De-identification[1]-[5], [30]-[71] is the process that organizations can use to remove personal information from data that they collect, use, archive, and share with other organizations. It is recognized as an important tool for organizations to balance requirements between the use of data and privacy protection of personal information. Its objective is to remove the association between a set of identifying attributes and the data principal where identifying attribute is attribute in a dataset that is able to contribute to uniquely identifying a data principal within a specific operational context and data principal is entity to which data relates. This paper provides an overview of de-identification techniques including the data release models. It also describes the current standardization activities by the standardization development organizations in terms of de-identification. It suggests future standardization directions including potential future work items.

Because of its high throughput potentiality on short-range communications and inherent superiority of high precision on ranging and localization, ultra-wideband (UWB) technology has been attracting attention continuously in research and development (R&D) as well as in commercialization. The first domestic regulation admitting indoor UWB in Japan was released by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) in 2006. Since then, several revisions have been made in conjunction with UWB commercial penetration, emerging new trends of industrial demands, and coexistence evaluation with other wireless systems. However, it was not until May 2019 that MIC released a new revision to admit outdoor UWB. Meanwhile, the IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards Committee has been developing several UWB related standards or amendments accordingly for supporting different use cases. At the time when this paper is submitted, a new amendment known as IEEE 802.15.4z is undergoing drafting procedure which is expected to enhance ranging ability for impulse radio UWB (IR-UWB). In this paper, we first review the domestic UWB regulation and some of its revisions to get a picture of the domestic regulation transition from indoor to outdoor. We also foresee some anticipating changes in future revisions. Then, we overview several published IEEE 802 standards or amendments that are related to IR-UWB. Some features of IEEE 802.15.4z in drafting are also extracted from open materials. Finally, we show with our recent research results that time bias internal a transceiver becomes important for increasing localization accuracy.

Space optical communication has been considered one of the major candidates for high-rate data transmission and it reaches the practical stage to operate as a high-rate data transmission system. In this paper, the author reports the latest situation of space optical communication around the world, flight demonstrations, technological research and standardization. Research and development activities at Japan aerospace exploration agency (JAXA) are also presented.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is defined as a global infrastructure for the Information Society, enabling advanced services by interconnecting (physical and virtual) things based on, existing and evolving, interoperable information and communication technologies by ITU-T. Data may be communicated in low-power and lossy environments, which causes complicated security issues. Furthermore, concerns are raised over access of personally identifiable information pertaining to IoT devices, network and platforms. Security and privacy concerns have been main barriers to implement IoT, which needs to be resolved appropriate security and privacy measures. This paper describes security threats and privacy concerns of IoT, surveys current studies related to IoT and identifies the various requirements and solutions to address these security threats and privacy concerns. In addition, this paper also focuses on major global standardization activities for security and privacy of Internet of Things. Furthermore, future directions and strategies of international standardization for theInternet of Thing's security and privacy issues will be given. This paper provides guidelines to assist in suggesting the development and standardization strategies forward to allow a massive deployment of IoT systems in real world.

We proposes a new adaptive spectral masking method of algebraic vector quantization (AVQ) for non-sparse signals in the modified discreet cosine transform (MDCT) domain. This paper also proposes switching the adaptive spectral masking on and off depending on whether or not the target signal is non-sparse. The switching decision is based on the results of MDCT-domain sparseness analysis. When the target signal is categorized as non-sparse, the masking level of the target MDCT coefficients is adaptively controlled using spectral envelope information. The performance of the proposed method, as a part of ITU-T G.711.1 Annex D, is evaluated in comparison with conventional AVQ. Subjective listening test results showed that the proposed method improves sound quality by more than 0.1 points on a five-point scale on average for speech, music, and mixed content, which indicates significant improvement.

This paper summarizes the current status of regulations, standardization efforts and trials around the world regarding white space (WS) communications, especially television band WS (TVWS). After defining WS communication systems configurations and function and the categories of white space database, the TVWS regulations in United States, United Kingdom, and Japan are summarized. Then regarding status of standardization for TVWS devices, IEEE 802 and IEEE 1900 standards are summarized. Finally ongoing pilot projects and trials of WS communications in the world are summarized, and trends and future direction of research on WS communication systems are summarized.

A removable HDD “iVDR” is an international standardized medium, which has HDD features such as a large capacity and high-speed data transfer, and also is removable and compatible. We discuss the concepts of the hardware-specifications designed by the iVDR Consortium and the history of the international standardization activities for iVDR. We also discuss application expansions through these standardization activities.

This paper describes the outline of recent standardization activities for Radio on Fiber (RoF) transmitter by IEC TC103/WG5. RoF transmitter consists of optical fibers, electrical to optical (E/O) converter, and optical to electrical (O/E) converter. IEC TC103/WG5 is working on standardization on measurement method of E/O and O/E devices, and technical specification of RoF transmitter. This paper overviews those standardization activities which are being developed by TC103/WG5 as well as the National Committee of WG5.

Various types of optical connector with a precise alignment mechanism and long-term reliability have been researched, developed and improved during about 30 years since practical optical communication systems were first introduced in Japan in 1981. The main issues related to optical fiber connector development changed from performance improvement to miniaturization, cost reduction and ease of field assembly when optical communication systems expanded from optical trunk networks to optical access networks. Various different key technologies for optical connectors have been developed to meet these requirements, and a large number of optical connectors are currently being used for the flexible and efficient construction, maintenance and operation of optical access networks. This paper describes the structure, features, and basic technologies of the optical connectors employed in optical access networks in Japan and their standardization and future prospects.

Autonomous Decentralized System (ADS) has been making progress in these 31 years since it was proposed in 1977. During these long years in the rapidly advancing computer and communication technologies, the ADS concept has not been changed but its technologies have been growing in accordance with the change and diversity of the social, economical and personal requirements and through the globalization of the market and the restructuring organizations. The ADS technologies are systematized to cover all processes of system design, operation, maintenance and modification. This paper reviews the work done in fields of ADS in past 31 years from not only technological perspectives, but it also encompasses users requirements and value, system design, industrial activity, academic activity and standardization [1]-[26]. Moreover the new directions of the ADS are suggested.

The Project Authorization Request (PAR) for the IEEE P1900.4 Working Group (WG), under the IEEE Standards Coordinating Committee 41 (SCC41) was approved in December 2006, leading to this WG being officially launched in February 2007 [1]. The scope of this standard is to devise a functional architecture comprising building blocks to enable coordinated network-device distributed decision making, with the goal of aiding the optimization of radio resource usage, including spectrum access control, in heterogeneous wireless access networks. This paper introduces the activities and work under progress in IEEE P1900.4, including its scope and purpose in Sects. 1 and 2, the reference usage scenarios where the standard would be applicable in Sect. 4, and its current system architecture in Sect. 5.

This paper overviews the high-speed power-line communication (PLC) technology, and the related standardization and regulatory activities are described. PLC modems of 200 Mbps class become a practical use stage in the West, and the standardization activity is active now. The discussion for deregulation is being continued in also Japan, and regulation values have been proposed. Another topic in this paper is a sensor network application of PLC, which is an indoor fine-grained localization system by acoustic Direct-Sequence Code Division Multiplexed (DS-CDM) signals. The obtained average accuracy of the localization in a 4 m2 plane was 1 cm if there was no obstacle. To realize the localization system, some novel ideas, such as PLC speakers, a synchronization method based on the zero-crossing timing of the mains frequency, and integrated wired/wireless PLC, are introduced.

The present state of IEC and JIS standards is reviewed on measurement methods of low-loss dielectric and high-tempera-ture superconductor (HTS) materials in the microwave and millimeter wave range. Four resonance methods are discussed actually, that is, a two-dielectric resonator method for dielectric rod measurements, a two-sapphire resonator method for HTS film measurements, a cavity resonator method for microwave measurements of dielectric plates and a cutoff circular waveguide method for millimeter wave measurements of dielectric plates. These methods realize the high accuracy sufficient for measurements of temperature dependence of material properties.

In the case of personal computers (PCs), interoperability among PCs are sufficiently realized with the advent of Microsoft Windows to take the position of mainstream OS, and major software applications following the mainstream for standardization, for more and more user-friendly human machine interface. Considering the case for PCs as above, it is not surprising to us at all, if the same concept is pursued in a radio communications terminal, which can freely access to different radio systems just by replacing the embedded software. This means that the prospective end user will gain the benefit to be able to change his radio set to one of the desired systems in the field, by installing the software of his choice. Such radio equipment is called Software Defined Radio (SDR), and various kinds of applications are expected for development in many fields. However, for the SDR to be in widespread use, we have many outstanding issues to be solved, which are not limited only in the technical matters. One barrier is interoperability among manufacturers. Namely, even when a technical problem is solved, the appropriate technical solution should be shared for the interoperability among as many manufacturers as possible. If such interoperability is unachievable, that technical solution could only be for internal use within the specific manufacturer, failing to take advantage of the true value of the SDR. Another barrier might be the Radio Law of Japan. Unless overcoming this barrier, the commercial implementation of the SDR is unachievable, resulting in the failure to entertain the real benefit from the SDR implication. Under such a background, this paper first describes the concept of and definition for the SDR to make them clearer for the readers. Then, the interoperability issue, which would be the key to the widespread use of SDR, is taken up as next topic. The last topic is focused on the legal and regulatory issue, to discuss what would be the problem under the Radio Law of Japan.

Personal authentication technologies will be necessary to ensure security of electronic transactions over open networks. Although biometric authentication is one of the most efficient approaches, accuracy of the biometric authentication is affected by the environment of the data acquisition, procedural parameters, and so on. There is as yet no means of giving a fair comparison of the accuracy of products of biometric vendors. Therefore, a standardization of the accuracy evaluation is necessary. This paper gives a standardization of the accuracy evaluation for the fingerprint verification system.

This paper describes recent standardization activities on optical networking and relevant issues which are conducted in ITU-T. The organization is first described, then, several recommendations both which are already recommended and expected to be completed in a couple of years.

To construct the future multimedia network, ATM network technology and services should support cost-effective, high-speed interconnectivity and a variety of service-providing functions. Furthermore, as the infrastructure of future multimedia service, the ATM architecture should be adaptable to changes without needing replacement of its core functions and platform capabilities. This paper presents an overview of the current state of development, standardization and deployment of the ATM network service technologies and architecture concept. It also discusses the trend toward the integration of ATM technology and Internet technology. Also reported is the state of development and standardization for the individual ATM technologies and related issues, including access networks, bearer services, signalling, network middleware, and future ATM switching system technology.

This paper illustrates activities and accomplishments being made by DAVIC, a non-profit organization pushing forward its open, international, cross-industry standards for audio-visual information systems, of which video-on-demand is the representative. Core technologies selected in its firstly published specifications and their interoperability aspects are summarized here. Preliminary results in our interoperability testing are also shown. Finally, we touch upon the coming work plan of DAVIC which covers wider range of access network capabilities and service domains, e.g. internet.

The realization of scientific manufacturing of ULSIs in the 21st century will require the development of a technical infrastructure of "Ultra Clean Technology" and the firm establishment of the three principles of high performance processes. Three principles are 1)Ultra Clean Si Wafer Surface, 2)Ultra Clean Processing Environment, and 3)Perfect Parameter controlled process. This paper describes the methods of resolving the problems inherent in Ultra Clean Technology, taking as examples issues in quarter-micron or more advanced semiconductor process and manufacturing equipment, particularly when faced with the challenges of plasma dry etching. Issues indispensable to the development of tomorrow's highly accurate and reliable plasma dry etching equipment are the development of technologies for the accurate measurement of plasma parameters, ultra clean gas delivery systems, chamber cleaning technology on an in-situ basis, and simulating the plasma chemistry.This paper also discusses the standardization of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, which is considered one of the ways to reduce the steep rise in production line construction costs. The establishment of Ultra Clean Technology also plays a vital role in this regard.