Special Section on Acoustic Diagnosis ===================================== . FOREWORD ....................................................... 1619 Kenji KOBAYASHI PAPERS ====== . Extraction Method of Failure Signal by Genetic Algorithm and the Application to Inspection and Diagnosis Robot .................. 1620 Peng CHEN and Toshio TOYOTA . Machine Diagnosis Using Acoustic Signal Processing Techniques and Special Sound Collecting Hood .................................. 1627 Yoshihito TAMANOI, Takashi OHTSUKA, and Ryoji OHBA . Noninvasive Diagnosis of Cerebrovascular Diseases Based on the Characteristics of Blood Flow Noise ............................ 1634 Jun HASEGAWA and Kenji KOBAYASHI . Estimation of the Location of Intracranial Vascular Diseases Using Several Sensors ................................................ 1640 Satoshi HONGO, Masato ABE, Yoshiaki NEMOTO, Noriyoshi CHUBACHI, Yasunari OTAWARA,and Akira OGAWA . A Computer-Aided System for Discrimination of Dilated Cardiomyopathy Using Echocardiographic Images ................................. 1649 Du-Yih TSAI and Masaaki TOMITA . Phantom Experiment on Estimation of Shear Modulus Distribution in Soft Tissue from Ultrasonic Measurement of Displacement Vector Field .......................................................... 1655 Chikayoshi SUMI, Akifumi SUZUKI, and Kiyoshi NAKAYAMA . Ultrasonic Diffraction Method for Periodic Structure and Its Application to Living Tissue ................................... 1665 Shigeru OKADA and Shigeo OHTSUKI . Spatial Profile of Blood Velocity Reconstructed from Telemetered Sonogram in Exercising Man ..................................... 1669 Jufang HE, Yohsuke KINOUCHI, Hisao YAMAGUCHI, and Hiroshi MIYAMOTO . High-Resolution Determination of Transit Time of Ultrasound in a Thin Layer in Pulse-Echo Method ................................ 1677 Tomohisa KIMURA, Hiroshi KANAI, and Noriyoshi CHUBACHI LETTER ====== . Quantitative Evaluation of TMJ Sound by Frequency Analysis ..... 1683 Hiroshi SHIGA and Yoshinori KOBAYASHI Special Section on VLSI Design and CAD Algorithms ================================================= . FOREWORD ....................................................... 1689 Malgorzata Marek-Sadowska and Shuji Tukiyama PAPERS ====== . Analysis of Aliasing Probability for MISRs by Using Complete Weight Distributions .................................................. 1691 Kazuhiko IWASAKI, Sandeep K. GUPTA, Prawat NAGVAJARA, and Tadao KASAMI . "FASTOOL" An FIR FILTER COMPILER Based on the Automatic Design of the Multi-Input-Adder .......................................... 1699 Takao YAMAZAKI, Yoshihito KONDO, Sayuri IGOTA, and Seiichiro IWASA . An Instruction Set Optimization Algorithm for Pipelined ASIPs .. 1707 Nguyen Ngoc BINH, Masaharu IMAI, Akichika SHIOMI, and Nobuyuki HIKICHI . Reclocking Controllers for Minimum Execution Time .............. 1715 Pradip JHA, Sri PARAMESWARAN, and Nikil DUTT . A New Method to Represent Sets of Products: Ternary Decision Diagrams ....................................................... 1722 Koichi YASUOKA . Implementation Techniques for Fast OBDD Dynamic Variable Reordering ....................................................... 1729 Hiroshige FUJII . Phase Optimization in Technology Mapping ....................... 1735 Yusuke MATSUNAGA . Conformance Test of a Logic Synthesis System to the Standard HDL UDL/I .......................................................... 1742 Satoshi YOKOTA and Hiroyuki KANBARA . Validation of UDL/I Test Suites and UDL/I Simulation/Synthesis Environment .................................................... 1749 Hiroyuki KANBARA and Satoshi YOKOTA . A CAM-Based Parallel Fault Simulation Algorithm with Minimal Storage Size ........................................................... 1755 Shinsuke OHNO, Masao SATO, and Tatsuo OHTSUKI . A Circuit Partitioning Algorithm with Replication Capability for Multi-FPGA Systems ............................................. 1765 Nozomu TOGAWA, Masao SATO, and Tatsuo OHTSUKI . VLSI Cell Placement on Arbitrarily-Shaped Rectilinear Regions Using Neural Networks with Calibration Nodes ......................... 1777 Ray-I CHANG and Pei-Yung HSIAO . Mincut Partitioning Acceleration Using Hardware CAD Accelerator TP5000 ......................................................... 1785 Masahiro SANO, Shintaro SHIMOGORI, and Fumiyasu HIROSE . An Analytical Modeling of Three Primary Wiring Capacitance Components for Multi-Layer Interconnect Structure .............. 1793 Susumu KUROSAWA . A Substrate Current Model for Analog CMOS Circuit Simulations .. 1799 Kwang Sub YOON and Jong Kug Seon Regular Section =============== PAPERS ====== [Digital Signal Processing] . Optimal Regularization for System Identification from Noisy Input and Output Signals ............................................. 1805 Jingmin XIN, Hiromitsu OHMORI, and Akira SANO [Nonlinear Problems] . Symmetrical Properties and Bifurcations of the Periodic Solutions for a Hybridly Coupled Oscillator .............................. 1816 Olivier PAPY and Hiroshi KAWAKAMI . Symmetrical Properties and Bifurcations of the Equilibria for a Resistively Coupled Oscillator with Hybrid Connection .......... 1822 Olivier PAPY and Hiroshi KAWAKAMI [Graphs and Networks] . Minimal Forbidden Minors for the Family of Graphs with Proper-Path-Width at Most Two .................................. 1828 Atsushi TAKAHASHI, Shuichi UENO, and Yoji KAJITANI [Information Theory and Coding Theory] . Some Notes on Universal Noiseless Coding ....................... 1840 Joe SUZUKI [Concurrent Systems] . Necessary and Sufficient Condition of Structural Liveness for General Petri Nets --Real Deadlock-Trap Properties-- ........... 1848 Tadashi MATSUMOTO, Ken SAIKUSA, and Shinichi YAMAZAKI . Necessary and Sufficient Condition of Structural Liveness for General Petri Nets --Virtual Deadlock-Trap Properties-- ........ 1862 Tadashi MATSUMOTO, Ken SAIKUSA, and Kohkichi TSUJI . Necessary and Sufficient Condition of Structural Liveness for General Petri Nets with Globally Structural Live Minimal Deadlocks ....................................................... 1875 Tadashi MATSUMOTO and Shinichi YAMAZAKI LETTER ====== [Image Theory] . Motion Field Segmentation under the 3-D Movement of Rigid Planar Patches ........................................................ 1890 Si-Woong LEE and Seong-Dae KIM . ABSTRACTS (IEICE Trans., Vol.J78-A, No.12 in Japanese) ......... 1895 . 1995 INDEX ..................................................... 1900