This letter shows an architectural approach for analyzing real-time aspects of distributed multimedia processing systems. The results of this letter are 1) to propose the concept real-time supporting environments which consist of real-time traffic management/control environment and real-time application environment and 2) to analyze the real-time requirements of such environments.

Discussed here is reduction of power dissipation for multi-media LSIs. First, both active power dissipation Pat and stand-by power dissipation Pst for both CMOS LSIs and GaAs LSIs are summarized. Then, general technologies for reducing Pat are discussed. Also reviewed are a wide variety of approaches (i.e., parallel and pipeline schemes, Chen's fast DCT algorithms, hierarchical search scheme for motion vectors, etc.) for reduction of Pat. The last part of the paper focuses on reduction of Pst. Reducing both Pat and Pst requires that both throughput and active chip areas be either maintained or improved.

When wireless multi-media information which includes speech, image, data and so on are transmitted, the defference in information rate, required quality as well as traffic performance should be taken into account. A wireless spread spectrum system can achieve a flexible balance of these differences because of the inherent asynchronous capability of CDMA. In this paper, we propose a wireless multi-media CDMA system based on a processing gain control in a dynamic traffic channel. According to the priority of each medium and channel measurement information i.e. traffic, the optimal processing gain can be controlled by using Nonlinear Programming. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed method possesses higher flexible capacity than TDMA in a dynamic multi-medea traffic channel.

There has been an increasing interest in multiple scattering phenomena in recent years. This is primarily due to the discovery of new multiple scattering phenomena and an increasing awareness that a common thread underlies the work of many researchers in such diverse fields as atmospheric optics, ocean acoustics, radio physics, astrophysics, condensed matter physics, plasma physics, geophysics, bioengineering, etc. In addition, waves in random media is one of the most challenging problems to theoreticians. Thus the field of wave propagation and scattering encompasses the most practical as well as the most theoretical questions. The strong interest in this subject is reflected in the launch of a new journal, Waves in Random Media, by the Institute of Physics, United Kingdom in 1991. This paper reviews some of the most recent developments and discoveries in the field of wave propagation and scattering in turbulence and volume and surface scattering. Included are new discoveries of backscattering enhancement and memory effects which may be applicable to tissue optics, ultrasound imaging, ocean acoustics and geophysical remote sensing. Also indicated are recent developments of numerical Monte-Carlo techniques and experimental studies on this subject.

In forthcoming multimedia environments, continuous-media data, such as video and audio data, will be used by a variety of multimedia applications. Multimedia applications require efficient and flexible support from real-time operating systems. This is because the changes in system and network loads require dynamic management of real-time thread behavior. If threads are implemented at the user level, operations on threads can be processed at the user level, and the efficient management of threads becomes possible by avoiding kernel interventions. Thus, we can provide an effective platform for multimedia applications. The goal of our work is to realize high-performance user-level real-time threads which satisfy the above requirements of multimedia systems. In this paper we describe the design and implementation of a user-level real-time threads package, called RTC-Threads, which is being developed on the RT-Mach microkernel. The results of performance evaluations show that our user-level real-time threads outperform real-time kernel-provided threads, which are implemented in the microkernel, in terms of efficiency and accuracy.

In this paper, we present an analysis of microstrip line with a trapezoidal dielectric ridge in multilayered media. The method employed in this characterization is called partial-boundary element method (p-BEM) which provides an efficient technique to the analysis of the structures with multilayered media. To improve the convergence of the Green's function used in the analysis with the P-BEM, we employ a technique based on a combination of the Fourier series expansion and the method of images. Treatment on convergence for the boundary integrals is also described. After this treatment, it requires typically one tenth or one hundredth of Fourier terms to obtain the same accuracy compared with the original Green's function. Numerical results are presented for two microstrip lines that have a trapezoidal dielectric ridge placed on a one-layered substrate and a two-layered substrate. These numerical results demonstrate the effects on the characteristics of the microstrip line due to the existence of the dielectric ridge as well as the second layer between the ridge and the fundamental substrate.

A piece of information on the polarization effects on the effective dielectric constant εeff of a medium whose dielectric circular cylinders are randomly distributed is obtained by analyzing εeff for both E-wave and H-wave incidences. Our numerical analysis shows clearly the difference of εeff between E-wave and H-wave incidences and also shows the difference of εeff between our method and the Foldy's approximation.

In this study, we analyze the system which simultaneously transmits spread-spectrum signals with different processing gains. The main purpose of this study is to give an analytical framework that describes the influence of the interfering signals with different processing gains. For this purpose, we define a crosscorrelation function between the spreading sequences with different code lengths, and discuss the effects of interaction between the signals. As the results, we show that the power of the interference component after despreading procedure, the power ratio of the desired to undesired components, and thus the bit error rate are not constant but vary symbol by symbol.

We propose a new QOS routing algorithm for finding a path that guarantees several quality of service (QOS) parameters requested by users, for ATM networks. It is known that a routing problem is NP-complete, if the number of additive QOS parameters, such as delay and cost, are more than or equal to two. Although a number of heuristic algorithms have been proposed recently to solve this problem, the appropriate choice of routing algorithms is still an open issue. In this paper, we propose a new heuristic routing algorithm, while being compliant with PNNI routing and signaling specification in the ATM Forum. The performance of algorithms is evaluated by simulation with a various network topologies and loading scenarios. This simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme improves the performance while reducing computational complexity.

Intending to contribute to constructing better multimedia network systems, we propose a new concept of image database system of which form of storage is featuring exponential or graceful oblivion and abrupt recollection like the human memory property. By virtue of this property of database storages that is realized by employing hierarchical or pyramidal image coding, the database memory and transmission costs can be significantly reduced. In this paper we will describe the details of the concept, the results of theoretical analysis based on a simplified model which reveals the effectiveness of the proposed system, the structure of an experimental prototype system and the result of an experimental image retrieval service carried out by implementing it over ATM high speed channels.

Three techniques are proposed for reducing the time required for protocol processing: protocol data unit management using page management, assembly and disassembly of data packet header and contents in hardware, and rescheduling of protocol processing. These techniques were shown to be feasible by applying them to the TCP/IP over a fiber-distributed data interface network. The maximum communication throughput was 91.6 Mbps; the total throughput for 64 sessions was 89.6 Mbps, only 2% less than the maximum. These techniques will enable the development of more effcient video-on -demand systems.

We have proposed a concept of low power drive system for a multi-media TFT-LCD using MFD in which a displayed image is divided into some interlaced subfield images and the number of interlaced subfields can be changed depending on the moving quantities of displayed images. This method has been applied to a 9.5" TFT-LCD and successful operation has been confirmed without moving image degradation.

Internet is evolving to be an integrated service platform for promising future global information infrastructure. New multimedia services, e.g., Video-on-Demand, are expected to be provided on this platform, in conjuction with the existing rich information exchange and sharing services on Internet, such as E-mail, WWW. The paper proposes a service system architecture for Video-on -Demand on Internet, named MINS (Multimedia Internet Navigation System), which is capable of both realtime audio/video transmission and realtime and VCR like plya-out. MINS is composed of 1) servers maintaining both audio/video program lists and contents, and 2) clients retrieving the programs and play-out them. The paper focuses on the communication architecture in MINS, e.g., flow control, realtime media synchronization control, and audio/video session control. The performance of the prototype MINS is also evaluated in the paper.

We proposed a graphical user interface (GUI) that provides users with multimedia information, including dynamic images. On the Internet, there are many WWW browsers that read the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). As various browsers extend the HTML tags and attributes independently to expand and/or improve layout, the HTML compatibility between browsers is lost. We have developed a WWW browser to solve this problem. Our browser presents all multimedia information, including text, images, and dynamic images as a block and renders them without the need to extend the HTML specifications. It independently interprets and draws HTML objects using a layout manager. It has a layout rule, and manages the hierarchical data structure and the block data of HTML documents. This browser also allows layout-rule changes. The layout manager efficiently displays information while checking the available display area size. The structure of this browser is such that the portion that manages the formatting of the document is separated from the portion that displays the individual parts. In this browser, the layout rule allows text to be placed around an image without the need to modify the existing HTML contents. It is also relatively easy to change the presentation of multiple screens, such as a two-page book-like layout or the conventional single-page scroll-bar format by changing the layout rule. The incorporation of media decoders into the browser enables the displaying of various multimedia information, such as sounds, pictures, and moving images.

The medial axis transform (MAT) is an image representation scheme. For a binary image, the MAT is defined as a set of upright maximal squares which consist of pixels of value l entirely. The MAT plays an important role in image understanding. This paper presents a parallel algorithm for computing the MAT of an n n binary image. We show that the algorithm can be performed in O(log n) time using n2/log n processors on the EREW PRAM and in O(log log n) time using n2/log log n processors on the common CRCW PRAM. We also show that the algorithm can be performed in O(n2/p2 + n) time on a p p mesh and in O(n2/p2 + (n log p)/p) time on a p2 processor hypercube (for 1 p n). The algorithm is cost optimal on the PRAMs, on the mesh (for 1 p n) and on the hypercube (for 1 p n/log n).

This paper presents the system issues involved with the transmission of pre-encoded VBR MPEG video using CBR service. Conventional wisdom suggests that lossless delivery of VBR video using CBR service requires bandwidth to be reserved at the peak rate resulting in low bandwidth utilization. We calculate the minimum rate at which bandwidth must be reserved on a network in order to provide continuous playback of an MPEG encoded video bitstream. Simulation results using the frame size traces from several pre-encoded MPEG bitstreams and several buffer sizes demonstrate that this minimum reservation rateis much lower than the peak rate when a relatively small playback buffer size is used, resulting in much higher bandwidth utilization. Procedures for performing connection setup and lossless realtime video playback between the video server and the client are outlined. Methods for incorporating VCR-like features such as pauseandfast forward/reversefor Video-on-Demand (VoD) applications are presented.

Many activities are being promoted for the coming multimedia age. In this paper, background information for multimedia communications is followed by an outline of joint tests in multimedia communications with some examples of the projects and applications. These trials are also explained from the aspects of project specifications, which include application classifications and details of multimedia-on-demand offerings, as well as technical issues in experimental environments which mainly include those related to ATM technology.

For the successful realization of the multimedia information environment, it is strongly required to develop very cost effective optical access networks. Accordingly, ways of reducing system cost are described. At the same time, the development of attractive new services is indispensable to drive network modernization. The connectionless networking service for community user groups is proposed together with the new concept of group communication.

As the rise of the Internet greatly affects the construction of networks in the coming era of multimedia, we try to find the factors of development and problems of the Internet. Furthermore, we give light to the requirements on networks based on multimedia applications tailored to each homes. As a result of those two analyses, we point out that the Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) type Internet utilizing ATM technology, which makes up for the drawbacks of information management function of the Internet, is promising. Furthermore, we point out that intelligence, which provides the network with the information management and information search functions, is necessary to be introduced into networks. So we propose a network function model, which will realize such functions.

A new multi-functional card with a display, sounder and input keys, and related communication equipment, including a microwave base station and a contactless surface reader/writer, have been developed to perform the functions of positioning, paging, returning a message and identity certification. We confirmed that a prototype subsystem was capable of providing a simple and automatic call forwarding service. The multi-functional card as an ID card and a personal data terminal, and its subsystem can provide new personal services for a multimedia office.