In this letter the classification of echocardiographic images is studied by making use of some texture features, including the angular second moment, the contrast, the correlation, and the entropy which are obtained from a gray-level cooccurrence matrix. Features of these types are used to classify two sets of echocardiographic images-normal and abnormal (cardiomyopathy) hearts. A minimum distance classifier and evaluation indexes are employed to evaluate the performance of these features. Implementation of our algorithm is performed on a PC-386 personal computer and produces about 87% correct classification for the two sets of echocardiographic images. Our preliminary results suggest that this method of feature-based image analysis has potential use for computer-aided diagnosis of heart diseases.

This paper discusses some problems in Molecular Biology for which learning paradigms are strongly desired. We also present a framework of knowledge discovery by PAC-learning paradigm together with its theory and practice developed in our work for discovery from amino acid sequences.

Although consistent learning is sufficient for PAC-learning, it has not been found what strategy makes learning more efficient, especially on the sample complexity, i.e., the number of examples required. For the first step towards this problem, classes that have consistent learning algorithms with one-sided error are considered. A combinatorial quantity called maximal particle sets is introduced, and an upper bound of the sample complexity of consistent learning with one-sided error is obtained in terms of maximal particle sets. For the class of n-dimensional axis-parallel rectangles, one of those classes that are consistently learnable with one-sided error, the cardinality of the maximal particle set is estimated and O(d/ε1/ε log 1/δ) upper bound of the learning algorithm for the class is obtained. This bound improves the bounds due to Blumer et al. and meets the lower bound within a constant factor.

We reported that a competitive learning neural network had the ability of self-organization in the classification of questionnaire survey data. In this letter, its self-organized learning was evaluated by means of mutual information. Mutual information may be useful to find efficently the network which can give optimal classification.

Various authors have proposed probabilistic extensions of Valiant's PAC (Probably Approximately Correct) learning model in which the target to be learned is a (conditional) probability distribution. In this paper, we improve upon the best known upper bounds on the sample complexity of the parameter estimation part of the learning problem for distributions and stochastic rules over a finite domain with respect to the Kullback-Leibler divergence (KL-devergence). In particular, we improve the upper bound of order O(1/ε2) due to Abe, Takeuchi, and Warmuth to a bound of order O(1/ε). In obtaining our results, we made use of the properties of a specific estimator (slightly modified maximum likelihood estimator) with respect to the KL-divergence, while previously known upper bounds were obtained using the uniform convergence technique.

The state of the art of low-voltage (LV) analog circuit design techniques is reviewed, and fundamental design techniques are identified and classified as follows: 1) current-mode, 2) series-to-parallel, 3) signal range sharing, 4) dynamic bias, 5) linear bias, and 6) LV regulator. A relatively wide variety of low frequency application circuits have been developed, but future development is expected for wide-bandwidth application circuits such as a voltage-controlled-oscillator (VCO), a balanced multiplier, etc. The circuit techniques such as current-mode, signal range sharing, and dynamic bias will probably be most important for advanced future circuit designs.

A high-speed high-density self-aligned pnp technology for complementary bipolar ULSIs has been developed to achieve high-speed and low-power performance simultaneously. It is fully compatible with the npn process. A low sheet-resistance p+ buried layer and a low sheet-resistance extrinsic n+ polysilicon layer with U-grooved isolation enable the transistor size to be scaled down to about 20 µm2. Current gain of 85 with 4-V collector-emitter breakdown voltage was obtained without any leakage current arising from emitter-base forward tunneling or recombination, which indicates no extrinsic base encroachment problem. A shallow emitter junction depth of 45 nm and narrow base width of 30 nm, obtained by utilizing an optimized retrograded p-well, an arsenic-implanted intrinsic base, and emitter diffusion from BF2-implanted polysilicon, improve the maximum cutoff frequency to 35 GHz. The power dissipation of the pnp pull-down complementary emitter-follower ECL circuit with load capacitances is calculated to be reduced to 20-40% of a conventional ECL circuit.

Complexity of Boolean functions satisfying the propagation criterion (PC), an extended notion of the perfect nonlinearity, is discussed on several computation models. The following topics are investigated: (i) relationships between the unateness and the degree of the PC, (ii) the inversion complexity of perfectly nonlinear Boolean functions, (iii) the formula size of Boolean functions that satisfy the PC of degree 1, (iv) the area-time-square complexity of VLSI circuits computing perfectly nonlinear Boolean functions, (v) the OBDD size perfectly nonlinear Boolean functions.

This paper describes an O(log3n) time O(n/log n) processors parallel algorithm for determining the congruence (exact matching) of two point sets in three-dimensions on a CREW PRAM, where n is the maximum size of the input point sets. Although optimal O(n log n) time sequential algorithms were developed for this problem, no efficient parallel algorithm was known previously. In the algorithm, the original problem is reduced to the two-dimensional congruence problem by computing a three-dimensional point set cps(S) for each input point set S, where cps(S) satisfies the following conditions: 0|cps(S)|12; cps(T(S))T(cps(S)) for all isometric transformations T. The two-dimensional problem can be solved efficiently in parallel using a parallel version of a previously-known sequential algorithm. cps(S) is computed recursively in the following way: the size of a point set is reduced by a constant factor in each recursive step. To reduce the size of a point set, a convex hull is constructed and then it is regarded as a planar graph, so that combinatorial properties of a planar graph are used effectively. A sequential version of the algorithm works in O(n log n) time, so that this paper gives another optimal sequential algorithm. The presented algorithm can be applied for graphs such that each vertex corresponds to a point and each edge corresponds to a line segment connecting its endpoints. Moreover, the algorithm can be modified for computing the canonical form of a point set or a graph.

A graph G is said to be universal for a family F of graphs if G contains every graph in F as a subgraph. A minimum universal graph for F is a universal graph for F with the minimum number of edges. This paper considers a minimum universal graph for the family Fkn of graphs on n vertices with path-width at most k. We first show that the number of edges in a universal graph Fkn is at least Ω(kn log(n/k)). Next, we construct a universal graph for Fkn with O(kn log(n/k)) edges, and show that the number of edges in a minimum universal graph for Fkn is Θ(kn log(n/k)) .

The optical characteristics of the fiber loop polarizer are investigated considering the birefringence in the fiber loop. The experimental and the theoretical spectrum transmissions agree well with each other. The extinction ratio and the insertion loss of the fiber polarizers have been improved for practical use.

Many typical control problems such as deadlock avoidance problems and mutual exclusion problems can be formulated as forbidden marking problems. This paper studies a forbidden marking problem in controlled complementary-places Petri nets, which are suitable model for sequential control systems. We show a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a control law for this problem. We also obtain a maximally permissive control law which allows a maximal number of transitions to fire subject to a condition that forbidden markings will never be reached.

We developed a new test-synthesis that operates method based on data transfer analysis at the language level. Using this method, an efficient scan path is inserted to generate test data for the sequential circuit by using only a test generation tool for the combinatorial circuit. We have applied this method successfully to the behavior, logic, and test design of a 32-bit, RISC-type processor. The size of the synthesized circuit without test synthesis is 23,407 gates; the size with test synthesis is 24,811 gates. This is an increase of only a little over 6%.

This paper describes an exact symbolic formulation of resource-constrained scheduling which allows speculative operation execution in arbitrary forward-branching control/data paths. The technique provides a closed-form solution set in which all satisfying schedules are encapsulated in a compressed OBDD-based representation. An iterative construction method is presented along with benchmark results. The experiments demonstrate the ability of the proposed technique to efficiently extract parallelism not explicitly specified in the input description.

This is an attempt to examine the contact resistance of a composite material which is used for sliding contacts. The composite material used here is sintered by dispersing the solid lubricant WS2 into the metallic base alloy Cu-Sn. A method based on Greenwood's formula is applied to determine how the calculated values are related to the contact resistance values obtained in our experiments. As a result, the composite material mated with the carbon specimen is found nearly to corresponds to the values of those calculated by the extended Greenwood's formula, whereas its value mated with the tungsten specimen does not. In short, it is concluded that the composite material mated with the carbon specimen consists of multispots.

This paper discusses a CMOS differential-difference amplifier circuit suitable for low voltage operation. A new multiple weighted input transconductor circuit structure is suggested to be use in DDA implementation. The proposed DDA can be employed in several analog/digital systems to improve their parameters. Selected examples of the proposed transconductor/DDA applications are also discussed.

In this paper, a new off-line handwritten word recognition method based on the explicit modeling of character junctures is presented. A handwritten word is regarded as a sequence of characters and junctures of four types. Hence both characters and junctures are explicitly modeled. A handwriting system employing hidden Markov models as the main statistical framework has been developed based on this scheme. An interconnection network of character and ligature models is constructed to model words of indefinite length. This model can ideally describe any form of hamdwritten words including discretely spaced words, pure cursive words, and unconstrained words of mixed styles. Also presented are efficient encoding and decoding schemes suitable for this model. The system has shown encouraging performance with a standard USPS database.

The analysis of the shielding properties of a planar wire-mesh shield embedded in a general isotropic--chirality is included--or anisotropic stratified media is here presented. A suitable model of the grating has been introduced in order to consider the occuring phenomena, in fact through a spectral technique the electromagnetic problem is translated into the equivalent circuit network model that allows to express the time response of the shielded field for the NEMP incidence in a closed form.

The analysis of the shielding properties of chiral materials slabs is here presented, first deriving the spectral representation of the shielded fields, then getting the asymptotic expression of the transmission matrix in the higher frequencies. The time response of the shielded field for the NEMP incidence is finally deduced in a closed form.

The wave forms of electric and magnetic fields radiated by short gap discharges are measured to analyze electrostatic discharge (ESD) events in the near-field zone with the monopole antennas, the loop antenna and the 5.5GHz bandwidth waveform digitizer. The antenna outputs are corrected by the measured characteristics of the antennas. The relations between the measured electric field and the discharge currents are discussed.