In this paper we consider multiuser detection using a neural network in a synchronous code-division multiple-access channel. In a code-division multiple-access channel, a matched filter is widely used as a receiver. However, when the relative powers of the interfering signals are large, i.e. the near-far problem, the performances of the matched filter receiver degrade. Although the optimum receiver for multiuser detection is superior to the matched filter receiver in such situations, the optimum receiver is too complex to be implemented. A simple technique to implement the optimum multiuser detection is required. Recurrent neural networks which consist of a number of simple processing units can rapidly provide a collectively-computed solution. Moreover, the network can seek out a minimum in the energy function. On the other hand, the optimum multiuser detection in a synchronous channel is carried out by the maximization of a likelihood function. In this paper, it is shown that the energy function of the neural network is identical to the likelihood function of the optimum multiuser detection and the neural network can be used to implement the optimum multiuser detection. Performance comparisons among the optimum receiver, the matched filter one and the neural network one are carried out by computer simulations. It is shown that the neural network receiver has a capability to achieve near-optimum performance in several situations and local minimum problems are few serious.

Microwave characteristics of a LiNbO3 optical modulator employing superconductor electrodes (Pb-In-Au) as a transmission line of a traveling signal has been studied experimentally in the temperature range from 300 K to 4.2 K. At frequencies between 8 GHz and 12 GHz it is shown that the obtained modulation efficiency increases as expected from theory when the superconductor undergoes the transition from a normal state to a superconducting state. The present results dumonstrate the possible applications of superconducting electrodes to high performance LiNbO3 optical modulators.

A sputtering system using dc hollow cathode discharge was developed for the propose of high Tc superconducting devices. Using this system, as-grown superconducting thin films of YBCO have been formed on MgO and SrTiO3 substrates. Influence of the sputtering conditions such as the substrate temperature and discharge gas pressure on the Tc and lattice parameter was investigated. It was found that superconducting films on MgO with Tczero higher than 87 K ere routinely obtained at the pressure of 820 mTorr (5%O2) and substrate temperature of 700 during deposition. The a/b-axis and c-axis oriented YBCO-PBCO hetero-structures were also successfully formed on MgO and SrTiO3 substrates.

Amorphous films of YBCO and BSCCO (2212) sputtered on MgO substrate were crystallized using zonemelt technique. For YBCO films, thin Ag intermediate layer was found to be effective in enhancing crystal growth and preferred orientation. Zone-melted BSCCO films included both (2201) phase and Cu(Sr, Ca)O2 in a form of dendritic crystallites. Tc's obtained for YBCO and BSCCO films were 70 and 75 K, respectively.

This paper describes an adaptive sensing system with tracking and zooming a moving object in the stable environment. Both the close contour matching technique and the effective determination of zoom ratio by fuzzy control are proposed for achieving the sensing system. First, the estimation of object feature parameters, 2-dimensional velocity and size, is based on close contour matching. The correspondence problem is solved with cross-correlation in projections extracted from object contours in the specialized difference images. In the stable environment, these contours matching, capable of eliminating occluded contours or random noises as well as background, works well without heavy-cost optical flow calculation. Next, in order to zoom the tracked object in accordance with the state of its shape or movement practically, fuzzy control is approached first. Three sets of input membership function--the confidence of object shape, the variance of object velocity, and the object size--are evaluated with the simplified implementation. The optimal focal length is achieved of not only desired size but safe tracking in combination with fuzzy rule matrix constituted of membership functions. Experimental results show that the proposed system is robust and valid for numerous kind of moving object in real scene with system period 1.85 sec.

In this paper we propose an architecture and an algorithm for the parallel execution of OPS5 production systems. It is known that current OPS5 production system interpreters spend almost 90% of their execution time in the match step. Thus, in this paper we focus on the speedup of the match step. The match algorithm used in OPS5 is called Rete and the algorithm uses a special kind of a date-flow network compiled from the left hand sides of rules. To achieve the maximum degree of parallelism of a given OPS5 program by as few processors as possible, the proposed parallel machine uses loosely coupled multiprocessors. Parallel machines designed for fine-grain parallelism, such as DADO, also use loosely coupled multiprocessors. However, the proposed machine differs from such machines at the following points: use of powerful processors which have large amounts of memories and small cycle times; use of a shared Rete network (parallel machines designed for fine-grain parallelism use an unshared Rete network); high hardware utilization. Basic ideas of the proposed parallel machine are as follows. (1) Use of a modified Rete network in which node sharing is used only for constant-test nodes and each memory node is lumped with the child two-input node. (2) Static allocation of the nodes of the modified Rete network onto processors. (3) Partition of the set of processors into three subsets: constant-test node processors, two-input node processors and conflict-set processors. (4) Use of a ring network for the interconnection network among two-input node processors. In addition to an architecture for parallel execution of OPS5 production systems, we propose a scheme for mapping the modified Rete network into the proposed architecture. The results of simulation experiments showed that the proposed architecture is promising for parallel execution of OPS5 production systems.

In this paper, we evaluate the sustained performance of the prototype SHD (Super High Definition) image processing system NOVI- HiPIPE, and discuss the requirements of a real-time SHD image processing system. NOVI- HiPIPE is a parallel DSP system with 128 PEs (Processing Elements), each containing one vector processor, and its peak performance is 15 GFLOPS. The measured performance of this system is at least 100 times higher than that of the Cray-2 (single CPU), but is still insufficient for real-time SHD image coding. When coding SHD moving images at 60 frames per second with the JPEG algorithm, the performance must be at least ten times faster than is now possible with NOVI- HiPIPE. To extract higher performance from a parallel processing system, the system architecture must be suitable for the implemented process. The advantages of NOVI- HiPIPE are its mesh network and high performance pipelined vector processor (VP), one of which is installed on each PE. When most basic SHD image coding techniques are implemented on NOVI- HiPIPE, intercommunication occurs only between directly connected PEs, and its cost is very low. Each VP can efficiently execute vector calculations. which occur frequently in image processing, and they increase the performance of NOVI- HiPIPE by a factor of from 20 to 100. In order to further improve the performance, the speed of memory access and bit operation must be increased. The next generation SHD image processing system must be built around the VP, an independent function block which controls memory access, and another block which executes bit operations. To support the input and output of SHD moving images and the inter-frame coding algorithms, the mesh network should be expanded into a 3D-cube.

Nojima and Fujita have found a universal relation, irrespective of temperatures T, between the reduced field hH/Hir(T) and the reduced quantity of magnetization hysteresis mΔM (T, H)/ΔM (T, H0), where Hir is the irreversibility field and ΔM(T, H) is the hysteresis of magnetization for YBa2Cu3Ox and Bi2Sr2CaCu2Ox films. We could explain this universal relation based on a scaling theory in a three-dimensional superconducting vortex-glass phase. The exponent ν derived by this relation coincides with that obtained by nonlinear I-V characteristics for YBa2Cu3Ox films.

This paper presents a technique by which any linear CCD camera, be it one with lens distortions, or even one with misaligned lens and CCD, may be calibrated to obtain optimum performance characteristics. The camera-image formation model is described as a polynomial expression, which provides the line-of-sight flat-beam, including the target light-spot. The coefficients of the expression, which are referred to as camera parameters, can be estimated using the linear least-squares technique, in order to minimize the discrepancy between the reference points and the model-driven flat-beam. This technique requires, however, that a rough estimate of camera orientation, as well as a number of reference points, are provided. Experiments employing both computer simulations and actual CCD equipment certified that the model proposed can accurately describe the system, and that the parameter estimation is robust against noise.

In our recent work, a forward test generation method for sequential circuits by using a single time frame was proposed. In order to improve the effectiveness of the method, we introduced an extended mode which can handle the two time frames for a hard-to-test fault and a state escaping phase which can detect a sequence of unsuitable states for test generation. The experimental results show that the improved method is effective in generating higher coverage tests with a small number of tests.

This review presents research topics and results on digital signal processing in the last twenty years in Japan. The main parts of the review consist of design and analysis of multidimensional digital filters, multiple-valued logic circuits and number systems for signal processing, and general purpose signal processors.

We propose a fully digital architecture for Kohonen network suitable for VLSI implementation. The proposed architecture adopts a functional memory type parallel processor (FMPP) architecture which has a structure similar to a content addressable memory (CAM). One word of CAM is regarded as a processing element and a group of elements forms a neuron. All processing elements execute the same operation in bit-serial but in processor-parallel. Thus the number of instructions for realizing the network algorithm is independent of the number of neurons in the network. With reference to a previously reported CAM, we estimate a network with 96 neurons for speech recognition could be integrated on three chips using a 1.2 µm process, and it operates 50 times faster than a sequential hardware. Owing to its highly regular structure of memories, the proposed hardware architecture is well compatible with current VLSI technology.

This system called COKIS automatically extracts knowledge about C functions from the UNIX on-line manual by using its description paragraph and the user can interactively inquire to the system in order to know about UNIX C functions. The idea is motivated on the one side to free users from being involved in an exhaustive knowledge acquisition in the past, and to examine problems in understanding knowledge itself on the other. We propose Memory Processor which is implemented to realize extracting knowledges from corpus and processing dialogues in the inquiry system at the same modules.

Numerical solutions for the near-field of microstrip antennas are presented. The field distribution is calculated by taking the inverse Fourier transform involving the current distribution with the help of the spectral-domain moment method. A new technique to save the computation time is devised, and the field pattern of the circularly polarized antenna is illustrated.

A new type jacket cutter for optical fibers is designed, and it is confirmed experimentally that its performance is superior to those of the conventional cutters. Using this new cutter which is mainly consisted of a rotatable fiber holder and a pair of blades separated by a distance of 0.3-0.4mm, only the tight jacket is cut and removed while the primary coating and the fiber are kept intact. As the result, the probability of damage to the fiber surface during jacket removal is reduced to about 0% compared to 10% found in the case of a conventional cutter. This result is useful to increase the reliability of optical fibers during assembling efforts.

The singular point analysis, such as the Painlev test and Yoshida's test, is a computational method and has been implemented in a symbolic computational manner. But, in applying the singular point analysis to high dimensional and/or "complex" dynamical systems, we face with some computational difficulties. To cope with these difficulties, we propose a new numerical technique of the singular point analysis with the aid of the self-validating numerics. Using this technique, the singular point analysis can now be applicable to a wide class of high dimensional and/or "complex" dynamical systems, and in many cases dynamical properties such as the algebraic non-integrability can be proven for such systems.

This paper proposes a multi-layer cellular network in which a self-organizing method is implemented. The network is developed for the purpose of data clustering and recognition. A multi-layer structure is presented to realize the sophisticated combination of several sub-spaces which are spanned by given input characteristic data. A self-organizing method is useful for evaluating the set of clusters for input data without a supervisor. Thus, using these techniques this network can provide good clustering ability as an example for image/pattern data which have complicated and structured characteristics. In addition to the development of this algorithm, this paper also presents a parallel VLSI architecture for realizing the mechanism with high efficiency. Since the locality can be kept among all processing elements on every layer, the system is easily designed without large global data communication.

We observed a ship as a radar target embedded in sea clutter using a millimeter wave radar. The shape of the ship and sea clutter were discriminated by using texture analysis in image processing. As a discriminator, a nonlinear transformation of a local pattern was defined to deal with high order statistics.

In a file transmission net N with vertex set V and arc set B, copies of a file J are distributed from a vertex to every vertex, subject to certain rules on file transmission. A cost of making one copy of J at each vertex µ is called a copying cost at µ, a cost of transmitting one copy of J through each arc (x, y) is called a transmission cost (x, y), and the number of copies of J demanded at each vertex u in N is called a copy demand at u. A scheduling of distributing copies of J from a vertex, say s, to every vertex on N is called a file transfer from s. The vertex s is called the source of the file transfer. A cost of a file transfer is defined, a file transfer from s is said to be optimal if its cost is not larger than the cost of any other file transfer from s, and an optimal file transfer from s is said to be optimum on N if its cost is not larger than that of an optimal file transfer from any other vertex. In this note, it is proved that an optimal file transfer from a vertex with a minimum copying cost is optimum on N, if there holds M U where M and U are the mother vertex set and the positive demand vertex set of N, respectively. Also it is shown by using an example that an optimal file transfer from a vertex with a minimum copying cost is not always optimum on N when M ⊃ U holds.

Three dimensional (3-D) optics offers potential advantages to the massively-parallel systems over electronics from the view point of information transfer. The purpose of this paper is to survey some aspects of the 3-D optical interconnection technology for the future massively-parallel computing systems. At first, the state-of-art of the current optoelectronic array devices to build the interconnection networks are described, with emphasis on those based on the semiconductor technology. Next, the principles, basic architectures, several examples of the 3-D optical interconnection systems in neural networks and multiprocessor systems are described. Finally, the issues that are needed to be solved for putting such technology into practical use are summarized.