●Information Systems Engineering ●Environmental Engineering ●Biotechnology
Mechanical Systems Engineering
The graduate school offers three advanced courses of study for students enrolled in the doctoral and master’s programs: 1. Thermal and Fluid Engineering, 2. Solid Mechanics / Design and Production Engineering, and 3. Materials Design and Processing.
1 Thermal and Fluid Engineering
The objective of this course is to enhance knowledge of theories and applications of effective energy conversion and its utilization for environmental harmony. The research topics are as follows:
- Cooling of electronic equipment
- High-temperature gas dynamics
- Shock wave phenomena
- Heat and mass transfer
- Non-intrusive flow measurement
- Thermodynamic property measurement and modeling
2 Solid Mechanics / Design and Production Engineering
There are three major research fields in this course. These are mechanical design, materials and mechanics, and design methodologies. The research topics are as follows:
(1) Mechanical Design
- Tribological properties of hard coatings
- Evaluation of mechanical properties of micro materials
(2) Materials and Mechanics
- Structural reliability
- Structural design
- Experimental mechanics
- Large scale finite element method
- Molecular dynamics method
(3) Design Methodologies
- Shape modeling with free-form deformation and interactive design
- Life cycle design method by LCA and CAE
- Analysis of automotive vibration and noise
3 Materials Design and Processing
This program includes three research fields. These are structural materials, material processing, and environmental conscious materials. The research topics are as follows:
(1) Structural Materials
- Fatigue and fracture of polymers and composites
- Mechanics of nanocomposites and smart composites
(2) Material Processing
- Plastic forming of advanced lightweight alloys
- Powder metallurgy of advanced materials
- Characterization of advanced sintered materials
- Creep analysis of advanced lightweight materials
- Solid state bonding of advanced lightweight materials
(3) Environmental Conscious Materials
- Biomedical material science and engineering using green lithography
- Eco-friendly electronic material derived from biomass
Intelligent Systems Design Engineering
(Intelligent Robotics from April 2021)
The graduate school offers master’s and doctoral programs in intelligent systems design engineering to promote international-level cutting-edge research in the following four advanced courses of study:
1 Intelligent Systems Engineering
In this advanced course, students research on the next generation of intelligent systems that will require sensing, modeling, designing, evaluating, and manipulating. This includes:
- Next generation robots uninhibited by early general ideas of robotics
- Flexible production systems with future generation robots
- User-friendly welfare applications
2 Intelligent Interface Engineering
In this advanced course, students research on human interface design and sophisticated pattern recognition systems. The research projects include:
- Key-input systems using eye-gaze and eye-blink
- Real-time personal authentication using iris patterns
- Super-realistic auditory telepresence robot
- Dynamic binaural technologies for 3-D sound reproduction
- Computer-aided learning for the visually impaired
- Brain-machine interface
- Handwritten character recognition
3 Micro or Nano-Systems Engineering
In this advanced course, students research on fabricating micro or nano scale materials and nondestructive measurements. Key technologies include:
- Micro or nano-processing for micromachines
- Micro or nano-measurements using laser technology
- Nano-bioengineering for nano-medicine
4 Electronic Nano-Device Engineering
In this advanced course, students research on the following, while covering both fundamental and applied themes:
- Preparation and application of ferroelectric and piezoelectric materials
- Synthesis of carbon-based new materials, magnetic properties, and transport phenomena of piezoelectric materials
Information Systems Engineering
(Electrical and Computer Engineering from April 2021)
The graduate school offers master’s and doctoral research programs in information systems engineering through the following three advanced courses: Information Media Engineering, Communication Network Engineering, and Software Engineering. These programs are designed for practicing professional engineers.
1 Information Media Engineering
This course involves promoting the development and establishment of various innovative information technologies. The scope of the course includes cloud computing, information networks, bio-information engineering with an emphasis on brain-machine interfaces, video image processing, and system planning and optimization. The course study also includes theoretical aspects such as formal language and computation theories.
2 Communication Network Engineering
This course includes diverse research on broadband network services, ubiquitous networks, and satellite communications. The projects also includes the development of support systems for daily life and the functionality of the Internet using photonic technologies and semiconductor devices (VLSI, CMOS devices, etc.) for advanced systems. Also, space environment measurements are conducted using sounding rockets, spacecrafts, and computer simulations for satellite communications in future.
3 Software Engineering
The objective of this course is to develop information systems for various industries, including medical and welfare support systems, home healthcare systems, education support systems, utilizing a variety of sensor devices, computers, and the Internet, based on the following fundamental technologies, sensor integration/fusion, human behavior recognition, information visualization, web-based programming, and so on.
Environmental Engineering
(Environmental and Civil Engineering from April 2021)
With the increasing variety of target substances, the scale of problems, and complex interactions between various phenomena, environmental problems have to be tackled from a comprehensive perspective, with advanced technology and international cooperation. Educational principles of this program aim to help individuals to develop the capability to propose creative and practical solutions for complex and diverse environmental issues and make proposals and policies based on technology for building a sound material-cycle society. Environmental issues entail many aspects, including environmental pollution because of various substances, energy resources, waste disposal, biodiversity conservation, and symbiosis between nature and human life. This program provides education and research opportunities to cultivate capabilities to develop advanced environmental technology to address these issues. It is also intended to help in acquiring management skills to run environmental conscious businesses and administrative agencies.
1 Engineering Hydrology
Research on efficient and advanced use of sustainable water resource. The projects included are:
- Aquatic Ecology and Ecotoxicology
- Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
- Hydrology
- Snow and Ice Chemistry
- Soil Improvement Technology
- Water Quality Engineering
- Water Resource Engineering
- Water Treatment Engineering
2 Resource Recovery Engineering and Environmental Policy
Research on effective recycling of resources, as well as environment policy and management to actualize these technologies. The projects included are:
- Energy System for Low Carbon Society
- Environmental Communication
- Environmental Policy (Environmental Governance)
- Function and Safety Engineering for Recycled Resources
3 Ecological Engineering on Regional Design
Research on development of social infrastructure as the foundation of a safe, secure, and sustainable society. The projects included are:
- Concrete Engineering
- Concrete Structural Engineering
- Geo Hazards and Disaster Prevention
- Hydraulics
- Hydrology
- Remote Sensing, GIS, and Regional Planning
- Structural Engineering
Biotechnology
(Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Engineering from April 2021)
The graduate school offers master’s and doctoral research programs in Biotechnology that include nine research areas. The faculty is responsible for facilitating education and research in advanced courses of study that cover the following themes under each research area.
1 Enzyme Chemistry
Extensive screening for novel enzymes catalyzing new reactions, intensive basic studies to understand enzymological characteristics, and molecular evolutionary approach to improve the properties of enzymes, thus supporting industrial use of enzymes.
2 Biocatalysis and Bioprocessing
The use of enzymes and/or microorganisms (biocatalysts) for the efficient production of useful compounds such as pharmaceutical and agrochemical intermediates, asymmetric bioreduction or biooxidation, metagenomics for biocatalysis, functional food materials, and protein engineering of biologics.
3 Microbial Engineering
Exploration of new bioactive compounds from underexploited marine and terrestrial microorganisms, structure elucidation, evaluation of bioactivity, and biosynthesis.
4 Bioorganic Chemistry
Total synthesis of bioactive natural products, computational analysis of organic reactions, computer-aided designs of bioactive molecules, and structure and reactivity of lignin and other woody biomass constituents.
5 Food Science and Technology
Metabolism of biofactors including physiological and dietary compounds, evaluation of food factors using animal models for human diseases, and omics in food science research.
6 Plant and Cell Engineering
Engineering of plants and plant cells for their use in bioactive compound production and biomass utilization and study of plant secondary metabolic enzymes in biochemistry and organic chemistry.
7 Applied Bioinformatics
Elucidation of genome evolution mechanism and establishment of genome creation of microbial cells with the designed genome.
8 Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Formulation
Organic chemistry, process chemistry, fine chemistry, analytical chemistry, advanced lithography, functional materials, chemical engineering, powder engineering, drug delivery system.
9 Biopharmaceutical Engineering
Biochemistry, genetic engineering, drug metabolism, cell engineering, protein chemistry, bioinformatics, protein design, antibody engineering, drug discovery, pharmacology, and regenerative medicine.