For symmetric cryptosystems, their transformations should have nonlinear elements to be secure against various attacks. Several nonlinearity criteria have been defined and their properties have been made clear. This paper focuses on, among these criteria, the propagation criterion (PC) and the strict avalanche criterion (SAC), and makes a further investigation of them. It discusses the sets of Boolean functions satisflying the PC of higher degrees, the sets of those satisfying the SAC of higher orders and their relationships. We give a necessary and sufficient condition for an n-input Boolean function to satisfy the PC with respect to a set of all but one or two elements in {0,1}n{(0,...,0)}. From this condition, it follows that, for every even n 2, an n-input Boolean function satisfies the PC of degree n 1 if and only if it satisfies the PC of degree n. We also show a method that constructs, for any odd n 3, n-input Boolean functions that satisfy the PC with respect to a set of all but one elements in {0,1}n{(0,...,0)}. This method is a generalized version of a previous one. Concerned with the SAC of higher orders, it is shown that the previously proved upper bound of the nonlinear order of Boolean functions satisfying the criterion is tight. The relationships are discussed between the set of n-input Boolean functions satisfying the PC and the sets of those satisfying the SAC.

Telecommunications management activities have mostly been supported by operators; however, machines are gradually playing more important roles in the management arena by utilizing computing technology. Additionally, management systems can now be networked by using standard interface specifications. The study of human and machine integration is thus essential for achieving the sophisticated management objectives of telecommunications. This paper proposes the principles for a telecommunications management integration network (TMIN), which integrates human and machine management networks, and proposes a source text description method for transferring management communication knowledge from human to machine. First, reference models are proposed for the management process and management communication. These models cover network management activities of both humans and machines. Second, the contents of the source text are clarified. Source text presents human management knowledge in a form suitable for machine-machine communication. Third, an efficient source text description method is proposed that reduces redundancy and proliferation. Finally, a means of harmonizing management information definitions with TMIN is suggested to facilitate human-machine cooperation.

This paper discusses Boolean functions satisfying the propagation criterion (PC) and their balancedness. Firstly, we discuss Boolean functions with n variables that satisfy the PC with respect to all but three elements in {0,1}n-{(0,...,0)}. For even n4, a necessary and sufficient condition is presented for Boolean functions with n variables to satisfy the PC with respect to all but three elements in {0,1}n-{(0,...,0)}. From this condition, it is proved that all of these Boolean functions are constructed from all perfectly nonlinear Boolean functions with n-2 variables. For odd n3, it is shown that Boolean functions with n variables satisfying the PC with respect to all but three elements in {0,1}n-{(0,...,0)} satisfy the PC with respect to all but one elements in it. Secondly, Boolean functions satisfying the PC of degree n-2 and their balancedness are considered. For even n4, it is proved that an upper bound on the degree of the PC is n-3 for balanced Boolean functions with n variables. This bound is optimal for n=4,6. It is also proved that, for odd n3, balanced Boolean functions with n variables satisfying the PC of degree n-2 satisfy the PC with respect to all but one elements in {0,1}n-{(0,...,0)}.

This paper presents the results of a study made to determine the line length coverage of the high-bit-rate digital subscriber line (HDSL) present in NTT's local networks. The HDSL carries one bi-directional 784 kbit/s channel per pair and supports the digital interface at 1544kbit/s by using two cable pairs. The primary purpose of this study is to estimate the range limits for candidate transmission schemes considering line installation conditions, and to determine the most promising transmission scheme and its feasibility given the environment of NTT's local networks. Pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) and quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) transmission schemes are compared for HDSL implementation. It is shown that 2B1Q-PAM and 16-QAM generally achieve better performance than the more complicated PAM and QAM given the presence intra-system crosstalk interference (interference between identical transmission systems). The range limits determined by inter-system crosstalk interference (interference between different transmission systems) with basic rate access (BRA) implementing a burst-mode transmission method are also estimated. This paper concludes that 2B1Q-PAM achieves the best overall performance in NTT's local networks. A feasibility study of 192-6144 kbit/s transmission is also described.

A timing-driven global routing algorithm is proposed that directly models the path-based timing constraints. By keeping track of the critical path delay and channel densities, and using novel heuristic criteria, it can select routing paths that minimize area as well as satisfy the timing constraints. Using bipolar-specific features, this router can be used to design LSI chips that handle signals with speeds greater that a gigabit per second. Experimental results shows an average delay improvement of 17.6%.

A novel nonlinear directional coupler consisting of tapered and uniform waveguides with self-focusing or self-defocusing nonlinear material is proposed to improve all-optical switching characteristics. Its switching characteristics are analyzed by using a beam propagation method based on the Galerkin's finite element technique (FE-BPM), in which nonuniform sampling spacings along the transverse coordinate are adopted. It is presented that the tapered nonlinear directional coupler shows fairly distinct 'high' and 'low' states of output power with steep transition versus input power. This property is discussed in comparison with conventional nonlinear directional couplers consisting of uniform symmetric and uniform asymmetric coupled waveguides. In addition, the effects of loss on the characteristics of tapered nonlinear directional coupler are examined.

This paper presents a new line extraction method to capture vectors based on contours and skeletons from line drawing raster images in which the lines are touched by characters or other lines. Conventionally, two line extraction methods have generally been used. One is a thinning method. The other is a medial line extraction method based on parallel pairs of contours. The thinning method tends to distort the extracted lines, especially at intersections and corners. On the other hand, the medial line extraction method has a poor capability as regards capturing correct lines at intersections. Contours are able to maintain edge shapes well, while skeletons preserve topological features; thus, a combination of these features effectively leads to the best fitting line. In the proposed method, the line which best fits the original image is selected from among various candidate lines. The candidates are created from several merged short skeleton fragments located between pairs of short contour fragments. The method is also extended to circular arc fitting. Experimental results show that the proposed line fitting method is effective.

The issue about document structure recognition and document understanding is today one of interesting subjects from a viewpoint of practical applications. The research objective is to extract the meaningful data from document images interpretatively and also classify them as the predefined item data automatically. In comparison with the traditional image-processing-based approaches, the knowledge-based approaches, which make use of various knowledge in order to interpret structural/constructive features of documents, have been currently investigated as more flexible and applicable methods. In this paper, we propose a totally integrated paradigm for understanding table-form documents from a viewpoint of the architectural framework.

A new efficient waveform relaxation technique based on dynamically overlapped partitioning scheme is presented. This overlapped partitioning method enables the application of waveform relaxation technique to bipolar VLSI circuits. Instead of fixed overlapping, we select the depth of overlapping dynamically based on the sensitivity criteria. By minimizing the overlapped area, we could reduce the additional computational overhead which results from overlapping the partitions. This overlapped waveform relaxation method has better convergence properties due to smaller error introduced at each step compared with standard relaxation techniques. When overlapped partitioning is used in the case of digital circuits, the waveforms obtained after first iteration are nearly accurate. Therefore, by using these waveforms as initial guess waveforms for the second iterations we can reduce Newton-Raphson iterations at each time point.

Among various photonic switching technologies, photonic frequency division multiplexing technology is most promising. In this paper a novel photonic FDM (Frequency Division Multiplexing) system is proposed. The proposed system consists of n (multiplicity of frequencies) independent subnetworks, each of which is identified by a specific frequency, and of which each network topology is identical. When a connection is required by a terminal, the network selects a subnetwork that can afford it, and assigns a frequency representing the selected subnetwork to the terminal. This system eliminates frequency converting devices and traffic concentration equipment, which will reduce the size and cost of the system. A very small sized switching system of very large capacity will be easily realized. In this paper, first we will address the basic concept of the proposed system, and then discuss some technical problems and their solutions concerning network configuration, switch matrix structure, subscriber network configuration, control scheme and frequency multiplicity. Some experimental results are also mentioned.

The power transfer characteristics of a symmetric nonlinear directional coupler (NLDC) are analyzed rigorously using the beam propagation method based on the finite difference scheme. The NLDC consists of two linear waveguides separated by a Kerr-like nonlinear gap layer. The change of nonlinear refractive index along the coupler is precisely evaluated by making use of the second-order iteration procedure with respect to a small propagation length. For the incidence of TE0 mode of the isolated linear waveguide, the highly accurate numerical results are obtained for the behavior of power transfer, and the coupling length and critical power for optical switching. The dependencies of the coupling length and critical power on the width of the gap layer and the input power levels are discussed, compared with those predicted by the coupled-mode approximations.

This paper proposes a new subscriber distribution method called FTTA (Fiber To The Area), which uses millimeter-wave radio band to connect subscribers with base station and optical fiber to connect base station with control station in order to obtain broad-band transmission. Usually two main causes of signal degradation, i.e., rainfall attenuation on radio channel and intermodulation distortion on optical channel are considered in this system. Taking into considerations of these two factors, we analyze the available capacity of FTTA system for various 22nQAM modulation levels. The analysis clarifies that there exists an optimum modulation level that can maxize the available capacity, and AGC circuit in the base station is useful to compensate the rainfall attenuation. It is shown that 18.0Gbps is available under the optimum modulation method of the 64QAM with AGC and 12.0Gbps under the 16QAM without AGC when 20 carriers are used.

This paper presents a description and an analysis of three standard" hardware description languages (HDLs): Very High Speed Integrated Circuit HDL (VHDL), Verilog-HDL, and Unified Design Language for Integrated Circuits (UDL/I), Kyoto University Education Chip (KUE-Chip) is used as a design benchmark to compare the features and syntax of VHDL, Verilog-HDL, and UDL/I.

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.

A new type of synchronous code division multiple access (S/CDMA) scheme for optical subscriber systems is reported. Passive channel multiplexing is promising for optical subscriber systems because it realizes high system performance at low cost. Unfortunately, passive channel multiplexing suffers from phase differences among the upstream channels, and these differences prevent the usage of traditional synchronous CDMA techniques that reduce cross channel interference. This paper proposes the new technique of block-interleaving & redundancy code sequences to overcome this problem. This combination realizes S/CDMA even in the presence of phase differences and eliminates cross channel interference completely. Therefore, in an optical subscriber system using the new type S/CDMA, the bit error rate performance is independent of phase difference levels and the number of multiplexed channels.

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.

An attempt to apply neural networks to the acoustic diagnosis for the reciprocating compressor is described. The proposed neural network, Hybrid Neural Network (HNN), is composed of two multi-layered neural networks, an Acoustic Feature Extraction Network (AFEN) and a Fault Discrimination Network (FDN). The AFEN has multi-layers and the number of units in the middle hidden layer is smaller than the others. The input patterns of the AFEN are the logarithmic power spectra. In the AFEN, the error back propagation method is applied as the learning algorithm and the target patterns for the output layer are the same as the input patterns. After the learning, the hidden layer acquires the compressed input information. The architecture of the AFEN appropriate for the acoustic diagnosis is examined. This includes the determination of the form of the activation function in the output layer, the number of hidden layers and the numbers of units in the hidden layers. The FDN is composed of three layers and the learning algorithm is the same as the AFEN. The appropriate number of units in the hidden layer of the FDN is examined. The input patterns of the FDN are fed from the output of the hidden layer in the learned AFEN. The task of the HNN is to discriminate the types of faults in the compressor's two elements, the valve plate and the valve spring. The performance of the FDN are compared between the different inputs; the output of the hidden layer in the AFEN, the conventional cepstral coefficients and the filterbank's outputs. Furthermore, the FDN itself is compared to the conventional pattern recognition technique based on the feature vector distance, the Euclid distance measure, where the input is taken from the AFEN. The obtained results show that the discrimination accuracy with the HNN is better than that with the other combination of the discrimination method and its input. The output criteria of network for practical use is also discussed. The discrimination accuracy with this criteria is 85.4% and there is no case which mistakes the fault condition for the normal condition. These results suggest that the proposed decision network is effective for the acoustic diagnosis.

This paper's main objective is to analyze several procedures which select the model g among a set G of stochastic models to minimize the value of an information criterion in the form of L(g)H[g](zn)+(k(g)/2)c(n), where zn is the n observed data emitted by an information source θ which consists of the model gθ∈G and k(gθ) mutually independent stochastic parameters in the model gθ∈G, H[g](zn) is (-1) (the maximum log likelihood value of the data zn with respect to a model g∈G), and c(n) is a predetermined function (penalty function) of n which controls the amount of penalty for increasing the model size. The result is focused on specific performances when the information criteria are applied to the framework of so-called state decomposition. Especially, upper bounds are derived of the following two performance measures for each penalty function c(n): the error probability of the model selection, and the average Kullback-Leibler information between the true information source and the estimated information source.

The generation mechanism for excess intensity noise due to optical feedback is analyzed theoretically and experimentally. Modal rate equations under the weakly coupled condition with external feedback are derived to include the mode competition phenomena in DFB and Fabry-Perot lasers. We found that the sensitivity of the external feedback strongly depends on design parameters of structure, such as the coupling constant of the corrugation, the facet reflection and the phase relation between the corrugation and the facet. A DFB laser whose oscillating wavelength is well adjusted to Bragg wavelength through insertion of a phase adjustment region becomes less sensitive to external optical feedback than a Fabry-Perot laser, but other types of DFB lasers revealing a stop band are more sensitive than the Fabry-Perot laser.

When a new fabrication process is set up, especially in layout design for functional cells, of practical importance is how to make the best use of layout resources so far accumulated in old fabrication processes. Usually layout data of each element are expressed mostly in terms of positional coordinate values, and hence it is extremely tedious to modify them at every change of design rules for a new fabrication technology. To cope with this difficulty, the present paper describes an automatic recycling scheme for layout resources accumulated dedicatedly for functional cell generation. The main subject of this scheme is to transform given layout data into a layout description format expressed in layout parameters. Once layout data are parameterized, layout patterns of functional cells can be reconstructed simply by tuning up parameters in accordance with a new set of design rules. A part of implementation results are also shown.