A brief review of metamaterials and their applications to antenna systems is given. Artificial magnetic conductors and electrically small radiating and scattering systems are emphasized. Single negative, double negative, and zero-index metamaterial systems are discussed as a means to manipulate their size, efficiency, bandwidth, and directivity characteristics.

We propose here a composite right/left handed transmission line constructed by using conductor-backed coplanar strips. In this line, we can easily realize a shunt inductor without via because it has the electric-wall symmetry at the guide center. The left-handed nature is verified by both the finite difference time-domain (FDTD) and the equivalent-circuit calculations. Furthermore, we demonstrate the proposed line can easily satisfy the balanced condition for no band gap between the right-handed and the left-handed modes, and can be applied to a leaky-wave antenna, numerically and experimentally.

A novel structure for a frequency-independent steerable composite right/left-handed (CRLH) leaky wave (LW) antenna in the millimeter-wave band is proposed. This has the advantages of wide beam scanning and low profile, and is a suitable structure for mass-production. The proposed antenna has features wherein a movable dielectric slab is placed above the CRLH LW antenna, and the radiation angle can be steered by changing the distance between the slab and the antenna using compact actuators. Moreover, slots are added to the antenna to control the aperture amplitude distribution of the array antenna in order to enhance aperture efficiency. A prototype CRLH LW antenna has been fabricated with these slots, and backward-to-forward beam scanning characteristics at 76 GHz have been demonstrated successfully by measurement. A wide scanning angle from 73 to 114 deg. has been achieved experimentally. The aperture efficiency is 25.3%.

A novel purely distributed two-dimensional (2D) planar structure with a negative refractive index (NRI) is proposed. The structure consists of a 2D periodic array of unit cells with metal patterns on the both sides of a substrate. The unit cell with the dimension of 55 mm2 is designed at an operation frequency of about 5 GHz by full-wave finite element method simulations. Numerical simulations on the dispersion characteristics are carried out and NRI property of the structure is confirmed. A equivalent circuit taking into account the mutual capacitance between the adjacent ports in the unit cell is introduced, and theoretical investigations based on the equivalent circuit reveals that the anisotropy can be controlled by the mutual capacitance. A 1020 unit-cell NRI material is fabricated and the NRI property has been confirmed experimentally in excellent agreement with Snell's law.

This letter proposes a compact multi-layered bandpass filter exhibiting left-handed and right-handed behaviors in its passband. This filter has a greatly expanded passband from 1.61 GHz to 4.16 GHz (88.4% bandwidth) with a maximum ripple of 1.2 dB and well-suppressed out-of-passbands with transmission zeros at 1.15 GHz and 4.52 GHz. The physical mechanisms are studied with FEM-based full-wave simulations, equivalent circuit analysis and careful experiments.

Eigenvalue equations and expressions of EM fields for volume modes in an anisotropic single-negative slab with tensor material parameters is presented. By the comparison with the eigenvalue equation of surface modes along single-negative slab with negative scalar permeability, the validity of the present study is confirmed. We have also made clear which elements of the material parameter tensors affect existence of TE and TM modes in the slab. Taking the dispersion of material parameters into consideration, we demonstrate in detail that TE modes propagate in a slab with one negative element of the permeability tensor numerically. These TE modes turn out to be the magnetostatic waves (MSWs), which is the first demonstration of the MSW in a nonmagnetic material.

A novel planar composite right/left handed (CRLH) transmission line (TL) with double-sided metal patterns, which is advantageous in high scalability and low-cost fabrication, is proposed. Fundamental characteristics of the unbalanced and balanced CRLH TLs are confirmed numerically and theoretically both by full-wave finite-element method (FEM) simulations and the equivalent circuit analysis in terms of dispersion characteristics and characteristic impedances for the periodic structure. It is also shown that the relations between the left-handed circuit parameters and the geometrical parameters of the unit cell are simple and intuitive, which is useful for designing the CRLH TL. Experiments on 10-cell unbalanced and balanced CRLH TLs are carried out and the left-handed and right-handed wave propagations are confirmed by scattering parameter and near field measurements.

This paper presents a method for tuning the structure of a causal network (CN) to evaluate a learner's profile for a learning assistance system that employs hierarchically structured learning material. The method uses as an initial CN structure causally related inter-node paths that explicitly define the learning material structure. Then, based on this initial structure other inter-node paths (sideway paths) not present in the initial CN structure are inferred by referring to the learner's database generated through the use of a learning assistance system. An evaluation using simulation indicates that the method has an inference probability of about 63% and an inference accuracy of about 30%.

A planar composite right/left-handed leaky wave antenna which operates at W-band is fabricated and its backward to forward beam scanning operation including broadside direction is confirmed experimentally. The scanning angle from 61 to 114 degrees with a frequency scanning range of 76 to 79 GHz is achieved.

To clarify the correspondence between Shielding Effectiveness (SE) of shielding materials and their physical property, we propose an equivalent circuit for a shielding effectiveness test apparatus using a dual TEM cell, and show its validity. By considering the structure of dual TEM cell that consists of a pair of cells coupled via an aperture in their common wall, we defined the capacitance C and mutual inductance M, that respectively express the electric coupling and magnetic coupling between two center conductors. By the measurement of unloaded S-parameter, we determined the values of C and M for a dual TEM cell in hand. Next, the shielding material was approximated by the apparent sheet resistivity Rs, and was used in the equivalent circuit of loaded aperture. As a result, the coupling level calculated from the equivalent circuit agreed well with the measured data in frequencies below 300 MHz.

Based on the concept of Equivalent Transformation Method of Material Constant (ETMMC), a thin and light weight EM-wave absorber is newly proposed. It becomes possible to merge both the competing characteristics of changing the matching frequency toward a higher frequency region by means of punching out small holes in the magnetic absorber and of changing the matching frequency toward a lower frequency region by attaching periodical conductive patterns to the surface of it. First, the ETMMC idea is introduced in this paper. The detailed matching characteristics of the present absorber are investigated based on FDTD analysis. The matching mechanism is clarified from input admittance chart viewpoints. The matching characteristics can be changed from 2.4 GHz to above 6.0 GHz using carbonyl iron with the thickness of 2 mm and improved below -20 dB.

This letter proposes the thinnest hybrid EM wave absorber using a composite magnetic material, which can be applied to the 3 m semi anechoic chambers. We experimentally designed a new hybrid EM wave absorber of the wedge shape, which was made from the ferrite powder, the inorganic fiber and binder. As a result, the length of this absorber could be realized only 6 cm, which was ascertained having the nonflammable. The 3 m semi anechoic chamber is constructed in the size of L9 mW6 mH5.7 m using this absorber, and then the site attenuation is measured according to ANSI C63.4 in the frequency range of 30 MHz-1 GHz. As a result, the measured normalized site attenuation is obtained within 3 dB to the theoretical normalized site attenuation.

We demonstrate a novel fiber device exhibiting magnetic circular dichroism (MCD) and Faraday rotation in sharpened optical fibers coated with Fe. The degree of MCD was 0.68 in a magnetic field of 0.35 T and the Faraday rotation angle was as great as 110 degrees. Such great magneto-optical effect is due to optical near-field interactions in the sub-wavelength region, i.e., in the tip of the near-field fiber probe. These effects can be attributed to the large magnitude of the magneto optical coefficient of Fe.

The author prepared new composition of Cu-Sn based composite materials containing lamellar solid lubricants, and measured their performance with focus on contact resistance and the coefficient of friction using a low-speed tribo-meter. Among three kinds of composite materials, the composite material containing 26wt.% of total solid lubricants was lower in both of contact resistance and the coefficient of friction and showed stable characteristics compared with those containing 25wt.% and 35wt.% respectively. The author analyzed the characteristics of these materials using several techniques including BSE image, element analysis through EPMA, and mapping analysis, and examined why the composite material containing 26wt.% of total solid lubricants showed higher performance.

We initiated development of our own data processing software for laser microscope data with C# language. This software is provided with volume calculation function of a target portion, based on a new calculation algorithm that can precisely handle the volume calculation of the portion located on a tilted surface or on a distorted surface. In this paper, this algorithm and some exemplary results obtained thereby, as well as some further development aims, are briefly described.

This paper presents the results of an investigation on the effect of a thin low-dielectric material (phantom shell) on measuring the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) in the frequency range of 3 to 6 GHz. The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) has started to develop a SAR measurement procedure in order to cover such frequencies. In the procedure, the SAR is measured in a liquid phantom, which is a shell filled with tissue-equivalent liquid. Although the shell is thin and has low-dielectric properties, the influence of the phantom shell is thought to increase at higher frequencies. Therefore, an investigation using the transmission line model and the Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FD-TD) method was conducted. To verify the FD-TD results, measurements were also carried out. The calculation results using the FD-TD method agree well with the measurement results. If the frequency is higher, the SAR is affected by the shell even though the shell is thinner and has much lower dielectric properties than those of the tissue-equivalent liquid. Specifically, the SAR with the shell is approximately 1.3 times higher than without the shell at 5.2 GHz for the maximum case. The deviations in the loss and the thickness for the shell do not affect the SAR more than the relative permittivity.

There have been significant advances in computational electromagnetics (CEM) in the last decade for a variety of antennas and propagation problems. Improvements in single frequency techniques including the finite element method (FEM), the fast mulitipole moment (FMM) method, and the method of moments (MoM) have led to significant simulation capabilities on basic computing platforms. Similar advances have occurred with time domain methods including finite difference time domain (FDTD) methods, time domain integral equation (TDIE) methods, and time domain finite element (TD-FEM) methods. Very complex radiating and scattering structures in the presence of complex materials have been modeled with many of these approaches. Many commercial products have been made available through the efforts of many individuals. The CEM simulators have enabled virtual EM test ranges that have led to dramatic improvements in our understanding of antennas and propagation in complex environments and to the realization of many of their important applications.

Materialized views, which are derived from base relations and stored in the database, offer opportunities for significant performance gain in query evaluation by providing quick access to the pre-computed data. A materialized view can be utilized in evaluating a query if it has pre-computed result of some part of the query plan. Although many approaches to utilizing materialized views in evaluating a query have been proposed, there exist several restrictions in selecting such views. This paper proposes new ways of utilizing materialized views in answering an aggregate query. Views including relations that are not referred to in the given query are utilized. Attributes missing from a view can be recovered under certain conditions. We identify the conditions where a view may be used in evaluating a query and present the algorithm to search for the most efficient query among the equivalent ones. We also report on a simulation based on the TPC-H and GRID databases. Simulation results show that our approach provides impressive performance improvements to the data warehousing environment where aggregate views are often pre-computed and materialized.

Existence of a surface wave along the boundary between the semi-infinite materials, one of which is a free-space and the other is a material with either negative permeability or negative permittivity, is theoretically investigated. Surface waves exist in only limited combination of negative and positive signs of the material parameters. In addition, by analyzing the surface wave in a finite-thickness slab with negative permeability, its mode profile has been obtained for two different types of symmetry. From these results, the present paper predicts the possibility of a surface wave directional coupler based on a single slab transmission along its top and bottom surfaces.

We have demonstrated improvement in the efficiency of TDAPB-based OLEDs. The external quantum efficiency of 8.2% and a power efficiency of 17.3 lm/W were achieved. The results suggest that using the starburst small-molecule TDAPB allows for easy fabrication and is effective for achieving high efficiencies in simple device structures.