IEEE Newsletter

Getting to know Yutaka Hata

University of Hyogo, in Kobe, Japan

"Getting to know you" aims to introduce an SMC Volunteer

as an individual in an autobiographical fashion.

Tell us about your background and qualifications

Yutaka Hata: I am Dean and Professor in the Graduate School of Simulation Studies, at the

University of Hyogo, in Kobe, Japan. I received the B.E. degree (Electronics) in 1984, the M.E.

degree (Electrical Engineering and Electronics) in 1986 and the Ph. D. (Doctor of Engineering) in

1989 all from Himeji Institute of Technology, Japan. I am also a Guest Professor at the World

Premier International Research Center, Immunology Frontier Research Center, Osaka University,

Japan. Between 1995 to 1996 I was a visiting scholar at the BISC Group, University of California

Berkeley.

Tell us about your family:

Yutaka Hata: I have two children, a boy who studies in the medical school at Kyoto University

and a girl in junior high school. My wife graduated from Music University and teaches piano at

home.

Hobbies?

Yutaka Hata: When I was younger, i.e., until about 30 years of age, I enjoyed windsurfing and

ski. My current hobby is reading such as Chinese and Japanese historical novels. I wooden

sculptures, and I would like to become a sculptor. I am keenly interested in the technology of

hybrid engine system in vehicles. This is an art that completely controls the vehicular systems.

We look for your views about a topic which you want to promote, correct, and complain

about that is relevant to our community. Argue your point and seek reactions.

Yutaka Hata: I am interested in big data analysis for medical and health care system

development with ultrasonic testing, medical imaging and health check-up. I like to promote

mimicking the human body in order to predict human health conditions using image and

monitored vital organ data. Diseases are generally diagnosed by the body condition such as

body temperature, cough, pain, medical images scanned by MR, X-ray CT and blood and several

marker tests. In Japan, as with all other communities, it is useful to predict/forecast human

health condition because of the huge medical cost saving. Fuzzy Logic-based computer

simulation is one candidate to solve these problems

A physician usually diagnoses the disease by his/her own knowledge for special symptom or

sign of each disease. For example, diabetes is usually diagnosed by both values of Hb-A1c and

blood sugar. However, the threshold to decide who is diabetic is not clear and it depends on the

physician's judgment. Moreover, the threshold changes according to national health statistics or

medical society's opinion. Another case is diagnosing high bold pressure which is not easy to

diagnose, since the pressure values depend the environment such as room temperature, time,

food and athletic activity. High blood pressure (BP) is identified by values higher than 140 mmHg

for systolic BP and above 90 mmHg for diastolic BP. Assume the person with SBP = 139 and

DBP=91. The diagnosis uses fuzzy terms such "no problem", "average" and so on. Identifying a

human's health condition is a matter of degree. Human bodily functions gradually deteriorate

throughout one's life. We proposed a method by treating all blood test values by fuzzy degrees

at the World Automation Congress, WAC2014. We are now trying to predict human health

condition by the evaluation of fuzzy degrees for the Japanese health checkup time-series.

Health care involves more than "treating or curing a disease". In England, physicians take care of

the health conditions to prevent disease for their patients. Succeeding in keeping a patient

healthy, the physician could obtain the fee/reward from the National Health Insurance

Organization. This system indicated "keeping health condition" is more important than "cure

disease". Japan government begins to analyze Japanese health checkup data for keeping people

healthy from this year. The goal is to save medial costs. The results obtained would suggest

Japanese how to change the life style. If the action could keep us healthy and enhance our life

style, the required cost would be lower than medical costs. In it, statistics are of course

required; however, the human body differs from person to person. Fuzzy Logic only treats the

variety of humans. This main part is not statistics but fuzzy logic.

"Where is our Technology Area heading?" Our technology is a futile grounds for

speculation and dreaming. Tell us what you think. For example, I anticipate to have a

transporter that will change its modes from walking to climbing stairs, driving on land,

water, and fly, translate for me when I am away, etc. You don't have to go into details,

but look at shorter horizons with lower expectations.

Yutaka Hata: Our technology has solved many problems in real world. There are positive and

negative sides to technology. An automobile transports us to our destination, but unfortunate

traffic accidents can be deadly. Similarly, nuclear power plants, social network, and medicine

have both sides. In our SMC areas, I believe that system and cybernetics effectively contribute to

human welfare. In my opinion, most problems do not need heavy and complex computations,

and simple calculations can be effective in cybernetics. For example, both a sensor without data

processing and a sensor combined with a deep learning algorithm are effective and should

employed for their corresponding advantages. We need to select safe, most effective and lower

cost technology to solve the many problems we urgently face. A wonderful future is secured by

the best fusion between systems and man aided by cybernetics.