Yu Nasu

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Yu Nasu, (那須悠)
a Japanese computer scientist and Shogi programmer. While affiliated with the Tokyo Institute of Technology ¹, and the Knowledge Media Laboratory, Toshiba, his research focused on natural language processing, speech recognition and speech synthesis as application of hidden Markov model and neural networks ².

Shogi

Along with Hisayori Noda (Nodchip), Jun Okabe, Takahiro Suzuki, Masatoshi Hidaka, and at times Akio Kono, Yu Nasu was member of The Minstrel's Ballad: Tanuki's Reign ^{3 4} and subsequently is member of the Ziosoft Computer Shogi Club, developing and representing the Shogi playing entities Shouten Gensou Knights of Tanuki (2017, derived from Yaneura King by Motohiro Isozaki aka Yaneurao) ^{5 6}, the end of genesis T.N.K.evolution turbo type D ^{7 8} and Tanu-King at the WCSC29 ⁹.

NNUE

In 2018, Yu Nasu introduced a new evaluation function based on a shallow neural network whose heavily overparametrized input layer outputs were incremental updated in make and unmake move. This approach, dubbed NNUE (ƎUИИ Efficiently Updatable Neural Networks), turned out to become extremely powerful. NNUE was used along with a Stockfish based Shogi adaptation in YaneuraOu, as well in other Shogi playing entities such as Kristallweizen ¹⁰, apparently with superhuman AlphaZero strength ¹¹. YaneuraOu team member Hisayori Noda aka Nodchip proved that Nasu's idea also works well in western chess, yielding to Stockfish NNUE ¹² and in September 2020 to Stockfish 12 ¹³.

Selected Publications

¹⁴

• Yu Nasu, Koichi Shinoda, Sadaoki Furu (2011). Cross-Channel Spectral Subtraction for meeting speech recognition. ICASSP 2011
• Ryo Yokoyama, Yu Nasu, Koichi Shinoda, Koji Iwano (2012). Overlapped Speech Detection in Meeting Using Cross-Channel Spectral Subtraction and Spectrum Similarity. INTERSPEECH 2012
• Yamato Ohtani, Yu Nasu, Masahiro Morita, Masami Akamine (2015). Emotional transplant in statistical speech synthesis based on emotion additive model. INTERSPEECH 2015 ^{15 16}
• Hisayori Noda, Jun Okabe, Takahiro Suzuki, Masatoshi Hidaka, Yu Nasu, Akio Kono (2017). Shouten Gensou Knights of Tanuki Appeal Document. The Minstrel's Ballad: Tanuki's Reign, pdf (Japanese)
• Yu Nasu (2018). ƎUИИ Efficiently Updatable Neural-Network based Evaluation Functions for Computer Shogi. Ziosoft Computer Shogi Club, pdf, pdf (Japanese with English abstract) GitHub - asdfjkl/nnue translation ¹⁷

External Links

• Yu Nasu's research works | Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo (TITech) and other places, ResearchGate
• やねうら王 公式サイト | コンピューター将棋 やねうら王 公式サイト YaneuraOu Official Website by Motohiro Isozaki aka Yaneurao
• 将棋ソフト開発者がStockfishに貢献する日 The day when shogi software developers contribute to Stockfish by Yu Nasu, June 2019 » Stockfish NNUE
• GitHub - yaneurao/YaneuraOu: YaneuraOu is the World's Strongest Shogi engine(AI player), WCSC29 1st winner, educational and USI compliant engine, hosted by Motohiro Isozaki aka Yaneurao

References