Most of commercial websites provide customers with menu-driven navigation and keyword search. However, these inconvenient interfaces increase the number of mouse clicks and decrease customers' interest in surfing the websites. To resolve the problem, we propose an information retrieval assistant using a natural language interface in online sales domains. The information retrieval assistant has a client-server structure; a system connector and a NLP (natural language processing) server. The NLP server performs a linguistic analysis of users' queries with the help of coordinated NLP agents that are based on shallow NLP techniques. After receiving the results of the linguistic analysis from the NLP server, the system connector interacts with outer information provision systems such as conventional information retrieval systems and relational database management systems according to the analysis results. Owing to the client-server structure, we can easily add other information provision systems to the information retrieval assistant with trivial modifications of the NLP server. In addition, the information retrieval assistant guarantees fast responses because it uses shallow NLP techniques. In the preliminary experiment, as compared to the menu-driven system, we found that the information retrieval assistant could reduce the bothersome tasks such as menu selecting and mouse clicking because it provides a convenient natural language interface.

Many immersive displays developed in previous researches are strongly influenced by the design concept of the CAVE, which is the origin of the immersive displays. In the view of human-scale interactive system for virtual environment (VE), the existing immersive systems are not enough to use the potential of a human sense further extent. The displays require more complicated structure for flexible extension, and are more restrictive to user's movement. Therefore we propose a novel multi-projector display for immersive VE with haptic interface for more flexible and dynamic interaction. The display part of our system named "D-vision" has a hybrid curved screen which consist of compound prototype with flat and curve screen. This renders images seamlessly in real time, and generates high-quality stereovision by PC cluster and two-pass technology. Furthermore a human-scale string-based haptic device will integrate with the D-vision for more interactive and immersive VE. In this paper, we show an overview of the D-vision and technologies used for the human-scale haptic interface.

In the cellular mobile communication systems, co-channel interference and Rayleigh fading degrade the transmission performance. Adaptive Array Antenna (AAA) can suppress interference and, at the same time, can cope with multi-path fading by using a wide antenna spacing resulting in low correlation of received signals in each antenna element. A feedback-type AAA was proposed for frequency division duplexed (FDD) systems, where mobile station measures channel characteristics and feed-backs them to the base station. In this paper, we extend the system by introducing 2-branch diversity reception at a mobile station, and study the influence of antenna element spacing at the base station and control delay time on bit error rate performance under a realistic propagation model.

L-convex functions are nonlinear discrete functions on integer points that are computationally tractable in optimization. In this paper, a discrete Hessian matrix and a local quadratic expansion are defined for L-convex functions. We characterize L-convex functions in terms of the discrete Hessian matrix and the local quadratic expansion.

In this paper, we propose a global routing method for 2-layer BGA packages. In our routing model, the global routing for each net is uniquely determined by a via assignment of each net. Our global routing method starts from an initial monotonic via assignment and incrementally improves the via assignment to optimize the total wire length and the wire congestion. Experimental results show that our proposed method generates a better global routing efficiently.

"Can one walk to infinity on Gaussian primes taking steps of bounded length?" We adopted computational techniques to probe into this open problem. We propose an efficient method to search for the farthest point reachable from the origin, which can be parallelized easily, and have confirmed the existence of a moat of width k =, whereas the best previous result was k = due to Gethner et al. The amount of computation needed for k = is about 5000 times larger than that for k =. A refinement of Vardi's estimate for the farthest distance reachable from the origin is proposed. The proposed estimate incorporates discreteness into Vardi's that is based on percolation theory.

In this study, a cascade open-short-thru (COST) de-embedding procedure is proposed for the first time for on-wafer device characterization in the RF/microwave frequency regime. This technique utilizes the "open" and "short" dummy structures to de-embed the probe-pad parasitics of a device-under-test (DUT). Furthermore, to accurately estimate the input/output interconnect parasitics, including the resistive, inductive, capacitive, and conductive components, the "thru" dummy device has been characterized after probe-pad de-embedding. With the combination of transmission-line theory and cascade-configuration concept, this method can efficiently generate the scalable and repeatable interconnect parameters to completely eliminate the redundant parasitics of the active/passive DUTs of various device sizes and interconnect dimensions. Consequently, this method is very suitable for the on-wafer automatic measurement.

This paper describes pixel-parallel image-matching circuit schemes that provide the optimal binarization, the high-speed low-power comparison, and the accurate matching of fingerprint images needed for fingerprint verification. Image binarizing is adjusted adaptively during the fingerprint sensing operation. The obtained image is compared with the template in the pixel array, and the results from all of the pixels are totaled by a variable-delay circuit at high speed and low power. For accurate matching, the image is scanned by shifting it in the pixel array while maintaining whole image. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed schemes provide optimal binary images of most fingers under any condition and environment, 11-µs 147-µW totaling of results from 20,584 pixels, and wide-range image scanning and accurate matching for fingerprint images. These schemes are effective for fast and low-power fingerprint verification for a single-chip fingerprint sensor and identifier.

In this paper, firstly, effects of third order dispersion (TOD) on coupled pulses are analyzed. Then, averaging method is modified and proved to be an effective way for obtaining non-radiative bi-soliton solution of the TOD perturbed nonlinear Schrodinger equation (NLSE), which models a dispersion managed (DM) optical transmission system. Finally, the obtained bi-soliton evolution behavior is studied, and compared with that of uni-soliton. With the increase of average TOD, pulse velocity of bi-soliton largely deviates from that of uni-soliton. Thus, even though TOD cannot be exactly vanished in fabrication, it is suggested to compensate average TOD as low as possible.

We design and demonstrate a high repetition-rate similariton generation system using normal dispersion fiber amplifiers (NDFA's). We numerically calculate the pulse evolution in NDFA's and clarify the condition to generate similariton pulses in a finite-length NDFA. Then we design the similariton generation system in consideration of the use of Erbium-doped fibers (EDF's) and show that a km-long fiber amplifier with low normal dispersion can generate a high repetition-rate similariton train from practical pico-second pulse sources. In the experiment, we demonstrate a 10-GHz similariton source using a 1.2-km-long EDF. For application to multi-wavelength light sources, we measure the bit-error rate of the spectrally sliced similariton, and show that it exhibits low-noise performance, which is attributed to the spectral flatness.

The multinomial naive Bayes model has been widely used for probabilistic text classification. However, the parameter estimation for this model sometimes generates inappropriate probabilities. In this paper, we propose a topic document model for the multinomial naive Bayes text classification, where the parameters are estimated from normalized term frequencies of each training document. Experiments are conducted on Reuters 21578 and 20 Newsgroup collections, and our proposed approach obtained a significant improvement in performance compared to the traditional multinomial naive Bayes.

The fairness algorithm of the Resilient Packet Ring IEEE 802.17 standard suffers from throughput degradation under an unbalanced overload. This letter proposes an enhanced fairness algorithm using a valuable piece of information, represented by the transit buffer length, about congestion alleviation on a congested node, under which the throughput degradation can be completely improved.

The theory of the method of moments (MoM), which has been widely used as a numerical technique for analyzing the characteristics of antennas and scatterers, is described. First, the steps of MoM to solve integral equations for conducting wires and planes are presented. It is pointed out that MoM combined with Galerkin's method yields highly accurate results. The importance of ensuring the continuity condition of current on conducting bodies is emphasized and numerical examples for a conducting structure involving junctions of wire segments and planar segments are presented. Finally, MoM for dielectric scatterers including recent developments is described.

This paper reports on the suitability of the SUSAN filter for the removal of artifacts that result from quantization errors in wavelet video coding. In this paper two extensions of the original filter are described. The first uses a combination of 2-D spatial filtering followed by 1-D temporal filtering along motion trajectories, while the second extension is a pure 3-D motion compensated SUSAN filter. The SUSAN approach effectively reduces coding artifacts, while preserving the original signal structure, by relying on a simple pixel-difference-based classification procedure. Results reported in the paper clearly indicate that both extensions efficiently reduce ringing that is the prevalent artifact perceived in wavelet-based coded video. Experimental results indicate an increase in perceptual as well as objective (PSNR) decoded video quality, which is competitive with state-of-the-art post-processing algorithms, especially when low computational demands of the proposed approach are taken into account.

In the next-generation networks, ultra high-speed data transmission will become necessary to support a variety of advanced point-to-point and multipoint multimedia services with stringent quality-of-service (QoS) constraints. Such a requirement desires the realization of optical WDM networks. Researches on multicast in optical WDM networks have become active for the purpose of efficient use of wavelength resources. Since multiple channels are more likely to share the same links in WDM multicast, effective routing and wavelength assignment (RWA) technology becomes very important. The introduction of the wavelength conversion technology leads to more efficient use of wavelength resources. This technology, however, has problems to be solved, and the number of wavelength converters will be restricted in the network. In this paper, we propose an effective WDM multicast design method on condition that wavelength converters on each switching node are restricted, which consists of three separate steps: routing, wavelength converter allocation, and wavelength assignment. In our proposal, preferentially available waveband is classified according to the scale of multicast group. Assuming that the number of wavelength converters on each switching node is limited, we evaluate its performance from a viewpoint of the call blocking probability.

We describe a transmission system having a data rate of 160 Gbit/s based on the RZ-DPSK modulation format. The 160 Gbit/s single-polarization signal is generated by optical time division multiplexing technology using the base rate of 40 Gbit/s. The setup is explained and results are given with a special focus on the stability issue of the transmission system. The pulse source, the optical gate for demultiplexing, the clock recovery and the balanced photo-detector are based on semiconductor components. We present long-term bit error measurements (10 hours) over two different long-haul fiber links. The first link comprises 3106 km standard single mode fiber and uses a PMD mitigation scheme. The other link consists of 4 dispersion managed 80 km fiber spans without the need for an additional PMD compensation. Using EDFA amplification solely and also no FEC, error-free operation was achieved over several hours, only limited by slow drift effects in the laboratory system.

This paper investigates a relationship between inkdot and one-pebble for two-dimensional finite automata (2-fa's). Especially we show that (1) alternating inkdot 2-fa's are more powerful than nondeterministic one-pebble 2-fa's, and (2) there is a set accepted by an alternating inkdot 2-fa, but not accepted by any alternating one-pebble 2-fa with only universal states.

By using multiple transmit antennas, wireless systems have a large capacity in time-varying multipath fading channels. Space-time block code (STBC), space-frequency block code (SFBC), and space-time-frequency (STF) block code are well-known techniques in transmitter diversity schemes. While the SFBC (or the STF block coded) system gives full diversity at frequency-nonselective channels, it breaks down when used in a frequency-selective environment. This is because the SFBC (or the STF block code) scheme disregards frequency selectivity of the channel by assuming that channel frequency responses (CFRs) at adjacent subcarriers are the same. In this paper, we propose efficient channel estimation and symbol decoding methods, which consider the difference between CFRs at the adjacent subcarriers of the SFBC (or the STF block coded) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system in multipath fading channels. The proposed method gives initial channel information by designing a simple training symbol, and the CFRs at all the subcarriers and the differences between the CFRs are easily calculated by using an interpolation method or a discrete Fourier transform (DFT) operation.

We demonstrated a vertically coupled microring resonator (VCMRR) filter as an Add/Drop wavelength filter. However, the accuracy of center wavelength was not sufficiently high for dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) systems. Thus, a UV trimming technique using a SiN (n=2.01 at λ=1.55 µm) ring core was previously developed. Although a wide center wavelength trimming range of -12.1 nm and the long-term stability of center wavelength were realized, the core size required for single-mode propagation was too small for fabrication using a photolithography process. Therefore in this study, we introduced SiON as the microring core to relax the single-mode condition of core size. We discovered a large UV sensitivity of SiON film formed by a PECVD method, and a wide range UV trimming of microring resonator of -10.5 nm was demonstrated using this phenomenon.

The XTR public key cryptosystem was introduced in 2000. XTR is suitable for a variety of environments including low-end smart cards, and is regarded as an excellent alternative to RSA and ECC. Moreover, it is remarked that XTR single exponentiation (XTR-SE) is less susceptible than usual exponentiation routines to environmental attacks such as the timing attack and the differential power analysis (DPA). This paper investigates the security of side channel attack (SCA) on XTR. In this paper, we show the immunity of XTR-SE against the simple power analysis if the order of the computation of XTR-SE is carefully considered. In addition, we show that XTR-SE is vulnerable to the data-bit DPA, the address-bit DPA, the doubling attack, the modified refined power analysis, and the modified zero-value attack. Moreover, we propose some countermeasures against these attacks. We also show experimental results of the efficiency of the countermeasures. From our implementation results, if we compare XTR with ECC with countermeasures against "SCAs," we think XTR is as suitable to smart cards as ECC.