and timeless Is this because of the strong emphasis placed on the art direction and character design Yoshida: Due to the rapid progress in computer technology we often feel let down at the poor visual quality of our old favorite games when we play them after a long time the PS4 version of PaRappa still gives us the same impact as when we first played it on the original PlayStation I felt as if the image of PaRappa that I had in my mind came back to life on the PS4 I am glad that a younger generation of gamers who have never played this game or were even not born yet when the game came out a remastered version of Crash Bandicoot is scheduled to release this year as well I hope a lot of people will enjoy both PaRappa the Rapper and Crash Bandicoot on PS4 how did you want players to enjoy this game we all feel a range of emotions such as encouragement But there are not many types of music that make you laugh or cheer you up Even in the creative field where the emphasis is often put on personal expressions and emotions such as delight fun and delightful emotions have been somewhat underrated And I have always thought that it is a deep-rooted issue in this field I wanted to make something that puts a smile on everyone’s face And this concept was shared by many of the staff Yoshida: So “making a player feel delighted” served as a basis for your decisions in your creative process Yoshida: I assume you have seen people playing your game in several events or received letters from fans I presumed that the Japanese audience would understand the jokes or humor of PaRappa to a certain extent But I had never thought this sense of humor would travel overseas Yoshida: This year sees the release of the remastered version on PS4 and I am sure that a lot of people who have never played the series before will play PaRappa for the first time Now that the time has changed since the first release how do you think players would take PaRappa Matsuura: I have no idea in regards to that game players not only play games on their own but also share it with others by live streaming to YouTube and other services Are you excited to see how they are going to broadcast the gameplay of PaRappa Yoshida: I am looking forward to seeing gameplay where players use PaRappa as a media to express themselves PaRappa features COOL Mode which allows you to go beyond the simple task of mimicking your teacher’s commands there is a certain rule you must follow in order to get a high score in COOL Mode I have seen several gameplay videos uploaded on YouTube before but I have not seen certain gameplay goals accomplished yet I have never seen a player get the highest score with the minimum button input Yoshida: A kind of gameplay that cracks the code I would love to see that kind of challenge People tend to press the button repeatedly Yoshida: Maybe it would work if players channel their inner musician and play the game like “I would press the button here if I were going to make my own music” Matsuura: That is one way to enjoy this game Yoshida and Matsuura continued their conversation on several topics including the latest technologies while also playing PaRappa the Rapper on PS4 Occasionally tapping their toes to the rhythm they were absorbed in the game just like they were over 20 years ago while thinking of the gameplay innovations of the future Join in the celebration and play the iconic rhythm game PaRappa the Rapper Remastered