After a brief discussion of the demands in meshing for semiconductor process and device simulation, we present a three-dimensional Delaunay refinement technique combined with a modified advancing front algorithm.

A new method of designing a microphone array with two outputs preserving binaural information is proposed in this paper. This system employs adaptive beamforming using multiple constraints. The binaural cues may be preserved in the two outputs by use of these multiple constraints with simultaneous beamforming to enhance target signals is also available. A computer simulation was conducted to examine the performance of the beamforming. The results showed that the proposed array can perform both the generation of the binaural cues and the beamforming as intended. In particular, beamforming with double-constraints exhibits the best performance; DI is around 7 dB and good interchannel (interaural) time/phase and level differences are generated within a target region in front. With triple-constraints, however, the performance of the beamforming becomes poorer while the binaural information is better realized. Setting of the desired responses to give proper binaural information seems to become critical as the number of the constraints increases.

Internet users have become well acquainted with the World Wide Web (WWW) system, and WWW has become the most significant service on the Internet. In the near future, the importance of large scale hypermedia database systems based on WWW technologies is expected to continue to increace. The present study focuses on the issue of managing hyperlink integrity constraints on WWW like hypermedia database systems. After formally defining path existence constraint definitions(PEDs) using intuitive examples, we apply the notion of PEDs to represent hyperlink integrity constraints. Intuitively, a PED can be used to represent the following integrity constraint. If a reference path exists in a given database, then another corresponding reference path must also exist. An outline of a prototype hypermedia database system, AYATORI, which is based on the proposed model and under development, is also mentioned.

Development of large-scale software is usually conducted through a project to unite a work force. In addition, no matter what kind of life cycle model is employed, a development plan is required for a software development project in order for the united work force to function effectively. For the project to be successful, it is also necessary to set management objectives based on this plan and confirm that they are achieved. This method is considered to be effective, but actually making a software development project and following the achievement of the management objectives at each step is not easy because predicting the necessary work amount and risks that the project involves is difficult in software development. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a system to support software project management so that the project manager can manage the entire project and the work load is reduced. This paper proposes a meta-model of work structure of software development projects for project management by using an object-oriented database with constraints as well as a framework for software project management systems based on this meta-model. Also proven, through an example of a system that analyzes repercussions on progress of a software development project, is that the meta-model and framework are effective in software project management.

We introduce an ontology for transportation systems demand forecasting and its implementation into a decision support system (DSS) generator. The term ontology, as we use it here, means a collection of building blocks necessary and sufficient to construct a skeleton of a specific DSS, that is a task ontology. The ontology is specified in constraint logic, which also ensures a good support for modularity.

This paper presents a timing-driven global routing algorithm based on coarse pin assignment, block reshaping, and positioning for VLSI building block layout. As opposed to conventional approaches, we combine pin assignment and global routing problems into one problem. The proposed algorithm determines global routes, coarse pin assignments, and block shapes and positions so as to minimize the chip area and total wire length of nets under the given timing constraints. It is based on an iterative improvement paradigm and performs rip-up and rerouting, block reshaping, and positioning in the manner of simulated evolution taking shapes of soft blocks and routing congestion into consideration until the solution is not further improved. The Elmore delay model is adopted for the interconnection delay model. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

In this paper, the bit error rate (BER) performance of the Spread Spectrum communication with Constrained Spreading Code system is studied under the synchronous CDMA system. Particularly, BER considering the tracking error is derived by theoretical analysis. The synchronizing spreading sequence is employed to track the signals in the receiver. As the result, the BER performance is degraded by increasing the number of users. However, the BER performance can be improved by canceling the co-channel interference and by suppressing the cross-correlation value between the information spreading sequence and the synchronizing spreading sequence.

We discuss the concept of coding over the ring of integers modulo m. This method of coding finds its origin in the early work by Varshamov and Tenengolz. We first give a definition of the codes followed by some general properties. We derive specific code constructions and show computer-search results. We conclude with applications in 8-phase modulation and peak-shift correction in magnetic recording systems.

Recently, a great deal of effort has been devoted to the design problem of "constrained least squares M-D FIR filter" because a significant improvement of the squared error is expected by a slight relaxation of the minimax error condition. Unfortunately, no design method has been reported, which has some theoretical guarantee of the convergence to the optimal solution. In this paper, we propose a class of novel design methods of "constrained least squares M-D FIR filter. " The most remarkable feature is that all of the proposed methods have theoretical guarantees of convergences to the unique optimal solution under any consistent set of prescribed maximal error conditions. The proposed methods are based on "convex projection techniques" that computes the metric projection onto the intersection of multiple closed convex sets in real Hilbert space. Moreover, some of the proposed methods can still be applied even for the problem with any inconsistent set of maximal error conditions. These lead to the unique optimal solution over the set of all filters that attain the least sum of squared distances to all constraint sets.

The classical max-min policy has been suggested by the ATM Forum to support the available bit rate (ABR) service class. However, there are several drawbacks in adopting the max-min rate allocation policy. In particular, the max-min policy is not able to support the minimum cell rate (MCR) requirement and the peak cell rate (PCR) constraint for each ABR connection. Furthermore, the max-min policy does not offer flexible options for network providers wishing to establish a usage-based pricing criterion. In this paper, we present a generic weight-based rate allocation policy, which generalizes the classical max-min policy by supporting the MCR/PCR for each connection. Our rate allocation policy offers a flexible usage-based pricing strategy to network providers. A centralized algorithm is presented to compute network-wide bandwidth allocation to achieve this policy. Furthermore, a simple switch algorithm using ABR flow control protocol is developed with the aim of achieving our rate allocation policy in a distributed networking environment. The effectiveness of our distributed algorithm in a local area environment is substantiated by simulation results based on the benchmark network configurations suggested by the ATM Forum.

In live multimedia applications with multiple videos, it is necessary to develop an efficient mechanism of multiplexing several MPEG video streams into a single stream and transmitting it over network without wasting excessive bandwidth. In this paper, we present an efficient multiplexing and traffic smoothing scheme for multiple variable bit rate (VBR) MPEG video streams in live video applications with finite buffer sizes. First, we describe the constraints imposed by the allowable delay bound for each elementary stream and by the multiplexer/receiver buffer sizes. Based on these constraints, a new multiplexing and traffic smoothing scheme is designed in such a way as to smooth maximally the multiplexed transmission rate by exploiting temporal and spatial averaging effects, while avoiding the buffer overflow and underflow. Through computer experiments based on an MPEG-coded video trace of Star-wars, it is shown that the proposed scheme significantly reduces the peak rate, coefficient of variation, and effective bandwidth of the multiplexed transmission rate.

This paper presents two types of two-dimensional (2-D) adaptive beamforming algorithm which have high rate of convergence. One is a linearly constrained minimum variance (LCMV) beamforming algorithm which minimizes the average output power of a beamformer, and the other is a generalized sidelobe canceler (GSC) algorithm which generalizes the notion of a linear constraint by using the multiple linear constraints. In both algorithms, we apply a 2-D lattice filter to an adaptive filtering since the 2-D lattice filter provides excellent properties compared to a transversal filter. In order to evaluate the validity of the algorithm, we perform computer simulations. The experimental results show that the algorithm can reject interference signals while maintaining the direction of desired signal, and can improve convergent performance.

We consider the situation that plural degraded images are obtained. When no prior knowledge about original images are known, these images are individually restored by an optimum restoration filter, for example, by Wiener Filter or by Projection Filter. If correlations between original images are obtained, some restoration filters based on Wiener Filter or Projection Filter are proposed. In this paper, we deal with the case that some pixels or some parts of original images overlap, and propose a restoration method using a formulae for overlapping. The method is based on Partial Projection Filter. Moreover, we confirm an efficacy of the proposed method by numerical examples.

Three-dimensional (3-D) instrumentation using an image sequence is a promising instrumentation method for intelligent systems in which accurate 3-D information is required. However, real-time instrumentation is difficult since much computation time and a large memory bandwidth are required. In this paper, a 3-D instrumentation VLSI processor with a concurrent memory-access scheme is proposed. To reduce the access time, frequently used data are stored in a cache register array and are concurrently transferred to processing elements using simple interconnections to the 8-nearest neighbor registers. Based on a row and column memory access pattern, we propose a diagonally interleaved frame memory by which pixel values of a row and column are stored across memory modules. Based on the concurrent memory-access scheme, a 40 GOPS vprocessor is designed and the delay time for the instrumentation is estimated to be 42 ms for a 256256 images.

In this paper we propose a comprehensive approach to physical design based on the constraint paradigm. Bounds on the most critical circuit parasitics are automatically generated to help designers and/or physical design tools meet a set of high-level specifications. The constraint generation engine is based on constrained optimization, where various parasitic effects on interconnect and devices are accounted for and dealt with in different manners according to their statistical behavior and their effect on performance.

This paper presents a novel way of evaluating architecture of embedded custom DSPs which helps designers optimizing the datapath configuration and the instruction set. Given a datapath structure, it evaluates the performance in terms of the estimated number of steps to execute the target program on the datapath. A concept of "parallel constraint" is newly introduced, which enables evaluation of the impact of instruction format design on the performance without explicity specifying the instruction format. The number of execution steps is estimated by a combination of static analysis and dynamic analysis. It enables fast and precise estimation of actual performance in the early design stage. We have developed an architecture evaluation system based on the presented method and applied it to some actual design of signal processors. We demonstrate the accuracy of estimation and the usefulness of the method through its applications.

In recent years, fractal processes have played important roles in various application fields. Since a 1/f process possesses the statistical self-similarity, it is considered sa a main part of fractal signal modeling. On the other hand, noise reduction is often needed in real-world signal processing. Hence, we propose an enhancement algorithm for 1/f signal disturbed by white noise. The algorithm is based on constrained minimization in a wavelet domain: the power of 1/f signal distortion in the wavelet domain is minimized under a constraint that the power of residual noise in the wavelet domain is smaller than a threshold level. We solve this constrained minimization problem using a Lagrangian equation. We also consider a setting method of the Lagrange multiplier in the proposed algorithm. In addition, we will confirm that the proposed algorithm with this Lagrange multiplier setting method obtains better enhancement results than the conventional algorithm through computer simulations.

In this paper we discuss a certain constrained optimization problem which is often encountered in the geometrical optimization. Since these kinds of problems occur frequently, constrained genetic optimization becomes very important topic for research. This paper proposes a new methodology to handle constraints using the Genetic Algorithm through a multiprocessor system (FIN) which has a self-similarity network.

We have recently discovered a novel phenomenon for the fabrication of nanostructures. A self-organization phenomenon of a strained InGaAs/AlGaAs system on a GaAs (311)B substrate during metal-organic vapor phase epitaxial growth is described, and nano-scale confinement lasers with self-organized InGaAs quantum disks are mentioned. Low-threshold operation of strained InGaAs quantum disk lasers is achieved under a continuous-wave condition at room temperature. The threshold current is around 20 mA, which is consider-ably lower than that of a reference double-quantum-well laser on a GaAs (100) substrate grown side-by-side. However, the light output versus the driving current exhibits a pronounced tendency towards a saturation compared to that of the (100) quantum well laser. We also discuss new methods using self-organization for nanofabrication to produce high-quality low-dimensional optical devices, considering requirements and the current status for next-generation optical devices.

This paper presents a new timing-driven global routing method for standard cell layout. The proposed method can explicitly consider the timing constraint between two registers and minimize the channel density under the given timing constraint. In the proposed method, first, we determine the initial global routes. Next, we improve the global routes to satisfy the timing constraint between two registers as well as to minimize the channel density. Finally, for each cell row, the nets incident to terminals on the cell row are assigned to channels to minimize the channel density using 0-1 integer linear programming. We also show the experimental results of the proposed method implemented on an engineering workstation. Experimental results show that the proposed method is quite promising.