Parkinson's disease (PD) is a severe disease with many symptoms, including speech disorders. Although many methods exist to treat some of PD's symptoms, therapies for speech impairment are not effective and satisfactory, resulting in an open area of research. The current project aims at taking advantage of the Lombard reflex to improve the speech loudness of PD patients. As a first step, the experience of the Lombard reflex by Japanese PD people was confirmed, and the perception of PD patients' speech was evaluated by several subjects. In a following step, methods based on masking sound will be used for intensive training and for self-training of PD patients. However, after intensive training, PD patients may be able to talk louder even without masking noise. In addition, the design and the development of a device based on masking sound that can be used by PD patients while using phone is under consideration.

An immense amount of information is processed on the Internet due to its spread, increasing the severity of such problems as the disclosure of personal information; privacy protection is required. Research to protect anonymity has become crucial. Anonymous communication systems must consider a sudden breakaway of nodes. However existing systems isn't considering this enough. This paper proposes separating a node management layer from an anonymous communication layer. A novel anonymous communication system is realized by a node management layer that uses Chord, which is a distributed hash table, and the anonymous communication layer uses multiplex encryptions.

We propose a new processor virtualization architecture, VIRTUS, to provide a dedicated domain for pre-installed applications and virtualized domains for downloaded native applications. With it, security-oriented next-generation mobile terminals can provide any number of domains for native applications. VIRTUS features three new technologies: VMM asymmetrization, dynamic inter-domain communication and virtualization-assist logic, and it is first in the world to virtualize an ARM-based multiprocessor.

We present a parameter-extraction method that is applicable to many metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect-transistor (MOSFET) models. A simple intermediate model is introduced to eliminate model dependency of parameter estimation for numerical optimization techniques. The process of the parameter estimation is decomposed into two parts: extraction of parameters of the intermediate model and transformation of the intermediate parameters into target model parameters. Only the latter part should be devised to accommodate new MOSFET models, which may be mostly identical with that for another model. We have integrated the method onto an extraction system, and verified that the method is effective for parameter extraction of major SPICE models.

We have developed a current mode cyclic analog-to-digital converter using a 0.8 /spl mu/m CMOS process. Our circuit structure makes it possible to construct the converter without any precise analog components, hence, it is well compatible with submicron processes. The fabricated circuit has an area of 0.014 mm/sup 2/ and performs 8-bit resolution at a sampling rate of 40 kHz and average power dissipation of 370 /spl mu/W at 4 V supply voltage.

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