A feasibility study has been made of the detection possibility of radio wave noises, i.e., Martian atmospherics, emitted from discharges in the Martian atmosphere during large dust storms. The spacecraft NOZOMI, which was launched in 1998, is to be placed on an elliptic orbit around Mars with perigee of 150-200 km. An onboard-equipment LFA (Low Frequency Plasma wave Analyzer) has capability to measure the low frequency plasma waves in the frequency range from 10 Hz to 32 kHz. In order to know if the LFA can detect the atmospheric radio noises, the propagation characteristics of electromagnetic waves through the Martian ionosphere are studied theoretically by using a full-wave method. The ionosphere is modeled as a magneto-ionic medium based on the recent observations of magnetic anomaly by Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, and the atmospheric constituent and electron density by Viking observations. Our calculation shows that the waves at frequencies less than a hundred hertz can propagate with low attenuation and reach to altitudes above 200 km in the whistler-mode in the regions of magnetic anomalies in the dayside ionosphere. It is shown that the radio noises emitted from electric discharge in an intense dust storm, with the intensity over -30 dBV/m/Hz at the ionospheric entry point, can be sensed by the LFA. The observational identification of Martian atmospherics will contribute to the physical study of charge/discharge process in the Martian atmosphere.

The cellular-communication systems of the future will be required to provide multimedia services to users moving about in a variety of ways (on foot, in automobiles etc.). Different forms of motion have different characteristics. The characterization of the different forms of motion and their effects on telecommunications traffic is important in the planning, design and operation of mobile communication networks. The characterization of the motion of various platform types (inter-city buses, recreational vehicles, freight trucks, and taxis) based on measurements using Global Positioning System is presented in this paper. The measured characteristics of motion are then used to evaluate teletraffic statistics such as cell cross-over rate and cell dwell time by overlaying hypothetical cell systems on the measured loci of vehicles. Self-similarity was discovered in the cell dwell time characteristic of the taxis.

The authors propose and experimentally demonstrate an all-optical exclusive OR (XOR) logic gate based on self-phase modulation (SPM) of a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA). The scheme is insensitive to the polarization of the input signal and requires no additional synchronized clock. The output of the XOR gate showed the contrast ratio of more than 17 dB for the input signal at 2.5 GHz.

NOR self-decimated sequences are attractive for stream ciphers because they have a good statistical property and the hardware construction is very simple. This paper presents an analysis of NOR self-decimation system for any parameter. We first determine the period. Then we show the exact distribution of consecutive two bits and three bits, which are shown to be almost uniform distribution.

A 3.3 V CMOS PLL (Phase Locked loop) with a self-feedback VCO (Voltage Controlled Oscillator) is designed for a high frequency, low voltage, and low power applications. This paper proposes a new PLL architecture to improve voltage-to-frequency linearity of VCO with a new delay cell. The proposed VCO with a self-feedback path operates at a wide frequency range of 30 MHz-1 GHz with a good linearity. The DC-DC Voltage Up/Down Converter is newly designed to regulate the control voltage of the two-stage VCO. The designed PLL architecture is implemented on a 0.6 µm n-well CMOS process. The simulation results illustrate a locking time of 2.6 µsec at 1 GHz, lock in range of 100 MHz-1 GHz, and a power dissipation of 112 mW.

QoS restoration, a new approach to keep QoS of end-to-end ATM connections for failures is proposed. In a network with QoS restoration, each end-to-end connection's customer pre-defines the minimum QoS requirements such as minimum throughput. When a failure occurs, resources such as bandwidth of working connections are reallocated for restoration if they are dispensable to keep the minimum requirements along with the pre-assigned spare resources. This resource reallocation is done in a distributed manner and the result of the modification of a connection is notified to the customer of the connection to help him adjust the way of using it. The effect of the reallocation is mathematically evaluated. It is shown that the reallocation enables to achieve high restoration ratio with insufficient pre-assigned spare resources, such as to restore double-link failures with spare resources prepared for single-link failures, or even to restore single-link failures with no spare resources. It is also shown that pre-assigned spare resources can be reduced if the reallocation is considered in network design phase. The performance of the proposed distributed algorithm is evaluated with an event-driven simulator. The result shows that regardless of whether or not pre-assigned spare resources exist, a restoration ratio which is close to the theoretical maximum can be achieved. A proof-of-concept experimental system is developed by controlling commercial ATM switches via SNMP. The system shows it can effectively manage failures in WAN environment.

This paper proposes a new restoration concept for ATM networks. It realizes the rapid and multiple reliability/cost level restoration required to support many different network services. First, the necessity in realizing rapid and multiple-reliability-level restoration in the future network is shown. The self-healing schemes that is based on distributed restoration mechanism satisfies the rapidity in restoration, but does not satisfy multiple reliability levels. Thus a new self-healing scheme that satisfies them is presented and a Multiple Reliability Level Virtual Path network concept is proposed based on the new self-healing scheme. Next, how to realize the new self-healing scheme is explained as an extension of the existing self-healing scheme with two new simple functions. Finally, evaluations confirm the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. These results show that the proposed new scheme realizes a network that fulfills the rapidity and multiple reliability requirements that are strongly required.

A distributed system is said to be self-stabilizing if it converges to some legitimate state from an arbitrary state in a finite number of steps. The number of steps required for convergence is usually referred to as the stabilization time, and its reduction is one of the main performance issues in the design of self-stabilizing systems. In this paper, we propose an automated method for computing the stabilization time. The method uses Boolean functions to represent the state space in order to assuage the state explosion problem, and computes the stabilization time by manipulating the Boolean functions. To demonstrate the usefulness of the method, we apply it to the analysis of existing self-stabilizing algorithms. The results show that the method can perform stabilization time analysis very fast, even when an underlying state space is very huge.

The problem of self-timed implementation of Boolean functions is explained. The notions of combinational delay-insensitive code and delay-insensitive function are defined, giving precise conditions under which memoryless self-timed implementation of Boolean functions is feasible. Examples of combinational delay-insensitive code and delay-insensitive function are given. Generic design style, using standard CAD library, for constructing quasi delay-insensitive self-timed function blocks is suggested. Our design style is compared to other self-timed function block design styles.

This paper proposes an optimal design scheme for photonic transport networks that interconnect multiple wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) self-healing ring systems by using optical cross connects (OXCs). To calculate the number of OXCs required in each hub to interconnect these ring systems, a virtual mesh network is generated, on which the route of each optical path (OP) going through multiple adjacent rings ("ring" is defined as circle in network topology) is determined based on a list of hubs. An integer-programming-based design problem is then formulated that minimizes the overall cost of facilities including OXCs as well as ring systems to accommodate a given demand. By solving this problem, we can simultaneously optimize required number of ring systems in each ring, wavelength assignment within each individual bidirectional ring system, required number of OXCs in each hub, and capacity to be allocated to each OP. Numerical examples show that the ring-based network is more cost-effective than the mesh restorable network when the cost of an OADM is lower than that of an OXC, and the OXC-to-fiber cost-coefficient ratio is sufficiently large.

Increasing the capacity and intelligence of the next-generation Internet requires the application of optical technologies to switching nodes as well as transmission lines, and the development of advanced network architectures with end-to-end connection setup processing at the source node and autonomous routing at intermediate nodes. In the present paper, we design a new CDM-based switching scheme and node configurations that are suitable for a photonic IP switching system, in which a set of multiple-encoding CDM codes is utilized as routing information. In addition, we calculate the BER characteristics of the multiple-encoding CDM system by simulation. Under the condition that the chip duration of a certain code is a multiple of that of another code, the BER characteristics of the multiple-encoding system are shown to coincide with that of the single-encoding system by the longer code.

We investigate possibility of fault-tolerant and self-stabilizing protocols (ftss protocols) using an unreliable failure detector. Our main contribution is (1) to newly introduce k-accuracy of an unreliable failure detector, (2) to show that k-accuracy of a failure detector is necessary for any ftss k-group consensus protocol, and (3) to present three ftss k-group consensus protocols using a k-accurate and weakly complete failure detector under the read/write daemon on complete networks and on (n-k+1)-connected networks, and under the central daemon on complete networks.

We generalize the construction of quantum error-correcting codes from F4-linear codes by Calderbank et al. to pm-state systems. Then we show how to determine the error from a syndrome. Finally we discuss a systematic construction of quantum codes with efficient decoding algorithms.

This paper newly proposes radio-over-fiber systems using cascaded radio-to-optic direct conversion (ROC) scheme. The ROC system can convert a radio signal into an optical signal with the same signal format. The received carrier-to-noise ratio (CNR) performance of the radio-over-fiber systems using the ROC/heterodyne detection (HD) scheme and the ROC/self-heterodyne detection (SHD) scheme are theoretically analyzed. The optimization of an optical modulation index (OMI) in each radio base station (RBS) is also presented. By using the proposed OMI optimization method, the ROC/HD and the ROC/SHD schemes are shown to provide approximately 16 dB and 14 dB improvement over the intensity modulation/direct detection scheme when the number of RBS is 20 and the radio-frequency (RF) signal bandwidth is 150 MHz, respectively. The ROC/SHD scheme enables a receiver structure to become simple while still achieving high received CNR.

Recent development of compact and powerful portable computers and mobile phones and proliferation of the Internet will enable mobile multimedia communications. From the viewpoint of implementing multimedia services into mobile communications, it allows us to predict that traffic characteristics of mobile networks change. For planning, designing, and operating mobile multimedia networks, it is important to investigate traffic models which take the effect of multimedia services into consideration. This paper investigates population of active users in a micro-cell and proposes a traffic model for mobile multimedia networks. This model describes a population process of active users in a micro-cell in diffusion model, and its characteristics include self-similarity and activity of mobility. We also made an evaluation of network performance by using simulation, in order to show that characteristics of the proposed traffic model have impact on planning and designing networks.

This paper presents an accelerated image halftoning technique using an improved genetic algorithm with tiny populations. The algorithm is based on a new cooperative model for genetic operators in GA. Two kinds of operators are used in parallel to produce offspring: (i) SRM (Self-Reproduction with Mutation) to introduce diversity by means of Adaptive Dynamic-Block (ADB) mutation inducing the appearance of beneficial mutations. (ii) CM (Crossover and Mutation) to promote the increase of beneficial mutations in the population. SRM applies qualitative mutation only to the bits inside a mutation block and controls the required exploration-exploitation balance through its adaptive mechanism. An extinctive selection mechanism subjects SRM's and CM's offspring to compete for survival. The simulation results show that our scheme impressively reduces computer memory and processing time required to obtain high quality halftone images. For example, compared to the conventional image halftoning technique with GA, the proposed algorithm using only a 2% population size required about 15% evaluations to generate high quality images. The results make our scheme appealing for practical implementations of the image halftoning technique using GA.

We gave in [1] the software and hardware algorithms for reconfiguring 1 1/2-track switch 2-D mesh arrays with faults of processing elements, avoiding them. This paper shows an implementation of the hardware algorithm using an FPGA device, and by the logical simulation confirms the correctness of the behavior and evaluates reconfiguration time. From the result it is found that a self-repairable system is realizable and the system is useful for the run-time as well as fabrication-time reconfiguration because it requires no host computer to execute the reconfiguration algorithm and the reconfiguration time is very short.

A novel chemical sensor for sulfate detection was proposed in this study, utilizing sulfate binding protein (SBP) derived from Escherichia coli as sulfate recognition element. Purified SBP was immobilized on a gold electrode modified with cysteamine and glutaraldehyde. In this study the surface potential change of the SBP modified electrode to sulfate and various ions were investigated. In order to evaluate nonspecific interaction with ionic species, proteins with various isoelectric point were immobilized on the surface of gold electrode and response to ions were measured and compared to sulfate binding protein modified electrode. We made clear that the protein modified electrode shows the potential change to ions and these potential change was effected by the isoelectric point of the protein molecule, and BSA, whose isoelectric point is closest to that of SBP, showed the similar response to ions except sulfate. With use BSA modified electrode as a reference electrode, this sensing system showed selective response to sulfate, probably because of the selective binding sulfate by SBP. This potential change difference between the SBP modified electrode and the BSA modified electrode depended on the concentration of sulfate with in the range of 5 - 150 mM.

A highly reliable and available network which automatically can restore itself from failures is an important concept for the future high capacity broadband networks. Self-healing algorithm, restoring the failed VPs (Virtual Paths) in the backbone ATM networks, is an indispensable technique to meet these requirements. In this paper we propose a coordination-based restoring self-healing algorithm called C-TRUS, which meets different requirements of service classes of survivability by using a simple rerouting and capacity reserving protocols. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can restore VPs quickly and improve the restoration time in case of multi-failures by using network resources very efficiently. Furthermore, C-TRUS outperforms the combination method in both restoration ratio and restoration time. In addition, the significant improvement of restoration ratio in the multi-failure scenario has been achieved.

We have proposed and demonstrated the circuit, which collectively recognizes header. Comparing with conventional schemes, the proposed circuit consists of simple structure. The proposed recognition circuit enables fast all-optical self-routing and contributes to reduce the buffer size for temporary data storage in each switch.