A folded loop antenna for handsets has already been introduced and shown as one of balance-fed antennas for handsets, which is very effective to mitigate the antenna performance degradation due to the body effect. In order to meet the requirements for the latest handsets such as low profile and small size, a folded loop antenna is modified. The antenna, which is possibly built in the handsets, is newly proposed. Low profile and small size is achieved by consisting of the half of low profile folded loop antenna, which has a structure folded loop elements sideways so that the antenna can be placed on the ground plane (GP). In the analysis, the electromagnetic simulator based on the FDTD (Finite Difference Time Domain) method is used and the design parameters useful in practical operation are found. The electromagnetic simulator based on the Method of Moment (MoM) is used to calculate the current distribution on the antenna element and the GP. An example of low profile and small size antenna which has wideband characteristics are designed based on these parameters, and the antenna characteristics such as VSWR, the current distributions and the radiation patterns are compared with Planar Inverted-F Antenna (PIFA), which is one of conventional built-in antennas for handset. As a result, it has been confirmed that the physical volume of the antenna, which has been introduced here, becomes smaller than that of PIFA. In addition, the radiation efficiency of these antennas is measured and the results are compared with each other.

In this paper, we present the classification of small antennas based on statistical data. The three categories of downsizing methods are loading a matching circuit, changing the current path, and using dielectric/magnetic materials. These categories are explained using several examples. In this paper, we show that the miminum Q value as a fundamental limit defined by an infinitesimal dipole is effective for determining the index factor of small antennas. Radiation efficiency measurements for small antennas are also discussed.

Although IP Multicast offers efficient data delivery for large group communications, the most critical issue delaying widespread deployment of IP Multicast is the scalability of multicast forwarding state as the number of multicast groups increases. Sender-Initiated Multicast (SIM) was proposed as an alternative multicast forwarding scheme for small group communications with incremental deployment capability. The key feature of SIM is in its Preset mode with the automatic SIM tunneling function, which maintaining forwarding information states only on the branching routers. To demonstrate how SIM increases scalability with respect to the number of groups, in this paper we evaluate the proposed protocol both through simulations and real experiments. As from the network operator's point of view, the bandwidth consumption, memory requirements on state-and-signaling per session in routers, and the processing overhead are considered as evaluation parameters. Finally, we investigated the strategies for incremental deployment.

This paper proposes an independent control for parallel-connected multiple uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems based upon a very simple control scheme. Here, the amplitude and phase angle of the output voltage are the controllable variables. With the only measurement of the output current, the active and reactive components are calculated to define the control variables. The entire system including the equations for the circuit, control and voltage limiters is well represented by a small-signal model, in which the computation of its eigenvalues constitutes the stability proof of the system. The root locus diagram gives an overall panorama of the system performance as a function of a certain gain and it aims to aid the further understanding and the design of the control. The experimental verification is carried out using a mere proportional-integral control scheme, which is a special case of the general control equation used in the theoretical analysis. For some situations, experiments show a flow of lateral current between UPS's, which causes an unbalanced current distribution. By increasing the proportional gain of the control equation for the output voltage amplitude, the lateral current can be substantially suppressed with a consequent improvement of the load sharing. Experimental results under various conditions show excellent results in terms of synchronization, load sharing and stability for three distinct output rating UPS's connected in parallel.

Reconfigurable logic circuitry has special importance because the popularity of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) based applications. A reconfigurable logic based on FGMOS transistors, where a single stage can perform binary operations as well as state machines, is presented. The use of the proposed logic allows the integration of several stages into a single chip because their small area requirement, low voltage and low power characteristics.

This paper presents a simple learning algorithm for network formation. The algorithm is based on self-organizing maps with growing cell structures and can adapt input data which correspond to nodes of the network. In basic numerical experiments, as a parameter is selected suitably, our algorithm can generate network having small-world-like structure. Such network structure appears in some natural networks and has advantages in practical systems.

Using daily infection data for Hong Kong we explore the validity of a variety of models of disease propagation when applied to the SARS epidemic. Surrogate data methods show that simple random models are insufficient and that the standard epidemic susceptible-infected-removed model does not fully account for the underlying variability in the observed data. As an alternative, we consider a more complex small world network model and show that such a structure can be applied to reliably produce simulations quantitative similar to the true data. The small world network model not only captures the apparently random fluctuation in the reported data, but can also reproduce mini-outbreaks such as those caused by so-called "super-spreaders" and in the Hong Kong housing estate of Amoy Gardens.

Recently, the small-world network model has been popular to describe a wide range of networks such as human social relations and networks formed by biological entities. The network model achieves a small diameter with relatively few links as measured by the ratio of clustering coefficient and the number of links. It is quite natural to consider email communication similar to social network patterns. Quite surprisingly, we find from our empirical study that local email networks follow a different type of network model that falls into the category of scale-free network. We propose new network models to describe such communication structure.

The parasitic capacitances induced in the spaces between an air-bridge interconnection and a drain pad (Cad), and between an air-bridge interconnection and a gate head (Cag) from a power CPW PHEMT are not negligible. In this paper, a modified equivalent circuit model for a CPW PHEMT and an improved CPW PHEMT for millimeter-wave applications are proposed. These were proved by measuring the fabricated CPW PHEMT and improved CPW PHEMT. These capacitances were confirmed by measuring the gate-source coupling using CPW PHEMT patterns without an active layer. From the measurements, the improved CPW PHEMT has the lowest coupling (loss) and the highest S21 gain among four different types tested at 60 GHz. And the improved CPW PHEMT is a feasible device which can be directly applied in millimeter-waves as a power device.

The cable length in wired serial data communication is limited because the limited bandwidth of a long cable introduces ISI (Inter Symbol Interference). A line equalizer can be used at the receiver to extend the channel bandwidth. This paper proposes a low-power and small-area analog adaptive line equalizer for 100-Mb/s operation on UTP (Unshielded Twisted Pair) cable up to 100 m. The proposed adaptive line equalizer is fabricated with 0.35-µm CMOS process, consumes 19 mW and occupies only 0.07 mm2 Measurement results show that the prototype can operate at data rate of 100 Mb/s on a 100-m cable and 155 Mb/s on a 50-m cable.

We present a physics-based circuit simulator employing the Monte Carlo (MC) particle technique, which serves as a bridge between the small-device physics and the circuit designs. Two different geometries of GaAs-MESFET's are modeled and analyzed by the simulator. The Y-parameters of the devices are extracted from the transient currents, and then translated into the S-parameters. The cut-off frequency (fT) is estimated from the Y-parameters. The minimum noise figure (Fmin) is also estimated by evaluating the fluctuation in the stationary current. The device, having the n+-region placed just at the drain side of the gate, exhibits the better performances in both fT and Fmin. The analysis on the equivalent circuit (EC) elements reveals that its better performances are mainly due to the reduced gate-source capacitance (Cgs) and the increased transconductance (gm0), which result from the shortened effective gate length (Lg) caused by the termination of the depletion region at the gate edge. The termination of the depletion region, however, causes the increase of the electric field, which results in the higher heat generation rate near the gate edge. It is proven that the physics-based circuit simulator developed here is fully effective to see the inside of the small-device and to model it for the millimeter-wave circuit design.

In the FDTD simulation of microwave circuits, a device in very small size compared with the wavelength is often handled as a lumped element, but it may still occupy more than one cell instead of a wire structure without volume routinely employed in classical extended FDTD algorithms. In this paper, two modified extended FDTD algorithms incorporating a lumped element occupying more than one cell are developed directly from the integral form of Maxwell's equations based on the assumption whether displacement current exists inside the region where a device is present. If the displacement current exists, the modified extended FDTD algorithm can be represented as a Norton equivalent current-source circuit, or otherwise as a Thevenin equivalent voltage-source circuit. These algorithms are applied in the microwave line loaded by a lumped resistor and an active antenna to illustrated the efficiency and difference of the two algorithms.

We demonstrated apertureless scanning near-field optical microscopy using a small protrusion (a simple 500-nm-diameter polystyrene particle) on a flat glass substrate as a probe. We designed a small sample stage to operate with the particle probe. It is a 40-µm-diameter circular stage, fabricated from an optical fiber by Hydrofluoric acid (HF) etching. In this paper, we present the first atomic force microscope and scanning near-field optical microscope images obtained with such a probe. We also discuss schemes for probe-sample distance control in this novel form of apertureless scanning near-field optical microscopy.

An optical detection system using a DFB laser with a very small aperture is theoretically proposed. The threshold gain level in DFB laser is sensitively varied with combined reflections by the facet and the corrugation as well as with the optical injection reflected at the surface of the optical disk. Variation of the threshold gain level is counted as the voltage change on electrodes of the laser. It is found that sensitivity of the optical detection with a well-designed DFB laser becomes six times larger than that with conventional Fabry-Perot ones. Field distribution around the small aperture is analyzed taking into account both the near-field and the radiation field. Numerical data on the voltage change are given as examples of the detection system.

Lymph-node detection system using a high Tc SQUID and ultra-small particles was proposed. Pseudo lymph nodes containing small iron particles were made and the magnetic signal was measured. The SQUID signal was proportional to the weight of the iron in the fluid. At the distance of 20 mm, the detectable minimum weight of the iron was 40 µg. We demonstrated that the possibility of the application of the system to the human body.

A new method is proposed for determining the parasitic extrinsic resistances of MESFETs and HEMTs from the measured S-parameters under active bias. The proposed method is based on the fact that the difference between drain resistance (Rd) and source resistance (Rs) can be found from the measured S-parameters under zero bias condition. It is possible to define the new internal device including intrinsic device and three extrinsic resistances by eliminating the parasitic imaginary terms. Three resistances can be calculated easily via the presented explicit three equations, which are induced from the fact that 1) the real parts of Yint,11 and Yint,12 of intrinsic Y-parameters are very small or almost zero, 2) the transformation relations between S-, Z-, and Y-matrices. The modelled S-parameters calculated by the obtained resistances and all the other equivalent circuit parameters are in good agreement with the measured S-parameters up to 40 GHz.

A digital noncoherent demodulation scheme is presented for reception of Gaussian frequency shift keying (GFSK) signals with small modulation index. The proposed differential demodulator utilizes oversampled signals to estimate the symbol timing and to compensate the frequency offset. The performance of the proposed receiver is evaluated in terms of the bit-error rate (BER). Numerical results show that the proposed demodulator provides performance comparable to that of conventional baseband differential demodulator, while significantly reducing the implementation complexity suitable for single chip integration with direct conversion radio frequency module. Finally the performance of the proposed receiver is improved by adding a simple decision feedback module.

This paper proposes the Vector Evaluated GA-ICT (VEGA-ICT), a novel design method that employs the Genetic Algorithm (GA) to obtain the optimum antenna design. GA-ICT incorporates an arbitrary wire-grid model antenna to derive the optimum solution without any basic structure or limitation on the number of elements by merely optimizing an objective function. GA-ICT comprises the GA and an analysis method, the Improved Circuit Theory (ICT), with the following characteristics. (1) To achieve optimization of an arbitrary wire-grid model antenna without a basic antenna structure, the unknowns of the ICT are directly assigned to variables of the GA in the GA-ICT. (2) To achieve a variable number of elements, duplicate elements generated by using the same feasible region are deleted in the ICT. (3) To satisfy all complex design conditions, the GA-ICT generates an objective function using a weighting function generated based on electrical characteristics, antenna configuration, and size. (4) To overcome the difficulty of convergence caused by the nonlinearity of each term in the objective function, GA-ICT adopts a vector evaluation method. In this paper, the novel GA-ICT method is applied to downsize sector antennas. The calculation region in GA-ICT is reduced by adopting cylindrical coordinates and a periodic imaging structure. The GA-ICT achieves a 30% reduction in size compared to the previously reported small sector antenna, MS-MPYA, while retaining almost the same characteristics.

We present a 5.8 GHz VCO for the 5 GHz HIPERLAN/2 and U-NII band. The VCO uses a center-tapped inductor and a substrate shield to improve phase noise. Sensitivity to supply voltage and temperature is reduced by an amplitude control block. The design is based on a distributed inductor model which allows optimization without antecedent inductor measurements. The circuit is fabricated in a 0.8 µ m 45 GHz fT low-cost SiGe-HBT technology and operates with a supply voltage of -2.0 V to -3.3 V .

The efficiency-fractional bandwidth product (EB), which is expressed as a ratio of the radiation resistance to the absolute value of the input reactance of an antenna, is used as a performance criterion for small dielectric loaded monopole antennas (DLMAs). The dependence of the EB on the permittivity of the dielectric loading (i.e., the electrical volume) is experimentally and numerically investigated for the first time in antenna research. As a result, it is found that the EBs of the some DLMAs are enhanced over a bare monopole antenna and an EB characteristic curve has a maximum point. This result suggests the presence of the optimum electrical volume for the dielectric loading in order to obtain the best EB performance. A general reason for the existence of the peak value is also explained using a mathematical deduction. Finally the system EB, which is an efficiency-fractional bandwidth product of the DLMA with a practical matching circuit, is defined and its dependence on the relative permittivity is illustrated. Consequently, the existence of the peak value is also confirmed for the system EBs. In addition, it is demonstrated that the enhancement of the system EB is mainly due to the enhancement in the efficiency of the antenna system.