In a DC 50 V/3.3 A circuit, the spatial distributions of the spectral intensities of breaking arcs near the cathode for silver contacts were measured on the contact surfaces of three different shapes: flat and spherical (1 mm radius and 2 mm radius) and the arc temperature and the metal-vapor quantity were calculated from the spectral intensities. The influence of the contact shape on the arc temperature and the metal-vapor quantity were also examined, as well as the arc tracks on the contact surfaces and the gain and loss of the contacts. Findings show the distributions of spectral intensities are non-symmetrical from the beginning to the extinction of the breaking arc for the flat contact: However, they are symmetrical in the latter half of the breaking in spite of the number of breaking arcs and the shape of contact surface for the spherical contact. The relationship between the area of the arc tracks on the cathode and the shape of contact surface is the same as the relationship between the existent areas of measured spectra and the shape of the contact surface. For the spherical contacts, the arc temperature and the metal-vapor quantity are affected a little by the radius of the curved of contact surface and the number of breaking arcs. However, the longer the arc duration, the higher the metal-vapor quantity is in the latter period of the breaking arc. For the flat contacts, the metal-vapor quantity is lower than those for the spherical contacts. The gain and loss of the contacts are less and the arc duration is shorter for the flat contact than for the spherical contact.

The optimistic analytical results for performance analysis of buffered banyan networks are mainly due to certain independence assumptions used for simplifying analysis. To capture more effects of cell correlation, a refined analytical model for both single-buffered and multiple buffered banyan networks is proposed in this paper. When cell output contention occurs at a 2 2 switch element, two contention resolution schemes are used. One is based on randomly choosing the winning cell and another is to give priority to the cell which has been delayed in the current buffer for at least one stage cycle. The switch throughput, cell transfer delay and cell delay deviation for single-buffered banyan networks with and without using priority scheme are derived. Then the model is generalized to multiple buffered banyan networks where analytical expressions for throughput and delay are obtained. We show that using the priority scheme the cell delay deviation is reduced and the influence on throughput performance is insignificant. The results obtained from our analytical model are compared with the simulations and good agreement is observed. Comparisons with some proposed analytical models in the literature reveal that our model is more accurate and powerful in predicting the performance of buffered banyan networks.

This paper proposes two numerical methods to solve the optimal problem of contrast enhancement in the cross-pol and co-pol channels. For the cross-pol channel case, the contrast (power ratio) is expressed in a homogeneous form, which leads the polarimetric contrast optimization to a distinctive eigenvalue problem. For the co-pol channel case, this paper proposes a cross iterative method for optimization, based on the formula used in the matched-pol channel. Both these numerical methods can be proved as convergent algorithms, and they are effective for obtaining the optimum polarization state. Besides, one of the proposed methods is applied to solve the optimal problem of contrast enhancement for the time-independent targets case. To verify the proposed methods, this paper provides two numerical examples. The results of calculation are completely identical with other authors', showing the validity of the proposed methods.

We propose a new method of progressive transmission of continuous tone images using multi-level error diffusion method. Assuming that the pixels are ordered and the error is diffused to later pixels, multi-level error-diffused images are resolved into a multiple number of bit planes. In an image with 8 bits per pixel, the number of the bit planes that we construct is 9, and the 2-level, 3-level, 5-level,, error-diffused images are produced by a successive use of the bit planes. The original image is finally achieved precisely.

We present a receiver structure with joint blind equalization, carrier recovery, and timing recovery. The blind equalizer employs a decomposition transversal filtering technique which can reduce the complexity of convolution to about a half. We analyze the performance surface of the equalizer cost function and show that the global minima correspond to perfect equalization. We also derive proper initial tap settings of the equalizer for convergence to the global minima. We describe the timing recovery and the carrier recovery methods employed. And we describe a startup sequence to bring the receiver into full operation. The adaptation algorithms for equalization, carrier recovery, and timing recovery are relatively independent, resulting in good operational stability of the overall receiver. Some simulation results for cable-modem type of transmission are presented.

We analyze the security of iterated 2m-bit hash functions with rate 1 whose round functions use a block cipher with an m-bit input (output) and a 2m-bit key. We first show a preimage attack with O(2m) complexity on Yi and Lam's hash function of this type. This means that their claim is wrong and it is less secure than MDC-2. Next, it is shown that a very wide class of such functions is also less secure than MDC-2. More precisely, we prove that there exist a preimage attack and a 2nd preimage attack with O(2m) complexity and a collision attack with O(23m/4) complexity, respectively. Finally, we suggest a class of hash functions with a 2m-bit hashed value which seem to be as secure as MDC-2.

The disk allocation problem examined in this paper is finding a method to distribute a Binary Cartesian Product File on multiple disks to maximize parallel disk I/O accesses for partial match retrieval. This problem is known to be NP-hard, and heuristic approaches have been applied to obtain suboptimal solutions. Recently, efficient methods such as Binary Disk Modulo (BDM) and Error Correcting Code (ECC) methods have been proposed along with the restrictions that the number of disks in which files are stored should be a power of 2. In this paper, a new Disk Allocation method based on Genetic Algorithm (DAGA) is proposed. The DAGA does not place restrictions on the number of disks to be applied and it can allocate the disks adaptively by taking into account the data access patterns. Using the schema theory, it is proven that the DAGA can realize a near-optimal solution with high probability. Comparing the quality of solution derived by the DAGA with the General Disk Modulo (GDM), BDM, and ECC methods through the simulation, shows that 1) the DAGA is superior to the GDM method in all the cases and 2) with the restrictions being placed on the number of disks, the average response time of the DAGA is always less than that of the BDM method and greater than that of the ECC method in the absence of data skew and 3) when data skew is considered, the DAGA performs better than or equal to both BDM and ECC methods, even when restrictions on the number of disks are enforced.

High-speed and low-power techniques are described for megabit-class size-configurable CMOS SRAM macrocells. To shorten the design turn-around-time, the methodology of abutting nine kinds of leaf cells is employed; two-level via-hole programming and the array-address decoder embedded in each control leaf cell present a divided-memory-array structure. A new squashed-memory-cell architecture using trench isolation and stacked-via-holes is proposed to reduce access times and power dissipation. To shorten the time for writing data, per-bitline architecture is proposed, in which every bitline has a personal writing driver. Also, read-out circuitry using a current-sense-type two-stage sense amplifier is designed. The effect of the non-multiplexed bitline scheme for fast read-out is shown in a simulation result. To reduce the noise from the second- to first-stage amplifier due to a feedback loop, current paths are separated so as not to cause common impedance. To confirm the techniques described in this paper, a 1-Mb SRAM test chip was fabricated with an advanced 0.35-µm CMOS/bulk process. The SRAM has demonstrated 250-MHz operation with a 2.5-V typical power supply. Also, 100-mW power dissipation was obtained at a practical operating frequency of 150-MHz.

Object-Oriented database systems (OODBMS) are well known for modeling complex and dynamic application domains. Typically OODBMS have to handle large and complex structured objects whose values and structures can change frequently. Consequently there is a high demand for systems which support temporal and versioning features in both objects (or database population) and schema. This paper presents a mechanism for accessing the temporal versioned objects stored in the database which supports schema versioning. The results shown here can be considered as a value-added extension of our model called TVOO described in detail in [1] and [2]. In contrast to conventional database models, in TVOO objects and classes are not physically discarded from the database after they are modified or deleted. They are time dependent and the history of the changes which occur on them are kept as Version hierarchies. Therefore our model enriches the database environment with temporal and versioning features. Also, an access mechanism which makes it possible to access any object under any schema version is defined in such a way that not only objects created under old versions of schema classes can be accessed from new versions, but also objects created by new schema class versions can be accessed from old versions of the respective class.

The security of the ElGamal-type signature scheme is based on the difficulty of solving a discrete logarithm problem. If a random value that is introduced in the signing procedure is small, then the time for generating signature can be reduced. This strategy is particularly advantageous when a signer uses a smart card. In this paper, we show that the secret key can be computed efficiently if the random value is less than O(q) where q is the order of the generator.

The static fatigue parameters of plastic sleeves are determined by dynamic fatigue and destructive tests. The failure probability and lifetime of the plastic sleeve are estimated by using these parameters. No failure is expected for 20 years if the plastic sleeve is used in a normal atmosphere (23, 60%RH) and hot water (50).

In ordinary digital signature schemes, anyone can verify signatures with signer's public key. However it is not necessary for anyone to be convinced a justification of signer's dishonorable message such as a bill. It is enough for a receiver only to convince outsiders of signature's justification if the signer does not execute a contract. On the other hand there exist messages such as official documents which will be first treated as limited verifier signatures but after a few years as ordinary digital signatures. We will propose a limited verifier signature scheme based on Horster-Michels-Petersen's authenticated encryption schemes, and show that our limited verifier signature scheme is more efficient than Chaum-Antwerpen undeniable signature schemes in a certain situation. And we will propose a convertible limited verifier signature scheme based on our limited verifier signature scheme, and show that our convertible limited verifier signature scheme is more efficient than Boyar-Chaum-Damg rd-Pedersen convertible undeniable signature schemes in a certain situation.

In this paper, we propose two methods of digital watermark for image signals based on the wavelet transform. We classify wavelet coefficients as insignificant or significant by using zerotree which is defined in the embedded zerotree wavelet (EZW) algorithm . In the first method, information data are embedded as watermark in the location of insignificant coefficients. In the second method, information data can be embedded by thresholding and modifying significant coefficients at the coarser scales in perceptually important spectral components of image signals. Information data are detected by using the position of zerotree's root and the threshold value after the wavelet decomposition of an image in which data hide. It is shown from the numerical experiments that the proposed methods can extract the watermark from images that have degraded through several common signal and geometric processing procedures.

This paper proposes the first provably secure multi-signature schemes under the random oracle model. The security of our schemes can be proven in the sense of concrete security in Ref. [13]. The proposed schemes are efficient if the random oracle is replaced by practical hash functions. The essential techniques in our proof of security are the optimal reduction from breaking the corresponding identification to breaking signatures (ID Reduction Technique), and the hierarchical heavy row lemmas used in the concrete reduction from solving the primitive problem to breaking the identification scheme.

We present a method for power and delay optimization by input reordering. We observe that the reordering has a significant effect on the power dissipation of the gate which drives the reordered gate. This is because the input capacitance depends on the signal values of other inputs. This property, however, has not been utilized for power reduction. Previous approaches focus on the reduction of the power dissipated by internal capacitances of the reordered gate. We propose a heuristic algorithm considering the total power consumed in the driving gate and the reordered gate. Experimental results using 30 benchmark circuits show that our method reduces the power dissipation in all the circuits by 5.9% on average. There is a possibility that power dissipation is reduced by 22.5% maximum. In the case of delay and power optimization, our method reduces delay by 6.7% and power dissipation by 5.3% on average.

We consider an algorithm for finding all solutions in order to clarify all the stable equilibrium points of a hysteresis neural network. The algorithm includes sign test, linear programming test and a novel subroutine that divides the solution domain efficiently. Using the hysteresis network, we synthesize an associative memory whose cross connection parameters are trinalized. Applying the algorithm to the case where 10 desired memories are stored into 77 cells network, we have clarified all the solutions. Especially, we have confirmed that no spurious memory exists as the trinalization is suitable.

Decision trees are used as a convenient means to explain given positive examples and negative examples, which is a form of data mining and knowledge discovery. Standard methods such as ID3 may provide non-monotonic decision trees in the sense that data with larger values in all attributes are sometimes classified into a class with a smaller output value. (In the case of binary data, this is equivalent to saying that the discriminant Boolean function that the decision tree represents is not positive. ) A motivation of this study comes from an observation that real world data are often positive, and in such cases it is natural to build decision trees which represent positive (i. e. , monotone) discriminant functions. For this, we propose how to modify the existing procedures such as ID3, so that the resulting decision tree represents a positive discriminant function. In this procedure, we add some new data to recover the positivity of data, which the original data had but was lost in the process of decomposing data sets by such methods as ID3. To compare the performance of our method with existing methods, we test (1) positive data, which are randomly generated from a hidden positive Boolean function after adding dummy attributes, and (2) breast cancer data as an example of the real-world data. The experimental results on (1) tell that, although the sizes of positive decision trees are relatively larger than those without positivity assumption, positive decision trees exhibit higher accuracy and tend to choose correct attributes, on which the hidden positive Boolean function is defined. For the breast cancer data set, we also observe a similar tendency; i. e. , positive decision trees are larger but give higher accuracy.

We developed a PC cluster system which consists of 100 PCs as a test bed for massively parallel query processing. Each PC employs the 200 MHz Pentium Pro CPU and is connected with others through an ATM switch. Because the query processing applications are insensitive to the communication latency and mainly perform integer operations, the ATM connected PC cluster approach can be considered a reasonable solution for high performance database servers with low costs. However, there has been no challenge to construct large scale PC clusters for database applications, as far as the authors know. Though we employed commodity components as much as possible, we developed the DBMS itself, because that was a key component for obtaining high performance in parallel query processing, and there seemed no system which could meet our demand. On each PC node, a server program which acts as a database kernel is running to process the queries in cooperation with other nodes. The kernel was designed to execute pipelined operators and handle voluminous data efficiently, to achieve high performance on complex decision support type queries. We used the standard benchmark, TPC-D, on a 100 GB database to verify the feasibility of our approach, through comparison of our system with commercial parallel systems. As a whole, our system exhibited sufficiently high performance which was competitive with the current TPC-D top records, in spite of not using indices. For some heavy queries in the benchmark, which have high selectivity and joinability, our system performed much better. In addition, we applied transposed file organization to the database for further performance improvement. The transposed file organization vertically partitions the tuples, enabling attribute-by-attribute access to the relations. This resulted in significant performance improvement by reducing the amount of disk I/O and shifting the bottleneck to computation.

Much of the data we deal with every day is organized hierarchically: file systems, library classification schemes and yellow page categories are salient examples. Business data too, benefits from a hierarchical organization, and indeed the hierarchical data model was quite prevalent thirty years ago. Due to the recently increased importance of X. 500/LDAP directories, which are hierarchical, and the prevalence of aggregation hierarchies in datacubes, there is now renewed interest in the hierarchical organization of data. In this paper, we develop a framework for a modern hierarchical data model, substantially improved from the original version by taking advantage of the lessons learned in the relational database context. We argue that this new hierarchical data model has many benefits with respect to the ubiquitous flat relational data model.

This letter examines outline measures of strength against the differential and linear cryptanalysis. These measures are useful to estimate the number of rounds giving an immune iterated cipher. This letter reports that the outline measures of strength are useful to relatively estimate the strength of generalized feistel ciphers.