We have developed manganese-based lithium secondary battery technology as a part of a 10-year national project in Japan for The Development of Dispersed-Type Battery Energy Storage Technology. The cell chemistry we developed consisted of a modified graphite anode material containing dispersed Ag particles, and a partially substituted LiMn2O4 cathode with Li in the Mn sites. These materials showed a significant improvement in a cell's cycle life performance. The 250 Wh class single cell with the cell chemistry mentioned above showed energy densities of 131 Wh/kg and 295 Wh/dm3. The 2 kWh class module battery including 8 cells connected in series and a battery management system delivered energy densities of 122 Wh/kg and 255 Wh/dm3 that exceeded the final target of 120 Wh/kg and 240 Wh/dm3 for the project. Most of the target items for the battery performance were accomplished and proved. Thus the basis for practical application was developed, however, some areas concerning the further durability under various circumstances and conditions still remain to be accomplished. Continuous development for mass production and cost reduction is also expected for this technology in order to contribute to industry and society.

We have developed Multi-modal Neural Networks (MNN) to improve the accuracy of symbolic sequence pattern classification. The basic structure of the MNN is composed of several sub-classifiers using neural networks and a decision unit. Two types of the MNN are proposed: a primary MNN and a twofold MNN. In the primary MNN, the sub-classifier is composed of a conventional three-layer neural network. The decision unit uses the majority decision to produce the final decisions from the outputs of the sub-classifiers. In the twofold MNN, the sub-classifier is composed of the primary MNN for partial classification. The decision unit uses a three-layer neural network to produce the final decisions. In the latter type of the MNN, since the structure of the primary MNN is folded into the sub-classifier, the basic structure of the MNN is used twice, which is the reason why we call the method twofold MNN. The MNN is validated with two benchmark tests: EPR (English Pronunciation Reasoning) and prediction of protein secondary structure. The reasoning accuracy of EPR is improved from 85.4% by using a three-layer neural network to 87.7% by using the primary MNN. In the prediction of protein secondary structure, the average accuracy is improved from 69.1% of a three-layer neural network to 74.6% by the primary MNN and 75.6% by the twofold MNN. The prediction test is based on a database of 126 non-homologous protein sequences.

This paper presents a frequency domain simultaneous equations method capable of automatically recovering noise reduction effect degraded by secondary path changes. The simultaneous equations method has been studied, first in time domain. Accordingly to the study, in the time domain, the simultaneous equations method requires an additional filter and a system identification circuit used for transforming the solution of the simultaneous equations into the coefficients of noise control filter, which increase the processing cost. To reduce the processing cost, this paper studies on the application of a frequency domain processing technique, the cross spectrum method, to the simultaneous equations method. By directly applying the equation defining the cross spectrum method to the solution, the additional filter becomes unnecessary. In addition, the system identification circuit is replaced with the inverse Fourier transform. Thereby, the processing cost drastically decreases. This paper also presents simulation results to confirm that the proposed method can automatically recover the noise reduction effect degraded by a path change and provides much higher convergence speed than that of the filtered-x NLMS algorithm with the perfectly modeled secondary path filter.

This paper proposes a new method to reduce sinusoidal noise components whose frequencies are known. The new method is based on the simultaneous equations technique. The technique does not require the secondary path filter: thereby the automatic recovering of the noise reduction effect deteriorated by secondary path changes becomes possible. This paper also presents computer simulation results to examine the performance of the new method.

A drain avalanche hot carrier lifetime model including a body effect caused by secondary hot electrons has been developed. It has been confirmed that the proposed model fits a wide range of experimental data using a small number of parameters. The model provides a practical modeling methodology for reliability simulation based on parameter extraction at maximum substrate current conditions alone. Simulation accuracy produced by the methodology has been experimentally verified using ring oscillators including NAND gates. It has been demonstrated that simulation accuracy of degradations has become by 0.34 decade better using the new methodology than using that based on the conventional τId/W-Isub/Id model.

Reactive sputtering of a metallic target in DC planar magnetron discharge shows a drastic mode transition between metallic and oxide modes. To describe the experimental results quantitatively, a new reactive sputtering model including the secondary electron emission coefficient of a target has been developed. The model is based on a simple reactive gas balance model proposed by Berg et al., and can quantitatively describe experimental results such as the oxygen flow rate dependence of deposition rate and discharge, observed for MgO sputter-deposition.

The relationships between lattice orientation of the electron-beam evaporated MgO layer used as protecting layer for ac plasma displays (ac-PDPs) and the discharge characteristics of color ac-PDPs were investigated by the measurements of ion-induced secondary electron emission. It is proved that values of γi for MgO are large in the order of (220) orientation, (200) orientation, and (111) orientation, that is, γi(220) > γi(200) > γi(111). The values of φ for different lattice orientation are obtained by the measurements of thermionic emission and photo emission. The aging measurements for testing panels with the different lattice orientation of MgO layer revealed that performance of those panels are excellent in the order of (220), (200), and (111). In particular, luminance and luminous efficiency become larger in the order of (220), (200), and (111). It is pointed out that the degree of longevity, sustaining voltage, and memory margin for ac-PDPs with protecting materials as MgO are estimated by the measurements of γi.

Because a massively parallel computer processes vast amounts of data and generates many access requests from multiple processors simultaneously, parallel secondary storage requires large capacity and high concurrency. One effective method of implementation of such secondary storage is to use disk arrays which have multiple disks connected in parallel. In this paper, we propose a parallel file access method named DECODE (dynamic express changing of data entry) in which load balancing of each disk is achieved by dynamic determination of the write data position. For resolution of the problem of data fragmentation which is caused by the relocation of data during a write process, the concept of "Equivalent Area" is introduced. We have performed a preliminary performance evaluation using software simulation under various access statuses by changing the access pattern, access size and stripe size and confirmed the effectiveness of load balancing with this method.

In this paper, we propose a new design method to construct the highly reliable ATM network based on the virtual path (VP) concept. Through our method, we can guarantee a network survivability, by which we mean that connectivity between every pair of two end nodes is assured even after the failure, and that quality of service (QoS) requirements of each VC connection are still satisfied. For achieving a reliable network, every VP connection between two end nodes is equipped with a secondary VP connection such that routes of primary and secondary VPs are established on completely disjoint physical paths. Our primary objective of the current paper is that the construction cost of the VP-based network with such a survivability is minimized while the QoS requirement of traffic sources in fulfilled. For this purpose, after all the routes of VPs are temporarily established by means of the shortest paths, we try to minimize the network cost through (1) the alternation of VP route and (2) the separation of a single VP into several VPs, and optionally through (3) the introduction of VCX nodes. Through numerical examples, we show how the increased cost for the reliable network can be sustained by using our design method.

With the development in portable electronic equipment, the demand for secondary batteries of high energy density is increasing. Recently, nickel metal hydride secondary batteries (Ni/MH) are expanding the market, and lithium ion secondary batteries have been newly developed and commercialized. This paper describes in detail Ni/MH and lithium ion secondary batteries, and reports on their development state and characteristics.

We compare interfaces of Nb/AlOx-Al/Nb and Nb/ZrOx-Zr/Nb junctions using secondary ion mass spectroscopy and cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy. We have clarified that an interface of the Nb/AlOx-Al/Nb junction is drastically different from that of the Nb/ZrOxZr/Nb junction. An adsorbed water vapor layer plays an important role in suppressing grain boundary diffusion between Nb and Al at the interface of the Nb/AlOxAl/Nb junction. In depositing Nb and Al at low power and cooling the substrate, it is important to control the formation of the adsorbed water vapor layer for fabricating Nb/AlOx-Al/Nb junctions exhibiting excellent current-voltage characteristics.