In modern CMOS digital design, the noise immunity has come to have an almost equal importance to the power consumption. In the last decade, many low power design schemes have been presented. However, no one can simply judge which one is the best from the noise immunity point of view. In this paper, we investigate the noise immunity of the static CMOS low power design schemes in terms of logic and delay errors caused by different kinds of noise existing in the static CMOS digital circuits. To fulfill the aims of the paper, first a model representing the different sources of noise in deep submicron design is presented. Then the model is applied to the most famous low power design schemes to find out the most robust one with regard to noise. Our results show the advantages of the dual threshold voltage scheme over other schemes from the noise immunity point of view. Moreover, it indicates that noise should be carefully taken into account when designing low power circuits; otherwise circuit performance would be unexpected. The study is carried out on three circuits; each is designed in five different schemes. The analysis is done using HSPICE, assuming 0.18 µm CMOS technology.

In this paper, a new dimming algorithm for the electronic ballast of an electrodeless fluorescent lamp is proposed. The proposed method is based on the burst dimming method that controls the duty ratio for the two switches of the electronic ballast by intermittently modulated pulse signal. This paper presents a fully digital circuit using an erasable programmable logic device (EPLD). To verify the validity of the proposed method, the implemented control circuit was applied to the electronic ballast for a 100 W electrodeless fluorescent lamp. As a result, a dimming method with a wide illumination range from 5 to 100% was obtained.

Immune system protects living body from various attacks by foreign invades. Based on the immune response principles, we propose an improved lateral interaction artificial immune system model in this paper. Considering that the different epitopes on the surface of antigen can be recognized by a set of different paratopes expressed on the surface of immune cells, we build a neighborhood set that consists of immune cells with different affinities to a certain input antigen. We update all the weights of the immune cells located in neighborhood set according to their affinities. Simulations on noisy pattern recognition illustrate that the proposed artificial immune system model has stronger noise tolerance ability and is more effective at recognizing noisy patterns than that of our previous models.

We have examined the improvement of filter properties using sapphire and nickel rod trimmers. We measured the resonance frequency of the hairpin resonator in the filter, and examined the difference between the simulated and measured values. When the measured resonance frequency was lower than the simulated frequency, we used a nickel trimmer to increase the resonance frequency, and when high, a sapphire trimmer to decrease the frequency. Our results showed that the use of sapphire and nickel rod trimmers is effective in improving the frequency response of HTS bandpass filters.

In this paper, we propose a framework for virtual reality, I2-NEXT, which enables users to interact with virtual objects by tangible objects in immersive networked virtual environment. The primary goal of this framework is to support rapid development of immersive and interactive virtual reality systems as well as various types of user interfaces. The proposed framework consists of user interface for interactions, immersive virtual environment, and networking interface. In this framework, we adopt several design patterns to guarantee that either developers or users (artists) can easily implement their VR applications without strong knowledge of VR techniques such as programming, libraries etc. One of the key features of this framework is the presence of the device module which supports a natural user interaction in a virtual environment. For example, the proposed framework provides users with tangible objects so that the users are able to manipulate virtual objects by touching real objects. The proposed framework also supports large scale stereoscopic display through clustering technique. To realize the effectiveness of the proposed framework, we have been developing an application for digital heritage reconstruction. Having been through development of the system, we believe that virtual reality technology is one of the promising technologies which enable users to experience realities in a digital space. Detailed explanations of each component and system architecture are presented.

In this paper, we demonstrate an immersive and interactive broadcasting production system with a new haptically enhanced multimedia broadcasting chain. The system adapts Augmented Reality (AR) techniques, which merges captured videos and virtual 3D media seamlessly through multimedia streaming technology, and haptic interaction technology in near real-time. In this system, viewers at the haptic multimedia client can interact with AR broadcasting production transmitted via communication network. We demonstrate two test applications, which show that the addition of AR- and haptic-interaction to the conventional audio-visual contents can improve immersiveness and interactivity of viewers with rich contents service.

This paper presents a computational approach to the imaging of a partially immersed conducting cylinder. Both cubic-spline method and trigonometric series for shape description are used and compared. Based on the boundary condition and the recorded scattered field, a set of nonlinear integral equations is derived and the imaging problem is reformulated into an optimization problem. The genetic algorithm is employed to find out the global extreme solution of the object function. It is found that the shape described by Fourier series can be reconstructed by cubic-spline. In the opposite case, the shape described by cubic-spline and reconstructed by Fourier series expansion will fail. Even when the initial guess is far away from the exact one, the cubic-spline expansion and genetic algorithm can avoid the local extreme and converge to a global extreme solution. Numerical results are given to show that the shape description by using cubic-spline method is much better than that by the Fourier series. In addition, the effect of Gaussian noise on the reconstruction is investigated.

The four-septum transverse electromagnetic (TEM) cell is like the traditional TEM cell but has four plate-like septa in the internal space. A slowly rotating field can be easily generated in the four-septum TEM cell, thus radiated immunity/susceptibility characteristics of an EUT under arbitrary specific polarizations can be measured without rearranging the test setup. A design approach for the four-septum TEM cell is discussed in this paper. The characteristics of the cell are analyzed based on the telegrapher's equation and decomposition of the transmission mode into four independent modes. Then a design approach is given based on the analytical results. A prototype of the four-septum TEM cell based on the design is constructed and the characteristics of the prototype cell are experimentally evaluated. The validity and effectiveness of the design approach are confirmed.

We study radiated RF (radio-frequency) electromagnetic field immunity test system for wireless LAN system by using opened PW (Parallel Wired) cell, in which metal cover is removed. Leakage electric field at distance of 160 cm from the opened PW cell decreases until 30 dB, and then does not affect to operation of the AP (Access Point) composed of the wireless LAN system that communicates EUT (Equipment Under Test) installed in the PW cell. NSA (Normalized Site Attenuation) between EUT and AP changes only several dB by inserting the PW cell, and then it can be concluded that the effect of PW cell for radio wave property of wireless communication system is negligible small. In addition, we try to measure dependencies of impressing level of disturbance wave on a throughput of wireless LAN systems IEEE802.11b and IEEE802.11g. As a result, it is confirmed that the radiated RF electromagnetic field immunity test system for wireless LAN system can be composed by using the opened PW cell without affecting from impressing disturbance wave.

A new generation method of rotating electromagnetic fields (rotating-EM fields) for radio frequency (RF) radiated immunity/susceptibility test and its basic characteristics are described. Two different double-side-band suppressed-carrier (DSB-SC) signals are required for generating the slowly rotating-EM field for the immunity/susceptibility test. These DSB-SC signals are generated by a DSB-SC-signal generator based on the new concept which consists of voltage-variable attenuators, bi-phase switches, a direct-digital synthesizer and a micro processor. Using the DSB-SC-signal generator, the DSB-SC signal of arbitrary RF frequency can be generated more easily than the conventional system. In this paper, the principle of the DSB-SC signal generator and the basic characteristics of the DSB-SC signals generated by the generator are clarified. The measured basic characteristics of the rotating-EM field generated using the new concept are shown and it is confirmed that the field can be applied for the RF immunity/susceptibility test. In addition, the susceptibility test of an equipment under test is made as an example, the validity of our proposed system is established.

We have studied on the interference test method from IEEE802.11b to IEEE802.11g as an interference source with wide band spectrum by using the opened PW cell, and it is clear that the throughput of IEEE802.11g for only IEEE802.11b Ch.4 signal wave as the interference wave, whose frequency spectrum is almost not overlapping with IEEE802.11g, is almost not interfered by IEEE802.11b, but the throughputs for all other channels from Ch.5 to Ch.8 as the interference wave are interfered and decrease to below 2 Mbps. By comparing with conventional radiated RF electromagnetic field immunity test specified by IEC 61000-4-3, it is clear that the conventional immunity test cannot simulate the interference phenomena from IEEE802.11b to IEEE802.11g. Next, we tried to perform the interference test of the Bluetooth against the wireless LAN IEEE 802.11b as a disturbance source. As a result, it is revealed that the throughput of Bluetooth decreases according to increasing the interference wave level, and communication between EUT (slave) and the master of Bluetooth is interrupted for the interference wave corresponding to Ch.7 (244210 MHz). However, in the conventional immunity test specified by IEC 61000-4-3, the throughput of the Bluetooth does not affect for the all disturbance waves corresponding to the center frequency of bandwidth on the cannel of IEEE802.11b. Therefore, it is needed for the wireless LAN and the Bluetooth to develop new radiated immunity test method, which has the disturbance wave with wide bandwidth.

About 20-45% of the total power in any VLSI circuit is consumed by the clocking system and 90% of this power consumption is spent by flip-flops. Wider datapaths, deeper pipelines, and increasing number of registers in modern processors have underscored the importance of the flip-flops. As a result, the flip-flops' performance metrics such as, power, delay, and power delay product will become a crucial factor in overall performance of processors. As technology is moving into deep submicron level, noise immunity and noise generated by any component in a digital device is also becoming a vital factor in circuit design. This paper studies various flip-flop designs for their noise immunity and noise generation metrics. It categorizes the flip-flops and reports extensive simulation results for best representative examples including the newly proposed one from the group (a patent is filed for this flip-flop). It compares power, delay, power delay product, number of transistors, number of clocked transistors, noise immunity, and noise generation for flip-flops that are reported as ones with the best performances in the literature.

We demonstrated a vertically coupled microring resonator (VCMRR) filter as an Add/Drop wavelength filter. However, the accuracy of center wavelength was not sufficiently high for dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) systems. Thus, a UV trimming technique using a SiN (n=2.01 at λ=1.55 µm) ring core was previously developed. Although a wide center wavelength trimming range of -12.1 nm and the long-term stability of center wavelength were realized, the core size required for single-mode propagation was too small for fabrication using a photolithography process. Therefore in this study, we introduced SiON as the microring core to relax the single-mode condition of core size. We discovered a large UV sensitivity of SiON film formed by a PECVD method, and a wide range UV trimming of microring resonator of -10.5 nm was demonstrated using this phenomenon.

Many immersive displays developed in previous researches are strongly influenced by the design concept of the CAVE, which is the origin of the immersive displays. In the view of human-scale interactive system for virtual environment (VE), the existing immersive systems are not enough to use the potential of a human sense further extent. The displays require more complicated structure for flexible extension, and are more restrictive to user's movement. Therefore we propose a novel multi-projector display for immersive VE with haptic interface for more flexible and dynamic interaction. The display part of our system named "D-vision" has a hybrid curved screen which consist of compound prototype with flat and curve screen. This renders images seamlessly in real time, and generates high-quality stereovision by PC cluster and two-pass technology. Furthermore a human-scale string-based haptic device will integrate with the D-vision for more interactive and immersive VE. In this paper, we show an overview of the D-vision and technologies used for the human-scale haptic interface.

This paper presents the analysis of the stopping maneuver of the human driver by using a new three-dimensional driving simulator that uses CAVE, which provides stereoscopic immersive vision. First of all, the difference in the driving behavior between 3D and 2D virtual environments is investigated. Secondly, a GMDH is applied to the measured data in order to build a mathematical model of driving behavior. From the obtained model, it is found that the acceleration information has less importance in stopping maneuver under the 2D and 3D environments.

Magnetic immunoassays utilizing magnetic marker and high Tc superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) have been performed. In this magnetic method, binding-reaction between an antigen and its antibody is detected by measuring the magnetic field from the magnetic marker. First, we discuss the magnetic property of the marker, and show that Fe3O4 particles with diameter of 25 nm can be used for remanence measurement. We also show a design of the SQUID for sensitive detection of the magnetic signal from the marker. Next, we developed a measurement system utilizing the SQUID and a reaction chamber with very low magnetic contamination. Finally, we conducted an experiment on the detection of the biological materials called IL8 and IgE. At present, a few atto-mol of IL8 and IgE has been detected, which shows the high sensitivity of the present method.

This paper proposes a simple control method to improve the ignition behavior of cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) in digital-dimming control. Due to restriking manipulation in digital-dimming mode, the lamp life of CCFL is reduced substantially. To extend the lamp life, we realize a digital-dimming controller with soft-starting technique (DDC-SST) to reduce the high ignition voltage and to eliminate the ignition current spike. The half-bridge resonant inverter is employed in the presented backlight system. Complete analysis and design considerations are discussed in detail in this paper. Simulation and experimental results are close to the theoretical prediction. The overall efficiency of the system achieved at the rated power is over 91%. The ignition voltage is reduced about 30% without any lamp current spike occurred under digital-dimming operation.

Direct manipulation by hand is an intuitive and simple way of positioning objects in an immersive virtual environment. However, this technique is not suitable for making precise adjustments to virtual objects in an immersive environment because it is difficult to hold a hand unsupported in midair and to then release an object at a fixed point. We therefore propose an alternative technique using a virtual 3D gearbox widget that we have designed, which enables users to adjust values precisely. We tested the technique in a usability study along with the use of hand manipulation and a slider. The results showed that the gearbox was the best of the three techniques for precise adjustment of small targets, in terms of both performance data and subject preference.

It is generally believed that one major function of the immune system is helping to protect multicellular organisms from foreign pathogens, especially replicating pathogens such as viruses, bacteria and parasites. The relevant events in the immune system are not only the molecules, but also their interactions. The immune cells can respond either positively or negatively to the recognition signal. A positive response would result in cell proliferation, activation and antibody secretion, while a negative response would lead to tolerance and suppression. Depending upon these immune mechanisms, an immune network model (here, we call it the binary immune network) based on the biological immune response network was proposed in our previous work. However, there are some problems like that input and memory were all binary and it did not consider the antigen diversity of immune system. To improve these problems, in this paper we propose a fuzzy immune network model by considering the antigen diversity of immune system that is the most important property to be exhibited in the immune system. As an application, the proposed fuzzy immune network is applied to pattern recognition problem. Computer simulations illustrate that the proposed fuzzy immune network model not only can improve the problems existing in the binary immune network but also is capable of clustering arbitrary sequences of large-scale analog input patterns into stable recognition categories.

Low-loss optical coupling structures between photonic crystal waveguides and channel waveguides were investigated. It was emphasized that impedance matching of guided modes of those waveguides, as well as field-profile matching, was essential to achieving the low-loss optical coupling. We developed an impedance matching theory for Bloch waves, and applied it to designing the low-loss optical coupling structures. It was demonstrated that the optical coupling loss between a photonic crystal waveguide and a Si-channel waveguide was reduced to as low as 0.7 dB by introducing an interface structure for impedance matching between the two waveguides.