Sakie Yokota (center, back), mother of North Korean abductee Megumi Yokota, and others attend a rally held in Tokyo on Saturday that called for the immediate return of Japanese people abducted by North Korea. A large-scale rally was held in Tokyo on Saturday to seek the immediate return home of all Japanese abductees in North Korea. Relatives of those abducted to North Korea decades ago expressed hopes for the return of abductees immediately and while their parents are still alive. The event, organized by the association of families of abduction victims and other entities, was attended by about 800 people, including Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. "We will never give up," said Takuya Yokota, 57, head of the association and the younger brother of Megumi Yokota, who was abducted in 1977 at the age of 13. He called on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to release all abductees to "chart a bright future for both countries."

Signal Processing Society Magazine Best Paper Award (ICASSPにて) A. Cichocki (Skoltech) L. De Lathauwer (KULeuven) 19 テンソル分解のパイオニアと重要な文献 Sidiropoulosらのレビュー論文 Tensor Decomposition for Signal Processing and Machine Learning Sidiropoulos, IEEE TSP, 2017 [pdf] Cichockiらの書籍 Tensor Networks for Dimensionality Reduction and Large-Scale Optimization: Part 1 [link], Part 2 [pdf] Cichocki, Foundations and Trends in Machine Learning, 2016 [link] N. Sidiropoulos (Univ. of Virginia) 20 宣伝 Book chapterを書きました Tensors for Data Processing, Elsevier, 2021 [link] 目次 1章 Tensor decompositions: Computations, applications, and challenges 2章 Transform-based tensor SVD in multidimensional image recovery 3章 Partensor 4章 A Riemannian approach to low-rank tensor learning 5章 Generalized thresholding for low-rank tensor recovery 6章 Tensor principal component analysis 7章 Tensors for deep learning theory 8章 Tensor network algorithms for image classification 9章 High-performance TD for compressing and accelerating DNN 10章 Coupled tensor decomposition for data fusion 11章 Tensor methods for low-level vision T. Yokota, CF.

Hiroki Iwasa, a 40-year-old IT entrepreneur with an MBA, grows strawberries in seven high-tech greenhouses where computers set the temperature and humidity to optimal growing conditions and ensure the rows of bushes are sprayed with water at precise times. He markets his Migaki Ichigo-brand strawberries directly to fancy department stores in Tokyo, where they go for as much as ¥1,000 apiece, as well as to customers in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand, where Japanese produce has an excellent reputation. Such changes, while small, come as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pushes to reform the nation's hidebound farm industry, where small-plot holdings still dominate, the average farmer is over 66 years old and the sector's contribution to the economy has fallen by 25 percent since its peak in 1984. They should also make Japan more resilient if the United States tries -- as Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has hinted -- to pry open Japan's markets for rice and beef, which are protected by tariffs. Iwasa was running an IT company and working on an MBA in Tokyo when his coastal hometown of Yamamoto in Miyagi Prefecture, an area famous for strawberries, was hit by the March 2011 tsunami.

In what is likely a warning to nuclear-armed North Korea, the U.S. military on Wednesday showed off to media its Global Hawk surveillance drone, which is temporarily deployed to its Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo. The massive drone, with a wingspan of about 40 meters and a length of about 15 meters, can fly for long durations at altitudes higher than manned aircraft. The main focus of the deployment is believed to be to collect surveillance data on the North's nuclear- and missile-related facilities as well Chinese military activity in the Western Pacific. The aircraft is one of five Global Hawks sent to Yokota from their home base in Guam to avoid the harsh summer typhoon season that annually hits the Pacific island. The drones are scheduled to operate out of Yokota until the end of October.