This paper proposes a three-dimensional (3-D) band-limiting technique for a conversion of Simple Cubic Sampling into Body-Centered Cubic Sampling. Based on spectral distribution of the original signal, the proposed method adaptively varies the passband shape of a band-limiting filter in order to preserve informations of the original picture. By applying this method to 3-D moving pictures, we can preserve resolution on each axis without introducing heavy aliasing error and avoid degradation of picture quality such as ringing in still pictures or blurring in moving pictures. The examples given in this paper demonstrate these advantages.

This paper discusses a massively parallel interconnection scheme for multithreaded architecture and introduces a new class of direct interconnection networks called the hierarchical Multidimensional Directed Cycles Ensemble (hMDCE). Its suitability for massively parallel systems is discussed. The network is evolved from the Multidimensional Directed Cycles Ensemble (MDCE) network, where each node is substituted by lower-level sub-networks. The new network addresses some serious problems caused by the increasing scale of parallel systems, such as longer latency, limited throughput and high implementation cost. This paper first introduces the MDCE network and then presents and examines in detail the hierarchical MDCE network. Bisection bandwidth of hMDCE is considerably reduced from its ancestor MDCE and the network performs significantly higher throughput and lower latency under some practical implementation constraints. The gate count and delay time of the compiled circuit for the routing function are insignificant. These results reveal that the hMDCE network is an important candidate for massively parallel systems interconnection.

The order of faults which are targeted for test-pattern generation affects both of the processing time for test generation and the number of generated test-patterns. This order is referred to as a test generation schedule. In this paper, we consider the effect of scheduling in test generation. We formulate the test generation scheduling problem which minimizes the cost of testing. We propose schedulings based on test-pattern generation time, dominating probability and dominated probability, and analyze the effect of these schedulings. In the analysis, we show that the total test-pattern generation time and the total number of test-patterns can be reduced by the scheduling according to the descending order of dominating probability prior to the ascending order of test-pattern generation. This is confirmed by the experiments using ISCAS'85 benchmark circuits. Further, in the experiments, we consider eight schedulings, and show that the scheduling according to the ascending order of dominated probability is the most effective of them.

Motivated by the design of fault-tolerant multiprocessor interconnection networks, this paper considers the following problem: Given a positive integer t and a graph H, construct a graph G from H by adding a minimum number Δ(t, H) of edges such that even after deleting any t edges from G the remaining graph contains H as a subgraph. We estimate Δ(t, H) for the hypercube and torus, which are well-known as important interconnection networks for multiprocessor systems. If we denote the hypercube and the square torus on N vertices by QN and DN respectively, we show, among others, that Δ(t, QN) = O(tN log(log N/t + log 2e)) for any t and N (t 2), and Δ(1, DN) = N/2 for N even.

In this paper, we study the following node-to-node and node-to-set routing problems in r-dimensional torus Trn with r 2 and n 4 nodes in each dimension: given at most 2r - 1 faulty nodes and non-faulty nodes s and t in Trn, find a fault-free path s t; and given at most 2r - k faulty nodes and non-faulty nodes s and t1,..., tk in Trn, find k fault-free node-disjoint paths s ti, 1 i k. We give an O(r2) time algorithm which finds a fault-free path s t of length at most d(Trn) + 1 for the node-to-node routing, where d(Trn) is the diameter of Trn. For node-to-set routing, we show an O(r3) time algorithm which finds k fault-free node-disjoint paths s ti, 1 i k, of length at most d(Trn) + 1. The upper bounds on the length of the found paths are optimal. From this, Rabin diameter of Trn is d(Trn) + 1.

A laser power optimizing method for multi-pulse recording is described. Multi-pulse recording uses the recording pulse formed by bias part and comb part. To obtain best readout signal characteristics and reduce the time for optimizing, new mark pattern is recorded and then two parts of the recording pulse are individually adjusted by evaluating the detected signals during pre-write testing. At the optimized laser power by this method, a good qualitative eyepattern was obtained. As a result, this new method proves to be suitable for the multi-pulse recording and adapted to various disks with different recording properties.

The characteristics of a-Si bottom-gate TFT test devices with several kinds of inorganic "quasi-black matrix," such as metal, semiconductor, and insulator, on the top were investigated for various black matrix(BM) resistivities. In the Ia-Vg characteristics, for a BM sheet resistance of about1 1012 Ω/, a high off current and large Vth shift were observed due to the back-gating effects when the BM is charged up. Accrding to the ac dynamic characteristics, there was almost no leakage due to the capacitive coupling between source and drain after 16.6 msec(one frame) when the BM sheet resistance was above 7 1013 Ω/ . It was found that hydrogenated amorphous silicon germanium(a-SiGe:H) film, which has enough optical density, with the sheet resistance above the order of 1014 Ω/ is a promising candidate for an inorganic BM on TFT array.

This paper provides an architectural study of optical ring trunk-transmission networks using either Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) or Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM). A timeslot arrangement algorithm for distributed controlled TDM rings is proposed that minimizes the number of slots (wavelengths) required in bi-directional ring networks. This algorithm is applied in a straightforward manner to wavelength arrangement in WDM ring networks. The technique, characterized by timeslot (or wavelength) conversion, realizes common add/drop procedures in all Add/Drop Multiplexers (ADMs) when they are connected logically in a mesh topology. A self-healing algorithm is also proposed for network restoration. It offers good performance in terms of protection line-capacity, restoration delay, and survivability against multiple failures.

This paper presents the system issues involved with the transmission of pre-encoded VBR MPEG video using CBR service. Conventional wisdom suggests that lossless delivery of VBR video using CBR service requires bandwidth to be reserved at the peak rate resulting in low bandwidth utilization. We calculate the minimum rate at which bandwidth must be reserved on a network in order to provide continuous playback of an MPEG encoded video bitstream. Simulation results using the frame size traces from several pre-encoded MPEG bitstreams and several buffer sizes demonstrate that this minimum reservation rateis much lower than the peak rate when a relatively small playback buffer size is used, resulting in much higher bandwidth utilization. Procedures for performing connection setup and lossless realtime video playback between the video server and the client are outlined. Methods for incorporating VCR-like features such as pauseandfast forward/reversefor Video-on-Demand (VoD) applications are presented.

We propose a new QOS routing algorithm for finding a path that guarantees several quality of service (QOS) parameters requested by users, for ATM networks. It is known that a routing problem is NP-complete, if the number of additive QOS parameters, such as delay and cost, are more than or equal to two. Although a number of heuristic algorithms have been proposed recently to solve this problem, the appropriate choice of routing algorithms is still an open issue. In this paper, we propose a new heuristic routing algorithm, while being compliant with PNNI routing and signaling specification in the ATM Forum. The performance of algorithms is evaluated by simulation with a various network topologies and loading scenarios. This simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme improves the performance while reducing computational complexity.

The mesh-connected computers with hyperbus broadcasting are an extension of the mesh-connected computers with multiple broadcasting. Instead of using local buses, we use global buses to connect processors. Such a strategy efficiently reduces the time complexity of the semigroup problem from O(N) to O(log N). Also, the matrix multiplication and the transitive closure problems are solved in O(log N) and O(log2 N) time, respectively. Then, based on these operations, several interesting problems such as the connected recognition problem, the articulation problem, the dominator problem, the bridge problem, the sorting problem, the minimum spanning tree problem and the bipartite graph recognition problem can be solved in the order of polylogarithmic time.

In this paper, we propose a timing constrained database system which accesses a database at a host computer via a mobile support server with a wireless portable computer running in mobile computing environments, so that we can provide seamless database access between a communication cell and the host computer even if the user of the portable computer moves from one communication cell to another. Then, we also provide some new kind of database cache algorihm, such as all-cell-cache, neighbour-cell-cache, 1-cell-skip-cache, 2-cell-skip-cache and 3-cell-skip-cache methods, each of which manages the data downloading and uploading among the host database and some cell databases at the mobile support servers so as to minimize the database access fault probability when the user moves from one communication cell to another. And, we show the averaged database access time and the averaged database cache hit ratio which are computed by simulating each of the above database cache algorithms with random variables generation method. Finally, we conclude that each above cache alogorithm is advantageous to the database in mobile computineg einvironments.

Neural network hardware using time-shared bus and integer representation architecture has already been fabricated and reported from the design viewpoint. However, nothing related to performance evaluation of hardware has yet been presented. Computation-speed, scalability and learning accuracy of hardware are evaluated theoretically and experimentally using a Back Propagation (BP) algorithm. In addition, a mirror-weight assignment technique is proposed for high-speed computation in the BP. NETTalk, an English-pronunciation-reasoning task, has been chosen as the target application for the BP. In the experiment, recently-developed neuro-hardware based on the above architecture and its parallel programming language are used. An outline of the language is described along with BP programming. Mirror-weight assignment allows maximum speed at 55.0 MCUPS (Million Connections Updated Per Second) using 256 neurons in the hidden-layer (numbers of neurons in input-and output-layers are fixed at 203 and 26 respectively in NETTalk). In addition, if scalability is defined as a function of the number of neurons in the hidden-layer, the machine retains high scalability at 0.5 if such a maximum speed needs to be used. No degradation in learning accuracy occurs when experimental results computed using the neuro-hardware are compared with those obtained by floating-point representation architecture (workstation). The experiment indicates that the present integer representational design of the neuro-hardware is sufficient for NETTalk. Performance has been evaluated theoretically. For evaluation purposes, it is assumed that most of the total execution-time is taken up by bus cycles. On the basis of this assumption, an analytical model of computation-speed and scalability is proposed. Analytical predictions agreed well with experimental results.

This paper designs recursive least-squares fixed-point smoother and filter, which use the observed value, the probability that the signal exists, and the covariance information relevant to the signal and observation noises, on the estimation problem associated with the uncertain observations in linear continuous-time systems.

We have fabricated a new analog memory for integrated artificial neural networks. Several attempts have been made to develop a linear characteristics of floating-gate analog memorys with feedback circuits. The learning chip has to have a large number of learning control circuit. In this paper, we propose a new analog memory SDAM with three cascaded TFTs. The new analog memory has a simple design, a small area occupancy, a fast switching speed and an accurate linearity. To improve accurate linearity, we propose a new chargetransfer process. The device has a tunnel junction (poly-Si/poly-Si oxide/poly-Si sandwich structure), a thin-film transistor, two capacitors, and a floating-gate MOSFET. The diffusion of the charges injected through the tunnel junction are controlled by a source follower operation of a thin film transistor (TFT). The proposed operation is possible that the amounts of transferred charges are constant independent of the charges in storage capacitor.

In this paper, a simple method to investigate the dynamics of continuous-time neural networks based on the force (kinetic vector) derived from the equation of motion for neural networks instead of the energy function of the system has been described. The number of equilibrium points and limit cycles of one-dimensional neural networks with the asymmetric cyclic connection matrix has been investigated experimently by this method. Some types of equilibrium points and limit cycles have been theoretically analyzed. The relations between the properties of limit cycles and the number of connections also have been discussed.

Multimedia Database Systems as the tool to extract and generate additional values from multimedia 'Contents' are discussed in this paper with putting emphasis on the mediator functions between users and contents. Firstly, we discuss about 'what to do' from the view point of four promising contents sources: 'on the network,' 'in the digital broadcasting' 'in the library' and 'in the real world.' From this view pont, four types of multimedia database systems are defined. 'What to do' for each database system is also discussed. Two concrete multimedia database systems with unique mediator functions, stream-type multimedia database platform GOLS and the intelligent access and authoring system using multiple media synchronization are proposed with experimental evaluation results and concrete multimedia database applications.

A CMOS fully balanced current-mode filter is presented. A fully balanced current-mode integrator which is the basic building block is implemented by adding a very simple common-mode-rejection mechanism to fully differential one. The fully balanced operation can eliminate even order distortion, which is one of the drawbacks in previous continuous current-mode filter. Moreover, the additional circuit can work as not only common-mode-rejection mechanism but also Q-tuning circuit which compensates lossy elements due to finite output impedance of MOS FET. A prototype fifth-order low-pass lad-der filter designed in a standard digital 0.8µm CMOS process achieved a cut-off frequency (fC) of 100MHz; fC was tunable from 75MHz to 120MHz by varying a reference bias current from 50µA to 150µA. Using a single 3V power supply with a nominal reference current of 100µA, power dissipation per one pole is 30mW. The active filter area was 0.011mm2/pole and total harmonic distortion (THD) was 0.73 [%] at 80MHz, 80µA amplitude signal. Furthermore, by adjusting two bias currents, on chip automatic both frequency and Q controls are easily implemented by typical tuning systems, for example master-slave tuning systems [1].

This paper describes an on-line Kanji character recognition method that solves the one-to-one stroke correspondence problem with both the stroke-number and stroke-order variations common in cursive Japanese handwriting. We propose two kinds of complementary algorithms: one dissolves excessive mapping and the other dissolves deficient mapping. Their joint use realizes stable optimal stroke correspondence without combinatorial explosion. Also, three kinds of inter-stroke distances are devised to deal with stroke concatenation or splitting and heavy shape distortion. These new ideas greatly improve the stroke matching ability of the selective stroke linkage method reported earlier by the authors. In experiments, only a single reference pattern for each of 2,980 Kanji character categories is generated by using training data composed of 120 patterns written carefully with the correct stroke-number and stroke-order. Recognition tests are made using the training data and two kinds of test data in the square style and in the cursive style written by 36 different people; recognition rates of 99.5%, 97.6%, and 94.1% are obtained, respectively. Moreover, comparative results obtained by the current OCR technique as applied to bitmap patterns of on-line character data are presented. Finally, future work for enhancing the stroke matching approach to cursive Kanji character recognition is discussed.

Continuous nonlinearity" is stressed as a fundamental principle in pattern recognition including handprinted Kanji character recognition. Continuity" in template matching and spatial nonlinearity" in structural analysis should be unified toward deriving a higher level of recognition algorithm. At the same time, continuous nonlinearity in the temporal axis is important, as is the case of simultaneous processing of segmentation and recognition for touching characters. The above viewpoint is discussed in the following examples: nonlinear normalization, directional pattern matching, locally maximized similarity, relaxation matching, dynamic programming matching, segmentation of character string using dynamic programming, and exhaustive matching for character extraction on complex background.