We study the most appropriate network architecture for constructing FTTH (Fiber To The Home) networks. We conclude that the Single Star network is the most advantageous for supporting the various services required by subscribers who use broadband signal such as B-ISDN (Broadband-Integrated Services Digital Network). We also study high fiber count cable and low-loss connector which are needed for this network and clarify their requirements. We also show the cable structure, connector structure and connection loss reduction method, which satisfy these requirements. We describe a 4,000-fiber cable with a new structure, a 1,000-fiber one-touch connector, a 40-fiber unit connector and TEC-fiber (Thermally-diffused Expanded Core fiber) which reduces connection loss.

We report on 1N branching devices for fiber-optic networks. A novel Y-pattern mask for loss reduction in branching waveguide has been investigated based on simulation. 18 branching waveguides fabricated by ion-exchange proved that the scattering loss at the branching region made with novel Y-pattern is reduced considerably. Pigtailing technique has been developed using glass fiber arrays (FAs). The fibers in FA are aligned precisely, so that all fibers can be easily and precisely put into alignment with the output ports in a branching waveguide chip at the same time. A glass plate is used for reinforcement which improves mechanical and thermal stability of the device. Reliability of packaged devices is being strongly demanded. Various reliability tests have been performed with packaged 18 branching devices and those results are presented.

Fiber-optic subscriber loops are beginning to be constructed worldwide as an infrastructure for the 21st century. Making the most of the superior transmission capabilities of optical fiber cable, high-speed and broadband services such as so-called Broadband-ISDN (B-ISDN) services are expected to be achieved. We review current trends in fiber-optic systems and discuss how fiber-optic subscriber loops should be implemented from the points of view of services and technology. First, prospective services offered over fiber-optic subscriber loops and resulting requirements for such loops are presented. Various kinds of services produced through fiber-optic subscriber loops will further develop the information-oriented society and have a major influence not only on the industrial world but on family life as well. Next, basic concepts of totally fiber-optic subscriber loops and proposals for shifting from the existing metallic cable network to totally fiber-optic subscriber loops are discussed. In this regard, we must consider the advantages of optical fiber cables and improve upon the disadvantages of the existing metallic cable network. In particular, a Digital Loop Carrier (DLC) system or a Passive Double Star (PDS) have been proposed to shift from the existing metallic cable network to totally fiber-optic subscriber loops effectively and economically. Finally, line configuration topology and latest fiber-optic technologies such as high-count cable, construction techniques and operation systems for use in achieving totally fiber optic subscriber loops are shown. We believe a single star configuration is the most appropriate for totally fiber-optic subscriber loops.

In this letter, it is clarified that the quantum noise properties of the linear amplification and locking amplification in the injection locked laser process are different. The noise property of the locking amplification is newly given.

Experimental results on the superconducting three-terminal devices Using Bi-system High-Tc Superconductors were reported. The VCJJ (Variabel critical-current-type Josephson junction devices) using the thermal effect (VCJJ) and a dual gate Josephson device of a new current-injection type are described. The basic technology and problems for high-Tc three-terminal devices are briefly discussed.

In this paper we examine the architectural and operational design issues of a practical network management system using the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) in the context of a large-scale OSI-based campus-network TAINS. Various design aspects are examined and the importance of time-management is elicited. In the proposed design, intelligent, time-synchronised agents are deployed to collect information about the network segments to which they are attached. The manager talks to the agents and gathers relevant network information. This information is used by the expert network manager, in conjunction with a network knowledge base (NKB) and a management information knowledge base (MIKB) , to reconstruct the overall network-traffic characteristic, to evaluate the status of the network and to take/suggest some action. This model is particularly useful in networks where some global control, monitoring and management is desired and installing agents on all elements, connected to the network, is impossible. The use of time labels and narrow time windows enables the manager to obtain a reasonably accurate picture of the network status. The introduction of time-labelled composite objects in the Management Information Base (MIB) provides a means of reducing the load of management-related traffic on the network. The MIKB containing a logical description of the behaviour of the managed objects defined in the MIB, drives the expert system and provides the knowledge of general nature that a human expert has about networks. The proposed MIKB concept provides a very convenient schema for building the knowledge base in an expert network management system. Further since the MIKB is MIB-specific, it can be used in network management systems for managing similar MIB's.

In this letter, a generalized syndrome polynomial is proposed from which several decoding key-equations for Reed-Solomon codes can be derived systematically. These equations are always solved by the extended Euclidean algorithm.

A novel coupling configuration consisting of a tapered slab waveguide with a wedge-shaped nonlinear cladding is proposed. Coupling characteristics for TE waves are analyzed by means of the beam propagation method. The proposed configuration is less sensitive to the offset between coupled waveguides than is the configuration with a homogeneous non-linear cladding.

This paper proposes a next-generation narrow-band ISDN (N-ISDN), including a suitable network and network node architecture. The proposed N-ISDN allows every subscriber to use H0/HI-class calls as easily as present telephone calls, and could rapidly expand ISDN services to all the subscribers of a public network. The present status of ISDN is first analyzed then the need for popularization of H0/HI-call services is discussed. The proposed key technologies to popularize HO/HI services are (1) on-chip integration of ISDN switching systems, (2) distribution of small on-chip switching systems over the subscriber switching area, (3) H0-based trunk circuit networks using H0 on-chip switching systems and (4) efficient and flexible call management for 64-kb/s basic-class calls. An estimation of hardware volume of switching nodes is used to show that the proposed architecture is more economical than other possible alternatives, i.e. conventional ISDN and B-ISDN.

As the size and complexity of network increases, the distributed systems management (DSM) will be vital in order to improve the availability of network management, to reduce the complexity of network operations, and to provide the high reliability. In this paper, we (1) describe general requirements required for systems management in distributed environment, (2) introduce the basic structure of distributed network management system (DNMS) for efficient network management, and also especially illustrate the concrete design of system management application process which is an important element among them, (3) propose the connectionless CMIP to accomplish for effectively managing the distributed management system, and indicate its efficiency; this protocol is available to manage dynamically changing DSM environment, to negotiate among the managing systems, to handle the dynamic informations etc. Finally, (4) the behavior and software structure of a suggested management system during negotiation to execute the received request for implementation are presented.

This paper discusses a computer-aided network planning support system called PIGEON that has been developed primarily for advancing countries implementing the applicability to various types of networks and the supportability to the sensitivity analysis. For the implementation of the applicability, the customization by reflecting existing network facilities and their accompanying restrictive conditions into a design result is focused. A case study on the customization shows the effectiveness of the reflection. The procedures are given of the sensitivity analysis in order to examine and to evaluate the effect of the uncertain factors in network planning. In particular, a method called "network modification" is proposed for the sensitivity analysis for uncertain factors associated with a partial network. The network modification efficiently integrates network planner's judgments into a design result by the interactive method. In addition, this paper describes the importance of streamlining the data input and the evaluation of design results, showing the operating time required for each work phase in network planning.

The numbers of passes required to realize permutations in the class of Bit Permute-Complement (BPC) permutations such as Bit-Reversal, Matrix-Transpose, Perfect-Shuffle, and Bit-Complement permutations in delta and extrastage delta networks are obtained. The influence of the faults in the networks on the number of passes required for them is also investigated. First, how different are the time complexities required when using a route decision algorithm and an improved algorithm having taken some inherent properties into consideration is discussed and solved by obtaining real data. Next, how many passes are required to realize BPC permutations in delta networks when faults are present and when not present, and how many passes can be reduced by using an extra-stage are discussed continuously. As an important criterion for the fault tolerance of multistage interconnecting networks, Dynamic Full Access (DFA) has been suggested. A weakness of DFA as applied to BPC permutations is that the ability to realize such permutations in a finite number of passes can not be always measured by a criterion of DFA, because of the uneven distributions of paths required for the permutations. This reason suggests the ability to realize such permutations must be investigated from the different angle.

This study proposes a new training method for hidden Markov model with separate vector quantization (SVQ-HMM) in speech recognition. The proposed method uses the correlation of two different kinds of features: cepstrum and delta-cepstrum. The correlation is used to decrease the number of reestimation for two features thus the total computation time for training models decreases. The proposed method is applied to Japanese language isolated dgit recognition.

This letter discusses the quality improvement of reconstructed images in diffraction tomography. An efficient iterative procedure based on the modified Newton-Kantorovich method and the Gerchberg-Papoulis algorithm is presented. The simulated results demonstrate the property of high-quality reconstruction even for cases where the first-order Born approximation fails.

A learning algorithm for neural controllers based on random search is proposed. The method presents an attractive feature in comparison with the learning of neural controllers using the standard backpropagation method. Namely, in this approach the identification of the unknown plant becomes unnecessary because the parameters of the controller are determined by a trial and error process. This is a favorable feature particularly in cases in which the characteristics of the system are complicated and consequently the identification is difficult or impossible to perform at all. As application examples, the learning control of the pendulum system and the maze problem are shown.

This paper treats the problem of realizing high speed 2-D denominator separable digital filters. Partitioning a 2-D data plane into square blocks, filtering proceeds block by block sequentially. A fast intra-block parallel processing method was developed using block state space realization, which allows simultaneous computation of all the next block states and the outputs of one block. As the block state matrix of the filter has high sparsity, the rows and columns are interchanged respectively to reduce the matrix size. The filter is implemented by a multiprocessor system, where for each matrix's row one processor is assigned to perform the row-column vector multiplication. All processors wirk in synchronized fashion. Number of processors of this implementation are equal to the number of rows of the reduced state matrix and throughput is raised with block lengths.

We introduce a novel neural network called the T-Model and investigates the learning ability of the T-Model neural network. A learning algorithm based on the least mean square (LMS) algorithm is used to train the T-Model and produces a very good result for the T-Model network. We present simulation results on several practical problems to illustrate the efficiency of the learning techniques. As a result, the T-Model network learns successfully, but the Hopfield model fails to and the T-Model learns much more effectively and more quickly than a multi-layer network.

The globalization of business where single products and services are designed, developed, and manufactured in many different countries signals a significant need for cost-effective and reliable information movement and management capabilities. Similarly, consumers are seeking technologies which will allow them to visit the Smithsonian, scan a book in the Oxford Library, and interview a Japanese monk for a school report, all from the comfort of home. A necessary ingredient for realizing this global society is a strong telecommunications infrastructure. Our paper describes some of the customer needs and technology advances that are causing a revolution in planning global telecommunications networks. We present a new telecommunications paradigm and study its impact in two key areas: multi-country network routing at both the traffic and facility levels, and global network robustness.

Network planning for a public switched telephone network is essentially the same as the company's business strategy. The social environment providing the market for communications services is undergoing rapid change in Japan as it evolves from an era of one basic mainstay service-namely, plain-old telephone service-to one in which a wide range of advanced new services are, or soon will be, available and there is fierce competition to provide those services. This paper covers some of the thinking behind NTT's strategy to put in place a flexible and effectual network that fully reflects the needs and desires of customers in this fast-changing environment.

The Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is expected to be the basic transmission technology for B-ISDN. Before this happens, however, it will be necessary to predict the impact of fully-deployed ATM-based networks quantitatively. This paper compares the cost-efficiency of an ATM-based network with that of an STM-based network and clarifies the applicable areas of ATM network configurations, in terms of required facilities and considering the effect of statistical multiplexing. It shows cost-effective network configurations based on different service classes and a network configuration suited to ATM. It also discusses the effect of a Synchronous Digital Hierarchy architecture for Virtual Path dimensioning.