In order to estimate elasticity distribution of living soft tissue by ultrasonic pulse-echo method, we developed an algorithm by which we estimate 2-D displacement vector field from two successive rf echo data frames. The algorithm estimates a displacement vector iteratively by matching the phase characteristics of the local regions of two data frames. The estimation process is composed of coarse one and the fine one. In the coarse estimation process, the displacement is estimated by detecting the peak of the 2-D cross-correlation function. In the fine process, the displacement is estimated iteratively by shifting the 2nd frame data so that the phase characteristics matches with that of the 1st frame data. In each iterative step of both processes, the estimated displacement vector field is spatially smoothed. This proposed algorithm exhibits excellent performance in obtaining accurate and smooth distribution of displacement vector which is required to obtain strain distribution and finally shear modulus distribution. We conducted an experiment on an agar phantom which has inhomogeneous shear modulus distribution. Using the proposed method, we obtained 2-D displacement field with reasonable accuracy. We reconstructed a relative shear modulus map using axial strain assuming 1-D stress condition. The reconstructed map using the calculated axial strain through 2-D displacement estimation algorithm was satisfactory, and was clearly superior to the one through 1-D displacement estimation algorithm. The proposed 2-D displacement field estimation algorithm seems to be a versatile and powerful tool to measure strain distribution for the purpose of tissue elasticity estimation under various deformation conditions.

A new motion field segmentation algorithm under the 8-parameters motion model is presented which uses a multipass iterative region-refining techinique. The iterative region-refining module consists of a seed block detection and subsequent region-refining iterations. An initial estimate of an object motion is provided in the seed block detection process. This initial estimate is iteratively updated and approaches to a reliable mapping parameter set in region-refining process. A multipass composition of the module makes it possible to detect multiple motions in a scene. Our simulation results confirm that the proposed method successfully partitions an image into independently moving objects with allowable computation time.

This paper surveys trends in and prospects for low power LSI circuits technologies for portable terminal equipment, in which low-voltage operation of LSIs will be emphasized because this equipment will be battery-powered. Since this brings about serious operation speed degradation of LSIs, however, it will become more and more important how to operate them faster under low-supply voltage. We propose two new circuit techniques that make it possible to operate LSIs at high speed even when the supply voltage is very low (1-2 V corresponding to one or two battery cells). The new low-voltage RF LSI circuit technique, developed using silicon bipolar technology and using a novel current-folded mixer architecture for the modulator, result in a highly linear modulator that operates at 2 V. Its power consumption is less than 2/3 that of previously reported ICs. And for a low voltage baseband LSI we propose the multi-threshold CMOS (MTCMOS) technique, which uses two sets of threshold-voltage levels so that the LSI can operate at high speed when driven by a 1-V power supply. The multi-threshold CMOS architecture enabled us to create LSIs that operate faster than conventional CMOS circuits using high-threshold-voltage MOSFETs. When operating with a 1-V power supply, our LSIs are three times faster than the conventional ones.

Physical and optical parameters within the atmosphere-ocean system have been retrieved by a multiple scattering analysis of the reflectance and degree of linear polarization data measured by the airborne POLDER sensor in Medimar campaign in 1991. Assuming an atmosphere-ocean system with a Cox-Munk type rough sea surface model, the theoretical reflectance and -degree of linear polarization were computed by the doubling and adding method for several different models. In this study the retrieval was made by assuming a fixed refractive index of the aerosol particles, i.e., Nr=1.33-0.0i. We obtained several important results in this study as follows: 1) By comparing computed results with the observed data at 0.85m, we rejected the oceanic type aerosol model and found Junge type aerosol model with its index range of 4.0v4.5 as an appropriate model for aerosols at the observation time. 2) The reflectance data analysis in the perpendicular plane rejected an isotropic Cox-Munk model, but it indicated that an anisotropic Cox-Munk model should be used in the sea surface wind field retrieval. 3) The surface wind speed was estimated to be 10.0m/secV15.0m/sec with an best estimate of V=12.5m/sec, which agrees with the observed wind speed of V=14.4m/sec. The range of the water column reflectance was also estimated to be 0.025rwc0.045 from Medimar reflectance data at 0.45m. 4) Further study should be made for other refractive indices of the aerosol particles. More refinement of the present multiple scattering code to include upwelling polarization components from below the sea surface is also necessary.

The Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) is an intrinsic measurement of directional properties of the earth's surface. However, the estimation of the BRDF requires many remote sensing measurements of a given surface target from different viewing angles. In addition, a good atmospheric correction scheme is a prerequisite for such an attempt. The airborne POLDER sensor measures successively reflected radiation by terrestrial surfaces in a framed image form at different viewing angles during a single airplane pass, like taking snap-shot pictures. A specially improved atmospheric correction algorithm which is applicable to a framed image data by POLDER sensor is presented. The observed reflectance images taken successively by the airborne POLDER at slightly different viewing angles are converted to a series of surface albedo images by applying our atmospheric correction algorithm. Then, the BRDFs for three surface covers, namely, "River Water," "Forest," and "Rice Field," are estimated by using successive albedo images. It is found that the BRDF for "River Water" follows Lambert law at both 550nm and 850nm. It is also found that the BRDFs for "Forest" and "Rice Field" follow Lambert's law at 550nm, but they follow an anisotropic reflection law at 850nm and fitting parameters for their BRDFs are presented.

Computer circumstance have changed drastically, and larger capacity removable media is indispensable. Magneto-optical disk is promising candidate to satisfy computer user's needs. In this report, future perspective of high density magneto-optical recording technology is investigated.

It is important to analyze a tracking or synchronizing process in Spread Spectrum (SS) receiving system. The most common SS tracking system considered here consists of pseudorandom (PN) generator, Lowpass Filter (LPE) and Voltage Controlled Oscillator (VCO). The SS receiver is to track or synchronize its local PN generator to the received PN waveform by VCO. The fundamental equation of the system is known by a second order nonlinear differential equation in terms of phase difference between local PN generator and received PN waveform. The differential equation is nonautonoumous due to PN function of time t with period T. Picking up the gain of VCO as the main parameter in the system we show that the system has bifurcation from the normal oscillation through subharmonic oscillation to finally chaos. In the final case, chaos is confirmed by investigating maximum Liapunov number and both stable and unstable manifolds.

This paper describes an MOS charge-mode version of a T-Model neural-based PCM encoder. The neural-based PCM encoding networks are designed, simulated and implemented using MOS charge-mode circuits. Simulation results are given for both the T-Model and the Hopfield model CMOS charge-mode PCM encoders, and demonstrate the T-Model neural-based one performs the PCM encoding perfectly, while the Hopfield one fails to.

This paper describes a novel input-free MOS VT extractor circuit. The circuit consists of a bias voltage block and a novel VT extractor block. The proposed VT extractor block has the advantages of the ground-referenced output, low influence of the nonideality, few numbers of transistors and no influence of the PMOS process. The PSpice simulations show the supply voltage range and the bias voltage range of the proposed circuit are wider than those of Johnson's or Wang's.

The buried oxide nonintegrities, represented as the equivalent fixed oxide charge and interface trap densities at both the upper and lower interface of buried oxide, are evaluated for low-dose and high-dose SIMOX wafers, and their effects on device characteristics are investigated. The equivalent fixied oxide charge and trap densities at the lower interface, which are measured with buried oxide capacitors, are negligibly small in as-fabricated SIMOX wafers. This result enables us to make an analytical model of the parasitic drain/source-to-substrate capacitance in an SOI MOSFET, in which the effect of the depletion layer under the buried oxide is considered. The influence of thinner buried oxide and process-induced fixed oxide charge on the parasitic capacitance is explored with this model. The equivalent fixed oxide charge and trap densities at the upper interface are evaluated by the threshold voltage measurement in an SOI NMOSFET. The principle of this evaluation as well as the experimental technique are described in detail. The oxide charge and trap densities at the upper interface are higher than those at the lower interface for both SIMOX wafers. With a new model of the subthreshold slope based on a two-dimensional potential analysis the influence of the trap at the upper interface is discussed.

In this paper, a description of the Hopfield/Tank model used for the telecommunication network routing problem is given at first. And then through the "static" (i.e. the eigenvalue and the eigenspace of the connection matrix) and the dynamic analysis of the model, it has been found that the model has the faster rate to converge to the optimal or sub-optimal solutions from an initial value. Therefore the quality of the final solutions can be guaranteed. The influence of the initial value to the final solutions is also concerned in this paper. The simulation results are given at the end of this paper.

A 0.1-µm gate-length GaAs MESFET technology is reported. A 48.3-GHz dynamic-frequency divider, and an amplifier with 20-dB gain and 17.5-GHz bandwidth are successfully fabricated by integrating over-100-GHz-cut-off frequency MESFETs using a new lightly-doped drain structure with a buried p-layer (BP-LDD) device structure.

The two-dimensional scattering problem of electromagnetic waves by a perfectly conducting wedge is analyzed by means of the Wiener-Hopf technique together with the formulation using the partition of scatterers. The Wiener-Hopf equations are derived on two complex planes. Investigating the mapping between these complex planes and introducing the appropriate functions which satisfy the edge condition of the wedge, the solutions of these equations are obtained by the decomposition procedure of functions. By deforming the integration path of the Fourier inverse transform, it is found that the representation of the scattered wave is in agreement with the integral representation using the Sommerfeld contours.

Closed-form solutions of the characteristic initial value problem for electric and magnetic fields propagating as nonsinusoidal plane TEM-waves in lossy unbounded media are calculated with Riemann's method and discussed in detail. As an application, the reflection and transmission of waves on a planar boundary is examined, when one semi-infinite medium is lossy.

A novel method is presented for designing discrete coeffcient FIR linear phase filters using Hopfield neural networks. The proposed method is based on the minimization of the energy function of Hopfield neural networks. In the proposed method, the optimal solution for each filter gain factor is first searched for, then the optimal filter gain factor is selected. Therefore, a good solution in the specified criterion can be obtained. The feature of the proposed method is that it can be used to design FIR linear phase filters with different criterions simultaneously. A design example is presented to demonstrate The effectiveness of the proposed method.

This paper presents a simple and efficient method for estimation of parameters useful for textured image analysis. On the basia of a 2-D Wold-like decomposition of homogenenous random fields, the texture field can be decomposed into a sum of two mutually orthogonal components: a deterministic component and an indeterministic component. The spectral density function (SDF) of the former is a sum of 1-D or 2-D delta functions. The 2-D autocorrelation function (ACF) of the latter is fitted to the assumed anisotropic ACF that has an elliptical contour. The parameters representing the ellipse and those representing the delta functions can be used to detect rotation angles and scaling factors of test textures. Specially, rotation and scaling invariant parameters, which are applicable to the classification of rotated and scaled textured images, can be estimated by combining these parameters. That is, a test texture can be correctly classified even if it is rotated and scaled. Several computer experiments on natural textures show the effectiveness of this method.

We have developed a planar devic technology consisting of 0.15-µm Au/WSiN-gate GaAs-heterostructure MESFETs (HMESFETs) fabricated by self-aligned ion-implantation. The gate-drain breakdown voltage has been improved to 10 V by using an asymmetric LDD structure, and the maximum oscillation frequency is 190 GHz. Because asymmetric and symmetric FETs can be fabricated simultaneously, this technology is suitable for use in making multi-functional millimeter-wave MMICs.

We propose an axially symmetrical Fabry-Perot multiple-device oscillator operating at an axially symmetrical TEM01n-mode, which has an excellent feature of uniform device-field coupling required for high efficiency power combining. By carrying out the boundary element analysis, it is shown that a plane-mirror output structure is remarkably advantageous compared with a concave-mirror output structure to obtain an adequate output coupling and to enable stable operation characteristic with respect to the axial mode number n. Experiments in X-band confirmed this excellent performance and achieved almost perfect power combining of efficiency as high as 106% and 99% for six- and eight-device case, respectively.

In case of object recognition using 3-D configuration data, the scale and poses of the object are important factors. If they are not known, we can not compare the object with the models in the database. Hence we propose a strategy for object recognition independently of its scale and poses, which is based on Hopfield neural network. And we also propose a strategy for estimation of the camera motion to reconstruct 3-D configuration of the object. In this strategy, the camera motion is estimated only with the sequential images taken by a moving camera. Consequently, the 3-D configuration of the object is reconstructed only with the sequential images. And we adopt the multiple regression analysis for estimation of the camera motion parameters so as to reduce the errors of them.

In the course of the development of the "Hyper Hospital," a novel medical care system constructed in the computerized information network using virtual reality as its human interface, we devised a virtual reality world creating system which allows users to con figure the world interactively. The re-configuration of the virtual world was designed to be carried out without interruptions of activity and the world can continue to exist during the reconfiguration process. This facility comprises an important part of our Hyper Hospital system because one of our major goals of this proposal of the Hyper Hospital is to restore maximum freedom for patients in the medical care system. Discussion was given in the present study with respect to the basic requirements of the system to be realized, including discussions on the permission given to the participants of different levels, and means by which to modify the structure of the virtual world. A preliminary implementation was described following this general consideration. The developed prototype was shown to be practically suitable to the test of our virtual environment applied to realistic medical scenes.