This paper explores a relationship between parameters for the context tree weighting and weights for a general model weighting technique. In particular, an algorithm is proposed that approximately computes the parameters from the weights, and a condition under which no error for the approximation occurs is derived.

We present two types of ICF (INHIBIT Controlled by Fluxon) gates as the basic circuits of the phase-mode logic family, and fabricate an adder circuit. The experimental result demonstrates that the carry operation followed up to 99 GHz input pulses. The performance of Josephson devices is improved by the use of junctions with high current density (Jc). We may use the high-Jc junctions without external resistive shunt in the phase-mode logic circuits because of reduction of the junction hysteresis. One of the ways to overcome the large area occupancy for geometric inductance is to utilize the effective inductance of a Josephson junction itself. We investigate a circuit construction with high-Jc inductor junctions, intrinsically overdumped junctions and junction-type resistors for the compactness of circuit integration, and discuss various aspects of the circuit construction.

An efficient hybrid scheme has been developed for optimizing register allocation applicable to CISC and RISC processors, which is crucial for maximizing their execution speed. Graph-coloring at the function level is combined with a powerful local register assigner. This assigner uses accurate program flows and access patterns of variables, and optimizes a wider local range, called an extended basic-block (EBB), than other optimizing compilers. The EBB is a set of basic-blocks that constitute a tree-shaped control flow, which is suitable for the large nested branches that frequently appear in embedded system-control programs, such as those for telephone call processing. The coloring at the function level involves only the live-ranges of program variables that span EBBs. The interference graph is therefore very small even for large functions, so it can be constructed quickly. Instead of iterative live-range splitting or spilling, the unallocated live-ranges are optimized by the EBB-based register assigner, so neither load/store insertion nor code motion is needed. This facilitates generating reliable code and debug symbols. The information provided for the EBB-based assigner facilitates the priority-based heuristics, fine-grained interference checking, and deferred coloring, all of which increase the colorability. Using a thread-support package for CHILL as a sample program, performance measurement showed that local variables are successfully located in registers, and the reduction of static cycles is about 20-30%. Further improvements include using double registers and improving debuggability.

An innovative small planar packaging(SPP)system is described that can be combined with card-on-board(COB)packaging in high-speed asynchronous transfer mode switching systems with throughput of over 40-Gb/s. The SPP system provides high I/O pin count density and high packaging density, combining the advantages of both planar packaging used in computer systems and COB packaging used in telecommunication systems. Using a newly developed quasi-coaxial zero-insertion-force connector, point-to-point 311 Mb/s of 8-bit parallel signal transmission is achieved in an arbitrary location on the SPP systems shelf. Also about 5400 I/O connections in the region of the planar packaging system are made, thus the SPP system effectively eliminates the I/O pin count limitation. Furthermore, the heat flux management capability of the SPP system is five times higher than of conventional COB packaging because of its air flow control structure. An SPP system can easily enlarge the switch throughput and it will be useful for future high-speed, high-throughput ATM switching systems.

We propose a method of reducing laser-clipping-induced distortion in a subcarrier multiplexed (SCM) optical-cable TV system. This scheme reduces amplitude peaks of the SCM signal by controlling the phases of video carriers to prevent the clipping which occurs when these peaks fall below the threshold of a laser-diode. It is experimentally shown that using this method reduces the bit error rate in an AM-VSB / QAM hybrid optical-transmission system.

In general, the performance of partial response maximum-likelihood (PRML) system is degraded by nonlinear distortion and high frequency noise in high-density digital magnetic recording. Conventional PRML system for single-track recording improves the performance when high order PRML systems and high rate codes are adopted. But, in general it is difficult to realize LSI circuits for high order PRML system and high rate code. In this paper, a trellis coded class four partial response maximum-likelihood (TC-PR4ML) system for high density two-track digital magnetic recording is proposed. Our two-track recording method can increase the coding rate over 1, which contributes to a decrease in both degradation effects from partial erasure, one of nonlinear distortions, and high frequency noise in high density recording. The error rate performance of the proposed system is obtained by computer simulation taking account of the partial erasure and it is compared with that of a conventional NRZ coded class four partial response maximum-likelihood (NRZ-PR4ML) system. The results show that the proposed system is hardly affected by partial erasure and keeps good performance in high density recording.

We propose a novel soft-decision decoding algorithm for cyclic codes based on energy minimization principle. The well-known soft-decision decoding algorithms for block codes perform algebraic (hard-decision) decoding several times in order to generate candidate codewords using the reliability of received symbols. In contrast, the proposed method defines energy as the Euclidean distance between the received signal and a codeword and alters the values of information symbols so as to decrease the energy in order to seek the codeword of minimum energy, which is the most likely codeword. We let initial positions be the information parts of signals obtained by cyclically shifting a received signal and look for the point, which represents a codeword, of minimum energy by moving each point from several initial positions. This paper presents and investigates reducing complexity of the soft-decision decoding algorithm. We rank initial positions in order of reliability and reduce the number of initial positions in decoding. Computer simulation results show that this method reduces decoding complexity.

This paper presents the performance of FH/MFSK systems, which exploit silent gaps in speech to accommodate more users, over Rayleigh fading channels. Two kinds of receivers are considered: one uses a threshold on the received signal strength to declare whether the signals were present or not, and the other is assumed to have perfect transmitter-state information obtained from using additional bandwidth. Results show that, if the codeword dropping and codeword error are assumed to be equally costly, the former can achieve slightly better performance than the latter in the decoding error probability. This finding suggests that, for the system to exploit silent gaps in speech, it is advantageous for the receiver to use a threshold to declare whether signals were present or not instead of relying on the transmitter-state information.

It is urgently required to protect copyrights of digital contents since the digital contents can be easily copied without degradation of quality. In this paper, we propose a new watermarking method which spreads an ID pattern with a random sequence and embeds it throughout the spatial domain of a color image. The random sequence is a key for extracting the ID pattern. As an ID pattern is spread throughout an image, we can extract the ID pattern from a part of the image, that is clipped image. We can also confirm authenticity by extracting the same ID pattern from several parts of an image. The proposed method is robust to disturbance by noise addition and image conversion such as brightness-contrast conversion and JPEG compression.

In this paper, we discuss the error correcting capability of the constant amplitude coding. In orthogonal multi-code CDMA systems, the transmitted signal has large amplitude fluctuation and the amplitude fluctuation causes large nonlinear distortion. In order to avoid the amplitude fluctuation, we have proposed "constant amplitude coding" in our previous study. The constant amplitude coding can achieve constant amplitude transmission by utilizing the redundancy of the coding, i. e. , the coding can have an error correcting effect. In this paper, we examine the effectiveness of the error correcting capability of the constant amplitude coding and show that the constant amplitude coding is very effective against nonlinear distortion under the consideration of the error correcting capability.

Privacy, voter uncoercibility, collision freedom, verifiability, and tally correctness are essential properties of modern electronic election systems. None of the single-authority election systems proposed in the literatures achieves all the above five properties. In this paper we propose a universal single-authority election system that satisfies the five properties. In particular, the privacy of each voter is protected against the authority and other voters, and no voter can coerce any other voter into changing the value of his vote in our proposed system. We also show that it is impossible for a collision-free single-authority election system to possess the voter uncoercibility and authority uncoercibility at the same time.

Fitt's law is commonly used to model target selection. But Fitts' law deals with only one kind of selection strategy. Our question is, do changes in target size, distance and direction to a target affect the differences in performance between target selection strategies? We performed the first empirical tests on a pen-based system to evaluate differences in performance between six selection strategies for selecting a target. Three target sizes, eight pen-movement-directions and three pen-movement-distances were applied to all six strategies. The results show that differences between selection strategies are affected by variations in target size but not by the other parameters (distance and direction).

In this paper, an algorithm for Boolean factoring is presented. The algorithm is based on a technique of rectangle covering. A distinctive feature of the algorithm is that no minimization step is required to achieve Boolean factoring. The method for computing Boolean products rests on the concepts of super-product, extended kernel and extended co-kernel-cube matrix. Results of a comparison with the algorithms GOOD_FACTOR and QUICK_FACTOR implemented in SIS are presented. SIS is a program for logic synthesis developed at the University of Berkeley. All performed tests indicate that the proposed algorithm realizes a good tradeoff between factoring quality and computing time.

A new numerical procedure called asymptotic periodic waveform evaluation (APWE) for finding the steady state solution of nonlinear circuits driven by one tone periodic input signal is presented. APWE starts by constructing a virtual system which gives the same periodic steady state waveform as the original system's but with a shorter transient duration. Thus the periodic steady state (PSS) response can be obtained by simply performing transient analysis of the newly derived system for a few periods. An efficient method for solving the nonlinear equations occurred during the transient analysis is presented. To improve the convergence rate of PSS waveform, APWE is combined with extrapolation method. Some simulation results are shown.

In GSM High Speed Circuit Switched Data (HSCSD), the data rate can be increased by using multiple time slots instead of single time slot. Multiple time-slot assignment results in high blocking rate. To accommodate more users, flexible resource allocation strategies have been proposed. Since GSM follows TDMA/FDMA, the channels (time slots) in a base station are segmented by frequency carriers. The base station must allocate the channels which belong to the same frequency carrier to individual requests. This Flexible Resource Allocation scheme for GSM (FRA-GSM) is contrastive to the scheme proposed in our previous studies where a base station may arbitrarily allocate idle channels in the base station to incoming requests. We define satisfaction indication SI as the measurement to compare the performance of these schemes. Experiment results indicate that FRA-GSM scheme has good performance when the user mobility is high, or when some cost factors are taken into account.

This paper describes key techniques for automatic program generation of office data handling for all types of switching systems. Our office data scenario tool generates logical-physical office data conversion programs to be installed in switching systems. Also, it generates logical office data generation programs to be installed in a logical office data generation tool that converts office conditions to a logical office data file. We were able to apply this tool to all the office data types for our new switching systems, and automatically generated about 5. 5% of the total program size. This technique reduces not only the software production cost but also the bug ratio because there is no room for human error. Also, switching system programs are much more portable, since no machine-code-dependent parts are involved in office data handling. Thus, we expect that these techniques will be the basis for highly productive, reliable, and portable software platforms for the next-generation multimedia communication systems.

Mechanism of UHF radiowave propagation into multistory office buildings are explored by using ray-tracing based models, which include a three-dimensional (3-D) ray-tracing model and a direct-transmitted ray (DTR) model. Prediction accuracy of the models is ascertained by many measured data and the measurements are carried out at many specific sites with different propagation scenarios. Their measured results also demonstrate some important propagation phenomena. It is found that (1) the direct transmitted wave may be the dominant mode; (2) the path loss neither increases nor decreases monotonically as a function of increasing floor level; and (3) there is not much difference of the average path loss among the receiving positions in the same room.

Resonant properties of resistively shunted tunnel junctions dominate the high-frequency performance of Josephson array oscillators. To improve the operating frequency, we have developed resistively shunted Nb/AlOx/Nb tunnel junctions with a small parasitic inductance. The inductance was minimized by reducing the inductive length between the tunnel junction and the contact hole to be about 1µm. By fitting the measured I-V characteristics of the shunted tunnel junction to the simulated characteristics, we estimated the inductance to be about 105 fH. The analysis of resonant properties showed that the shunted tunnel junctions with the small parasitic inductance have a high-frequency performance up to the Nb gap frequency. Josephson array oscillators using 11 such junctions were designed and fabricated to operate at 650 GHz and 1 THz. Shapiro steps induced by Josephson oscillation were clearly observed up to 1 THz. By fitting the step heights to the simulated results, we estimated the output power of the Josephson oscillator delivered to the load resistor to be about 10 µW at 625 GHz and 50 nW at 1 THz.

Exception handling is not only useful for increasing program readability, but also provides an effective means to check and locate errors, so it increases productivity in large-scale program development. Some typical and frequent program errors, such as out-of-range indexing, null dereferencing, and narrowing violations, cause exceptions that are otherwise unlikely to be caught. Moreover, the absence of a catcher for exceptions thrown by API procedures also causes uncaught exceptions. This paper discusses how the exception handling mechanism should be supported by the compiler together with the operating system and debugging facilities. This mechanism is implemented in the compiler by inserting inline check code and accompanying propagation code. One drawback to this approach is the runtime overhead imposed by the inline check code, which should therefore be optimized. However, there has been little discussion of appropriate optimization techniques and efficiency in the literature. Therefore, a new solution is proposed that formulates the optimization problem as a common assertion elimination (CAE). Assertions consist of check code and useful branch conditions. The latter are effective to remove redundant check code. The redundancy can be checked and removed precisely with a forward iterative data flow analysis. Even in performance-sensitive applications such as telecommunications software, figures obtained by a CHILL optimizing compiler indicate that CAE optimizes the code well enough to be competitive with check suppressed code.

This paper describes a new method for learning bilingual collocations from sentence-aligned parallel corpora. Our method comprises two steps: (1) extracting useful word chunks (n-grams) in each language by word-level sorting and (2) constructing bilingual collocations by combining the word-chunks acquired in stage (1). We apply the method to a two kinds of Japanese-English texts; (1) scientific articles that comprise relatively literal translations and (2) more challenging texts: a stock market bulletin in Japanese and its abstract in English. In both cases, domain specific collocations are well captured even if they were not contained in the dictionaries of specialized terms.