OIST-KEIO Showcase Talk Series 5 -Science Meets Society: Exploring the Nexus of Planetary Well-being for a Sustainable Future

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Ecosystem services rendered by fisheries are key sources of nutrition and revenue for billions of people worldwide. Traditionally, quantitative tools for managing these important living renewable resources have merely concentrated on optimizing catches. Here we describe innovative research enabling more powerful and more integrative quantitative assessments accounting for multiple eco-evolutionary impacts, multiple societal objectives, multiple stakeholder groups, and multiple fairness concepts. Supporting ecosystem management and stakeholder reconciliation, the developed toolbox is applicable to a wide range of ecosystem services and societal constellations.

Anthropogenic activities are leading to global climate change at an unprecedented rate. A plethora of studies have suggested that these climate anomalies can lead to serious consequences for the marine environment, especially for tropical species that constitute them. Understanding the mechanisms of how marine species cope with environmental change is critical to understanding their fate in a changing planet. Further, in this talk, I will address the contribution of mechanisms of rapid evolution/phenotypic plasticity to the adaptive response of coral reef fish to changing environments.

Even before the popular movies Finding Nemo (2003) and Finding Dory (2016), clownfish were undoubtedly the most charismatic and sought-after marine aquarium species. Their bold colors, long life span, and gregarious personality make them ideal pets and fascinating model organisms for research in marine science. In this talk I will explore this double personality and show how research and outreach activities (in particular public aquarium) can allow us to pass from Clownfish to Nemo and back again. I am not a social scientist and will provide this view from my past experience as a marine scientist but also as a former director of an historical marine station largely open to the public.

When humans integrate with computers, to what extent are we still ourselves? Computers are no longer just tools for humans, but are deeply intervening in our bodies and behavior. When humans integrate with computers and acquire abilities and different bodies beyond what we currently possess, how do we define our own humanity? I am researching “Cybernetic Humanity,” which is a new concept of humanity that emerges from the integration of humans and computers, through the intersection of computer science and human science. My talk will focus on augmenting perception, cognition, and embodiment, elucidating the ‘self’ through subjective experiences and understanding the dynamics of humanity that are woven by the integration of humans and computers.

Many high-income countries, including Japan, suffer from low fertility rates. Governments around the globe introduce family-friendly policies (FFPs) to increase fertility. However, when such FFPs are evaluated, firms’ reactions are usually not considered.  At the same time, considering firms is essential as they might respond to FFPs by changes in wage bargaining processes, hiring, firing, and promotions. In this paper, we study how family-friendly policies affect fertility and labor market outcomes of women taking into account firms’ responses to the introduction of such policies. We build a comprehensive framework in which government defines FFPs, women endogenously take decisions on labor market participation and fertility and firms react to the policies. We use this framework for evaluation, testing, and comparisons of different FFPs, such as employment protection, childcare and hiring subsidies, short work schedules, and others.

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The Wasserstein distance, often referred to as the Word Mover's Distance (WMD) is a powerful tool used for comparing probability distributions. It finds significant application in the field of Natural Language Processing, such as document classification and retrieval tasks. Nonetheless, its drawback lies in its computational complexity, rendering it impractical for extensive distribution comparisons. In this talk, I will introduce a simple and effective nearest neighbor search, which relies on an approximation of the Wasserstein distance. The developed method offers computation speeds approximately three orders of magnitude faster than the standard Wasserstein distance, while retaining similar performance levels.

Our personal, social, and economic life is extended from physical space to cyberspace. While traveling by train, you communicate via SNS, shop online, or play games using avatars. While attending a webinar, you have an online meeting with your colleagues and text back and forth with your family. Fake news is produced every day by mobilizing politicians on YouTube. AI learns how we talk, and avatars and robots with built-in AI look and talk like us.
Avatars and AI are developed to extend our capabilities. Do they extend or represent our personality? Can you control and monopolize your avatar as if it is yourself? What if they are controlled by someone else by hacking or imitating your avatars?
I will introduce our Moonshot project: “Intellectual Property Protection and Social and Policy Development of Cybernetic Avatar (CA)”, and discuss sustainable law and ethics in both cyber and physical spaces.

In Japan, a national project, Moonshot Goal 1, started to promote the research of neuroscience and the development of its technologies in 2021. Under the umbrella of this project, IoB-S (“Internet-of-Brains”-Society) has been conducting legal and ethical research on the current state and future of braintech based mainly on computational neuroscience technologies such as BMI, BA, and CA. As the project facilitator of IoB-S, Prof. Komamura will introduce the trend of Braintech, which is expected to be widely used beyond the medical field, and share with OIST colleagues the new trend of legal studies on it, Neurolaw, and the implications Braintech brings.

Based on a phase-field model of the phase-separation structure of diblock polymers, we formulate a new model applicable to the next- generation accelerator, the Ising machine. [1] Recently, Ising machines, including quantum annealing devices, attract overwhelming attention as a new technology. On the other hand, although phase-field models have demonstrated high performance in materials development, they require a long time to reach equilibrium. In this study, we show the calculation of the phase-separation structure of a diblock polymer as the equilibrium state using phase-field model by an Ising machine. The model can be solved by a large-scale quantum annealing machine with a significant acceleration. The significant acceleration of phase-field simulations by quantum techniques will push materials development to the next stage.

Data equipped with spatial and time information is called spatio-temporal data and has widely appeared in a variety of scientific fields. In this talk, we review techniques of statistical and machine learning methods for spatio-temporal data to predict unobserved data in the future or unobserved locations. In particular, we introduce a general framework for combining multiple statistical and machine learning models to predict with high accuracy as well as interpretability. Further, we demonstrate the usefulness of these techniques in two data analysis tasks in different fields; one is evaluating prices of real estate and the other is predicting the amount of marine resources.

The gut microbiota is a complex community of trillions of microorganisms that plays a important role in human health. To investigate the gut microbiota's role in healthy aging and longevity, we collaborated with the Keio Center for Supercentenarian Medical Research. We collected fecal samples from centenarians aged 100 or older , elderly adults aged 85–89, and young adults aged 21–55 to compare their gut microbiomes and fecal metabolomes. Centenarians had a distinctive gut microbiome profile with an enrichment of microbes involved in secondary bile acid metabolism. This was associated with elevated levels of various isoforms of lithocholic acid (LCA) in their fecal samples. Notably, one of these LCA isoforms, iso-allo-LCA, had a potent antimicrobial effect against Gram-positive pathogens. These findings suggest that specific bile acid metabolism pathways may play a critical role in mitigating the risk of pathobiont infections and maintaining intestinal homeostasis, potentially contributing to healthy aging and longevity.

Spatiotemporal complexity in multicomponent systems is crucial for biological functions. Nonequilibrium phenomena, such as anomalous diffusion and fluctuations, are observed in these systems and play a role in regulating biological functions. Using molecular dynamics simulations, we investigate molecular behavior in biological membranes and membraneless organelles. We find fluctuations in molecular diffusivity, which are attributed to both intra- and intermolecular interactions in heterogeneous media. We also introduce a mesoscale computational approach to clarify molecular diffusion and partitioning in such environments.

E. Yamamoto, et al, Science Adv. 3, e1601871 (2017), Science Adv. 6, eaay5736 (2020).
E. Yamamoto, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 128101 (2021).
K. Sakamoto, et al., PNAS Nexus 2, pgad258 (2023).

The small intestine is responsible for digestion and absorption, and is also known as a defense against intestinal bacterial and food antigens and as a place for the education of immune cells. We focused on local immune cell regulation in the intestinal tract and its impact on the whole body using single-cell dynamic imaging and single-cell RNA-seq analysis (Science 2016, Nature Immunology 2021, Cell Rep. 2022, Nature Com. 2023). We recently discovered that the intestinal microbiota-intestinal tract jointly regulates intestinal immunity and myelitis through the tryptophan metabolite (Cell Rep. 2023). We present translational research using clinical specimens from patients to elucidate the mechanisms of immune regulation (Front. in Immunol. 2022, Cell. Mol. Gastro. and Hepato. 2023, Nat. Rev. Gastro. and Hepato. 2023, Riken-Keio Humed Project).

We will introduce the excellent properties of a biologically derived extracellular matrix that has been researched for ten years at Keio University School of Medicine using an efficient extraction technique. This versatile material is supported by a wealth of research data and can be applied to a wide range of purposes, including as a new medical device for tissue regeneration, as a material for three-dimensional cultivation, and ultimately, for the creation of transplantable artificial organs.

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Neurons are highly polarized cells with an elongated axon that extends far away from the cell body. The axonal compartment is essential to neuronal function and its maintenance is paramount for neuronal survival and impaired in neurodegenerative diseases. In order to maintain axonal homeostasis, neurons rely extensively on axonal transport of membranous organelles and other molecular complexes in addition to local translation of proteins.  We will discuss how axonal energy status regulates cytosol fluidity, phase separation and axonal translation in health and disease.

Our laboratory's overarching focus is on evolutionary biochemistry. By uncovering the mechanisms through which protein acquire new functions, evolve, integrate into cellular pathways, and operate in crowded cellular environments, we aim to contribute significantly to the fields of enzyme engineering. Ultimately, our research yields valuable tools and advances the field of synthetic biology as a whole.

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Our lab focuses on CCR4-NOT, a major cellular complex with a central function in mRNA metabolism through deadenylation of the poly(A)-tail. Recruitment of CCR4-NOT to mRNAs can be done through various means, such as protein readers binding to m6A-modified mRNAs. This m6A modification is present on numerous viruses but its impact on viral replication is poorly understood. My project proposes to explore the interplay between m6A-modified mRNAs and CCR4-NOT during Influenza infection.

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I specialize in international politics and regional studies of the former USSR. Since last year, the works related to the Ukrainian war have increased dramatically, and I am also making many comments in the media, but my original main field is the South Caucasus, and I spent more than 1 year in Azerbaijan for my research.
On the other hand, Keio University were awarded the project related to economic security from the Cabinet Office and I am the leader of that project. This year, we are focusing on cybersecurity and food security within economic security, and are investigating technology and international policy trends. In this project, cooperation with outside parties is expected, so I would be happy if we could cooperate with everyone in economic security.
Thank you for your kind support.

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My current research interest is in the area of multiscale simulation, coupling FEM (Finite Element Method) and MD (Molecular Dynamics). The coupled FEM-MD approach allows us to accurately represent coarse-scale structural deformations at the fine-scale and vice versa. This method is effective for studying the complex deformation of materials whose microstructure is known but whose constitutive laws are not. I specialize in understanding the mechanical properties of clathrate hydrates with complex deformations to safely utilize clathrate hydrates as a medium for various engineering fields (e.g. cooling process, seawater desalination, and carbon storage/transportation applications). However, the current limitation of this approach lies in the computational costs. The possible solution to reduce computational costs is utilizing tensor train decomposition or solving linear equations inherent in coupled FEM-MD.