In this paper, a new encoding/decoding scheme of multiple-valued separable balanced codes is presented. These codes have 2m information digits and m (R - 2) check digits in radices R 4, 2m - 1 information digits and m + 1 check digits in R = 3, where code-length n = Rm. In actual use of code-lengths and radices, it is shown that the presented codes are relatively efficient in comparison with multiple-valued Berger codes which are known as optimal unordered codes. Meanwhile, the optimality of multiple-valued Berger codes is discussed.

In this paper, we propose a new method of dialogue data collection which can be used to evaluate modules of a spoken dialogue system. To evaluate the module, it is necessary to use suitable data. Human-human dialogue data have not been appropriate to module evaluation, because spontaneous data usually include too much specific phenomena such as fillers, restarts, pauses, and hesitations. Human-machine dialogue data have not been appropriate to module evaluation, because the dialogue was unnatural and the available vocabularies were limited. Here, we propose 'Hybrid method' for the collection of spoken dialogue data. The merit is that, the collected data can be used as test data for the evaluation of a spoken dialogue system without any modification. In our method a human takes the role of some modules of the system and the system, also, works as the other part of the system together. For example, humans works as the speech recognition module and the dialogue management and a machine does the other part, response generation module. The collected data are good for the evaluation of the speech recognition and the dialogue management modules. The reasons are as follows. (1) Lexicon: The lexicon was composed of limited words and dependent on the task. (2) Grammar: The intention expressed by the subjects were concise and clear. (3) Topics: There were few utterances outside the task domain. The collected data can be used test data for the evaluation of a spoken dialogue system without any modification.

A performance estimation method has been developed that combines conventional performance evaluation with Bayesian regression analysis. The conventional method is used to estimate performance a priori; this a priori estimate is then updated through Bayesian regression analysis using monitored performance. This method compensates for modeling errors in the conventional technique without recreating complex performance models; it does not require additional traffic measurement or system behavior models. Numerical examples and applications of traffic management in ATM PVC networks have demonstrated its effectiveness.

This paper presents a 15-GHz MMIC direct optical injection-locked oscillator (MMIC OILO) with very-wide locking range that uses photosensitive HBTs. The MMIC OILO consists of an HBT and a positive feedback circuit including a Q-damping variable resistor. By utilizing the high-fT/fmax photosensitive HBT, we realize both high-frequency oscillation of 15 GHz and increased equivalent electrical injection power. In addition to increasing the RF injection power, the Q-damping variable resistor effectively reduces the quality-factor of the oscillator, thus realizing the very wide locking range (f) of 567 MHz (f/fosc3.8%). The locking bandwidth of 3.8% is over 10 times wider than that of any yet reported microwave direct OILO. Furthermore, it is shown that the MMIC OILO can also work as a high-gain Q-variable filter photoreceiver by increasing a Q-damping variable resistance over the self-oscillation suppression range.

Caenorhabditis elegans during feeding gives good moving biological images",in which motions of several pulsing organs are superposed on its head swing. A powerful method to extract dynamic features is presented. First step is to use a variance picture VAG4 in order to pick up active pixel coordinates of concerned moving objects. Superiority of VAG4 over usual variance picture VAG2 is shown quantitatively by a model of moving particles. Pulsing areas of C. elegans, are exhibited more clearly in VAG4 than VAG2. Second step is use of a new subtraction method to extract main frequency bands. FFT spectra are averaged in active positions where VAG4 is above threshold THVR in the square with 88 pixels (ONA). The power spectra averaged in the enlarged squares (ELA) are subtracted from those in ONA, in which ELA includes ONA in its centre position. Large peak bands emerge in the subtracted power spectra. The subtraction eliminates the effect of head swing by spatial averagings in ELA. This new emphasizing method is compared to another subtraction method. The characteristic frequency of periodical moving organs coincides well with the values observed by other research groups and our visual estimation of replayed VTR images. Thus the proposed extraction method is verified to work well in double superposed motions.

The present paper is concerned with an algorithm for the minimization of multiple-valued input, binary-valued output functions. The algorithm is an extension to muitiple-valued logic of an algorithm for the minimization of ordinary single-output Boolean functions. It is based on a local covering approach. Basically, it uses a "divide and conquer" technique, consisting of two steps called expansion and selection. The present algorithm preserves two important features of the original one. First, a lower bound on the number of prime implicants in the minimum cover of the given function is furnished as a by-product of the minimization. Second, all the essential primes of the function are identified and selected during the expansion process. That usually improves efficiency when handling functions with many essential primes. Results of a comparison of the proposed algorithm with the program ESPRESSO-IIC developed at Berkeley are presented.

Ordered binary decision diagrams (OBDDs) have been widely used in many CAD applications as efficient data structures for representing and manipulating Boolean functions. For the efficient use of the OBDD, it is essential to find a good variable order, because the size of the OBDD heavily depends on its variable order. Dynamic variable reordering is a promising solution to the variable ordering problem of the OBDD. Dynamic variable reordering with the sifting algorithm is especially effective in minimizing the size of the OBDD and reduces the need to find a good initial variable order. However, it is very time-consuming for practical use. In this paper, we propose two new implementation techniques for fast dynamic variable reordering. One of the proposed techniques reduces the number of variable swaps by using the lower bound of the OBDD size, and the other accelerates the variable swap itself by recording the node states before the swap and the pivot nodes of the swap. By using these new techniques, we have achieved the speed-up ranging from 2.5 to 9.8 for benchmark circuits. These techniques have reduced the disadvantage of dynamic variable reordering and have made it more attractive for users.

Intracranial blood flow noise measuring and analyzing system were developed to detect the cerebrovascular diseases such as aneurysm, stenosis and occlusion in their early stage. To realize the effective measuring of the sound known as the 'bruit,' dedicated PVDF-film based sensor working on the closed eyelid was designed. FFT spectrums and Wigner distributions were used as analyzing methods to clarify both the precise spectrum and the time variance of the signals. Thirty normal people without any history of cerebrovascular disease were tested with the system to estimate the characteristics of the background noise. Thirteen patients, including eight stenosis, four aneurysm and one occlusion, were studied with the system. FFT spectral differences between patient and normal existed over the frequency range from 0.5kHz to 1.2kHz. In this range apparent increases of the signal components' power were observed for the patients. Numerically, this tendency was confirmed by the power difference between 750Hz and 1.5kHz, which could be the possible index of the existence diagnosis for cerebrovascular diseases. The shape of the FFT spectral pattern showed some difference between stenosis and aneurysm. In stenosis cases, it seemed that there existed the flat level from 0.4kHz to 1.2kHz, while in aneurysm cases the power decreases smoothly as frequency increases from the peak around 0.7kHz. Time variance of the bruit according to the cardiac cycle could be seen in the cases of stenosis from 30% to 50%, but not in the cases from 40% to 90%. This fact suggested the possibility to diagnose the extent of the stenosis. In most cases, recognizable spectral peak around 0.7 kHz were observed. Although the physical meanings of those peaks were not so clear, still it was the apparent characteristics and might be including important information.

In identification of a finite impulse response (FIR) model using noise-corrupted input and output data, the least squares type of estimation schemes such as the ordinary least squares (LS), the corrected least squares (CLS) and the total least squares (TLS) method become often numerically unstable, when the true input signal to the system is strongly correlated. To overcome this ill-conditioned problem, we propose a regularized CLS estimation method by introducing multiple regularization parameters to minimize the mean squares error (MSE) of the regularized CLS estimate of the FIR model. The asymptotic MSE can be evaluated by considering the third and fourth order cross moments of the input and output measurement noises, and an analytical expression of the optimal regularization parameters minimizing the MSE is also clarified. Furthermore, an effective regularization algorithm is given by using the only accessible input-output data without using any true unknown parameters. The effectiveness of the proposed data-based regularization algorithm is demonstrated and compared with the ordinary LS, CLS and TLS estimates through numerical examples.

UDL/I test suites and UDL/I Simulation/Synthesis Environment had been developed separately in parallel. Both were designed from syntax and semantics definition of UDL/I Language Reference Manual. Through test of the UDL/I Simulation/Synthesis Environment using the UDL/I test suites, quality of the test suites and the environment had been improved. Finally all the testing result matched with expected one. It was validated that both the test suites and the environment followed UDL/I language specification.

A non-invasive method is proposed to estimate the location of intracranial vascular disease using several sensors placed on the forehead. The advantage of this method over earlier measurements with a single ocular sensor is the abilty to localize the region of abnormal vascular tissue. A weighted least mean square procedure is applied to estimating the time difference between the sensor outputs using the phase distribution in the cross-spectrum. It is possible to estimate time differences shorter than sampling period. Computer simulation and clinical experiments demonstrate that a distance difference of around 20 times shorter than the wavelength can be obtained.

As Object-Oriented Database Systems (OODBS) play an increasingly important role in advanced database systems, OODBS performance becomes a significant issue. It is well known that there is a strong relationship between performance and the concurrency control algorithms employed by the Database Management System (DBMS). Class Granularity Locking (CGL) and Class Hierarchy Granularity Locking (CHGL) are proposed as the concurrency control algorithms for OODBS to minimize the locking overhead. However, their basic characteristics, including the licking overhead and concurrency, have not been extensively investigated and it is not known which one is most appropriate for the general case. In this paper, we construct a simulation model for OODBS and carry out several performance evaluation studies on these two Class-Hierarchy Locking protocols and the Non Class-Hierarchy Locking (NCL) protocol. The NCL protocal is a variation of the conventional two phase locking protocol being applied to OODBS data structures.

In this paper, we discuss an abstraction method for Petri nets based on an equivalence of firing sequences of a specified subnet or a specified subset of transitions. Specifically, a method is presented to generate an equivalent net which preserves firing sequences of a specified subnet or a specified subset of transitions. The abstraction can be applied to an efficient behavioral analysis of concurrent systems constructed by composition of modules such as communication networks and Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS).

The MUSIC algorithm has proven to be an effective means of estimating parameters of multiple incoherent signals. Furthermore, the forward-backward (FB) spatial smoothing technique has been considered the best preprocessing method to decorrelate coherent signals. In this paper, we propose a novel preprocessing technique based upon ideas associated with the FB and adaptive spatial smoothing techniques and report on its superiority in numerical simulations.

The technique for estimating the parameters of multiple waves provides a convenient tool for analysis of multiple wave-fields and eventually for actual applications to mobile communications. Several algorithms have been proposed for those purposes. However, the best tactics to resolve multiple wave-fields are still imperfectly understood at present. This paper proposes a new method for estimating the angles and power levels of arrival waves based on the extended Kalman filter. A space-variable model which we call a spatial state equation is derived using array element locations and incident angles. It has been shown that by means of the model, the estimation of incident waves can be transformed into the problem of parameter identification in linear system which can be carried out by the extended Kalman filter conveniently. The algorithm is initiated directly by the signal received at each array element. The detailed procedure of an extended Kalman filter approach is given in the paper. The performance of the proposed approach is examined by a simulation study with two signals model. The simulation results show a good estimate performance, even in the case that two waves arrive from close directions.

An automatic transistor-level performance fault tracing method is proposed which is applicable to the case where only CAD layout data is available in the CAD-linked electron beam test system. The technique uses an integrated algorithm that combines a previously proposed transistor-level fault tracing algorithm and a successive circuit extraction from CAD layout data. An expansion of the algorithm to the fault tracing in a combined focused ion beam and electron beam test system which enables us to measure signals on the interconnections in the lower layers is also described. An application of the technique to a CMOS model layout with about 100 transistors shows its validity.

Documents stored in a database system can have complex internal structure described by languages such as SGML. How to take advantage of this structure presents challenges for database system implementors. We classify the types of queries that need to be supported by SGML-conformant database systems. We then describe several data models that have been proposed for representing documents in a database system and discuss the support these models provide for SGML. Finally we consider query evaluation.

This paper discusses the reliability of the Modified EBU method compared with the EBU and DSCQS methods where the small and different levels of impairments exist in the coded HDTV sequences. The subjective evaluation tests are carried out in the full and limited impairment ranges. And it is shown that the Modified EBU method is most reliable for both ranges.

Generalizations of the classical ngram indexing techique provide a powerful tool for the fast retrieval of tree structures. We investigate the special case of binary trees, which are heavily used, for example, in computer linguistics: Given a database T{t1,...,tn} of labeled binary trees and a query tree q, find efficiently all trees t T that contain q as subtree. For supporting queries of this type, we propose an indexing technique that covers the database trees t T with smaller trees of a fixed calss. Thus, each index record represents a subtree that is contained in at least one database tree. To answer a given query q, the database trees of T that contain all of q's cover trees are preselected as candidates, which in turn are tested rigorously for containment of q. We present results from two test suites: one with databases of 10,000 randomly generated binary trees each and one with the 29,394 most extensive phrase structure trees found in the morphosyntactical analysis of the Old Testament's Hebrew texts Genesis, Exodus,and Leviticus.

Efficient retrieval of nested objects is an important issue in advanced database systems. So far, a number of indexing methods for nested objects have been proposed. However, they do not consider retrieval of nested objects based on the set comparison operators such as and . Previouly, we proposed four set access facilities for nested objects and compared their performance in terms of retrieval cost, storage cost, and update cost. In this paper, we extend the study and present refined algorithms and cost formulas applicable to more generalized situations. Our cost models and analysis not only contribute to the study of set-valued retrieval but also to cost estimation of various indexing methods for nested objects in general.