A new approach for solution of the Tensor-Volume Integral Equation (TVIE) using Galerkin-based moment method (MoM) for three-dimensional dielectric bodies is proposed. Two problems of plane wave scattering by a dielectric sphere and a thin-wire antenna in close proximity to a dielectric body are investigated. In both cases, cubic modeling is applied and a combination of entire-domain and sub-domain basis functions, including three-dimensional polynomial functions with different degrees is utilized for field expansion inside dielectric bodies. Power polynomial is adopted for this purpose and its property is discussed over the proposed mixed-domain MoM formulation. Numerical examples show that based on the proposed method, a relative fast algorithm and suitable accuracy are achieved compared with conventional MoM. The accuracy of the proposed method is verified by comparing it with the Mie theory, conventional MoM and the FDTD method.

ACK thinning refers to the technique to discard or reduce TCP acknowledgements (ACKs) for the purpose of diverting scarce bandwidth to TCP data traffic. It has been shown that under some circumstances the technique is effective to boost the TCP throughput on wireless links, in particular the IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN (WLAN). In this letter, however, we show that ACK thinning backfires under congestion due to its cross-layer impact on the 802.11 MAC dynamics. With the ACK filtering example, we demonstrate the phenomenon and analyze the cause. Based on the analysis, we show how the IEEE 802.11 contention window size control solves the problem.

We propose and demonstrate a new fabrication process of a microchannel using the Damascene process. This process aims to integrate photonic circuits with microchannels fabricated in a glass film. The microchannel is fabricated by the removal of the sacrificial layer after a sacrificial layer is formed by the Damascene process and the cover is formed by sputter deposition. A thin cover layer can be formed by the sacrificial method, because the cover layer is supported by the sacrificial layer during film formation. The cover layer is hermetically sealed, since it is formed by radio frequency (RF) sputtering deposition. The thickness is 1 µm and the width ranges from 3.5 to 8 µm. Using the proposed microchannel fabrication method, we prepared a microelectromechanical system (MEMS) optical switch using microfluidics, and we confirmed its functional operation. This optical switch actuates a minute droplet of liquid injected into the microchannel using Maxwell's stresses. Light propagates straight through the waveguide so that the light passes through the microchannel when the droplet is in the microchannel, but the light rays are completely reflected into a crossed waveguide when the droplet is not in the microchannel. Since this fabrication method uses techniques common to those in the formation of copper wiring in an IC chip, it can be used in the microchannel process.

We succeeded to fabricate p-n heterojunction and bulkheterojunction small-molecular-weight organic thin-film solar cells by combination of dry (p-type = zinc phthalocyanine, n-type = fullerene) and wet (p-type = tetra-tert-butyl zinc phthalocyanine, n-type = [6,6]-phenyl-C61-buteric acid methyl ester) processes. Relationship between morphologies of semiconducting layers and photovoltaic properties was investigated. The p-n heterojunction organic thin-film solar cells based on dry process, where surface roughness was approximately 2 nm, showed the highest power conversion efficiency of 1.3% in this paper.

CMOS poly-Si thin-film transistors (TFTs) were fabricated through crystallization and GILD processes by a novel selected area laser assisted (SALA) system. The system enables a local area irradiation of small beams of a pulsed solid-state laser of frequency tripled Nd:YAG. The novel TFT process eliminated 3 doping mask steps of the conventional process. On-off current ratios for both types of poly-Si TFTs were improved by SALA. The field effect mobility of n- and p-channel TFTs is 84 cm2/Vs and 75 cm2/Vs, respectively.

As the technology scaling approaching nano-scale region, variability in device performance becomes a major issue in the design of integrated circuits. Besides the growing amount of variability, the statistical nature of the variability is changing as the progress of technology generation. In the past, die-to-die variability, which is well managed by the worst case design technique, dominates over within-die variability. In present and the future, the amount of within-die variability is increasing and it casts a challenge in design methodology. This paper first shows measured results of variability in three different processes of 0.35, 0.18, and 0.13 µm technologies, and explains the above mentioned trend of variability. An example of modeling for the within-die variability is explained. The impact of within-die random variability on circuit performance is demonstrated using a simple numerical example. It shows that a circuit that is designed optimally under the assumption of deterministic delay is now most susceptible to random fluctuation in delay, which clearly indicates the requirement of statistical design methodology.

We proposed and evaluated a speech packet loss concealment method which predicts lost segments from speech included in packets either before, or both before and after the lost packet. The lost segments are predicted recursively by using linear prediction both in the forward direction from the packet preceding the loss, and in the backward direction from the packet succeeding the lost segment. Predicted samples in each direction are smoothed by averaging using linear weights to obtain the final interpolated signal. The adjacent segments are also smoothed extensively to significantly reduce the speech quality discontinuity between the interpolated signal and the received speech signal. Subjective quality comparisons between the proposed method and the the packet loss concealment algorithm described in the ITU standard G.711 Appendix I showed similar scores up to about 10% packet loss. However, the proposed method showed higher scores above this loss rate, with Mean Opinion Score rating exceeding 2.4, even at an extremely high packet loss rate of 30%. Packet loss concealment of speech degraded with G.729 coding, and babble noise mixed speech showed similar trends, with the proposed method showing higher qualities at high loss rates. We plan to further improve the performance by using adaptive LPC prediction order depending on the estimated pitch, and adaptive LPC bandwidth expansion depending on the consecutive number of repetitive prediction, among many other improvements. We also plan to investigate complexity reduction using gradient LPC coefficient updates, and processing delay reduction using adaptive forward/bidirectional prediction modes depending on the measured packet loss ratio.

This paper discusses the least-squares linear filtering and smoothing (fixed-point and fixed-interval) problems of discrete-time signals from observations, perturbed by additive white noise, which can be randomly delayed by one sampling time. It is assumed that the Bernoulli random variables characterizing delay measurements are correlated in consecutive time instants. The marginal distribution of each of these variables, specified by the probability of a delay in the measurement, as well as their correlation function, are known. Using an innovation approach, the filtering, fixed-point and fixed-interval smoothing recursive algorithms are obtained without requiring the state-space model generating the signal; they use only the covariance functions of the signal and the noise, the delay probabilities and the correlation function of the Bernoulli variables. The algorithms are applied to a particular transmission model with stand-by sensors for the immediate replacement of a failed unit.

We have examined the improvement of filter properties using sapphire and nickel rod trimmers. We measured the resonance frequency of the hairpin resonator in the filter, and examined the difference between the simulated and measured values. When the measured resonance frequency was lower than the simulated frequency, we used a nickel trimmer to increase the resonance frequency, and when high, a sapphire trimmer to decrease the frequency. Our results showed that the use of sapphire and nickel rod trimmers is effective in improving the frequency response of HTS bandpass filters.

A new technique incorporating combinatorial deposition to develop thin-film phosphors by r.f. magnetron sputtering is demonstrated using subdivided powder targets. In comparison with development using conventional r.f. magnetron sputtering, the atomic ratios of Si and Ge as well as the Mn content in Zn2Si1-XGeXO4:Mn thin film phosphors could be more efficiently optimized in order to obtain the highest intensity in electroluminescent and photoluminescent emissions. High luminances of 11800 and 1536 cd/m2 were obtained in Zn2Si0.6Ge0.4O4:Mn thin-film electroluminescent devices fabricated under optimized conditions and driven at 1 kHz and 60 Hz, respectively.

A rate splitting algorithm is presented for a multiple video transmission system to transfer the aggregation (or statical multiplexing) of multiple video streams to multiple clients so that each client can receive the requested video stream with the reliable fidelity. Computer simulations for transmission of a set of 128 MPEG compressed video streams show that the proposed algorithm alleviates the variability of the aggregate video transmission comparing with a scheme to smooth individually each of videos using the traditional online smoothing algorithm. Besides, the proposed is 2 time faster than the traditional one.

This paper presents the results of an investigation on the effect of a thin low-dielectric material (phantom shell) on measuring the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) in the frequency range of 3 to 6 GHz. The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) has started to develop a SAR measurement procedure in order to cover such frequencies. In the procedure, the SAR is measured in a liquid phantom, which is a shell filled with tissue-equivalent liquid. Although the shell is thin and has low-dielectric properties, the influence of the phantom shell is thought to increase at higher frequencies. Therefore, an investigation using the transmission line model and the Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FD-TD) method was conducted. To verify the FD-TD results, measurements were also carried out. The calculation results using the FD-TD method agree well with the measurement results. If the frequency is higher, the SAR is affected by the shell even though the shell is thinner and has much lower dielectric properties than those of the tissue-equivalent liquid. Specifically, the SAR with the shell is approximately 1.3 times higher than without the shell at 5.2 GHz for the maximum case. The deviations in the loss and the thickness for the shell do not affect the SAR more than the relative permittivity.

We propose guidelines for LSI-chip design, taking the within-die variations into consideration, and for process quality improvement to suppress the variations. The auto-correlation length, λ, of device variation is shown to be a useful measure to treat the systematic variations in a chip. We may neglect the systematic variation in chips within the range of λ, while σ2 of the systematic variation must be added to σ2 of the random variation outside the λ. The random variations, on the other hand, exhibit complete randomness even in the closest pair transistors. The mismatch variations in transistor pairs were enhanced by 1.41(=) compared with the random variations in single transistors. This requires careful choice of gate size in designing a transistor pair with a minimum size, such as transfer gates in an SRAM cell. Poly-Si gate formation is estimated to be the most important process to ensure the spatial uniformity in transistor current and to enhance circuit performance. Large relative variations are observed for the contact to p+ diffusion, via1 (M1-M2), and via2 (M2-M3) among parameter variations in passive elements. The standard deviations for random variations in via1 and via2 are noticeably widespread, indicating the importance of the via resistance control in BEOL. The spatial frequency power spectrum for within-die random variations is confirmed experimentally, as uniform ('white') with respect to the spatial frequency. To treat the large 'white random noise,' the least-square method with a 4th-order polynomial exhibits a best efficiency as a fitting function for decomposing the raw variation data into systematic part and random part.

This paper discusses the least-squares linear filtering and fixed-lag smoothing problems of discrete-time signals from uncertain observations when the random interruptions in the observation process are modelled by a sequence of not necessarily independent Bernoulli variables. It is assumed that the observations are perturbed by white noise and the autocovariance function of the signal is factorizable. Using an innovation approach we obtain the filtering and fixed-lag smoothing recursive algorithms, which do not require the knowledge of the state-space model generating the signal. Besides the observed values, they use only the matrix functions defining the factorizable autocovariance function of the signal, the noise autocovariance function, the marginal probabilities and the (2,2)-element of the conditional probability matrices of the Bernoulli variables. The algorithms are applied to estimate a scalar signal which may be transmitted through one of two channels.

In this paper, we describe an accelerative current-programming method for active matrix OLED (AM-OLED) display. This new method uses common source configuration, "Acceleration Control" line and some mechanisms to prevent the programming current from flowing through OLED device. It would solve the basic problem of the current-programming pixel circuit: a long programming period, especially at the dark gray-level. The proposed method accelerates the current programming process at any gray levels, and it would be the solution for the problem.

This paper treats the least-squares linear filtering and smoothing problems of discrete-time signals from uncertain observations when the random interruptions in the observation process are modelled by a sequence of independent Bernoulli random variables. Using an innovation approach we obtain the filtering algorithm and a general expression for the smoother which leads to fixed-point, fixed-interval and fixed-lag smoothing recursive algorithms. The proposed algorithms do not require the knowledge of the state-space model generating the signal, but only the covariance information of the signal and the observation noise, as well as the probability that the signal exists in the observed values.

This paper describes the effect of power line inductance and smoothing capacitance on a single-phase AC power supply system. Voltage fluctuations were calculated when the three main types of smoothing circuit (capacitor input, choke input, and power factor correction types) were used and the magnitude of power line inductance and smoothing capacitance were changed. First, we show the difference in voltage fluctuation in the case of constant resistance and negative resistance in a DC-DC converter. Second, we show the waveforms for which the power line inductance affects the voltage fluctuation of the AC power supply system. Finally, we propose the boundary condition for the power line inductance affecting the voltage fluctuation of the AC power supply system and estimate AC power supply system stability.

Photoacoustic (PA) spectra on the 3, 4, 9, 10-perylenetetracarboxylic dianhydride (PTCDA) films deposited by the vacuum evaporation were measured. The films have layered structures constructed from the perylene molecule plane structures. The crystal quality depended on the deposited substrate and the photoacoustic spectroscopy (PAS) seems to be the very useful tools to evaluate these properties from the non-radiative features. The films deposited on the three different substrate had the almost same PL spectra, but the films deposited on the glass substrate had the large non-radiative peaks in the PA spectra contrary to the films deposited on the alumina or crystal Si (100) those had the non-radiative peaks only observed at the short wavelength region.

The driving frequency dependence of EL characteristics were investigated in thick ceramic insulating type thin-film electroluminescent (TFEL) devices with various Mn-activated Y2O3-based phosphor thin-film emitting layers driven by a sinusoidal wave voltage. High luminous efficiencies of approximately 10 and 1 lm/W were obtained in the TFEL devices driven at 60 Hz and 1 kHz, respectively. The difference in luminous efficiency was mainly caused by the increase of input power in 1 kHz-driven-devices resulting from a dielectric loss of a thick BaTiO3 ceramic sheet used as the insulating layer. The correlation between the sound emission from the devices and the effective power consumed in the devices was found with variations in both the applied voltage and the frequency. The higher input power of the 1 kHz-driven-device may be attributable to sound emissions resulting from the piezo-electricity of BaTiO3 ceramics.

Commercial breaks are often placed at the climax of stories in recent TV programs in Japan, which may cause some serious effects on audiences, especially children, since this practice disturbs the concentrations. The experiment measured the psycho-physiological state of four children before and after commercials. The results showed that the next peak of attention is delayed by distracting the attention.