The elastic properties of human tissues can be quantitatively evaluated from the ultrasonic propagation speed in tissues. To effectively propagate ultrasound in human tissues, ultrasonic transducers are typically brought into contact with tissue surfaces. In this study, the non-contact evaluation of human tissues using pass-through airborne ultrasound has been proposed. When airborne ultrasound propagates and passes through tissues, the pass-through wave is extremely attenuated. To detect the attenuated pass-through wave in the received signal, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the received signal is improved by pulse compression using a higher-order M-sequence in the proposed method. In this paper, the estimation of ultrasonic propagation speeds in tissue-mimicking phantoms is described. The urethane-rubber phantom and solutions of ethanol in water are used as the phantoms. The time of flight (TOF) of the pass-through wave in the phantom is determined from the wave front. The propagation speed in the phantom is estimated using the determined TOF. Propagation speeds in the urethane-rubber phantom and ethanol solutions can be estimated within errors of 3 and 2% in experiments.

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The use of tactile senses in mediated communication has generated considerable research interest in past decades. Since massage is a common practice in Asian cultures, we propose to introduce massage-based interactions in mediated communication between people in a close relationship. We designed a device for distant interactive massage to be used during online conversation and we assessed its effect on interpersonal connection with eight pairs of Chinese participants in romantic relationships. All pairs were asked to engage in a conversation, either through a video call or through a massage-assisted video call. The findings showed that the use of the massage device significantly increased the perceived emotional and physical connection between the users. The results also showed a significant increase in the engagement in the massage activity, e.g., total massage time and average force per finger, from positive conversation to negative conversation, demonstrating an evidence of the interplay between audio-visual and haptic communication. Post hoc interviews showed the potential of the massage device for long-distance communication in romantic relationships as well as in parents-children relationships.

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In order to design tactile devices for technologically mediated communication, we investigated what tactile and gestural interactions would be spontaneously used for sharing emotions in mediated communication. In an experiment with 40 participants, we identified relations between hand gestures performed with a concept device and emotions that a "sender" intends to convey to a "receiver". Among others, our results show that squeezing and shaking are the most popular chosen hand gesture interaction. Gesture intensity and speed follow the arousal (intensity) and temperature follows the valence (pleasure). Emotions that subjects are most are willing to share with such a tactile are gratitude, love, happy, sad, astonished, excited, angry and worried.

To support the introduction of magic in product interaction design, magic effects together with technical clues is shown to be effective inspirations for 'creative and practical' products in novice designers. In this paper, we aim to develop a guideline to use the magicbased inspiration cards effectively for novice designers. To do this, six professional designers with three levels of design experiences were invited: junior (two years), intermediate (seven years), and senior (more than 12 years). The verbal protocol analysis revealed that when provided with the cards, the designers produced more ideas and concerned more about expected behavior of products. On the other hand, design experience negatively impact fluidity of ideas. Our findings suggested that design process is correlated with fluidity and elaboration, but not originality and feasibility. Finally, a guideline on how to use the magic-based tool effectively is developed based on the approaches carried by professional designers.

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