Kurotto and Juosan are Nikoli's pencil puzzles. We study the computational complexity of Kurotto and Juosan puzzles. It is shown that deciding whether a given instance of each puzzle has a solution is NP-complete.

To realize economical optical burst signal receivers for the Optical Network Unit (ONU) of the Ethernet Optical Switched Access Network (E-OSAN), we previously implemented optical burst receivers with AC-coupling and DC-coupling using off-the-shelf components, and showed that the former offers better performance. This paper proposes a new optical burst signal receiver that uses the transfer function, Gn(s) = 1-Hn(s), where Hn(s) denotes a Bessel filter transfer function of order n. We also present a method for designing the proposed receiver and clarify that it has better performance than the conventional AC-coupling one. We then present an LCR circuit synthesis of Gn(s), which is necessary to actually implement a burst receiver based on the proposal.

An Optical Line Terminal (OLT) needs to find and register newly connected Optical Network Units (ONUs) in the proposed Ethernet Optical Switched Access Network (E-OSAN) as well as the Ethernet Passive Optical Network (E-PON). In this discovery process, OLT measures round trip time (RTT) between OLT and each ONU and then assigns a Logical Link Identification (LLID) to each ONU. For E-OSAN, the conventional discovery method takes up to N discovery periods for OLT to register all ONUs, where N denotes the number of switch ports of the Optical Switching Module (OSM). This paper proposes an efficient method that completes discovery in just one period. This paper also evaluates the maximum ranging completion time of the proposed discovery method in a comparison with E-PON.

We have already proposed a Gigabit Ethernet-Optical Switched Access Network (GE-OSAN) architecture that realizes longer transmission distances and achieves higher security than the conventional Passive Optical Network (PON). To confirm the technical feasibility of the architecture, we introduce here a GE-OSAN prototype system for downstream transmission. We present the Optical Switching Module (OSM), which uses (Pb,La)(Zr,Ti)O3 (PLZT) optical packet switches, and show that it realizes switching within 10 ns of the designed position in the Inter-Frame Gap (IFG). We also introduce an Optical Network Unit (ONU) with optical burst receiver that uses off-the-shelf commercial devices to reduce its cost; two types of an optical to electrical signal (O/E) converter are implemented for performance comparison. After testing both of them, we select the one that satisfies our acquisition time requirement of 64 ns.

This paper introduces the design of an Optical Switching Module (OSM) for our newly proposed Gigabit Ethernet Optical Switched Access Network (GE-OSAN) architecture that uses the Multi-Point Control Protocol (MPCP), defined in IEEE 802.3ah. We outline the GE-OSAN architecture to clarify OSM's role in the network. We offer an OSM configuration that has the basic functions needed to realize downstream and upstream high-speed data services in GE-OSAN. We clarify the OSM optical switching time that allows GE-OSAN to achieve the same throughput as GE-PON. Our survey of currently available optical switches identifies the optical packet switches that can meet this switching time requirement. We evaluate OSM insertion loss with these switches. We propose an OSM configuration that has a regeneration function as well as the basic ones to realize wider network configurations that can lead to a reduction in overall system costs. In addition, we present OSM configurations that have broadcast and multicast functions as well as the basic ones so that GE-OSAN can support broadcast and multicast video services to equal and exceed GE-PON.

This paper proposes a new optical access network architecture that differs from those of conventional Point-to-Point (PP) and Passive Optical Networks (PON). The proposed architecture, Optical Switched Access Network (OSAN), uses Optical Switching Modules (OSMs) that connect an Optical Line Terminal (OLT) to Optical Network Units (ONUs) in a virtual point to point configuration so that it offers the merits of both PP and PON while overcoming their demerits. Each OSM optically switches packets of variable length one by one under electrical control. To allow the elimination of optical buffers from OSM, OSAN uses the Multi-Point Control Protocol (MPCP) defined in IEEE 802.3ah. We evaluate the transmission distances between OLT and ONUs, and consider a network synchronization scheme and discovery mechanism that supports MPCP.