In this paper, we report a new approach about parsing and searching problem for a given phonetic lattice. The approach is based on the Divide and Conquer (DC) strategy. By dividing the phonetic lattice, we first construct a PD-tree to represent this lattice, then, we parse through this PD-tree to identify the possible sentence which is supposed to be the speech utterance. Next, we propose a new search scheme called Downward Request (DR) search model to decrease the computation costs, and this search model gives us the optimal or N-best solutions. Experiments performed on Chinese speech recognition show us the good results.

A self-induced-transparent (SIT) system that takes advantage of morphology dependent resonances (MDR's) in a Mie-sized microsphere doped with a resonant material is proposed. The present system is doubly resonant: one has microscopic origin (the two-level system), while the other has macroscopic origin (the MDR). In this geometry, owing to the feedback action of MDR's, the pulse area can be much expanded, and thus the electric-field amplitude of the incident pulse can be reduced substantially compared with the conventional one-way SIT propagation. Theoretical results that incorporate dephasing due to structural imperfections are shown.

We are aming to develop a computer-based consultant system which helps novice computer users to achieve their task goals on computers through natural language dialogues. Our target is spoken Japanese. To develop effective methods for processing spoken Japanese, it is essential to analyze real dialogues and to find the characteristics of spoken Japanese. In this paper, we discuss the design problems associated with constructing a spoken dialogue database from the viewpoint of advisory dialogue collection, describe XMH (X-window-based electronic mail handling program) usage experiments made to collect advisory dialogues between novice XMH users and an expert consultant, and show the dialogue database we constructed from these dialogues. The main features of our database are as follows: (1) Our target dialogues were advisory ones. (2) The advisory dialogues were all related to the use of XMH that has a visual interface operated by a keyboard and a mouse. (3) The primary objective of the users was not to engage in dialogues but to achieve specific task goals using XMH. (4) Not only what the users said but also XMH operations performed by the users are included as dialogue elements. This kind of dialogue database is a very effective source for developing new methods for processing spoken language in multimodal consultant systems, and we have therefore made it available to the public. Based on our analysis of the database, we have already developed several effective methods such as a method for recognizing user's communicative intention from a transcript of spoken Japanese, and a method for controlling dialogues between a novice XMH user and the computer-based consultant system which we are developing. Also, we have proposed several response generation rules as the response strategy for the consultant system. We have developed an experimental consultant system by implementing the above methods and strategy.

We propose and fabricate n+-p+ double-gate SOI MOSFETs for which threshold voltage is controlled by interaction between the two gates. Devices have excellent short channel immunity, dispite a low channel doping concentration of 1015 cm-3, and enable us to design a threshold voltage below 0.3 V while maintaining an almost ideal subthreshold swing. We demonstrated 27 ps CMOS inverter delay with a gate length of 0.19 µm, which is, to our knowledge, the lowest delay for this gate length despite rather a thick 9 nm gate oxide. This high performance is a result of the low threshold voltage and negligible drain capacitance. We also showed theoretically that we can design a 0.1 µm gate length device with an ideal subthreshold swing, and that we can expect less than 10 ps inverter delay at a supply voltage of 1 V.

Two types of dynamic termination, latch-type and RC-type, are useful for low-power high-speed chip interconnection where the transmission line is terminated only if the signal is changed. The gate of the termination MOS in the latch-type is driven by a feedback inverter, and that in the RC-type is driven by a differentiating signal through the resistor and capacitor. The power dissipation is 13% for the latch-type, and 11% for the RC-type in a DC termination scheme, and the overshoot is 32% for the latch-type, and 16% for the RC-type in an open scheme, both at a signal amplitude of 2 V. The RC-type is superior for signal swing as low as a 1 V. On the other hand, RC termination requires large capacitance, and thus high power. Diode termination is not effective for a small swing because of the large ON voltage of diodes.

We propose a new concept of network dimensioning, which is based not only on the grade of service but also on profit. In traditional network dimensioning methodology, the number of circuits on links is designed under a cost-minimization concept with grade of service constraints. Recently, telecommunication markets have become very large and competitive; therefore, we believe that a profit viewpoint is now essential. However, it is difficult to calculate profit in almost all the dimensioning methods currently used, because they mainly employ peak-hour traffic data, while profit depends on all the hourly traffic data which contain both peak and off-peak data. In this paper, we propose using all the hourly traffic data in network dimensioning. From these data and telephone charges for each hour, revenues will be estimated. On the other hand, facility costs will be estimated from the number of circuits. Finally, we can estimate profit from the difference between revenues and facility costs. Focusing on both quality and profits in network dimensioning leads to more advanced quality management and quality control in telecommunications networks than with traditional methodology. This paper outlines a dimensioning method based on profit, and describes its properties, some applications of it, and summarizes further studies.

The Distributed Queue Dual Bus protocol (DQDB) has been adopted as the metropolitan area network (MAN) standard by IEEE802.6 committee. Recently, the unfairness problem in the DQDB protocol, by which head stations benefit, has been pointed out. Although a fair bandwidth distribution among the stations is obtained by adding the so-called bandwidth balancing mechanism into the DQDB protocol (DQDB/BB), the DQDB/BB protocol leaves a portion of the available bandwidth unused, and it takes a considerable amount of time to converge to fair channel assignment. In this study, to overcome the drawbacks in DQDB and DQDB/BB, we introduce a new media access control protocol which is based on assigning each station a level according to some traffic information such as the queueing length, delay time etc. Only the station with the highest level is allowed to transmit. Through the operation of level assignment or the choice of level function, the transmission can be easily controlled in a distributed manner. This protocol is simple compared with DQDB/BB and can be implemented in the DQDB architecture. The simulation results show that the new protocol obtains not only fair throughput regardless of the distance between the stations, but also fair delay performance. In addition, the new protocol can easily provide preempty priority service through level assignment. The new protocol converges to fair distribution of the channel in the time required for only one or two round-trips. This is very fast compared with the DQDB/BB protocol.

Carrier mobility is one of the most fundamental parameters in semiconductor device modeling, and many mobility models have already been reported. Especially for numerical device simulators, many local models which are functions of impurity concentration and electric field at each local point have been studied. However, concerning their dependence on impurity concentration including carrier screening effects, these models suffer parameter fitting procedure because of their empirical formulation. In such models, carrier screening effects to the Coulomb potential of ionized impurity are not sufficiently considered, although we can find some models which treat the effects as only a small perturbation term. According to the simple theory of Brooks and Herring, carrier screening effects should be included in strong combination with impurity concentration terms and cannot be treated as additional perturbations. Although Brooks-Herring theory is successful, it also suffers from overestimation of the mobility values at concentration higher than 1018 cm-3 which causes some other complicated phenomena. Therefore there have been no models which directly use Brooks-Herring formula. But it is true that such screening effects should be considered when carrier concentration differs from impurity concentration as in the inversion layers of MOSFETs. We have developed a new mobility model for its dependence of impurity and carrier concentration based on the theory of Brooks-Herring. Brooks-Herring theory is based on simple physics of screened Coulomb potential, and therefore makes the model to include effects of free carriers without an artifitial formula. For high doping regime, an additional term has been introduced in Brooks-Herring formula to correct the high doping effects. Except for this term, the model should be most appropriate for including the carrier screening effects upto the concentration of 1018 cm-3. The new model is implimented in a device simulator, and is applied to the evaluation of MOSFETs especially for the universal curves of inversion layer mobility. Moreoever, the applications to the depletion-type MOSFET confirm the validity of the screening effects. The purpose of this paper is to propose the new mobility model and to show its validity through these applications to MOSFETs.

This paper describes the fabrication of 0.1 µm gate length CMOS devices and analysis of delay time by circuit simulation. In order to reduce the gate resistance, TiN capped cobalt salicide technology is applied to the fabrication of 0.1 µm CMOS devices. Gate sheet resistance with a 0.1 µm gate is as low as 5 Ω/sq. Propagation delay times of 0.1 µm and 0.15 µm CMOS inverter are 21 ps and 36 ps. Simulated propagation delay time agreed fairly well with experimental results. For gate length over 0.15 µm, intrinsic delay in CMOS devices is the main dalay factor. This suggests that increasing current drivability is the most efficient way to improve propagation delay time. At 0.1 µm, each parasitic component and intrinsic delay have similar contributions on device speed due to the short channel effect. To improve delay time, we used rapid thermal annealing or a high dose LDD structure. With this structure, drain current increases by more than 1.3 times and simulation predicted a delay time of 28 ps is possible with 0.15 µm CMOS inverters.

B-ISDN telecommunication systems will require signal processing speeds up to 600 Mbps or more. We must therefore consider the affects of signal reflection, signal attenuation, time dalay, and so on when designing these systems. The higher the signal speed, the larger the electrical noise induced around the connector, especially in the plated through holes (PTHs) area. This paper presents the results of our investigation focused on connector mounting configurations in the signal transmission line, especially whether or not signals transmit through the PTH in a printed circuit board (PCB). How the signal reflection characteristics depend upon transmission line configurations are discussed and experimental results and simulation analyses for a transmission line system using a small miniature A-type (SMA) connector as an example are performed. It is suggested that designs for future high-speed signal transmission circuits take into account the PTH diameter and/or the PTH pitch conditions, values for which can be determined from simulation analysis.

Self-aligned InP/InGaAs heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) were fabricated with emitter electrodes of 12, 22, 25, and 220 µm2 on the same wafer to investigate the influence of lateral scaling on device performance. DC characterization of these devices showed that InP/InGaAs HBTs are less subject to the emitter-size effect than GaAs-based HBTs. Common-emitter current gain β of the smallest 12-µm2 transistor was approximately 60 which is high enough for practical use. High-frequency characteristics of the transistors were almost the same in spite of the large difference in device size. Unity current-gain cutoff frequency fT of the smallest 12-µm2 transistor was as high as 163 GHz at a collector current of 2.3 mA, which ranks with the fT176 GHz achieved by the largest 220-µm2 transistor at a collector current of 45 mA. The smallest device also showed an excellent high-speed performance of fT100 GHz at submilliampere collector currents of Ic0.6 mA. The results indicate that small-lateral-dimension InP/InGaAs HBTs are applicable to high-speed ICs with low power dissipation.

We define a new framework for rewriting graphs, called a formal graph system (FGS), which is a logic program having hypergraphs instead of terms in first-order logic. We first prove that a class of graphs is generated by a hyperedge replacement grammar if and only if it is defined by an FGS of a special form called a regular FGS. In the same way as logic programs, we can define a refutation tree for an FGS. The classes of TTSP graphs and outerplanar graphs are definable by regular FGSs. Then, we consider the problem of constructing a refutation tree of a graph for these FGSs. For the FGS defining TTSP graphs, we present a refutation tree algorithm of O(log2nlogm) time with O(nm) processors on an EREW PRAM. For the FGS defining outerplanar graphs, we show that the refutation tree problem can be solved in O(log2n) time with O(nm) processors on an EREW PRAM. Here, n and m are the numbers of vertices and edges of an input graph, respectively.

An excitation signal for a synthesis filter plays an important role in producing high quality speech at a low bit rate. This paper presents a new efficient excitation model, Adaptive Density Pulse (ADP) , for low bit-rate speech coding. This ADP is a pulse train whose density (spacing interval) is constant within a subframe but can be varied subframe by subframe. First, the ADP excitation signal is defined. A procedure for finding the optimal ADP excitation is presented. Some results on investigating the effects of the ADP parameters on the synthesized speech quality are discussed. ADP excitation is introduced to the CELP (Code Excited Linear Prediction) coding method to improve speech quality at bit rates around 4 kbps. A CELP coder with an ADP (ADP-CELP) is described. ADP excitation makes it possible for the CELP coder to follow transient portions of speech signals. Also ADP excitation can reduce computational complexity in selecting the best excitation from a codebook, which has been the primary drawback of CELP. The number of multiplications can be reduced to the order of 1/D2 by utilizing the sparseness of ADP excitation, where D is the pulse interval. The authors evaluated the speech quality of a 4 kbps ADP-CELP coder by computer simulation. ADP excitation improved the performance of conventional CELP in segmental SNR.

A permutation cipher scheme using polynomials over a field is presented. A permutation as well as substitution plays a major role in almost all conventional cryptosystems. But the security of the permutation depends on how symbols are permuted. This paper proposes the use of polynomials for the permutation and show that the scheme satisfies the following security criteria. (1) There are enough encryption keys to defend exhaustive attacks. (2) The permutation moves almost all samples into places which are different from the original places. (3) Most samples are shifted differently by different permutations. The permutation cipher scheme could be regarded as a scheme based on Reed-Solomon codes. The information symbols of the codes compose a key of the permutation cipher scheme.

A conventional anode coupled plasma etching process has been developed to etch 300 µm-deep cavities and 600 µm-through holes with nearly vertical sidewalls into single crystal silicon. An optimized SF6/O2 gas mixture results in a nearly vertical etching profile. A silicon wafer was fabricated with a large number of cavities and through holes with less than 1 percent uniformity. It was also experimentally confirmed that this process can be used to etch vertical cavities and through holes in single-crystal silicon with any orientation. This process has the advantage of unlimited etching depth and etching patterns. Advantages in mechanical strength are obtained because a micro-curve is formed at the bottom edge of the cavities. This etching process developed on a conventional plasma etching system was utilized to fabricate a torsional vibrator that consists of single-crystal silicon and Pyrex glass.

Laser diodes for optical interconnections are ideally high speed, work over a wide temperature range, and are simple to bias. This paper reports high bit-rate modulation with nearly zero bias with very low threshold 1.3µm-wavelength laser diodes over a wide temperature range. At the high temperature of 80, lasing delay was 165 ps with nearly zero bias. We demonstrated 2.5 Gbit/s modulation over a wide temperature range. Eye opening was over 34% of one time slot.

Wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) optical switching networks are one of most attractive technologies in optical interconnections. By combining with time-division multiplexing (TDM) and space-division multiplexing (SDM) technologies, remarkably high-throughput interconnections may be accomplished. In this paper, we propose WDM switching networks with time-division multiplexed optical signals by using free-space optics. We also propose novel WDM interconnections, including multiple-wavelength light-sources, optical fibers and wavelength-selectable detectors. We successfully confirmed basic principles for the WDM interconnections.

This paper describes a method of coding image sequences based on global/local motion information. The suggested method initially estimates global motion parameters and segments a target region from a given image. Then we coded background and target region by assigning more bits to the target region and less bits to background in order to reconstruct the target region with high quality. Simulations show that the suggested algorithm has better result than the existing methods, especially in the circumstances where background changes and target region is small enough compared with that of background.

Telecommunications management is essentially an aggregation of a wide range of activities, including operations and management (O & M) of telecommunications services and customers as well as the network and network elements. During the period of rapid growth in telecommunications, the highest priority was to meet increasing market demand and to construct a telecommunications network infrastructure. Therefore, research and development in telecommunications management were subordinated to the evolution of telecommunications services and systems. Recently, customers have been demanding higher quality services, as a variety of new, advanced services have been introduced. This has led to the need to integrate telecommunications services and O & M services. This paper first reviews the history of the development of telecommunications O & M in parallel with the progress of telecommunications in Japan and clarifies specific features in each step of this progress. This analysis identifies urgent problems and their solutions. The results suggests that telecommunications O & M and O & M services should be considered as a key to making future services possible and to the value of those services in a multi-media telecommunications services environment. Based on these studies, the future direction of O & M is then shown, focusing on cooperative O & M involving the customer in the multi-media, multidomain telecommunications environment.

Graph unification is doubtlessly the most expensive process in unification-based grammar parsing since it takes the vast majority of the total parsing time of natural language sentences. A parsing time overload in unification consists in that, in general, no less than 60% of the graph unifications performed actually fail. Thus one way to achieve unification time speed-up is focusing on an efficient, fast way to deal with such unification failures. In this paper, a process, prior to unification itself, capable of filtering or stopping a considerably high percentage of graphs that would fail unification is proposed. This unification-filtering process consists of comparison of signatures that correspond to each one of the graphs to be unified. Unification-filter (hereafter UF) is capable of stopping around 87% of the non-unifiable graphs before unification itself takes place. UF takes significantly less time to detect graphs that do not unify and discard them than it would take to unification to fail the attempt to unify the same graphs. As a result of using UF, unification is performed in an around 71% of the time for the fastest known unification algorithm.