This paper presents the results of a simulation study of blocking and non-blocking switching for hierarchical ring networks. The switching techniques include wormhole, virtual cut-through, and slotted ring. We conclude that slotted ring network performs better than the more popular wormhole and virtual cut-through networks. We also show that the size of the node buffers is an important parameter and that choosing them too large can hurt performance in some cases. Slotted rings have the advantage that the choice of buffer size is easier in that larger than necessary buffers do not hurt performance and hence a single choice of buffer size performs well for all system configurations. In contrast, the optimal buffer size for virtual cut-through and wormhole switching nodes varies depending on the system configuration and the level in the hierarchy in which the switching node lies.

This paper proposes new algorithms for diagnosing (detection, identification and location) baseline multistage interconnection networks (MIN) as one of the basic units in a massively parallel system. This is accomplished in the presence of single and multiple faults under a new fault model. This model referred to as the geometric fault model, considers defective crossing connections which are located between adjacent stages, internally to the MIN (therefore, a fault corresponds to a physical bridge fault between two connections). It is shown that this type of fault affects the correct geometry of the network, thus requiring a different testing approach than previous methods. Initially, an algorithm which detects the presence of bridge faults (both in the single and multiple fault cases), is presented. For a single bridge fault, the proposed algorithm locates the fault except in an unique pathological case under which it is logically impossible to differentiate between two equivalent locations of the fault (however, the switching element affected by this fault is uniquely located). The proposed algorithm requires log2 N test vectors to diagnose the MIN as fault free (where N is the number of input lines to the MIN). For fully diagnosing a single bridge fault, this algorithm requires at most 2 log2 N tests and terminates when multiple bridge faults are detected. Subsequently, an algorithm which locates all bridge faults is given. The number of required test vectors is O(N). Fault location of each bridge fault is accomplished in terms of the two lines in the bridge and the numbers of the stages between which it occurs. Illustrative examples are given.

Stable phase locked states" are found amongst the equiliblia of the phasor model known as a generalized Hopfield model having complex-valued local states on the unit circle with centre at the origin. The asynchronous updating rule is assumed, and the energy decreasing characteristic is used to investigate a property of the equilibrium states. Some of the equilibria are shown to be fragile" in the sense that the energy is not locally convex. It is also shown that the local convexity of the energy is assured by a sort of consistency between the equilibrium and the connection weights.

We develop a simulation environment for designing and examining a neural network model at the network level. The aim of our research is to enable researchers investigating neural network connective models to save time by being equipped with a graphical user interface and database of the network models. This environment consists of three parts: (1) the kernel of the simulation system, (2) NNDBMS (Neural Networks DataBase Management System), and (3) a system for displaying simulation results in various ways.

The use of high-performance portable computers has become widespread. It is expected that many people will carry large amounts of multimedia information in these portable computers. In face-to-face communication, however, few systems are capable of exchanging multimedia information. Previously, we developed the Nomadic Collaboration Support System, which supports face-to-face communication through conversation and the distribution of documents. The system makes it possible for each participant in face-to-face communication to distribute electronic documents to other participants and edit them synchronously. However, it is often impossible for participants to obtain suitable amounts of information during face-to-face communication because of the difficulty in tailoring the documents for each participant. In this paper, we propose a technique to exchange hypertext documents on the Nomadic Collaboration Support System, which will allow each participant to obtain the most suitable amount of information possible from the distributor without his tailoring documents for each participant.

We have proposed a concept of low power drive system for a multi-media TFT-LCD using MFD in which a displayed image is divided into some interlaced subfield images and the number of interlaced subfields can be changed depending on the moving quantities of displayed images. This method has been applied to a 9.5" TFT-LCD and successful operation has been confirmed without moving image degradation.

In the design of a large slotted waveguide array, evaluation of mutual couplings between the slots is time consuming. This paper proposes an effective approximation analysis of the external mutual couplings using periodic boundary condition. Simple design procedure is verified for two-dimensional slot array.

Many activities are being promoted for the coming multimedia age. In this paper, background information for multimedia communications is followed by an outline of joint tests in multimedia communications with some examples of the projects and applications. These trials are also explained from the aspects of project specifications, which include application classifications and details of multimedia-on-demand offerings, as well as technical issues in experimental environments which mainly include those related to ATM technology.

Flurorinated liquid crystal compounds having fluorophenyl, difluorophenyl and trifluorophenyl moieties combined with ester linkages, 1,2-ethylenes and covalent bonds were prepared and checked for their physical properties i.e. mesophases, dielectric and optical anisotropy. viscosity, pretilt angle and threshold voltage. By introducing fluorine atom(s) into the molecules, optical anisotropy and threshold voltage decreased, though the nematic temperature range diminished. The investigated compounds were all chemically stable and by using the compounds nematic liquid crystalline mixtures having low threshold voltage, low viscosity, large optical anisotropy and wide nematic ranges which were suitable for AM-LCDs, could be obtained.

This paper presents the system issues involved with the transmission of pre-encoded VBR MPEG video using CBR service. Conventional wisdom suggests that lossless delivery of VBR video using CBR service requires bandwidth to be reserved at the peak rate resulting in low bandwidth utilization. We calculate the minimum rate at which bandwidth must be reserved on a network in order to provide continuous playback of an MPEG encoded video bitstream. Simulation results using the frame size traces from several pre-encoded MPEG bitstreams and several buffer sizes demonstrate that this minimum reservation rateis much lower than the peak rate when a relatively small playback buffer size is used, resulting in much higher bandwidth utilization. Procedures for performing connection setup and lossless realtime video playback between the video server and the client are outlined. Methods for incorporating VCR-like features such as pauseandfast forward/reversefor Video-on-Demand (VoD) applications are presented.

Because the match phase in OPS5-type production systems requires most of the system's execution time and memory accesses, we proposed hash-based parallel production systems, CPPS (Clustered Parallel Production Systems), based on the RETE algorithm for distributed memory parallel computers, or multicomputers to reduce such a bottleneck. CPPS was effective in speeding up the match phase, but still left room for optimizations. In this paper, we introduce software cache techniques to memory nodes in the CPPS as one of the optimizations, and implement it on a multicomputer, nCUBE2. The benchmark results show that the CPPS with the software cache is about 2-fold faster than the original, and more than 7-fold faster than the simple hash method proposed by Acharya et al. for a large scale problem. The speed-up can be attributed to decreased communication costs.

An attenuation correction method was proposed for laser-produced plasma emission computed tomography (ECT), which is based on a relation of the attenuation coefficient and the emission coefficient in plasma. Simulation results show that the reconstructed images are dramatically improved in comparison to the reconstructions without attenuation correction.

Multistage Interconnection Networks (MIN) with multiple outlets are networks which can support higher bandwidth than those of nonblocking networks by passing multiple packets to the same destination. Fault recovery mechanisms are proposed for two of such networks (TBSF/PBSF) with the best use of their inherent fault tolerant capability. With these mechanisms, on-the-fly fault recovery is possible for multiple faults on switching elements. For the link fault, the networks are reconfigured after fault diagnosis, and the network is available with some performance degradation. The bandwidth degradation under multiple faults on link/element is analyzed with both theoretical models and simulation. Through the analysis, F-PBSF shows high fault tolerance under high traffic load and low reliability by using 3 or more banyan networks.

We have studied liquid crystal (LC) alignment on UV-irradiated poly(vinyl cinnamate)(PVCi)films by using the texture observations and the anchoring energy measurements. Irradiation of the PVCi films with linearly-polarized UV light creates the optical anisotropy in the films, and the anisotropy can well align LCs perpendicular to the UV polarization. We discuss the LC alignment mechanisms and point out the important contribution from non-dimerized side chains of PVCi molecules. The anchoring energies on photo-processed PVCi films are shown to be smaller than those on conventional rubbed polyimide films. We propose a new method to generate pretilt angle on the photo-processed PVCi films, and successful results of pretilt angle generation are demonstrated. This method is applied to fabricate TN- and super-multidomain TN-LCDs, and the good electro-optical performance of the LCDs is confirmed.

This paper first presents the performance analysis of the NACF algorithm. The results show the possibility of the degradation in the convergence speed. To improve the convergence speed, the bias term is introduced into the NACF algorithm and its efficiency is investigated through the computer simulations.

We present a volume rendering algorithm which renders images at approximately two to seven times the speed of a conventional ray caster with almost no visible loss of image quality. This algorithm traverses the volume data in object order and renders the image by performing ray casting for the pixels within the footprint of the voxel (i.e., rectangular prism) being processed. The proposed algorithm supports the rendering of both single and multiple isosurfaces with arbitrary opacity values. While the projection approach to volume rendering is not new, we present an algorithm specifically designed for the perspective projection, evaluate its rendering speed for both single and multiple isosurfaces with arbitrary opacity values, and examine how efficiently it uses cache memory.

In estimating the performances of Distributed control Dynamic Channel Assignment (DDCA) strategies in sector cell layout systems, we find that sector cell layout systems with DDCA achieved a large system capacity. Moreover, we also indicate the problem, which is the increase of occurrences of cochannel interference, raised by using DDCA in sector cell layout systems. The new channel assignment algorithm, which is called Channel Searching on Direction of Sector (CSDS), is proposed to cope with the problem. CSDS assigns nominal channels to each sector according to their direction so that the same frequency channel tends to be used in sectors having the same direction. We show, by simulations, that CSDS is an adequate algorithm for sector cell layout systems because it significantly improves performance on co-channel interference while only slightly decreasing system capacity.

A self-organizing neural network model of spatio-temporal visual receptive fields is proposed. It consists of a one-layer linear learning network with multiple temporal input channels, and each temporal channel has different impulse response. Every weight of the learning network is modified according to a Hebb-type learning algorithm proposed by Sanger. It is shown by simulation studies that various types of spatio-temporal receptive fields are self-organized by the network with random noise inputs. Some of them have similar response characteristics to X- and Y-type cells found in mammalian retina. The properties of receptive fields obtained by the network are analyzed theoretically. It is shown that only circularly symmetric receptive fields change their spatio-temporal characteristics depending on the bias of inputs. In particular, when the inputs are non-zero mean, the temporal properties of center-surround type receptive fields become heterogeneous and alter depending on the positions in the receptive fields.

This letter points out that while a class of conditions presented in Matsuoka K. [1] are truly sufficient for absolute stability of neural networks, the proof of the sufficiency given in [1] is not sound. As a remark, a mathematically rigorous proof of the sufficiency of the class of conditions for absolute stability of neural networks is provided.

In this paper, we present an exact analysis and an efficient matrix-analytic procedure to numerically evaluate the performance of cellular mobile networks with hand-off. In high-capacity micro-cell cellular radio communication networks, a cell boundary crossed by moving users can generate many hand-off attempts. This paper considers such a priority scheme that some channels and buffers are reserved for hand-off calls to reduce the forced termination of calls in progress. Performance characteristics we obtained include blocking probability, channel utilization, average queue length and average waiting time for hand-off calls. Using the matrix-analytic solution for the stationary state probability distribution, we also derive the probability distribution of the waiting time of a hand-off call. Numerical results show how priority can be provided to hand-off calls according to the number of reserved channels and buffer size. They also clarify the effect of the hand-off priority scheme on the standard deviation of waiting time of a hand-off call.