The size dependent properties of the intrinsic Josephson junctions in Bi2Sr2CaCu2Oy single crystal mesas in the external magnetic field are studied. The mesas of (1-140) µm long with 7-29 junctions were fabricated and their current-voltage characteristics were measured in external magnetic field applied parallel to the CuO2 layers up to 0.16 T. In zero magnetic field, multiple resistive branches with large hysteresis were observed in the current-voltage characteristics for the fabricated mesas. Almost identical critical currents were also observed for all the junctions in each mesa. With applied magnetic field, Ic of the longer mesas showed a complex magnetic field dependence as compared to that of the short mesas (of about 1 µm in length). It was observed that the lower critical magnetic field of the junctions decreased and approached a constant value with increasing number of junctions and also with increasing length of the junctions. Similar magnetic behavior was obtained by numerical simulations based on coupled sine-Gordon equations for such stacked junctions.

This paper presents novel flooding schemes for wireless mobile ad hoc networks. Clustering of nodes is assumed as a basic ad hoc network structure. GWF (Gateway Forwarding) and SGF (Selected Gateway Forwarding) are presented based on clustering. A new protocol, termed FGS (Flooding Gateway Selection) protocol, between a cluster head and its gateways to realize SGF is presented. It is shown that SGF significantly improves the packet delivery performance in ad hoc networks by reducing flooding traffic.

High-Tc superconductors convincingly showed that these materials are essentially natural arrays of Josephson junctions formed in atomic scale. In this paper, in-plane aligned a-axis-oriented YBa2Cu3O7-δ (YBCO) thin films were successfully grown on LaSrGaO4(LSGO) (100) substrates which were cleaned by ion-beam. Voltage jumps with hysteresis implying intrinsic Josephson effects are observed in c-axis direction. This result suggest that it is possible to achieve planar intrinsic Josephson devices which have applications in high frequency electronics, such as voltage standards, Josephson masers and so on.

We have studied an image acquisition system for a real-time image- based rendering (IBR) system. In this area, most conventional systems sacrifice spatial or temporal resolution for a large number of input images. However, only a portion of the image data is needed for rendering, and the portion required is determined by the position of the imaginary viewpoint. In this paper, we propose an acquisition system for a real-time image-based rendering system that uses pixel-based random-access image sensors to eliminate the main bottleneck in conventional systems. We have developed a prototype CMOS image sensor, which has 128 128 pixels. We verified the prototype chip's selective readout function. We also verified the sample & hold feature.

The periodicity of a target scattering matrix is studied when the target is rotated about the sight line of a monostatic radar. Except for the periodicity and invariance of the scattering matrix diag(a,a), it is proved that only helixes have the quasi-invariance, and that only N-targets have the quasi-periodicity, demonstrating that a target with some angle rotation symmetry also has the scattering matrix form diag(a,a). From this result, we conclude that it is impossible to extract the shape characteristics of a complex target from its scattering matrix or its Kennaugh matrix.

In this paper, we propose a method of unicast and broadcast packet sharing for the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) multi-base station (BS) indoor wireless communication system using an adaptive array antenna on mobile terminals. The adaptive array antenna placed on the mobile terminal allows quality improvement due to the diversity effect when the data transmitted from all BSs are the same, and provides capacity improvement by channel sharing when the data from each BS are different. In the proposed sharing method, unicast packets are transmitted independently from multiple BSs in order to increase the communication capacity, and broadcast packets are transmitted simultaneously with other BSs in order to enhance the communication quality without retransmission. Furthermore, by modifying the packet assignment procedure, we confirm that quality can be improved for unicast packets in a low traffic environment.

In this paper, we consider optimal mirror allocation problems for the purpose of load balancing in network servers. We focus on constructing high-reliability networks and propose the optimal mirror allocation model such that the system reliability is maximized subject to costs and delays, in view of the trade-off between the reliability and cost. This optimization model is capable of dealing with various kinds of network topologies, although for simplicity, we assume the read-only situation. We formulate this optimization problem into a 0-1 integer programming model, and we use an approximate method for numerical analysis in order to analyze more large-scale systems. Our objective is to find the optimal mirror allocation by solving this model, and to show quantitatively the general characteristics of the load balancing and the improvement of the system reliability by the distributed mirror allocation.

Clustering is one of the most important topics in the field of knowledge discovery from databases. Especially, hierarchical clustering is useful since it gives a hierarchical view of a whole database and can be used to guide users in browsing a huge database. In many cases, clustering can be modeled as a graph partitioning problem. When an appropriate distance function between database objects is given, a database can be viewed as an edge-weighted complete graph, where vertices are database objects and weights of edges are distances between them. Then a process of MST (Minimal Spanning Tree) construction can be viewed as a process of a single-linkage agglomerative clustering process for database objects. In this paper, we propose an efficient MST construction method for a large complete metric graph, which is derived from a database with a metric distance function defined on it. Our method utilizes a metric index to reduce the number of distance calculations. The basic idea is to exclude those edges less probable to be a part of an MST by using the metric postulate. For this purpose, we introduce a new metric index named MetricMatrix. Experimental results show that our method can drastically reduce the number of distance calculations needed for MST construction in comparison with the classical method.

A traitor tracing scheme is a broadcast encryption scheme in which a provider can trace malicious authorized users who illegally gave their personal keys to unauthorized users. The conventional schemes have some problems; one of them is that there exists an upper bound on the sizes of keys to certify the security of the scheme against a collusion attack by many traitors, and so that the size of the header increases according to the increase of the bound. We shall propose a new traitor tracing scheme where the header size is independent of the number of traitors.

Much has been said and written about the changes in analog IC technology such as shrinking line widths, vanishingly low supply voltages, severe power limitations, and digital noise. But beyond these technology changes and their subsequent methodology changes, a far more subtle revolution is happening in the nature of the profession itself. Technology, software, and product evolution have all conspired to create a new kind of analog IC designer, one very different from the IC designers of the past.

A tunable external-cavity InGaAs/AlGaAs quantum-well laser using a grating coupler monolithically integrated in a selectively disordered waveguide is demonstrated. The laser consists of an amplifier with a narrow channel for lateral single-mode guiding and a tapered section, a grating coupler for output beam collimation and wavelength dispersion, and an external half mirror. Selective quantum-well disordering technique using SiO2 caps of different thicknesses and rapid thermal annealing was employed to reduce the passive waveguide loss in the grating coupler region. Loss reduction from 40 cm-1 to 3 cm-1 was accomplished. Resultant increase of the grating coupler efficiency and expansion of the effective aperture length led to significant improvement of the laser performances. The maximum output power of 105 mW and wide tuning range of 21.1 nm centered at 997 nm were obtained. The well collimated output beam of full diffraction angles at half maximum of 0.16 0.18 was obtained.

Several methods have been developed for solving blind deconvolution problem. Recursive inverse filtering method is proposed recently and shown to have good convergence properties. This method requires accurate estimate of the region of support. In this paper, we propose to modify the original method by incorporating split, merge and grouping algorithm to find the region of support automatically.

This paper reports on clich and related mechanisms appearing in a process of human design of software. During studies on human design knowledge, the authors found frequent instance of same pattern of detailing, named clich. In our study, clich is an intermediate level of design knowledge, during a hierarchical detailing step, residing in between simple reuse and creation by micro design rules, which have already been reported. These three kinds of design knowledge are of various types and have different complexities. Discussions on them, focusing on clich type, with procedures of formation of a simple clich skeleton and generation of a clich are given. The studies show a working model of Zipf's principle, and are some trials to reveal a more detail of human designs.

A novel sensor system of denture base type was developed for simultaneous monitoring of salivary pH and tissue temperature in the oral cavity. Fundamental components of the monitoring system, sensor devices and sensor configuration are showed in this paper. The sensor units consist of IrO2 electrode and thermistor circuit implanted in the denture base that is tightly fixed in the oral cavity. The signals are transmitted by PFM-FM telemeter system that can be used for health care of the aged people without restraint of their daily behavior while at work, sleeping and even at exercise. Some of results concerning the basic characteristics of the sensor system and continuously monitored physiological data were obtained from the preliminary experiments. Availability of the whole system and monitoring method was discussed.

Edge enhancement of noisy ultrasound images is important for medical diagnosis. Conventional edge enhancement methods are mainly directed to emphasizing the high-frequency components of the image. Because these methods emphasize also the noise of image, they are not suitable for noisy ultrasound images with speckle noise. In this paper, we propose an edge enhancement method using mathematical morphology based on a geometrical characteristics of the image, using locally variable structuring elements. We show that the proposed method enhances the edge of ultrasound images without noise emphasis.

In this paper, four coupled chaotic circuits generating four-phase quasi-synchronization of chaos are proposed. By tuning the coupling parameter, chaotic wandering over the phase states characterized by the four-phase synchronization occurs. In order to analyze chaotic wandering, dependent variables corresponding to phases of solutions in subcircuits are introduced. Combining the variables with hysteresis decision of the phase states enables statistical analysis of chaotic wandering.

In this paper, we treat visual secret sharing scheme (VSSS) for color images. We first evaluate the brightness of the decrypted color image under certain conditions on the mixture of colors. We obtain a general formula for the construction of VSSS using mixture of colors. We second propose an iterative algorithm for constructing VSSS in a practical situation. If we use the iterative construction, we have only to solve partial differential equations with small n even if n is actually large, where n denotes the number of participants. This iterative construction has never discussed in the both cases under the original images are black-white images and color images. Finally, we propose the way to embed a color image on each share for the case that the original image is color.

Technique of Measuring 3-D velocity vector components is important for the correct diagnosis of the blood flow pattern and quantitative assessment of intratumor perfusion. However, present equipment based on ultrasonic Doppler can not provide us true 3-D velocity. To overcome the problem, we previously proposed a new method of 3-D velocity vector measurement. The method uses 2-D array probe and enable us to obtain three components of velocity vector with real time by integrating the Doppler phase shift on the each element with the relative small single aperture compared with conventional method. Basic performance of the method has been evaluated by computer simulation. In this paper, to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed method, experimental investigation using a simple ring array probe and a phantom were carried out. Three components of velocity vector for different velocity magnitude and flow direction were measured. Experimental results validated its ability of measuring 3-D velocity and its feasibility.

In a shared buffer packet switch, a good buffer management scheme is needed to reduce the overall packet loss probability and improve the fairness between different users. In this paper, a novel buffer control scheme called partial sharing and partial partitioning (PSPP) is proposed. The PSPP is an adaptive scheme that can be dynamically adjusted to the changing traffic conditions while simple to implement. The key idea of the PSPP is that part of the buffer space, proportional to the number of inactive output ports, is reserved for sharing between inactive output ports. This portion of buffer is called PS buffer. The residual buffer space, called PP buffer, is partitioned and distributed to active output ports equally. From the analysis results, we only need to reserve a small amount of PS buffer space to get good performance for the entire system. Computer simulation shows the PSPP control is very robust and very close to the performance of pushout (PO) buffer management scheme which is a scheme considered as optimal in terms of fairness and total loss ratio while too complicated for implementation.

The requirement to realize large-capacity, high-speed and guaranteed Quality of Service (QoS) communications in IP networks is a recent development. A technique to satisfy these requirements, Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) is the focus of this paper. In the future, it is expected that congestion and faults on a Label Switched Path (LSP) will seriously affect service contents because various applications are densely served in a large area. In MPLS, however, methods to solve these problems are not clear. Therefore, this study proposes a concrete traffic engineering method to avoid heavy congestion, and at the same time, endeavors to realize a fault-tolerant network by autonomous restoration, or self-healing.