Not only taste but also flavor has a significant impact on the "deliciousness" of food as perceived by people. Flavor characteristics of food have a significant impact on its palatability and influence the qualitative value of the food itself. In this study, the molecular mechanisms of biosynthesis of flavor compounds derived from amino acids in soybean (Glycine max) and fatty acids in mushrooms were elucidated. In Chapter 1, I identified the characteristic aromatic properties of soybean due to sulfur-containing amino acids. Several soybean germplasms, such as Nishiyamahitashi 98-5 (NH) among local varieties in Nagano Prefecture, have an intense seaweed-like flavor after cooking because of their high seed S-methylmethionine (SMM) content. In this study, I compared the amounts of amino acids in the phloem sap, leaves, pods, and seeds between NH and the common soybean cultivar Fukuyutaka. This revealed a comparably higher SMM content alongside a higher free L-methionine (L-Met) content in NH seeds, suggesting that the SMM-hyperaccumulation phenotype of NH soybean was related to L-Met metabolism in seeds. To investigate the molecular mechanism behind SMM hyperaccumulation, I examined the phenotype-associated gene locus in NH plants. Analyses of the quantitative trait loci in segregated offspring of the cross between NH and the common soybean cultivar Williams 82 indicated that one locus on chromosome 10 explains 71.4% of SMM hyperaccumulation. Subsequent fine-mapping revealed that a transposon of about 6 kbp insertion into the intron of a gene, Glyma.10g172700, is associated with the SMM-hyperaccumulation phenotype. The Glyma.10g172700-encoded recombinant protein showed Met-γ-lyase (MGL) activity in vitro, and the transposon-insertion mutation in NH efficiently suppressed Glyma.10g172700 expression in developing seeds. Exogenous administration of L-Met to sections of developing soybean seeds resulted in transient increases in L-Met levels, followed by continuous increases in SMM concentrations, which was likely caused by L-Met methyltransferase activity in the seeds. Accordingly, I propose that the SMM-hyperaccumulation phenotype is caused by suppressed MGL expression in developing soybean seeds, resulting in transient accumulation of L-Met, which is converted into SMM to avoid the harmful effects caused by excess free L-Met. In Chapter 2, I studied the biosynthesis mechanism of 1-octen-3-ol, the main volatile component of mushrooms. 1-Octen-3-ol is a volatile oxylipin found ubiquitously in Basidiomycota and Ascomycota. As 1-octen-3-ol attracts mosquitoes and flies, its involvement in emitter–receiver ecological communication has been proposed. Although the biosynthetic pathway to form 1-octen-3-ol from linoleic acid through linoleic acid 10(S)-hydroperoxide has been proposed in mushrooms, the enzymes involved in this pathway have not been identified. I determined that the Coprinopsis cinerea dioxygenase 1 and 2 (CcDOX1 and CcDOX2) genes in the mushroom C. cinerea contains an N-terminal cyclooxygenase-like heme peroxidase domain and a C-terminal cytochrome P450-related domain. Through analysis of products formed from linoleic acid by the recombinant CcDOX1 and CcDOX2 proteins, I found that CcDOX1 preferentially catalyzes to form the 10(S)-hydroperoxide of linoleic acid (10S-HPODE), meanwhile CcDOX2 form the 8-hydroperoxide of linoleic acid. Moreover, disruption of Ccdox1 in C. cinerea (ΔCcdox1) mycelia suppressed 1-octen-3-ol synthesis. Administration of the 10S-HPODE to the microsome fraction prepared from mycelia resulted in the efficient production of 1-octen-3-ol. Together, these results indicate that CcDOX1 is essential for the biosynthesis of 1-octen-3-ol as the oxygenase that forms 10S-HPODE, followed by the cleavage enzyme. I studied physiological and ecological significance of 1-octen-3-ol of mushroom. ΔCcdox1 was less attractive to fruit fly larvae, while the feeding behavior of fungus gnats on ΔCcdox1 mycelia showed little difference from that on the mycelia of the wild-type strain. The proliferation of fungivorous nematodes on ΔCcdox1 mycelia was similar to or slightly worse than that on wild-type mycelia. Thus, 1-octen-3-ol seems to be an attractive compound for some animals that interact with mushrooms.

Indonesia has extreme risk of natural disasters because of its position at the confluence of four tectonic plates: the Asian Continent, the Australian Continent, the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean. The volcano eruption is one of the geological disasters that frequently occur in this country. Mount Merapi is Indonesia’s most active volcano and is famous worldwide. The evacuation crisis in 2010, the last major eruption, led to many fatalities for humans and cattle. Nowadays, the local government developed the "sister village" strategy for mitigation. That means cooperation within or between the local community has been constructed to provide shelter, logistics, and other disaster-related services. In this scenario, the meeting area and shelter have been coordinated. However, people's behavior has not been fully considered yet in the vulnerability assessment and government's contingency plan. On the other hand, evacuation issues in a volcanic disaster such as difficulty in expecting evacuation period, aging population, missed communication and risk perception, limited private vehicles in the community, and limited evacuation transport and supporters by the government need to be addressed for better mitigation. This situation led some people to walk to the meeting area, and low walking speeds by vulnerable persons may increase the risk and delay during an emergency. The objective of this study is to find the effectiveness of the evacuation process, especially for the vulnerable community in the Mount Merapi area. Especially, this study purposes to develop a “mutual assistance” model for vulnerable people in the affected regencies with the people’s behavior and vehicle ownership as a viewpoint. The first goal is an assessment of the mutual assistance strategy and social vulnerability index (SoVI) of pedestrian evacuation. I conducted the surveys and then analyzed the data using a multicriteria method to obtain the SoVI values for communities. The second goal is the development of the assembly model to support safer and faster evacuation for vulnerable people. The AnyLogic software was selected for model simulation using input parameters from field surveys. In conducting a survey, I measured the walking speed directly of the evacuation drills in four affected regencies. I also investigated the people’s behavior and eruption characteristics using an interview process with stakeholders and group discussions with local communities. After that, I used the multicriteria method and focused on two factors, social and age structure (young, vulnerable, and mutual assistance between them), and risk perception (work, rain, night, alert, and evacuation map). The index reflects the distribution of actual walking speed, mutual assistance, and the government's plan. The result showed that mutual assistance groups have a higher walking speed than vulnerable people but lower than young people. Mutual assistance coordination is crucial to support the vulnerable in shorter evacuation times. The social and age structure of the social vulnerability index has a stronger risk influence than the perception factor in the evacuation process. The successful evacuation of vulnerable people during emergencies is a significant challenge. In this study, a mutual assistance strategy is proposed to support vulnerable people by evacuating them with young people. This strategy was simulated using AnyLogic software with the agent-based model concept. Pedestrians and vehicles played the roles of significant agents in this experiment. Evacuation departure rate, actual walking speed, group size, route, and coordination were crucial agent parameters. Residents’ attitudes, distribution of each agent, and actual walking speed were obtained from surveys. Then, I developed three scenarios and three models for the evacuation process. Scenarios considered traffic conditions of evacuation routes and models represented behavior approach. The results revealed that this mutual assistance model is effective for the rapid evacuation and risk reduction of vulnerable communities where successful evacuation rates have improved. As for mutual assistance behavior, Model 3, where young people are matched with vulnerable people in advance, has shown better results than Model 2. Additionally, Scenario C, where pedestrians have separate lanes from vehicles during the evacuation process, has resulted in more number of vulnerable people reaching the shelter than Scenario B in Model 3. The highest arrival rate was obtained by the combination of scenario C and Model 3. These findings are a novelty in the volcano context and reflect all categories of vulnerable behavior involving the elderly, disabled, children, and pregnant mothers. The model will benefit disaster management studies and authorities’ policies for sustainable evacuation planning and aging population mitigation.

Population growth drives the demand for energy, which is the most pressing human need today. It puts pressure on other related sectors and increases wastewater production, which is a big problem in some countries that is inaccessible to available wastewater treatment facilities. Concerning the SDGs 2030 target, which mentions integrated sectors to deal with environmental issues, energy and water as a part of the water-energy-food nexus have a high linkage to build substantial economic and ecological benefits. Therefore, they have become the core attention of the world at this moment. To deal with the problem solving mentioned above, nowadays, an alternative energy converter integrated wastewater treatment has been massively developed to achieve green label production of products. Many countries, favoured by their scientists and practitioners, compete to find technology that is a user-friendly, eco-friendly, back-to-nature concept, inexpensive and can be accepted in any society stratifications. However, there is an available standalone converter technology known as conventional technology, which is a disintegrated system with no added value. This challenge opens an opportunity to develop a fully integrated system with any advantages. One of the promising technologies needed for solving the environmental problem and simultaneously producing other benefits for human living is a part of the bioelectrochemistry system (BES), which is microbial fuel cell (MFC). It could be easily assisted with the available conventional wastewater treatment, and it gives more benefits not only in energy production but also for remediating the environment through the superior biocatalyst, named electroactive bacteria (EAB), which has the availability to reduce organic and inorganic matter and generating electricity. However, factors affecting MFC have been a drawback in their field application that must be concerned extensively. Therefore, this study accommodates to investigation more in order to get an optimum condition in operation so that the technology could be widely used properly on the full scale. The disadvantages of the air–cathode single-chamber microbial fuel cell (AC-SCMFC) performance can be caused by numerous factors, and retention time (RT) is one such factor. It is difficult to conclude the ideal RT run for the specific tests under the same conditions. To determine the optimum RT for various types of microbial fuel cell (MFC), an AC-SCMFC batch-mode reactor was carried out by comparing different types and concentrations of substrates based on the main parameters of organic removal and power generation. The AC-SCMFC reactor was designed for the effective working volume of 500 mL and operated for 52 d in batch mode with factors being significantly correlated with the performance of the MFC reactor, which were two different substrates, sucrose and acetate, and three different chemical oxygen demand (COD) levels of 400; 1000, and 2500 mg/L (low, medium, and high, respectively) equipped with two graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs)-based electrodes connected to 100 Ω resistance and plugged onto a ii data logger. The results of this study indicated a significant pattern at the medium level, at which the optimum RT of sucrose was achieved at 24 h and that of acetate at 48 h. In comparison, the performances pattern at low and high levels of both substrates was insignificant to determine the optimum RT. For further application, the recommended RT for both substrates at any concentration is 24 h due to high overall performance, and the optimum RT established in this study could be applied to all types of MFC research, particularly in oxidizable or biodegradable organic ranges, which ensures high performance. One of the important factors in enhancing the performance of microbial fuel cells (MFCs) is reactor design and configuration. Therefore, this study was conducted to evaluate the regressors and their operating parameters affecting the double anode chamber–designed dual-chamber microbial fuel cell (DAC-DCMFC) performance. Its primary design consists of two anode chamber compartments equipped with a separator and cathode chamber. The DAC-DCMFCs were parallelly operated over 8 days (60 days after the acclimation period). They were intermittently pump-fed with the different organic loading rates (OLRs), using chemically enriched sucrose as artificial wastewater. The applied OLRs were adjusted at low, medium, and high ranges from 0.4 kg.m-3.d-1 to 2.5 kg.m-3.d-1. The reactor types were type 1 and type 2 with different cathode materials. The pH, temperature, oxidation-reduction potential (ORP), optical density 600 (OD600), chemical oxygen demand (COD), and total organic carbon (TOC) were measured, using standard analytical instruments. In general, the power production achieved a maximum of 866 ± 44 mW/m2, with a volumetric power density of 5.15 ± 0.26 W/m3 and coulombic efficiency of 84%. Two-stage COD and TOC removal at medium OLR achieved a range of 60–80%. Medium OLR is the recommended level to enhance power production and organic removal in DAC-DCMFC. The separated anode chambers into two parts in a dual anode chamber microbial fuel cell adjusted by various organic loadings expressed a preferable comprehension of the integrated MFCs for wastewater treatment. With respect to both studies, RT influences the design and configuration of MFCs, particularly in this regard, modified anode compartment of DCMFCs adapted to the range of oxidizable or biodegradable organics and reactor components towards control and dependent variables provide the simultaneous performance of DCMFCs in organic removal and power generation. In addition, DAC-DCMFC offers an opportunity to achieve optimal conditions in concurrent MFC-assisted wastewater treatment. Therefore, this study is one step closer to understanding the operating conditions comprehensively, which are the dominant factors affecting performance.

Access to clean water has been crucial global problem, especially with climate change, increasing population, and industrial activities. As one of Malaysia’s leading economic activities, the Oil and Gas Industry generates a massive amount of wastewater called Produced Water (PW). Dissolved organics in produced water, such as organic acids and phenolic compounds, are concerning due to the possibility that they can be toxic, non-biodegradable, and have bioaccumulation properties. Conventional treatments such as adsorption, incineration, and biological treatment seem to have difficulties treating these dilute but toxic components in an economical and environmentally friendly manner. Regulations on wastewater management has also been stricter around the globe. Therefore, there is a need on a new water treatment method to treat the diluted organics in a large volume of wastewater. Membrane technology has been of interest in the water treatment technologies’ industrial and research scenes. It offers simpler configuration and maintenance. However, the application is limited by the reduction of performance over time due to fouling phenomena. Photocatalyst offer an effective method to decompose organics in an environmentally friendly manner. This study researched on photocatalytic removal of diluted organic in water and potential of biofouling reduction by deposition of AgTiO2 coating on membrane surface. In Chapter 1: Introduction, the research background and purpose of this research were discussed. At the end of this chapter, the thesis framework was shown. In Chapter 2: Preparation and characterization of TiO2 and AgTiO2 coatings; the method to prepare AgTiO2 coatings on membrane support were explained. The prepared membranes were characterized with XPS, SEM, TEM, and ICP analysis to understand the prepared coatings. Results shows that the concentration of silver deposited on the membrane can be control by the concentration of silver in the precursor (silver acetate solution) used during the photochemical deposition step. Via XPS, it was found that the state of silver prepared through this method is oxide state. In Chapter 3: Removal of dissolved organic pollutants in water by photooxidation, the photocatalytic performance of prepared membranes was studied. Decomposition of diluted formic acid was performed under UV-light, and the concentration was evaluated using UVspectrophotometer. AgTiO2 membranes show better photocatalytic activity then TiO2 membrane. The concentration of silver on the membrane was found to influence its photocatalytic performance. In relation to PW application which commonly contain high salts, influence of salt types; NaCl, MgSO4, MgCl2 and K2SO4 and concentration were studied. All salts were found to inhibit the membranes’ photocatalytic performance. In Chapter 4: Antibacterial activity of AgTiO2 membranes, the antibacterial activity towards E. coli by prepared AgTiO2 membranes were investigated. Silver dissolution from membrane was found to be significantly increased in the presence of NaCl as compared to only water. Comparing membrane with lower Ag deposition, and around 20 times higher deposition, the silver dissolution from these membranes reached almost the same value after some time. However, as the amount of silver deposited on the membrane was higher, the antibacterial performance show around four times higher than the lower silver membrane. Based on other tests performed, it was concluded that there are potential of contribution from the silver oxide deposited on the membrane surface on the antibacterial activity of the AgTiO2 membranes In Chapter 5: Antibacterial activity in filtration system, prepared AgTiO2 membrane was used to filter E. coli suspension in water. E. coli growth was found to be inhibited by short contact with silver on the coated membrane. Finally, Chapter 6: Conclusion, the thesis was summarized, and future works were proposed.

In recent years, many reports have been made of damage to reservoir embankments due to frequent heavy rains and earthquakes. “Internal erosion” is the phenomenon in which soil particles move through the pore spaces of embankments and flow out of them because of long-term seepage in the soil structures of reservoirs and river embankments. Internal erosion is classified according to the scale and form of the erosion. “Suffusion” is the phenomenon in which only the fine-grained soil particles move through the pore spaces formed by the coarse-grained soil particles. Suffusion is known to cause an increase in hydraulic conductivity and a decrease in soil bearing capacity. However, the mechanisms and causes of the occurrence and progression of this phenomenon, as well as its effect on soil structures, have not been fully elucidated. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to clarify the effect of suffusion on the strength properties of reservoir embankments as well as the mechanism of the progression of suffusion, focusing on the particle size of the eroded soil particles. In Chapter 1, the background of the study and the classification of internal erosion were provided. In Chapter 2, the mechanism of suffusion and its effect on geomaterials, which have been clarified in previous studies, were described. In Chapter 3, the effect of suffusion on the strength properties was firstly investigated by means of soil samples used for the reservoir embankments which were determined to be at risk of suffusion based on an internal stability evaluation. A triaxial compression testing system was established to simulate the suffusion inside each specimen. In the testing system’s apparatus, only the fine particles were able to be discharged from the specimen through a sieve by supplying water. The results showed that changes in the peak and residual strength occurred independent of changes in the void ratio due to suffusion, and that the strength properties differed depending on the presence or absence of suffusion, even when the void ratio was the same as that before shearing. However, since the amount of erosion was small (less than 0.7% of the total), it is considered that the change in strength was influenced by the fine soil particles that moved through the specimen but remained in the specimen without finally flowing out of it. In Chapter 4, in order to define the mechanism of small-scale internal erosion, a method was devised to examine the temporal changes in the size of the discharged soil particles, focusing on the relationship between the concentration and the turbidity of the drainage. The above method was also applied to the drainage obtained by seepage with suffusion in Chapter 3. As a result, the erosion rates were found to correlate with the particle size of the discharged particles. In Chapter 5, a one-dimensional water-passing experiment with suffusion was conducted to investigate in detail the relationship among the flow rate, soil particle discharge, and turbidity of the drainage. The particle size composition of the discharged soil, which varied with the progress of suffusion, was examined using the method described in Chapter 4. The results showed that, under all conditions, the soil particles with smaller diameters were selected from among those that were able to pass through the wire mesh at the outlet boundary and then discharged. It was also found that the particle size composition of the discharged soil changed with time as the suffusion progressed, and that this trend varied greatly depending on the saturation degree of each specimen before the start of permeation. After the completion of the experiment, the particle size composition of the soil samples showed that not only the distribution of the erodible component in the height direction, but also the particle size composition of the erodible component itself became heterogeneous, suggesting that soil particles with smaller particle sizes moved longer distances through the pores. Furthermore, the effect of overburden pressure on the behavior of suffusion under constant hydraulic gradient conditions was explored, and it was revealed that higher overburden pressure resulted in less frequent suffusion when the hydraulic gradient was large. The particle size composition of the discharged soil was examined, and no difference was found among the various levels of overburden pressure. In addition, the progression of suffusion was investigated under a fluctuating hydraulic gradient. The suffusion continued even after 30 cycles of hydraulic gradient variation. The particle size composition of the discharged soil particles showed that the small soil particles, that flow easily, had already been discharged when the specimen was first subjected to permeation force, and that the soil particles discharged by the change in hydraulic gradient were relatively large in diameter. The particle size of the soil particles discharged by suffusion were seen to depend on the conditions surrounding the occurrence of suffusion and the time of the progression. In studies on suffusion, the particle size composition of the soil discharged by suffusion is a significant factor that changes over time and can be used to evaluate the degree of the progression of suffusion.

Sleep is an essential physiological process for the human body. People spend about one-third of their lives sleeping. Both sleep duration and sleep quality are important to human health. Sleep quality describes how restful and restorative the sleep process is. Over 80 sleep disorders are known to affect sleep quality. Among them, sleep-related breathing disorder (SRBD) is the second factor. Sleep-related breathing disorders are sleep disorders in which breathing abnormalities occur during sleep. Abnormal snoring and respiratory arrest or abnormally low breathing during sleep reduce oxygen levels in the blood, increasing the risk of depression, cardiovascular disease, stroke and even death. Therefore, monitoring and analysis of respiration during sleep is gaining increasing importance in healthcare. Polysomnography (PSG) is considered the gold standard for diagnosing sleep disorders, but PSG is usually performed in an unfamiliar sleep laboratory under the supervision of a medical technician and is often worn with many sensors that interfere with sleep. It is often the case. This research group is developing a breathing sound measurement system that constantly monitors the quality of sleep in general home environment. This system can easily measure breath sounds during sleep all night with high accuracy without disturbing sleep. The purpose of this research is to develop a technique to classify patterns of breathing sounds and to analyze the quality of breathing in order to more accurately analyze the state of sleep from breath sound information. There are various patterns of sleep breath sounds, such as normal breath sounds and snoring, and abnormal breath sounds and snoring. To develop a method to classify these patterns, to develop an algorithm to calculate ventilation from breath sounds, to estimate the sleep apnea index (AHI), and to assess the quality of breathing during sleep. try. Specifically, the temporal feature waveform (TCW) is calculated after partly removing the noise of the breathing sounds of sleep with a band-pass filter. Based on the time feature waveform, a respiratory signal effective for analysis is extracted from low-level signals and phase-divided into a respiratory phase and an apnea or low signal. Mel-frequency cepstrum coefficients (MFCC) are then obtained for the respiratory phases, and an agglomerative hierarchical clustering (AHC) algorithm is applied to distinguish between normal/abnormal breathing, normal/abnormal snoring, and normal/abnormal breathing. , tossing and turning, etc., which are less relevant to breathing. The categorized breathing patterns are analyzed every 30 seconds and the relative tidal volume of the breath is calculated. In addition to verifying the effectiveness and accuracy of the technology and analysis method proposed in this study, a method of estimating the apnea syndrome index (AHI) and converting the ventilation volume into high, medium, and low levels, We propose a method to evaluate the quality of breathing in a patient and verify its effectiveness. This paper consists of six chapters, including an introduction and conclusion. Chapter 1 introduces the background and overview of this research. Chapter 2 describes a signal-processing technique for analyzing breath sounds during sleep and a method for classifying breathing patterns. Breathing sound data during sleep often includes disturbed breathing due to bruxism or body movement, ambient environmental noise, etc. In this chapter, the Time Characteristic Waveform (TCW) and the Characteristic Moment Waveform (CMW) are calculated for respiratory sound signals that have undergone preprocessing, such as filtering noise to preprocess the respiratory sounds, and the segmentation of inspiration and expiration is performed. The Mel-Frequency Cepstrum Coefficients (MFCC) are obtained for each respiratory cycle and applied as a feature vector to the Agglomerative Hierarchical Clustering (AHC) algorithm. This method is used to classify ordinary respiratory signals (normal and abnormal breathing, normal and abnormal snoring) from signals less relevant to respiration, such as tossing and turning and environmental noise. In Chapter 3, using the technology described in Chapter 2, breathing sound data during sleep are classified into apnea, hypopnea, normal breathing, abnormal breathing, normal snoring, and abnormal breathing for each 30-second frame. In addition, we describe a method for classifying events such as no snoring and rolling over and determining the respiratory state. In Chapter 4, we propose a method for estimating the apnea-hypopnea Apnea-Hypopnea Index (AHI) for classified abnormal breath sounds and low-level breath sound signals, compare it with the diagnostic results of PSG, and examine its validity. And verify usefulness. Chapter 5 describes a method for estimating ventilation volume from breath sounds. Because normal breath sounds are correlated with ventilation, this study used a quantitative approach to calculate normal breathing and normal snoring and a qualitative method to calculate apnea/hypopnea and abnormal breath sounds. We will propose and compare it with the diagnosis result of PSG and verify its validity. In Chapter 6, as an application development, an example of applying the breathing sound classification method proposed in this study to heart sound analysis is presented. Finally, we will explain the construction of a data collection distribution system for sharing auscultation data collected at different facilities and hospitals using blockchain technology. Chapter 7 presents the conclusions and prospects of this study.

Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or services or the improvement in them (Schumpter, 1983). Innovation is closely related to invention as innovation is more on involving the practical implementation of a new or improved invention to make a meaningful impact in a market or society (Schumpter, 1939). On the other hand, innovative design is a process of identifying, pinpointing, and understanding the needs of the user or audience (Shaulis, 2021). Previously, Dixon (1966) defined innovative design as any design that is: new or different, or elegant or uses new ideas, or is an improvement over its peers. Once the market need has been identified, a solution can then be designed. In our proposed innovative design method, we introduced and investigated a method that is able to be applied in designing an intergrated system that could be a valuable solution to the society. This method starts with directly observe activities of things and real people in real trouble in the real field. Then, we think about the value of "I wish there were such things as…", visualize the story, draw a clear sketch to accomplish the story concretely. Next, we solidify the functions and specifications while investigating needs and competition. Then, we create a prototype that able to show and test your ideas, demonstrate to the people who need it, let them experience it, and gain feedback. Lastly, we evaluate the value of product design and development and plan methods for implementing it as an organization, and plan ways to improve and expand globally. All of the steps in this method are important for innovative design, however, in this research this time we focused on co-designing value, big idea, and considering as integrated steps for identifying latent needs of the consumers. It is because identifying needs is an important part in the product development process. Latent needs are those that many consumers recognize as important in a final product but unable to articulate in advance (Ulrich, 2015). The latent needs addressed in this study was focusing on identifying consumer requirements in product development in the innovative design method. The challenge in identifying latent needs is finding the method to elicit from consumers the needs which are not addressed by any inventors yet in the present market but would delight the consumers if delivered tomorrow. The purpose of this study is to propose and verify the method in the elicitation of latent needs from consumer needs by introducing a working prototype to the consumers, interviewing, and analyzing responses from the consumers. This research was conducted during the year the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. As the pandemic spread, most countries were forced to go into lockdown or declare an emergency state. The school was closed and business organizations needed to switch to working from home to prevent the spread. The parents were unable to work from home efficiently as they were worried their children will involve in dangerous incidents if the children were left by themselves. Based on this situation, this study was conducted in finding the latent needs of the parents, childcare workers, and children in order to assist them in going through their problems during this COVID-19 pandemic. The working prototype was used as material to prepare presentation slides for the consumers' interviews. The first presentation slides were focused on the background problems and ideas for the solutions while the second presentation slides provided consumers with a prototype and story of the product that was believed would be one of the solutions to the problems. Interviews were conducted after both slide presentations. Consumers' responses were obtained and interpreted into consumers' needs in terms of product functions. In the first study, consumers' interpreted needs from Problem-based interviews and Prototype and Story-based interviews were compared. Based on the results, latent needs interpreted from interviewees' responses and the categories of the needs obtained from the Prototype-based interviews are more than from the Problem-based interview. The latent needs that we were able to obtain from this research were for example, “The device is able to detect small changes in a child while watching he/she sleeping” which could lead into the prevention of unwanted incident such as sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). This supports our assumption that showing working prototype-based materials with story descriptions can be effective in uncovering potential latent needs. In the second study, it is assumed that experience, empathy, and knowledge of working prototype is essential elements in product development, therefore, new additional guidelines which are “to write a statement with empathy”, “to write a statement as a designer”, and “to write a statement as someone with experience” were proposed during consumers' needs interpretation to see whether these new guidelines will influence the process of identifying latent needs of consumers. From the result, it is concluded that the number of interpreted needs increased when we applied the new proposed guideline. Although the number is small, the needs might not be interpreted if the new guidelines were not considered. We were also able to obtain a few important latent needs when we applied these new guidelines. A latent need collected from applying the guideline "to write a statement as someone with experience" is “The device is not for teaching love and humanity but for monitoring by watching facial expression, posture, and vital signals such as temperature and heart rate”. We could conclude that including these guidelines upon interpreting raw data from the consumers’ interviews might lead into discovering important and critical latent needs of the consumers. In the third study, a quantitative evaluation method for identifying latent needs was introduced. The consumers' interpreted needs were rated according to a basis of rating from the three perspectives of importance, latent-ness, and technological feasibility. The Degree of Latent Needs (DLN) was calculated by multiplying these three metrics. Based on the result for the average and variance of DLN mean value for each evaluator which is sufficiently small, it indicates that the basis of rating for three metrics of the DLN is effective. The results also indicate that the 20 highest DLN points of the interpreted needs contain attractive features in terms of design. However, we had gotten some pushback on the average of each interpreted need and its variance which indicates opposing opinions among evaluators. As it is possible that attractive needs are hidden and may lead to the discovery of latent needs through individual pinpoint interviews, the interviews with the minority evaluators were conducted. The interview results indicate that the latent needs with low DLN rates but valuable might be able to be discovered by conducting follow-up interviews such as “The device is able to recognize items (food or not) that a child wants to put in the mouth”. From the results in all three studies, we could conclude that a number of important latent needs are able to be elicited from consumers’ needs by applying the proposed method. In our fourth study, a decision-making method based on the patent analysis between the conceptual design stage and the prototyping stage in the innovative design method was introduced. Conducting a patent strategy was assumed to support how to select the right concept precisely. In this study, by conducting a patent search in this stage by the designer who understood best the product functions and working principles, a supporting method was introduced to assist the designer in their decision-making process. Based on the result, the method was able to observe whether there are dominating companies or not for our concept design. If there is a dominating company, the possibility of not being able to produce our concept becomes bigger. This method may be applied as an indicator to support decisionmaking in the concept design stage in the innovative design method, whether to proceed with the concept design or not and to reduce the possibility of product failure in the future. From the results of all the studies, we could conclude that these above methods may be applied as assistive tools to support designers’ understanding of consumers’ requirements and selecting the right concept design.

Aldosterone is a steroid hormone synthesized in the adrenal cortex and is part of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS). It accelerates renal sodium retention and elimination of potassium through its action on the mineralocorticoid receptor (MR), and has a major role in regulating body fluid volume and blood pressure. Excessive secretion of aldosterone and activation of the MR cause cardiovascular inflammation, fibrosis and remodeling, and tubulointerstitial fibrosis and glomerular injury in the kidney. There are several reports on plasma aldosterone concentration (PAC) in healthy, chronic kidney disease (CKD), systemic hypertension, and chronic heart failure in cats and dogs. Measurement of urinary aldosterone/creatinine ratio has also been reported in cats and dogs. However, it has been suggested that measuring aldosterone in feline urine using the available methodology has limited or no utility in investigating feline hypertension associated with CKD. It may be important to evaluate PAC in cats and dogs with CKD associated with the activation of RAAS. On the other hand, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs) and angiotensin receptor blockers suppress the RAAS during hypertensive, renal, and cardiac diseases in cats. The Randomized Aldactone Evaluation Study in humans showed that the aldosterone antagonist, spironolactone, reduced the mortality of patients with chronic heart failure who received ACEI and loop diuretics. Spironolactone also reportedly reduced the mortality rate in cats with congestive heart failure secondary to cardiomyopathy. Another selective aldosterone antagonist, eplerenone, not only antagonizes MR but also blocks the nongenomic effects of aldosterone in vascular tissues not susceptible to spironolactone. These effects of eplerenone may be more effective than spironolactone in treating hypertension due to vasoconstriction. Although eplerenone reduces mortality and hospitalization in human patients with chronic heart failure, there are no available reports on eplerenone’s use in feline practice. Since elevated PAC is a risk factor for kidney injury in humans, and MR antagonists are beneficial in rodent models of CKD and human patients, it was hypothesized that if an elevated PAC is detectable in the early stages of the disease in cats, the use of eplerenone may prolong lifespan. However, the relationship between PAC and the survival time in cats and dogs with CKD has not been investigated. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate PAC in cats and dogs with CKD, and evaluate the influence of high PAC on the survival time of CKD animals and the effect of treatment with eplerenone in CKD cats with high PAC. In chapter 1, PAC in cats with CKD was investigated retrospectively, and the survival time of cats with high PAC was evaluated. Furthermore, the effect of treatment with eplerenone on survival time in CKD cats with high PAC was examined prospectively. The eplerenone study was conducted including both cats with CKD only and CKD cats complicated cardiac disease or systemic hypertension. The PAC was measured retrospectively in blood samples obtained from 156 client-owned cats that visited a veterinary hospital. The cats were designated into 2 groups: clinically healthy (n = 101) and CKD (n = 55). The PAC was measured by solid-phase radioimmunoassay. Median (minimum–maximum) PAC in healthy cats was 97 (10–416) pg/mL and the upper limit (95th percentile) was 243 pg/mL. In the CKD group, PAC [126 (10–981) pg/mL] was significantly higher than in the clinically healthy group. In the CKD group as classified by the International Renal Interest Society (IRIS) stage, the PACs were higher in IRIS stage 2 than in the healthy group. Similarly, PACs in IRIS stage 3 and 4 cats were higher than in the healthy group. In cats with CKD, the survival time of those with high PAC (n = 16) (> 243 pg/mL) was significantly shorter than that of those (n = 39) with normal PAC. In cats with high PAC and CKD, eplerenone administration (2.5 to 5 mg/kg body weight; n = 8) prolonged significantly the survival compared to cats not receiving eplerenone (n = 18). These results indicated that PAC could be a prognostic marker of CKD in cats and that eplerenone may prolong the survival in cats with CKD and high PAC complicated with cardiac disease or hypertension. In chapter 2, PAC in dogs with CKD was investigated retrospectively, and the survival time of CKD dogs with high PAC was evaluated. PAC was measured in blood samples obtained from 145 client-owned dogs. The dogs were divided into two groups: clinically healthy (n = 106) and CKD (n = 39). In clinically healthy group, median (minimum–maximum) PAC was 56 (10–250) pg/mL, and the upper limit (95th percentile) was 182 pg/mL. PAC (median 69 pg/mL; range 10–553 pg/mL) in CKD group was significantly higher than in the healthy group. In the CKD group as classified by IRIS stage, PAC (median 97 pg/mL) in IRIS stage 2 and 3 was significantly higher than in the healthy group. A significant positive correlation between PAC and IRIS stage was observed in CKD dogs, suggesting that the lower survival rate in high PAC group may be related to severity of CKD. In dogs with CKD, the survival time of those with high PAC (n = 10) (> 182 pg/mL) was significantly shorter than that of those with normal PAC (n = 24). These results suggested that high PAC might indicate shorter survival time in dogs with CKD. In conclusion, this study revealed that both cats and dogs with CKD had significantly higher PAC than clinically healthy animals. In CKD, the survival time of cats and dogs with high PAC was significantly shorter than those with normal PAC. The use of eplerenone also significantly prolonged the survival of cats with high PAC in CKD complicated with cardiac disease or hypertension. This study proposes PAC as a prognostic marker of cats or dogs with CKD. Eplerenone may be useful in prolonging cats’ survival with high PAC in CKD complicated with cardiac disease or hypertension. However, further study on PAC level in CKD progression and treatment response in a larger population may be required. This study provided new information on the relationship between PAC and the survival of cats or dogs with CKD, and the effect of eplerenone treatment for the survival time of cats with high PAC and CKD.