This paper designs recursive least-squares fixed-point smoother and filter, which use the observed value, the probability that the signal exists, and the covariance information relevant to the signal and observation noises, on the estimation problem associated with the uncertain observations in linear continuous-time systems.

A novel method of multichannel surface EMG processing has been developed to compensate for the distortion in bipolar surface EMG signals due to the movement of innervation zones. The distortion of bipolar surface EMG signals was mathematically described as a filtering function. A compensating technique for such distorted bipolar surface EMG signals was developed for the brachial biceps during dynamic contractions in which the muscle length and tension change. The technique is based on multichannel surface EMG measurement, a method for estimating the movement of an innervation zone, and the inverse filtering technique. As a result, the distorted EMG signals were compensated and transformed into nearly identical waveforms, independent of the movement of the innervation zone.

Using fundamental device and circuits, we have realized three functions required for synaptic connections in self-organizing neural networks: long term memory of synaptic weights, fixed total amount of synaptic weights in a neuron, and lateral inhibition. The first two functions have been condensed into an optical adaptive device and circuits with floating gates. Lateral inhibition has been realized by a winner-take-all circuit and a following lateral excitatory connection circuit. We have fabricated these devices and circuits using CMOS technology and confirmed the three functions. In addition, topological mapping, which is essential for feature extraction, has been formed in a primitive network constructed with the fundamental device and circuits.

We thought that multiple skeletons were inherent in an ordinary three-dimensional object. A thinning method is developed to extract multiple skeletons using 333 templates for boundary deletion based on the hit or miss transformation and 222 templates for checking one voxel thickness. We prepared twelve sets of deleting templates consisting of total 194 templates and 72 one voxel checking templates. One repetitive iteration using one sequential use of the template sets extracts one skeleton. Some of the skeletons thus obtained are identical; however, multiple independent skeletons are extracted by this method. These skeletons fulfill the well-recognized three conditions for a skeleton. We extracted three skeletons from the cube, two from the space shuttle model and four from the L-shaped figure by Tsao and Fu. The digital medial skeleton, which is not otherwise extracted, is extracted by comparing the multiple skeletons with the digital medial-axis-like-figure. One of our skeletons for the cude agreed with the ideal medial axis. The locations of the gravity center of the multiple skeletons are compared with that of the original shape to evaluate how uniform or non-biased skeletons are extracted. For the L-shaped figure, one of our skeletons is found to be most desirable from the medial and uniform points of view.

The authors have studied the demagnetization phenomenon which is observed in a conventional CoCrTa/CoZrNb double-layered (DL) perpendicular recording medium. The authors have also investigated the effects of an in-plane hard magnetic layer in a triple-layered (TL) perpendicular recording medium. The in-plane hard magnetic underlayer is made of CoSm or CoCrTa/Cr and is laid under the CoZrNb soft magnetic layer. In the DL medium, a demagnetization phenomenon i.e. decrease of the readback signal, is observed when the CoCrTa layer has a strong perpendicular orientation and the CoZrNb underlayer has a low coercivity. The amount of the signal decrease depends strongly on the accumulated disk revolutions. This demagnetization is considered to be caused by fact that the recorded magnetization in the CoCrTa layer is reduced by the magnetic field generated from the domain walls in the CoZrNb layer, since the CoZrNb layer is very sensitive to a magnetic environment such as geo-magnetism and domain walls move as the disk rotates. On the other hand in the TL medium, the hard magnetic layer has an effect of pinning the magnetic domain in the CoZrNb layer, by which the demagnetization problem is successfully prevented. The hard magnetic layer remarkably reduces the domain walls in the CoZrNb layer and contributes to medium noise reduction. Thus the TL medium presents a higher SN ratio than DL medium.

We compared--for the same propagation conditions and parameters--the performances of distributed dynamic channel assignment (DDCA) strategies and the performance of fixed channel assignment (FCA). This comparison quantitatively showed the effects of DDCA strategies in increasing spectrum efficiency. It also showed that using DDCA with transmitter power control (TPC) increases the system capacity to 3 4 times what it is with FCA and to 1.4 1.8 times what it is when using DDCA without TPC. We also evaluated the blocking rate and the interference probability for the inside of a cell and found that these are generally much higher close to the cell border than they are near the base station.

A radial line slot antenna (RLSA) is a slotted waveguide planar array for the direct broadcast from satellite (DBS) subscriber antennas. A single-layered RLSA (SL-RLSA) is excited by a radially outward traveling wave. The antenna efficiency of more than 85% has already been realized. These antennas are designed on the assumption of perfectly rotationally symmetrical traveling wave excitation; the slot design is based upon the analysis of a slot pair on the rectangular waveguide model with periodic boundary walls. However, the slots perturb the inner field and the actual antenna operation is not perfectly symmetrical. This causes the efficiency reduction especially for very small size antenna. This paper presents a fundamental analysis of the inner field of the radial waveguide. It is impossible to analyze all the slot pairs in the aperture as it is and only the slots in the inner few turns are considered since these provide dominant perturbation. The calculated results are verified by the experiments and reasonable agreement is demonstrated. Some design policies are suggested for enhancing the rotational symmetry.

A W-graph is a partially known graph which contains wild-components. A wild-component is an incompletely defined connected subgraph having p vertices and p-1 unspecified edges. The informations we know on a wild-component are which has a vertex set and between any two vertices there is one and only one path. In this paper, we discuss the properties of circuits in a W-graph (called W-circuits). Although a W-graph has unspecified edges, we can obtain some important properties of W-circuits. We show that the W-ring sum of W-circuits is also a W-circuit in the same W-graph. The following (1) and (2) are proved: (1) A W-circuit Ci of a W-graph can be transformed into either a circuit or an edge disjoint union of circuits, denoted by Ci*, of a graph derived from the W-graph, (2) if W-circuits C1, C2, , Cn are linearly independent, then C1*, C2*, , Cn* obtained in (1) are also linearly independent.

A stochastic system represented by an input-output model can be described by mainly two different types of state space representation. Corresponding to state space representations innovation models are examined. The relationship between both representations is made clear systematically. An easy transformation between them is presented. Zeros of innovation models are the same as those of an ARMA model which is stochastically equivalent to innovation models, and related to stable eigenvalues of generalized eigenvalue problem of matrix Riccati equation.

Plasma damage to gate oxide is studied using the test structures with various length antennas. It is shown that the plasma damage to gate oxide can be monitored quantitatively by measuring charge to breakdown (QBD). From the QBD measurements, it is confirmed that the degradation occurs in the duration of over-etching but not in the duration of main etching. The breakdown spots in gate oxide are detected by a photon emission method. The breakdown are caused by plasma damage at the LOCOS edge. A LOCOS structure plays an important role for the degradation by the plasma damage.

A speech coding scheme at 3.6 kbit/s has been proposed. The scheme is based on CELP (Code Excited Linear Prediction) with pitch synchronous innovation, which means even random codevectors as well as adaptive codevectors have pitch periodicity. The quality is comparable to 6.7 kbit/s VSELP coder for the Japanese cellular radio standard.

Among the many fabrication methods for oxide superconductor films, metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) is particularly suitable for industrial application because of its mass productivity and the low growth temperature. Therefore we have studied this technique using the horizontal cold wall furnace type MOCVD method to obtain high quality superconducting films. As the result, we have succeeded in fabricating YBa2Cu3Oy films which have high critical temperatures (over 80 K) under substrate temperatures as low as 700 without post-annealing. But, in the course of our experiments, it was found that the thicknesses of YBa2Cu3Oy films fabricated by MOCVD were not uniform. The cause of this non-uniformity is believed to be that the deposition rate exponentially falls off along the flow direction because of the decrease of the source gas concentration through the reaction. In this paper, this non-uniformity is analytically studied. It is shown that the deposition rate decrease can be controlled with a tapered inner tube, and that these theoretical results are in good agreement with the results of experiment. In addition, it is indicated that the superconducting property of the films has less dependence on substrate position as a result of the tapered inner tube.