In the design of an active matrix LCD (Liquid Crystal Display), the ratio of the pixel voltage to the video voltage (RPV) of a pixel is an important factor of the performance of the LCD, since the pixel voltage of each pixel determines its transmitted luminance. Thus, of practical importance is the issue of how to maintain the admissible allowance of RPV of each pixel within a prescribed narrow range. This constraint on RPV is analyzed in terms of circuit parameters associated with the sampling switch and sampling pulse of a column driver in the LCD. With the use of a minimal set of such circuit parameters, a design procedure is described dedicatedly for the sampling switch, which intends to seek an optimal sampling switch as well as an optimal sampling pulse waveform. A number of experimental results show that an optimal sampling switch attained by the proposed procedure yields a source driver with almost 18% less power consumption than the one by manual design. Moreover, the percentage of the RPVs within 1001% among 270 cases of fluctuations is 88.1% for the optimal sampling switch, but 46.7% for the manual design.

Recent IDEs have become more extensible tool platforms but do not concern themselves with how other tools running on them collaborate with each other. They compel developers to use proprietary representations or the classical abstract syntax tree (AST) to build source code tools. Although these representations contain sufficient information, they are neither portable nor extensible. This paper proposes a tool platform that manages commonly used, fined-grained, information about Java source code by using an XML representation. Our representation is suitable for developing tools which browse and manipulate actual source code, since the original code is annotated with tags based on its structure and retained within the tags. Additionally, it exposes information resulting from global semantic analysis, which is never provided by the typical AST. Our proposed platform allows the developers to extend the representation for the purpose of sharing or exchanging various kinds of information about the source code, and also enables them to build new tools by using existing XML utilities.

iPat/OMP is an interactive parallelization assistance tool for OpenMP. In the present paper, we describe the design concept of iPat/OMP, the parallelization sequence achieved by the tool and its current implementation status. In addition, we present an evaluation of the performance of the implemented functionalities. The experimental results show that iPat/OMP can detect parallelism and create an appropriate OpenMP directive for several for-loops.

We have developed Interaction Builder (IB), a rapid prototyping tool for constructing web-based Multi-Modal Interaction (MMI) applications. The goal of IB is making it easy to develop MMI applications with speech recognition, life-like agents, speech synthesis, web browsing, etc. For this purpose, IB supports the following interface and functions: (1) GUI for implementing MMI systems without the details of MMI and MMI description language, (2) functionalities of handling synchronized multimodal inputs/outputs, (3) a test run mode for run-time testing. The results of evaluation tests showed that the application development cycle using IB was significantly shortened in comparison with the time using a text editor both for MMI description language experts and for beginners.

A complete system for the implementation of digital logic in a Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) platform is introduced. The novel power-efficient FPGA architecture was designed and simulated in STM 0.18 µm CMOS technology. The detailed design and circuit characteristics of the Configurable Logic Block, the interconnection network, the switch box and the connection box were determined and evaluated in terms of energy, delay and area. A number of circuit-level low-power techniques were employed because power consumption was the primary concern. Additionally, a complete tool framework for the implementation of digital logic circuits in FPGA platforms is introduced. Having as input VHDL description of an application, the framework derives the reconfiguration bitstream of FPGA. The framework consists of: i) non-modified academic tools, ii) modified academic tools and iii) new tools. Furthermore, the framework can support a variety of FPGA architectures. Qualitative and quantitative comparisons with existing academic and commercial architectures and tools are provided, yielding promising results.

There is an emerging requirement for real-time flow-based traffic monitoring, which is vital to detecting and/or tracing DoS attacks as well as troubleshooting and traffic engineering in the ISP networks. We propose the architecture for a scalable real-time flow measurement tool in order to allow operators to flexibly define "the targeted flows" on-demand, to obtain various statistics on those flows, and to visualize them in a real-time manner. A traffic distribution device and multiple traffic capture devices processing packets in parallel are included in the architecture, in which the former device copies traffic and distributes it to the latter devices. We evaluate the performance of a proto-type implementation on PC-UNIX in testbed experiments to demonstrate the scalability of our architecture. The evaluation shows that the performance increases in proportion to the number of the capture devices and the maximum performance reaches 80 K pps with six capture devices. Finally we also show applications of our tool, which indicate the advantage of flexible fine-grained flow measurements.

In this study, a CG animation tool was designed that allows interpolation and extrapolation of two types of repeated motions including finger actions, for quantitative analyses of the relationship between features of human motions and subjective impressions. Three-dimensional human motions are measured with a magnetic motion capture and a pair of data gloves, and then relatively accurate time-series joint data are generated utilizing statistical characteristics. Based on the data thus obtained, time-series angular data of each joint for two dancing motions is transformed into frequency domain by Fourier transform, and spectral shape of each dancing action is interpolated. The interpolation and extrapolation of two motions can be synthesized with simple manner by changing an weight parameter while keeping good harmony of actions. Using this CG animation tool as a motion synthesizer, repeated human motions such as a dancing action that gives particular impressions on the observers can be quantitatively measured and analyzed by the synthesis of actions.

The recent evolution on the network tomography have successfully provided principles and methodologies of inferring network-internal (local) characteristics solely from end-to-end measurements, which should be followed by deployment in practical use. In this paper, two kinds of user-oriented tools for inferring one-way packet losses based on the network tomography are proposed. They can infer one-way packet loss rates on paths or path segments from/to a user-host (a client) to/from a specified target host (an application server or a router) without any measurement on the target, and thus can find the congested area along the path between the client and an application server. One is a stand-alone tool running on the client, and the other is a client-server style tool running on both the client and a proxy measurement server distributed in the Internet. Prototypes of the tools have been developed and evaluated by experiments in the actual Internet environment, which shows that the tools can infer the loss rates within 1% errors in various network conditions.

We can easily access a remote database as well as a local database with HTML forms. Although implementing a database application with HTML forms is much simpler than implementing it with a proprietary graphical user-interface system, HTML forms and CGI programs still must be coded. We implemented a software tool that automatically generates the SQL statements that create a database for an application, the forms that are used as a user interface, and the Java servlets that retrieve the data requested through the forms. The database tables to be created and the forms to be generated are determined by the class diagram for the application. Our software tool, which we call WebSiteGen, thus simplifies the implementation of a Web-based database application.

Design patterns can be regarded as an approach to encapsulate and reuse good design practices. However, most design patterns are specified using informal text and examples. To obtain all of the benefits of patterns, formal specification and tool support are indispensable. This paper proposes a Design Pattern Specification Language (DPSL) that is both manageable and effective. The DPSL provides software developers with the capability to treat design patterns as concrete design units without lowering abstraction. To demonstrate the usability of our DPSL and its application in design modeling, we have developed a prototype tool that supports the DPSL in UML diagrams. This prototype allows us to demonstrate the tool's support possibilities and the usability of patterns for software development applications.

Active integrated antennas are a maturing topic. Many novel configurations have been described and system designers are how investigating how the advantages of compactness and increased functionality can be exploited in applications. In this paper, the various types of integrated antennas are discussed together with possible ways of exploiting the technology. New configurations of direct conversion integrated antennas are then described in detail, which illustrate some of the possibilities inherent in the technology.

In computer-aided drafting and design, interactive graphics is used to design components, systems, layouts, and structures. There are several approaches for using automated graphical layout tools currently. Our approach employs a genetic algorithm to implement a tool for automated 3D graphical layout design and presentation. The effective use of a genetic algorithm in automated graphical layout design relies on defining a fitness function that reflects user preferences. In this paper, we describe a method to define fitness functions and chromosome structures of selected objects. A learning mechanism is employed to adjust the fitness values of the objects in the selected layout chosen by the user. In our approach, the fitness functions can be changed adaptively reflecting user preferences. Experimental results revealed good performance of the adaptive fitness functions in our proposed mechanism.

A simulation tool for analyzing circuit characteristics of microstrip-type MIC (Microwave Integrated Circuit) passive elements is presented. The major part of this tool is the electromagnetic wave analysis based on the FD-TD (Finite-Difference Time-Domain) method combined with the mode expansion theory. Although the element structures which can be treated in this tool are limited to only less than ten fundamental structures in the present stage, its extension to the more versatile tool applicable to other various element types is rather straightforward and simple in principle. When using this tool, we first choose the element configuration to be calculated and give, on a panel, necessary parameter values related to calculation range and mesh division scheme. Given these values, the first step calculation starts to obtain the characteristic impedance, cross sectional field distribution of the propagating mode, etc. of the basic microstrip line. Field distributions around the element configulation are calculated next with the mode field oscillation being given. Through this process the field distributions on a closed rectangular parallelepiped surface enclosing the element configuration are stored in files, from which S parameter and radiated fields are calculated by invoking the reaction integral with propagation modes and radiation modes, respectively. The results obtained in these three steps can be expressed, at our discretion, as line drawings or two-dimensional density plots.

A known problem of the four-phase handshaking protocol is that a return-to-zero phase of the signals involved in the handshake is necessary before starting another cycle, in which no useful work is usually done. In this paper we first define an easy-to-write specification style to specify four-phase handshaking asynchronous controllers that can be translated to an STG to obtain a gate-level implementation using existing synthesis methods. Then, we propose an algorithm that takes the specification written using our specification style and finds an optimized timing in which the idle-phase overhead of its gate-level implementation is reduced.

We present a simulation system which meets the requirements for practical application of inverse modeling in a professional environment. A tool interface for the integration of arbitrary simulation tools at the user level is introduced and a methodology for the formation of simulation networks is described. A Levenberg-Marquardt optimizer automates the inverse modeling procedure. Strategies for the efficient execution of simulation tools are discussed. An example demonstrates the extraction of doping profile information on the basis of electrical measurements.

In this paper, we propose a CASE tool platform for Java, called Japid. A CASE tool platform provides various information of source programs and helps CASE tool developers to develop their tools rapidly and easily. Japid has three advanced features: linking fine grained databases dynamically, permitting developers to define their own views, and changing source programs preserving syntactic and semantic constraints. We have made some experiments and developed some CASE tools to show effectiveness of our approach.

Human faces convey various information, including that is specific to each individual person and that is part of mutual communication among persons. Information exhibited by a "face" is what is called "non-verbal information" and usually verbal media cannot easily describe such information appropriately. Recently, detailed studies on the processing of face images by a computer have been carried out in the engineering field for applications to communication media and human computer interaction as well as automatic identification of human faces. Two main technical topics are the recognition of human faces and the synthesis of face images. The objective of the former is to enable a computer to detect and identify users and further to recognize their facial expressions, while that of the latter is to provide a natural and impressive user interface on a computer in the form of a "face. " These studies have also been found to be useful in various non-engineering fields related to a face, such as psychology, anthropology, cosmetology and dentistry. Most of the studies in these different fields have been carried out independently up to now, although all of them deal with a "face. " Now in virtue of the progress in the above engineering technologies a common study tools and databases for facial information have become available. On the basis of these backgrounds, this paper surveys recent research trends in the processing of face images by a computer and its typical applications. Firstly, the various characteristics of faces are considered. Secondly, recent research activities in the recognition and synthesis of face images are outlined. Thirdly, the applications of digital processing methods of facial information are discussed from several standpoints: intelligent image coding, media handling, human computer interaction, caricature, facial impression, psychological and medical applications. The common tools and databases used in the studies of processing of facial information and some related topics are also described.

This paper reports on an Intelligent CASE tool, applicable in a structured programming phase, or from detailed design to coding. This is automation of the bottom level in the hierarchical design process of detailed design and coding, where the largest man-hours are consumed. The main idea is that human designers use a CASE tool for the initial design of a software system, and the design knowledge is automatically acquired from the structured charts and stored in the knowledge base. The acquired design knowledge may be reused in designs. By reusing it, a similar software system may be designed automatically. It has been shown that knowledge acquired in this way has a Logarithmic Learning Effect. Based on this, a quantitative evaluation of productivity is made. By accumulating design experiences (e. g. 10 times), more than 80% of the detailing designs are performed automatically, and productivity increases by up to 4 times. This tool features universality, an essentially zero start-up cost for automatic design, and a substantial increase in software productivity after enough experiences have been accumulated. This paper proposes a new basic idea and its implementation, a quantitative evaluation applying techniques from Industrial Engineering, which proves the effectiveness of the proposed system.

Evaluating analytically computer architecture performance is mostly cheap and quick. However, existing analytical performance evaluation techniques usually have a difficult and time-consuming modeling process. Moreover, existing techniques do not support well the capability for finding the bottleneck and its cause of a target system being evaluated. To address the above problems and to enhance analytical performance evaluation technology, in this paper we propose a software tool that accepts system models described in a specification language, generating an executable program that performs the actual performance evaluation. The whole approach is built on a subsystem-oriented performance evaluation tool, which is, in turn, based on a formal subsystem-oriented performance evaluation technique and a subsystem specification language.

This paper discusses the development of a design tool which supports a process for constructing PVC-based, ATM networks. Because of mathematical complexities, a heuristic approach has been adopted to find an optimal network configuration. Through a GUI, users define a physical network, and PVC networks which are logically constructed within the physical network. Based on the defined network configurations and user traffic demand, the tool evaluates performance measures. In response to the results of the evaluation, network designers can modify the network configuration to improve the performance. With the aid of this tool, they can repeat this interactive process until the estimated performance measures meet a desired quality. The tool has been applied to the design of several private ATM networks which will be constructed in the near future. The response time of this design tool is so fast that wait time can be negligible.