Aged people who live alone are in particular need of a daily health check, medication, and of warm communication with family and friends. The authors have been developing a life-support computer system with such functions. Among them, a daily health check function with the capability of measuring blood pressure, detecting diseases from coughing, and so on would in particular be very powerful for primary care. As a first step to achieving quick services for a daily health check with a personal computer, utilization of cough information is considered. Features of cough data are analyzed aiming at developing an automatic cough data detection method. This paper proposes a novel method for extracting cough signals from other types of signals. The differential coefficient of a low-pass filtered waveform is first shown to be an effective parameter for discriminating between vowel and cough signals, and the relationship between cut-off frequency and cough detection rate is clarified. This parameter is then applied to cough signals mixed with vowel signals or white noises to evaluate robustness. The evaluation tests show that the cough feature can be perfectly detected for a 20 dB S/N ratio when the cut-off frequency is set to 24 [Hz]. The experimental results suggest that the proposed cough detection method can be a useful tool as a primary care for aged people with a bronchitis like an asthmatic bronchitis and a bronchopneumonia.

The expected lengths of the parsed segments obtained by applying Lempel-Ziv incremental parsing algorithm for i.i.d. source satisfy simple recurrence relations. By extracting a combinatorial essence from the previous proof, we obtain a simpler derivation.

This paper describes an individual effect of soil moisture (mg) and surface roughness (hrms) of bare soil on the back scattering coefficient (σ0) at the X-band frequency. The study contributes to the design of an efficient microwave sensor. For this purpose, experimentally observed data was utilized to provide a composite σ0 equation model accounting for individual effect in regression analysis. The experimental data are compared with Small Perturbation Method. It is observed that the X-band gives better agreement up to incidence angle 50 for HH-polarization and 60 for VV-polarization as compared to the C-band. The lower angles of incidence give better results than the higher angles for observing mg at the X-band. The multiple and partial regression analyses have also carried out for predicting the dependence of scattering coefficient (σ0) on mg and hrms more accurately. The analyses suggest that the dependence of dielectric constant (i.e., mg) is much more significant in comparison to surface roughness at lower angles of incidence for both like polarizations. The results propose the suitable angle of incidence for observing bare surface roughness and soil moisture at the X-band. All these data can be used as a reference for satellite or spaceborne sensors.

This paper presents a three-dimensional polarimetric detection result of targets buried in snowpack by synthetic aperture FM-CW radar system. Since the FM-CW radar is suitable for short range sensing and can be equipped with fully polarimetric capability, we further extended it to a polarimetric three-dimensional SAR system. A field experiment was carried out to image and detect targets in a natural snowpack of 280 cm deep. The polarimetric detection and identification schemes are the polarimetric filtering, three-component decomposition, and the power polarization anisotropy coefficient. These approaches to acquired data show the usefulness of three-dimensional polarimetric FM-CW SAR system.

The main contribution of this work is to propose energy-efficient randomized initialization protocols for ad-hoc radio networks (ARN, for short). First, we show that if the number n of stations is known beforehand, the single-channel ARN can be initialized by a protocol that terminates, with high probability, in O(n) time slots with no station being awake for more than O(log n) time slots. We then go on to address the case where the number n of stations in the ARN is not known beforehand. We begin by discussing, an elegant protocol that provides a tight approximation of n. Interestingly, this protocol terminates, with high probability, in O((log n)2) time slots and no station has to be awake for more than O(log n) time slots. We use this protocol to design an energy-efficient initialization protocol that terminates, with high probability, in O(n) time slots with no station being awake for more than O(log n) time slots. Finally, we design an energy-efficient initialization protocol for the k-channel ARN that terminates, with high probability, in O(n/k+log n) time slots, with no station being awake for more than O(log n) time slots.

An approach for analysis of the small signal response of the carriers in semiconductors is presented. The integro-differential equation, describing the phenomenon in the time domain is transformed into a Fredholm integral equation of the second kind. The response of the carrier system to a small signal of a general time dependence can be calculated by the knowledge of the response to an impulse signal, defined by a delta function in time. For an impulse signal, the obtained integral equation resembles the basic structure of the integral form of the time dependent (evolution) Boltzmann equation. Due to this similarity a physical model of the impulse response process is developed. The model explains the response to an impulse signal in terms of a relaxation process of two carrier ensembles, governed by a Boltzmann equation. A Monte-Carlo method is developed which consists of algorithms for modeling the initial distribution of the two ensembles. The numerical Monte-Carlo theory for evaluation of integrals is applied. The subsequent relaxation process can be simulated by the standard algorithms for solving the Boltzmann equation. The presented simulation results for Si and GaAs electrons serve as a test of the Monte-Carlo method and demonstrate that the physical model can be used for explanation of the small signal response process.

A new method for measuring the scattering coefficient using a metal-plate reflector was developed in order to provide a non-destructive way for the assessment of microwave materials in free space. By displacing the position of the metal-plate reflector on the specimen to be tested, the incident wave and the scattered wave from the measured area were determined without the influence of extraneous waves such as the direct coupling between transmitting and receiving antennas and scattered waves from background objects. Because the behavior of a metal-plate reflector is similar to that of an optical shutter in optics, our new scattering measurement system enables us to measure both backward- and forward-scattering coefficients of small regions of the specimen for various types of materials in a non-destructive manner. Our study examined the metal-plate size dependence of the complex reflection and transmission coefficients of some dielectric sheet samples. The measured data indicated that the reflection and transmission coefficients of a Bakelite flat plate and Styrofoam sheet were constant for various sizes of metal plates at the X-band.

In this paper, a realization of an imaginary resistor using an ideal transformer is proposed. In the same fashion as the conventional method, a signal path is divided into a real signal path and an imaginary path. We name circuits which constitute a real signal path and an imaginary signal path, a real circuit and an imaginary circuit, respectively. An imaginary resistor is converted into an ideal transformer embedded between the imaginary circuit and the real circuit. The imaginary circuit becomes a dual circuit of the real circuit. This filter consists of terminating resistors, inductors, capacitors and ideal transformers. This prototype circuit is simulated by using operational amplifiers. A 3rd-order complex Chebyshev bandpass filter is designed and its frequency response is measured. Finally, the sensitivity property of the proposed filter is evaluated by a computer simulation.

We consider the performance of hyperelliptic curve cryptosystems over the fields Fp vs. F2n. We analyze the complexity of the group law of the jacobians JC(Fp) and JC(F2n) and compare their performance taking into consideration the effectiveness of the word size (32-bit or 64-bit) of the applied CPU (Alpha and Pentium) on the arithmetic of the definition field. Our experimental results show that JC(F2n) is faster than JC(Fp) on an Alpha, whereas JC(Fp) is faster than JC(F2n) on a Pentium. Moreover, we investigate the algorithm of the jacobian and the definition-field arithmetic to clarify our results from a practical point of view, with theoretical analysis.

A reliable and automatic parameter extraction technique for DFB lasers is developed. The parameter extraction program which is named "LAPAREX" is able to determine many device parameters from a measured sub-threshold spectrum only, including gain- and index-coupling coefficients, and spatial phases of the grating at front and rear facets. Injection current dependence of coupling coefficients in a gain-coupled DFBlaser is observed, for the first time, by making use of it.

This paper discusses a method of designing linear phase two-channel filter banks for integer wavelet transform. We show that the designed filter banks are easily structed as the lifting form by leading relationship between designed filters and lifting structure. The designed integer wavelets are applied to image compression to verify the efficiency of our method.

We propose a novel planar filter design for narrow-band applications. The filter consists of half-wavelength ring resonators with open gaps. This design has three advantages over conventional planar designs: a smaller size despite narrow bandwidth, a sharper skirt response at the passband edge without notch, an excellent out-band attenuation. We demonstrated these advantages by fabricating an 8-poles filter centered at 1.95 GHz with a 5 MHz bandwidth using YBCO films on a 2 inch diameter MgO substrate.

This paper discusses the classification of targets buried in the underground by radar polarimetry. The subsurface radar is used for the detection of objects buried beneath the ground surface, such as gas pipes, cables and cavities, or in archeological exploration operation. In addition to target echo, the subsurface radar receives various other echoes, because the underground is inhomogeneous medium. Therefore, the subsurface radar needs to distinguish these echoes. In order to enhance the discrimination capability, we first applied the polarization anisotropy coefficient to distinguish echoes from isotropic targets (plate, sphere) versus anisotropic targets (wire, pipe). It is straightforward to find the man-made target buried in the underground using the polarization anisotropy coefficient. Second, we tried to classify targets using the polarimetric signature approach, in which the characteristic polarization state provides the orientation angle of an anisotropic target. All of these values contribute to the classification of a target. Field experiments using an ultra-wideband (250 MHz to 1 GHz) FM-CW polarimetric radar system were carried out to show the usefulness of radar polarimetry. In this paper, several detection and classification results are demonstrated. It is shown that these techniques improve the detection capability of buried target considerably.

In this paper, we present a simple codeword length generation algorithm and its hardware implementation. The proposed technique is based on the dividing the Huffman table as two parts; with leading 0'bits and following bits. The method is shown to be efficient in the memory requirement and searching speed since only logic gates are needed in the implementation and searching can be process parallel without looking up the memory table. The total equivalent gates for the implementation are about only 100 gates and critical path delay is 10 ns. The results of experiments show that the proposed algorithm has a very high speed and a good performance. The designed blocks are synthesized by Compass synthesis with 0.5 µm CMOS, 3.3V, technology.

A new simple method for extracting the capacitance coupling coefficients of sub-0.5-µm flash memory cells is proposed. Different from the previously proposed methods, this method is not affected by a dopant profile of source region because a band-to-band tunneling current from the interface between the drain and the substrate is probed. Use of a reference device eliminates the necessity to make assumptions concerning the electron transport mechanism. Comparison with the other methods shows that the proposed method is simple and accurate.

Recently, we proposed a low power consumption FIR switched-capacitor filter constructed with capacitors having capacitances in proportion to square roots of transfer function coefficient values. It is referred to as an FIR semi-parallel cyclic type (SPCT) filter. In this paper, we present IIR SPCT filter. It needs only a single operational amplifier, hence being low power consumption. The IIR SPCT filter has smaller total capacitance than one of the IIR parallel cyclic type (PCT) filter and better high frequency response than one of the IIR transfer function coefficient ratio (TCR) filter. As a whole, the IIR SPCT filter has middle performance of the IIR PCT and TCR filters for the total capacitance, the number of types of clock pulses, and high frequency response.

The applicability of composite materials containing laminar solid lubricants to sliding contacts was studied. Performances of several composite materials prepared by incorporating solid lubricants with the basic alloys of the Cu-Nb system and Cu-Sn system were investigated to test the suitability of the composite materials as sliding contacts. As a result, it was clarified that the composite materials based on Cu-Sn alloy were superior to those based on Cu-Nb alloy and those containing only WS2 and not MoS2 were more effective in reducing both the contact resistance and the coefficient of friction. Based on the relationship between the contact resistance and the coefficient of friction obtained in this experimental study, the author proposed a new model for electric contact of composite materials.

In this paper, a new simulation approach to the analysis of the reflection characteristics on nonuniform transmission lines (NTLs) is presented. The input and output responses in the time domain and the reflection coefficients in the frequency domain are effectively obtained by using the modified central difference (MCD) simulation and the fast Fourier transform (FFT) technique for Gaussian pulse responses. The simulated results for the reflection characteristics of the NTL transformers are in excellent agreements with the theoretical values. By representing both the reflected voltage and the reflection coefficient, it is shown that this approach is useful to analyze for various types of tapered and stepped NTLs.

The act of finding or constructing a model for a portion of a given polynomial or Bezier parametric surface from the whole original one is an encountered problem in surface modeling. A new method is described for constructing polynomial or Bezier piecewise model from an original one. It is based on the "Parametric Piecewise Model," abbreviated to PPM, of curve representation. The PPM representation is given by explicit expressions in terms of only control points or polynomial coefficients. The generated piecewise model behaves completely as a normal, polynomial or Bezier model in the same way as the original one for the piece of region considered. Also it has all characteristics, i. e, order and number of control points as the original one, and satisfies at the boundaries all order continuities. The PPM representation permits normalization, piecewise modeling, PPM reduction and systematic processes.

Characterization of a mitered, a squarely cut, and a circular E-plane bend in rectangular waveguide is implemented by combining the port reflection coefficient method and the mode-matching method. Based on the port reflection coefficient method, the two-port waveguide bend is converted to a one-port structure comprised of cascaded waveguide step-junctions. After solving the reflection coefficient caused by these waveguide step-junctions using the mode-matching method, the desired scattering parameters of the bend are obtained readily. Convergence properties of the calculated numerical results are validated. Influences of the mitered, the squarely cut, and the circular part of the bend on the scattering parameters are investigated, and the optimal design dimensions for realizing wide-band and low return loss bends are found. Based on the optimal compensation dimension, an E-plane waveguide circular bend is fabricated and tested. The measured result agrees well with the theoretical prediction, and a full-band matched bend is practically realized.