A new prediction method for the effective address is presented. This method works with the buffer named the address prediction buffer, and allows the data cache to be accessed speculatively. As a consequence of the trend toward increasing clock frequency, the internal cache is no longer able to fill the speed gap between the processor and the external memory, and the data cache latency degrades the processor performance. In order to hide this latency, the prediction method is proposed. By this method, the load address is predicted, and the data is fetched earlier than the memory access stage. In the case that the prediction is correct, the latency is hidden. Even if the prediction is incorrect, the performance is not degraded by any miss penalties. We have found that the prediction accuracy is 81.9% on average, and thus the performance is improved by 6.6% on average and a maximum of 12.1% for the integer programs.

This paper proposes a hierarchical parallel processing system for the multipass rendering method. The multipass rendering method based on the integration of radiosity and ray-tracing can synthesize photo-realistic images. However, the method is also computationally expensive. To accelerate the multipass rendering method, the system, called (Mπ)2, employs two kinds of parallel processing schemes. As a coarse-grain parallel processing, object-space parallel processing with multiple processing elements based on the object-space subdivision is adapted, and each processing element (PE) is equipped with multiple pipelined units for a fine-grain parallel processing. To balance load among the system, static load balancing at the PE level and dynamic load balancing at the pipelined unit level within the PE are introduced. Especially, we propose a novel static load allocation scheme, skewed-distributed allocation, which can effectively distribute a three-dimensional object space to one- or two-dimensional processor configuration of the (Mπ)2 system. Simulation experiments show that the two-dimensional (Mπ)2 systems with the skewed-distributed allocation outperform the three-dimensional systems with the non-skewed distributed allocation. Since lower dimensional systems can be built at a lower cost than higher dimensional systems, the skewed-distributed allocation will be meritorious. Besides, by the combination of static load balancing by the skewed-distributed allocation and the dynamic load balancing by dynamic ray allocation within each PE, the system performance can be further boosted. We also propose a cached frame buffer system to relieve access collision on a frame buffer.

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.

This paper presents the computer simulation results on frequency reuse efficiency and soft handoff statistics in the CDMA forward link according to path loss and cell loading. The soft handoff threshold effect on the handoff statistics is also evaluated. The frequency reuse efficiency is not a fixed value but varying as function of distance from the home cell, path loss slopes, and cell loading. The total soft handoff pecentile ranges from 0.0 to 64.9 according to cell loading, even if path loss slope is constant.

A refection type and loaded-line type phase shifter switching multi phase-states has been described. This novel phase shifter circuit is constructed by adding switching FETs to a conventional 2-phase-state phase shifter. A conventional 3 bit phase shifter can be replaced by this type of phase shifter. The total chip size is reduced to 2/3. This paper reports on the design, fabrication, and performance of the novel reflection-type and loaded-line-type phase shifter MMICs.

This paper compares two techniques in recovering the capacity degradation caused by sectorization in a cellular system. They are the Directed Retry and Load Sharing in sector cells. Since both techniques requires an overlapping area between adjacent sectors, the values of the overlapping area are chosen such that the Carrier to Interference Ratio (CIR) is satisfied.

In an adaptive load balancing, the location policy to determine a destination node for transferring tasks can be classified into three categories: dynamic selection, random selection, and state polling. The dynamic selection immediately determines a destination node by exploiting the state information broadcasted from other nodes. It not only requires the overheads of collecting the state information, but may cause an unpredictable behavior unless the state information is accurate. Also, it may not guarantee even load distribution. The random selection determines a destination node at random. The state polling determines a destination node by polling other nodes. It may cause some problems such as useless polling, unachievable load balancing, and system instability. A new Sender-initiated Adaptive LOad balancing scheme (SALO) is presented to remedy the above problems. It determines a destination node by exploiting the predictable state knowledge and by polling the destination node. It can determine a good destination with minimal useless polling and guarantee even load distribution. Also, it has an efficient mechanism and good data structure to collect the state information simply. An analytic model is developed to compare with other well known schemes. The validity of the model is checked with an event-driven simulation. With the model and the simulation result, it is shown that SALO yields a significant improvement over other schemes, especially at high system loads.

The throughput performance of the non-persistent carrier sense spread spectrum with overload detection (NP-CSSS/OD) protocol is analysed and compared with that of the conventional non-persistent and one-persistent carrier sense multiple access with collision detection (NP-CSMA/CD and 1P-CSMA/CD) and the one-persistent carrier sense spread spectrum with overload detection (1P-CSSS/OD) protocols. We also introduced utilization measurements and did some performance comparisons between these protocols. At high offered loads, the NP-CSSS/OD protocol is found to offer the best throughput and utilization performances amongst them.

A partially ferrites and dielectric loaded water filled waveguide applicator is presented which can be used for microwave heating of tissues. The applicator can change its heating pattern by changing the external DC magnetic field applied to the ferrites. The electromagnetic (EM) field distribution inside the applicator is obtained theoretically and the simulated EM field inside the applicator is checked experimentally using 430MHz. Furthermore, on the basis of the EM field distribution inside the applicator, simulations of SAR distribution inside lossy homogeneous human tissue as muscle are performed using finite difference time domain (FD-TD) method. Simulated data of Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) distribution is compared with the experimental ones. Simulations of temperature distribution are also performed using heat transfer equation. Simulated data of temperature elevation distribution is compared with the experimental ones. The simulated results agree well with the experimental ones and it is confirmed that the heating pattern can be changed by external DC magnetic field applied to the applicator. The results obtained here show that the partially ferrites and dielectric loaded water filled waveguide applicator which operates at 430 MHz can change its heating pattern without changing its setup and can heat local target on the human body for hyperthermia treatment.

The superconducting magnet on a maglev vehicle vibrate and heats up inside under the influence of various disturbances in running. We have investigated the characteristics of heating in the superconducting magnet vibrating under the electro-magnetic disturbance from the ground coils. This magnetic disturbance has a frequency component ranging widely from 0 Hz to several hundred Hz which is proportional to the speed of the maglev vehicle. It was revealed that an extreme increase of heat load on the inner vessel of the energized magnet occurred at a particular frequency and it surpassed the capacity of the refrigerator installed in the tank of the superconducting magnet. As a result of the investigation, we could identify broadly three factors of heating, and now we have good prospects of largely suppressing the heating by reducing the disturbance through the folded arrangement of the ground coils and a structural improvement of the magnet.

This paper reports an overload control method for the Intelligent Network (IN). The IN, which is being investigated as a future communication network, facilitates both rapid introduction of new services and easy modification of existing services. In the IN, the call processing functions and data needed to achieve IN services are distributed over several nodes. Therefore, traffic demand for the various services may cause varying patterns of node overloads. It is therefore important to develop effective overload control methods and to evaluate their characteristics. We propose an overload control method and evaluate its characteristics in comparison with other methods under various overload traffic patterns with a network simulator that models all nodes and their relationships in the IN. In particular, we focus on three aspects of overload control: how can high throughput be maintained, how can an overloaded node be stabilized, and how can fair access be guaranteed.

The recent progress of B-ISDN signaling systems has enabled networks to handle calls which require a wide variety of ATM connection sets. This paper is concerned with the circuit group which handles calls requesting asymmetric forward and backward multi-connections, and has the capability of both bandwidth negotiation and bandwidth reservation as a traffic control for enhancing call blocking performance. A model of the circuit group is first established focusing on the call level characteristics of the group, and then a method based on the reduced load approximation and an approximate analysis of a multirate group is proposed for calculating approximate blocking probabilities. The accuracy of the approximation method is evaluated numerically by comparing with an exact method and simulation. Further the impact of bandwidth negotiation and reservation on call blockings is examined based on numerical examples.

In this paper, we propose the architecture of BALANCE (Better Adaptive Load-balancing through Acquiring kNowledge of Characteristic of an Environment) in which users can submit their jobs without acquiring either a status of an environment or characteristics of jobs and servers even in a widely connected heterogeneous network. The architecture of BALANCE includes three types of information bases and two types of daemons. Information bases, namely job, resource, and environment information base, manage the knowledge of job characteristics, available resources for CPUs, and status of the environment, respectively, as a proxy for users. The dispatching daemon selects an adequate server for each job using knowledge stored in the information bases. A service daemon executes each job. On completing each job, a service daemon gets a statistic of the job and returns it to the dispatching daemon where the job came from so that the statistic will be available at the next dispatching time. BALANCE enables an environment (1) to balance the load, (2) to share software functions as well as hardware facilities, and (3) to learn a user's job characteristics. We have implemented a prototype with more than 50 heterogeneous UNIX workstations connected by different networks. Two simple experiments on this prototype are presented. These experiments show a load balancing scheme that takes the characteristics of each job into account.

We have fabricated Nb/AlOx/Nb Josephson tunnel junctions by a sputtering apparatus with a load-lock system. This sputtering apparatus had the sub chamber for preparation and the main chamber for sputtering. The substrate temperature was confirmed to be kept less than 85 during Nb sputtering at the deposition rate of 1.18 nm/s for 7 minutes. The junctions that had 50µm50 µm area successfully showed the Vm value (the product of the critical current and the subgap resistance at 2 mV) as high as 50 mV at the current density of 100 A/cm2.

We propose a new structure of antenna system to enhance the horizontal plane gain and control the antenna pattern, using passive loading. Our proposed structure can be applied to various kinds of antennas on a handset. We discuss the case of a λ/4 monopole antenna on a handset in this paper. In a new structure of λ/4 monopole antenna system, we show that, 1) the increase of the average gain about 5dB in the horizontal plane can be realized by an optimum load, 2) the antenna pattern can be controlled by changing the value of the passive load so as to have some desirable shapes, and 3) the antenna size can be made smaller by about 6% than the one with no loading because the optimum loading makes the resonant frequency lower. These results were confirmed by the calculations using the method of moments for the EFIE and the measurements.

We present distributed load balancing mechanisms implemented on multiprocessor systems for real time video encoding, which dynamically equalize load amounts among PE's to cope with extensive computing requirements. The loosely coupled multiprocessor system, e.g. a torus connected one, is treated as the objective system. Two decentralized controlled load balancicg algorithms are proposed, and mathematical analyses are provided to obtain some insights of our decentralized controlled mechanisms. We also prove the proposed algorithms are steady and effective theoretically and experimentally.

The blocking probabilities of n64Kb/s multi-slot calls are generally much higher than that of single slot calls. In order to improve these blocking probabilities of multi-slot calls, we propose a scheme to limit the number of time slots to be searched for lower rate calls. We analyze the performance of our scheme in a double-buffered time-space-time switching network which accommodates multi-slot calls as well as single-slot calls. The proposed method yields the reduced blocking probabilities of multi-slot calls, the increased traffic handling capacity and the reduced CPU processing load, compared with those of the conventional methods.

This paper describes a new method to estimate traffic load of communication nodes, such as switching systems. The new method uses the system identification, which is often used in designing control systems of real systems. First, this paper makes clear that, under certain conditions, the input and output relation of a communication system, which is composed of a number of communication nodes, is formulated into a dynamic state equation that is classed as a time-invariant, single-input single-output, discrete-time system. Next, it is explained that traffic load information is estimated by identifying the dynamic state equations of the communication system. Then, the traffic load estimator is synthesized using the system identification in it. Finally, it is clarified by computation simulations that the proposed method is very applicable in estimating the traffic load of each communication node.

Directional dry etching of Tantalum is described X-ray lithography absorber patterns. Experiments are carried out using both reactive ion etching in CBrF3-based plasma and electron-cyclotron-resonance ion-stream etching in Cl2-based plasma. Ta absorber patterns with perpendicular sidewalls cannot be obtained by RIE when only CBrF3 gas is used as the etchant. While adding CH4 to CBrF3 effectively improves the undercutting of Ta patterns, it deteriorates etching stability because of the intensive deposition effect of CH4 fractions. By adding an Ar/CH4 mixture gas to CBrF3, it is possible to use RIE to fabricate 0.2-µm Ta absorber patterns with perpendicular sidewalls. ECR ion-stream etching is investigated to obtain high etching selectivity between Ta and SiO2 (etching mask)/SiN (membrane). Adding O2 to the Cl2 etchant improves undercutting without remarkably decreasing etching selectivity. Furthermore, an ECR ion-stream etching method is developed to stably etch Ta absorber patterns finer than 0.2µm. This is successfully applied to X-ray lithography mask fabrication for LSI test devices.

The aim of this study is to evaluate mental workload (MWL) quantitatively by HRV (Heart Rate Variability) measures. The electrocardiography and the respiration curve were recorded in five different epochs (1) during a rest condition and (2) during mental arithmetic tasks (addition). In the experiment, subjects added two numbers. The work levels (figures of the number in the addition) were set to one figure, two figures, three figures and four figures. The work level had effects on the mean percent correct, the number of answers and the mean processing time. The psychological evaluation on mental workload obtained by the method of paired comparison increased with the work level. Among the statistical HRV measures, the number of peak and trough waves could distinguish between the rest and the mental loading. However, mental workload for each work level was not evaluated quantitatively by the measure. The HRV measures were also calculated from the power spectrum estimated by the autoregressive (AR) model identification. The ratio of the low frequency power to the high frequency power increased linearly with the work level. In conclusion, the HRV measures obtained by the AR power spectrum analysis were found to be sensitive to changes of mental workload.