There was the Informal Meeting on High Technology on November 20th at Uji Campus of Kyoto University. Resear chers and engineers who studied at Automation Research Lab under the guidance of Professor Hideo Hanafusa gathered there. The speaker of the day was Hirotoshi Yamamoto, a ph.d student of Kyoto University. His talk was on “Towards Assistive Technology for Quality of Life of Dementia Patients.” It was an impressive talk. The challenge of his research is how technology can monitor and improve the quality of (mind) life of dementia patients. The monitoring is called as “Dementia Care Mapping” and currently done only by the professionally trained counselors by checking Behavioral Category Codes. 
On the way to the meeting I spent a few hours walking in the Higashi-Yama area in Kyoto. The Japanese maple trees beautifully turned red and yellow, thanks to the weather in this year and rain in November. Photos: (top) the three-storied pagoda at Shin’nyo-d o Temple, (bottom) Nandaimon Gate o f Nanzen-ji Temple, which is known by Goemon Ishikawa in Kabuki.