There has been much interest in building corporate private communication networks. This aim requires a method that optimizes the economical aspect of network configurations. The authors propose a network design method supported by knowledge-base. This method is used to design a cost-effective corporate communication network, using leased lines. The knowledge-base description depends on the production rule. The network configuration is improved by introducing expert knowledge, after designing the network by a conventional algorithm. Design results show the advantages of the proposed method.

This paper discusses the bit-rate compression of super high definition still images with subband coding. Super high definition (SHD) images with more than 20482048 pixels or resolution are introduced as the next generation imaging system beyond HDTV. In order to develop bit-rate reduction algorithms, an image evaluation system for super high definition images is assembled. Signal characteristics are evaluated and the optimum subband analysis/synthesis system for the SHD images is clarified. A scalar quantization combined with run-length and Huffman coding is introduced as a conventional subband coding algorithm, and its coding performance is evaluated for SHD images. Finally, new coding algorithms based on block Huffman coding and entropy coded vector quantization are proposed. SNR improvement of 0.5 dB and 1.0 dB can be achieved with the proposed block Huffman coding and the vector quantization algorithm, respectively.

The Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is expected to be the basic transmission technology for B-ISDN. Before this happens, however, it will be necessary to predict the impact of fully-deployed ATM-based networks quantitatively. This paper compares the cost-efficiency of an ATM-based network with that of an STM-based network and clarifies the applicable areas of ATM network configurations, in terms of required facilities and considering the effect of statistical multiplexing. It shows cost-effective network configurations based on different service classes and a network configuration suited to ATM. It also discusses the effect of a Synchronous Digital Hierarchy architecture for Virtual Path dimensioning.

We present a successful method for designing 2-D circularly symmetric R lowpass filters with constant group delay. The procedure is based on a transformation of a 1-D prototype R filter with constant group delay, whose magnitude response is the 2-D cross-sectional response. The 2-D filter transfer function has a separable denominator and a numerator which is obtained from the prototype numerator by means of a series of McClellan transformations whose free parameters can be optimized by successive procedure. The method is illustrated by an example.

The two most important parameters in reactive ion etching process, ion bombardment energy and flux, were extracted through a simple RF waveform measurement at the excitation electrode in a conventional cathode-coupled plasma RIE system. By using the extracted plasma parameters, damage and contamination in Si substrates induced by reactive ion etching in a SiCl4 plasma were investigated. A very convenient map representation of ion energy and ion flux was introduced in understanding the etching process occurring in the RIE system.

Plasmaless etching using ClF3 gas has been investigated on nitride films with different composition. For the sputter deposited and thermally grown silicon nitride films containing no hydrogen, the etch rate increases and the activation energy decreases with increase of the composition ratio of silicon to nitrogen between 0.75 and 1.3. This fact indicates that the etching is likely to proceed through the reaction between Si and ClF3. The native oxide on the silicon-nitride films can also be removed with ClF3 gas. Ultra-violet light irradiation from a low pressure mercury lamp remarkably accelerates the removal of the native oxide and the etch rate of the thermally grown silicon-nitride films. For the plasma deposited films, the etch rate is strongly accelerate with increasing hydrogen content in the films, but the activation energy hardly depends on the bounded hydrogen in the films, consistent with the results for Si etching.

This paper treats the problem of realizing high speed 2-D denominator separable digital filters. Partitioning a 2-D data plane into square blocks, filtering proceeds block by block sequentially. A fast intra-block parallel processing method was developed using block state space realization, which allows simultaneous computation of all the next block states and the outputs of one block. As the block state matrix of the filter has high sparsity, the rows and columns are interchanged respectively to reduce the matrix size. The filter is implemented by a multiprocessor system, where for each matrix's row one processor is assigned to perform the row-column vector multiplication. All processors wirk in synchronized fashion. Number of processors of this implementation are equal to the number of rows of the reduced state matrix and throughput is raised with block lengths.

In this paper, we present an automatic implementation method by which executable communication programs in C can be generated from protocol specifications in LOTOS. The implementation method consists of two parts: 1) An implementation strategy and 2) a set of translation rules. The first part consists of the basic ideas on how to realize the primary mechanisms in LOTOS specifications. The second part formulates the implementation method by way of the translation rules based on the implementation strategy. The characteristics of our method can be summarized as follows: We formulate our implementation method by way of translation rules. These rules are defined topdown in the form of syntax-directed translation function. The mechanism for controlling concurrency and communication among the user processes corresponding to the processes in LOTOS specification is easily realized by using UNIX operating system functions. The translation rules have been implemented on the AS 3000 (SUN3) workstation. An application of this implementation method is demonstrated by a simplified token-ring-protocol.

This paper describes a method of evaluating operations effort for fiber optic subscriber loops, such as the Central Terminal/Remote Terminal (CT/RT) system, which can economically provide a variety of telecommunication services. Four system configurations with different operation procedures are evaluated by simulation. By evaluating the operating costs associated with service provisioning, it is shown that automatic distributing frames are cost effective in subscriber loops with CT/RT systems. Moreover, the most economical operation strategies for installing and extending subscriber boards are discussed in terms of facility and operations cost.

Voyager Neptune radio science data were collected using three antennas on Earth on August 25, 1989. A parabolic antenna at Canberra, Australia, of 70 meter diameter received 2.3GHz and 8.4GHz carriers. The 64 meter parabolic antennas at Parkes. Australia and Usuda, Japan, received only the 8.4GHz and only the 2.3GHz carriers, respectively. It is necessary to reduce the frequency variation in the received signal carrier to extract accurate information on physically interesting objects such as Neptune's atmosphere, ionosphere, or the rings. After the frequency stabilization process, the frequency drift was reduced from 180Hz down to a maximum of 5Hz, making it possible to reduce the data bandwidth and, consequently, the data volume, by a factor of 30. The uncertainty of the signal frequency estimates were also reduced from 5 down to 510-3Hz/sec above the atmosphere, from 5 down to 0.5Hz/sec in the atmosphere, and from 50 down to 3Hz/sec at the beginning and the end of the atmospheric occultation. Much of the remaining uncertainty is due to scintillations in Neptune's atmosphere and cannot be reduced further. The estimates are thus meaningfully accurate and suitable for scientific analysis and coherent arraying of data from different antennas. Two results based on these estimates are shown: a preliminary temperature-pressure (T-p) profile of Neptune's atmosphere down to a pressure level of 2 bar computed using the Usuda 2.3GHz data, and a multipath phenomenon in the atmosphere seen in Canberra 8.4GHz data. Our T-p profile shows good agreement with the results presented by Lindal et al. within 1K below 100mbar pressure level, even though our result is based on an independent data set and processing. A comparison of the multipath phenomena at Neptune with that at Uranus implies that it was created by a cloud layer with a smaller scale height than the atmosphere above and below it. The processing methods described were developed in part with the interest to coherently array Canberra, Parkes and Usuda data. In this sense, while this paper does not extend any science results, the observations and results are derived independently from other published results, and in the case of Usuda, are completely new.

This letter discusses the quality improvement of reconstructed images in diffraction tomography. An efficient iterative procedure based on the modified Newton-Kantorovich method and the Gerchberg-Papoulis algorithm is presented. The simulated results demonstrate the property of high-quality reconstruction even for cases where the first-order Born approximation fails.

Bifurcations of the periodic solutions of the space-clamped Hodgkin-Huxley equations for the muscle membrane are studied regarding the chloride conductance as a parameter. A limit cycle appears at a Hopf bifurcation and disappears at a homoclinic orbit. With high sodium permeability, a subcritical period doubling bifurcation occurs before it disappears.

Parallel multiple context-free grammars (pmcfg's) and multiple context-free grammars (mcfg's) were introduced as extensions of context-free grammars to describe the syntax of natural languages. Pmcfg's and mcfg's deal with tuples of strings, and it has been shown that the universal recognition problem for mcfg's is EXP-POLY time-complete where the universal recognition problem is the problem to decide whether G generates w for a given grammar G and string w. In this paper, the universal recognition problems for the class of pmcfg's and for the subclass of pmcfg's with the information-lossless condition are shown to be EXP-POLY time-complete and PSPACE-complete, respectively. It is also shown that the problems for pmcfg's and for mcfg's with a bounded dimension are both -complete and those for pmcfg's and for mcfg's with a bounded degree are both -complete. As a corollary, the problem for modified head grammars introduced by Vijay-Shanker, et al. to define the syntax of natural languages is shown to be in deterministic polynomial time.

In the approximate learning model introduced by Valiant, it has been shown by Blumer et al. that an Occam algorithm is immediately a PAC-learning algorithm. An Occam algorithm is a polynomial time algorithm that produces, for any sequence of examples, a simple hypothesis consistent with the examples. So an Occam algorithm is thought of as a procedure that compresses information in the examples. Weakening the compressing ability of Occam algorithms, a notion of weak Occam algorithms is introduced and the relationship between weak Occam algorithms and PAC-learning algorithms is investigated. It is shown that although a weak Occam algorithm is immediately a (probably) consistent PAC-learning algorithm, the converse does not hold. On the other hand, we show how to construct a weak Occam algorithm from a PAC-learning algorithm under some natural conditions. This result implies the equivalence between the existence of a weak Occam algorithm and that of a PAC-learning algorithm. Since the weak Occam algorithms constructed from PAC-learning algorithms are deterministic, our result improves a result of Board and Pitt's that the existence of a PAC-learning algorithm is equivalent to that of a randomized Occam algorithm.

The initial stages of SiO2/Si interface formation on a Si(111) surface were investigated at 300 in dry oxygen with a pressure of 133 Pa. It was found that the SiO2/Si interfacial transition layer is formed in three steps characterized by three different oxidation rates.

The motion of particles in low-pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) (0.4 Torr) equipment has been investigated by a numerical simulation. The effects of wafer orientation, electrostatic forces, and thermophoresis were evaluated. Horizontal surface-down processing and vertical processing can reduce particulate contamination remarkably compared with horizontal surface-up processing. Static electricity control is essential. Weakly charged wafers (several V to several 10 V) can significantly increase submicron particle deposition. In the absence of electrical forces, thermophoresis prevents deposition of particles in the size range 0.03 µmDp0.6 µm, when the temperature difference between the wafer surface and the gas inlet temperature exceeds 100. Deposition of particles smaller than 0.03 µm still occurs by diffusion.

This paper proposes a model for learning non-parametric densities using finite-dimensional parametric densities by applying Yamanishi's stochastic analogue of Valiant's probably approximately correct learning model to density estimation. The goal of our learning model is to find, with high probability, a good parametric approximation of the non-parametric target density with sample size and computation time polynomial in parameters of interest. We use a learning algorithm based on the minimum description length (MDL) principle and derive a new general upper bound on the rate of convergence of the MDL estimator to a true non-parametric density. On the basis of this result, we demonstrate polynomial-sample-size learnability of classes of non-parametric densities (defined under some smoothness conditions) in terms of exponential families with polynomial bases, and we prove that under some appropriate conditions, the sample complexity of learning them is bounded as O((1/ε)(2r1)/2r1n(2r1)/2r(1/ε)(1/ε)1n(1/δ) for a smoothness parameter r (a positive integer), where ε and δ are respectively accuracy and confidence parameters. Futher, we demonstrate polynomial-time learnability of classes of non-parametric densities (defined under some smoothness conditions) in terms of histogram densities with equal-length cells, and we prove that under some appropriate condition, the sample complexity of learning them is bounded as O((1/ε)3/21n3/2(1/ε)(1/ε)1n(1/δ)).

Hydrogen termination of HF-treated Si surfaces and the oxidation kinetics have been studied by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR) Attenuated Total Reflection (ATR). The oxidation of hydrogen-terminated Si in air or in pure water proceeds parallel to the surface presumably from step edges, resulting in the layer-by-layer oxidation. The oxide gryowth rate on an Si(100) surface is faster than (110) and (111) when the wafer is stored in pure water. This is interpreted in terms of the steric hindrance against molecular oxygen penetration throughth the (110) and (111) surfaces where the atom void size is equal to or smaller than O2 molecule. The oxide growth rate in pure water for heavily doped n-type Si is significantly high compared to that of heavily doped p-type Si. This is explained by the conduction electron tunneling from Si to absorbed O2 molecule to form the O2- state. O2- ions easily decompose and induce the surface electric field, enhancing the oxidation rate. It is found that the oxidation of heavily doped n-type Si in pure water is effectively suppressed by adding a small amount (1003600 ppm) of HCl.

The single fault model is invalid in many cases. However, it is very difficult to generate tests for all multiple faults since an m-line circuit may have 3m --1 multiple faults. In this paper, we describe a method for generating tests for combinational circuits with multiple stuck-at faults. An input vector is a test for a fault on a target line, if it find the target line to be fault-free in the presence of undetected or undetectable lines. The test is called a robust test for fault on a target line. It is shown that the sensitizing input-pair for a completely single sensitized path can be a robust test-pair. The method described here consists of two procedures. We label these as SINGLE_SEN" procedure and DECISION" procedure. SINGLE_SEN generates a single sensitized path including a target line on it by using a PODEM-like method which uses a new seven-valued calculus. DECISION determines by utilizing the method proposed by H. Cox and J. Rajski whether the single sensitizing input-pair generated by the SINGLE_SEN is a robust test-pair. By using these two procedures the described method generates robust test-pairs for the combinational circuit with multiple stuck-at faults. Finally, we demonstrate by experimental results on the ISCAS85 benchmark circuits that SINGLE_SEN is effective for an algorithmic multiple fault test generation for circuits not including many XOR gates.

Thermal desorption spectroscopy (TDS) is applied to analyze the oxidation reactions of hydrogen-terminated Si(100) surfaces in both the heating and cooling processes after hydrogen desorption. The oxidation reaction of oxygen and water with a silicon surface after hydrogen desorption shows hysteresis in the heating and cooling processes. In the cooling process, oxidation finishes when the silicon surface is adequately oxidized to about a 10 thickness. Oxidation continues to occur at lower temperatures when the total volume of oxygen and water is too small to saturate the bare silicon surface. The reaction of water with silicon releases hydrogen at more than 500. Hydrogen does not adsorb on the silicon oxide surface. A trace amount of oxygen, less than 110-6 Torr, roughens the surface.