We have developed a new disparity mapping technique for image morphing which prevents synthesized images from blurring and a fast rendering technique which realizes interactive morphing animation. In the image morphing rendering process, all pixels are moved according to their disparity maps and then distorted images are mixed with each other. Calculation costs of this process tend to be high because pixel per pixel moving and mixing are included. And if the accuracy of the disparity maps is low, synthesized images become blurred. This paper describes new two techniques for overcoming these problems. One is a disparity mapping technique by which the edges in each input image are accurately mapped to each other. This technique reduces blurring in synthesized images. The other is a data transformation technique by which the morphing rendering process is replaced with texture mapping, orthographic camera, α-brending and z-buffering. This transformation enables the morphing rendering process to be accelerated by 3D accelerators, thus enabling interactive morphing animations to be achieved on ordinary PCs.

In our previous paper, we presented a concept of “Baseband Radio” as an ideal of future wireless communication scheme. Furthermore, for enhancing the adaptability of baseband radio, the adaptive baseband radio was discussed as the ultimate communication system; it integrates the functions of cognitive radio and software-defined radio. In this paper, two transmission schemes that take advantage of adaptive baseband radio are introduced and the results of a performance evaluation are presented. The first one is a scheme based on DSFBC for realizing higher reliability; it allows the flexible use of frequency bands over a wide range of white space. The second one is a low-power-density communication scheme with spectrum-spreading by means of frequency-domain differential coding so that the secondary system does not seriously interfere with primary-user systems that have been assigned the same frequency band.

This paper presents a high speed 64-b floating point (FP) multiplier that has a useful function for computer graphics(CG). The critical path delay is minimized by using high speed logic gates and limiting the stage number of series transmission gates (TG's). The high speed redundant binary architecture is applied to the multiplication of significands. This FP multiplier has a special function of "CG multiplication" that directly multiplies a pixel data by an FP data. This multiplier was fabricated by 0.5 µm CMOS technology with triple-level metal of interconnection. The active area size is 4.25.1mm2.The operating cycle time is 3.5 ns at the supply voltage of 3.3 V, which corresponds to the frequency of 286 MHz, Implementation of CG multiplication increases the transistor count only 4%. Also, CG multiplication has no effect on the delay in the critical path.

In this paper, we present a computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) system to automatically detect lung cancer candidates at an early stage using a present and a past helical CT screening. We have developed a slice matching algorithm that can automatically match the slice images of a past CT scan to those of a present CT scan in order to detect changes in the lung fields over time. The slice matching algorithm consists of two main process: the process of extraction of the lungs, heart, and descending aorta and the process of matching slices of the present and past CT images using the information of the lungs, heart, and descending aorta. To evaluate the performance of this algorithm, we applied it to 50 subjects (total of 150 scans) screened between 1993 and 1998. From these scans, we selected 100 pairs for evaluation (each pair consisted of scans for the same subject). The algorithm correctly matched 88 out of the 100 pairs. The slice images for the present and past CT scans are displayed in parallel on the CRT monitor. Feature measurements of the suspicious regions are shown on the relevant images to facilitate identification of changes in size, shape, and intensity. The experimental results indicate that the CAD system can be effectively used in clinical practice to increase the speed and accuracy of routine diagnosis.

This paper describes the higher-order moment analysis of superposed Markov jumping processes. A superposed Markov jumping process is defined as a linear superposition of a finite number of piecewise constant real valued stochastic process whose value changes are associated with state transitions in an underlying descrete state continuous time Markov process. Some phenomena are modeled well by the process such as membrane current fluctuations observed at bio-membranes or load fluctuations in electrical power systems. Theoretical formula of the moment function of any order k is derived and the parameter estimation problem utilizing higher-order moment functions is discussed. A new method of estimating the kinetic parameters of membrane current fluctuations is proposed as a possible application.

In order to analyze an impact of threshold voltage (Vth) fluctuation induced by random telegraph noise (RTN) on LSI circuit design, we measured a 40-nm 6-Tr-SRAM TEG which enables to evaluate individual bit-line current. RTN phenomenon was successfully measured and we also identified that the transfer MOSFET in an SRAM bit-cell was the most sensitive MOSFET. The proposed word line boosting technique, which applies slightly extra stress to the transfer MOSFET, improves about 30% of detecting probability of fail-bit cells caused by RTN.

Decentralized and unstructured peer-to-peer (P2P) networks such as Gnutella are attractive for large-scale information retrieval and search systems because of their scalability, fault-tolerance, and self-organizing nature. Because of this decentralized architecture, however, traditional P2P keyword search systems are difficult to globally share useful semantic knowledge among nodes. As a result, traditional P2P keyword search systems cannot support semantic search (support only naive text-match search). In this paper, we describe a design of the semantic P2P keyword search system. We exploit the semantics of correlation among keywords rather than synonym. The key mechanism is query expansion, where a received query is expanded based on keyword relationships. Keyword relationships are improved through search and retrieval processes and each relationship is shared among nodes holding similar data items. This semantic P2P search system has two main advantages. First, expanding search results through query expansion increases the possibility of locating desired data items which would not be found by traditional P2P search systems due to the keywords' textual mismatch. Second, keyword relationships originally introduced for query expansion, can be used for result ranking. Our main challenges are 1) managing keyword relationships in a fully decentralized manner and 2) maintaining the quality of search results, while suppressing result implosion. We also describe the prototype implementation and evaluation of the semantic P2P search system.

We report the characterization of hysteresis in SOI-based super-steep subthreshold slope FETs, which are conventional floating body and body-tied, and newly proposed PN-body-tied structures. We found that the hysteresis widths of the PN-body-tied structures are smaller than that of the conventional floating body and body-tied structures; this means that they are feasible for switching devices. Detailed characterizations of the hysteresis widths of each device are also reported in the study, such as dependency on the gate length and the impurity concentration.

We consider space time block coded-continuous phase modulation (STBC-CPM), which has the advantages of both STBC and CPM at the same time. A weak point of STBC-CPM is that the normalized spectral efficiency (NSE) is limited by the orthogonality of the STBC and CPM parameters. The purpose of this study is to improve the NSE of STBC-CPM. The NSE depends on the transmission rate (TR), the bit error rate (BER) and the occupied bandwidth (OBW). First, to improve the TR, we adapt quasi orthogonal-STBC (QO-STBC) for four transmit antennas and quasi-group orthogonal Toeplitz code (Q-GOTC) for eight transmit antennas, at the expense of the orthogonality. Second, to evaluate the BER, we derive a BER approximation of STBC-CPM with non-orthogonal STBC (NO-STBC). The theoretical analysis and simulation results show that the NSE can be improved by using QO-STBC and Q-GOTC. Third, the OBW depends on CPM parameters, therefore, the tradeoff between the NSE and the CPM parameters is considered. A computer simulation provides a candidate set of CPM parameters which have better NSE. Finally, the adaptation of non-orthogonal STBC to STBC-CPM can be viewed as a generalization of the study by Silvester et al., because orthogonal STBC can be thought of as a special case of non-orthogonal STBC. Also, the adaptation of Q-GOTC to CPM can be viewed as a generalization of our previous letter, because linear modulation scheme can be thought of as a special case of non-linear modulation.

We have realized excellent viewing angle characteristics for the π cell, by combining a discotic negative birefringence film, which has a hybrid alignment structure, and a positive a-plate. The negative birefringence of the film completely compensates the positive birefringence of the π cell liquid crystals in the dark-state. The roll of a c-plate, which should be accompanied by the a-plate to suppress the light leakage from crossed polarizer at oblique incident angles, was substituted for the vertically aligned component of the π cell liquid crystal. Taking into account the fast electrooptical response, which is one order faster than that of the twisted-nematic liquid-crystal display, the π cell is one of the most promising liquid-crystal-display modes.

We have designed a scalable and expressive naming system called SENS, capable of retrieving information of computing and content resources distributed widely across the Internet through exact queries and multi-attribute range queries over resource names. Our system utilizes a descriptive naming scheme to name resources and a multi-dimensional resource ID space for message routing through an overlay network of name servers (NSs). The resource ID space is constructed on the overlay network based on CAN routing algorithm. Our novel mapping scheme between resource names and resource IDs preserves resource ID locality while still achieving good load balancing regarding resource information distribution. We also propose a multicast routing algorithm to deliver resource information and a broadcast routing algorithm to route query messages to corresponding NSs with small cost of message transmission. Our simulation results show that our system can achieve good routing performance and load balancing.

A test structure to analyze asymmetry and orientation dependence of MOSFETs is presented. n-MOSFETs with 8 different channel orientation and three kinds of process conditions were measured and symmetry characteristics of IDsat and IBmax with respect to the interchange of source and drain was examined. Although both IDsat and IBmax have similar channel orientation dependence, IBmax in interchanged S/D measurements shows asymmetrical characteristics, which can be applied to a sensitive method for device asymmetry detection.

Hot-carrier degradation of voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) was investigated by a reliability simulator known as BERT. The appropriate monitor of VCO frequency degradation shifts from the saturated drain current of an N MOSFET to linear drain current with an increase in VCO input voltage. The degradation of the VCO drastically increases with a small reduction in initial oscillation frequency. These results imply the need for an appropriate reliability margin around the standard operating point as well as a performance margin, which cannot be achieved by using conventional drain current monitors.

Periodic reservation allows periodic and random packets to share the same satellite random access channel efficiently. The periodic reservation protocol is particularly suitable for mobile satellite position reporting services, where some of the information messages, such as dispatch function, are classified as "periodic" and others, such as signaling, are classified as "random." When a new mobile terminal logs on to the system, Network Management Center (NMC) reserves subsequent time slots for transmitting periodic packets without contention. A mobile terminal recognizes each time slot as "reserved" or "unreserved (available)" according to the broadcast message received from NMC. Other random packets use the slotted ALOHA protocol to contend with other mobile terminals for an unreserved time slot. The performance results suggest that the use of the periodic reservation protocol can be regarded as a viable solution for mobile satellite position reporting services such as automatic dependent surveillance (ADS).

This paper presents severl radio resource scheduling algorithms which aim to provide best-effort service for non-real-time unit-oriented, or message traffic. The objective of resource scheduling algorithm is to distribute radio resources between competing message traffic sources while attaining throughput as high and fair as possible for each source without any explicit quality-of-service (QoS) guarantee. Computer simulations are carried out to evaluate the performance in terms of the average of allocation plus transfer delay, the average of throughput, the variance of throughput, and the usage of resources. The message-size distributions of homepages in World-Wide-Web and e-mails obtained by actual measurement are used. Message size-based resource scheduling algorithms are found to provide high and fair throughput as well as efficient use of the resources.

Frequency delta sigma modulation (FDSM) is a unique analog to digital conversion technique featuring large dynamic range with wide frequency band width. It can be used for high performance digital-output sensors, if the oscillator in the FDSM is replaced by a variable frequency oscillator whose frequency depends on a certain external physical quantity. One of the most important parameters governing the performance of these sensors is a phase noise of the oscillator. The phase noise is an essential error source in the FDSM, and it is quite important for this type of sensors because they use a high frequency oscillator and an extremely large oversampling ratio. In this paper, we will discuss the quantitative effects of the phase noise on the FDSM output on the basis of a simple model. The model was validated with experiments for three types of oscillators.

An important issue in the realization of optical packet-switched (OPS) networks is the resolution of packet contention caused by the lack of RAM-like optical buffering. Although an optical buffer using fiber delay lines (FDLs) has been proposed, its capacity is extremely limited. There have been several studies of this problem. One approach is deflection routing, which is widely used in electronic packet-switched networks or optical burst-switched (OBS) networks. However, in OPS networks, packet lengths are short, so that the speed requirement for route lookup is very stringent. If the network topology is geometric, such as a Manhattan Street Network (MSN), hop-by-hop routing can be implemented by simple optical logic devices without an electronic routing table. However, if the topology is not geometric, it is hard to implement deflection routing electronically or optically. Another approach is reflection routing, which is easy to implement but has a higher probability of packet loss than does deflection routing. In this paper, we propose a packet contention resolution scheme, reflection-based deflection routing, which is based on reflection routing and enables switching the reflected packet to an alternate path if its primary path remains congested. Our method alleviates the time limitation on setting an alternate path by making use of the packet reflection latency and also reduces the probability of packet loss. We evaluate the performance of the proposed method by simulation experiments and show its effectiveness.

We present a 64-b adder having a 2.6-ns delay time at 3.3 V power supply within 0.27 mm2 using 0.5-µm CMOS technology. We derived our adder design from architectural level considerations. The considerations include not only the gate intrinsic delay but also the wiring delay and the gate capacitance delay. As a result, a 64-b adder, (56-b Carry Look-ahead Adder(CLA) +8-b Carry Select Adder (CSA)), was designed. In this design, a new carry select scheme called Modified Carry Select (MCS) is also proposed.

In this letter, we investigated in detail the basic characteristics of W type slab waveguide in the vicinity of the cutoff frequency. Concerning with the leaky mode, we obtained some interesting results.

High-resolution Direction-of-Arrival (DOA) estimation techniques for antenna arrays have been widely desired in many applications such as smart antennas, RF position location, and RFID system. To realize high-resolution capability of the techniques, precise array calibration is necessary. For an array of single-mode elements, a calibration matrix derived by the open-circuit method is the simplest one. Unfortunately, calibration performance of the method is not enough for the high-reslution DOA estimation techniques. In this paper, we consider problems of the calibration matrix derived by the method, and show that errors in the matrix can be effectively removed by an optimal diagonal weight coefficient. In the proposed compensation technique, the number of newly introduced parameters, or unknowns, is only one for an array of the identical elements. Performance of the simple compensation technique is verified numerically and experimentally.