Multi-Mouse Quiz (MMQ) is a quiz application based on the Single Display Groupware (SDG)[1] concept through which several users can answer quizzes by sharing a computer to take the quiz in a classroom or any other learning environment. We conducted a practice, where we used the MMQ to support collaborative learning, which was combined with a museum visit. In the previous research, we found that the 3rd-grade children were able to operate the MMQ without any special assistance from the researchers, and that their use of the MMQ was characterized by high engagement[2]. In this study, we also conducted qualitative evaluation in the form of observation data and a free description of the questionnaire; we found that, compared to previous studies, which used MMQ with 6th-grade children, the 3rd-grade were more willing to use body language to express their emotions, and this tendency made the whole class more active. Furthermore, MMQ quiz learning inspired children with reflection perspectives to participate in the museum activity and activities in the computer room.

We propose a method to realize a subjective super-resolution on a high-speed LED display, which dynamically shows a set of four neighboring pixels on every LED pixel. We have experimentally confirmed the subjective super-resolution effect. This paper proposes a subjective super-resolution hypothesis in human visual system and reports simulation results with pseudo fixation eye movements.

In recent years, flexible liquid crystal displays (LCDs) have attracted much attention due to their thin and lightweight designs, as well as their ease of installation compared with conventional flat-panel LCDs. Most LCDs require backlight units (BLUs) to yield high-quality images. However, the luminance uniformity of flexible BLUs is drastically reduced in the curved state, as the light emitted from a typical BLU is mainly directed in the normal direction. Conventional BLUs do not provide the image quality of flexible BLUs due to uneven luminance distribution from the perspective of the observer. To overcome these issues, here we introduce a novel oblique-angled notched film for improved light distribution of a conventional BLU. The notched structure of the proposed film exhibits V-shaped split behavior during curvature. This elastic deformation is expected to compensate for the spatial luminance of the light emitted from the BLU. We investigated the design requirements for the proposed film based on geometrical calculations. The luminance distribution of a flexible BLU was then simulated using the proposed film, based on geometrical optics theory. The simulation results confirmed that the direction of travel of the light is controllable according to the total internal reflection of the proposed film, thus improving the luminance uniformity of the BLU in a convex-curved state. Based on these results, the proposed approach is expected to improve the luminance uniformity of convex-curved flexible LCDs.

We have developed the world's largest 16.7-inch hybrid in-cell touch panel. To realize the large sized in-cell touch panel, we applied a vertical Vcom system and low resistance sensor, which are JDI's original technologies. For glove touch function, we applied mutual bundled driving, which increases the signal intensity higher. The panel also has a low surface reflection, curved-shaped, and non-rectangular characteristics, which are particular requirements in the automotive market. The over 15-inch hybrid in-cell touch panel adheres to automotive quality requirements. We have also developed a force touch panel, which is a new human machine interface (HMI) based on a hybrid in-cell touch panel in automotive display. This study reports on the effect of the improvements on the in-plane variation of force touch and the value change of the force signal under different environment conditions. We also a introduce force touch implemented prototype.

An HDR (High Dynamic Range) image synthesis is a method which is to photograph scenes with wide luminance range and to reproduce images close to real visual scenes on an LDR (Low Dynamic Range) display. In general, HDR images are reproduced by taking images with various camera exposures and using the tone synthesis of several images. In this paper, we propose an HDR image tone mapping method based on a visual brightness function using dual exposed images and a synthesis algorithm based on local surround. The proposed algorithm has improved boundary errors and color balance compared with existing methods. Also, it improves blurring and noise amplification due to image mixing.

Liquid crystal director distributions between strong and weak polar anchoring surfaces in hybrid aligned cells are numerically analyzed. When the anchoring is a critical one, homogeneously or homeotropicly liquid crystal alignment can be obtained. Such cells have no threshold voltage and a driving voltage can be reduced less than 0.5 volt.

In this study, we examined the mechanical durability and self-recovery characterization of liquid crystal gel films with lysine-based gelator. The results indicated that the structural destruction in liquid crystal gel films is attributed to dissociation among network structure. The cracked LC gel films can be recovered by formation of sol-sate films.

Phase-sensitive amplification (PSA) has unique properties, such as the quantum-limited noise figure of 0 dB and the phase clamping effect. This study investigates PSA characteristics when a chirped pulse is incident. The signal gain, the output waveform, and the noise figure for an optical pulse having been chirped through chromatic dispersion or self-phase modulation before amplification are analyzed. The results indicate that the amplification properties for a chirped pulse are different from those of a non-chirped pulse, such that the signal gain is small, the waveform is distorted, and the noise figure is degraded.

In this paper, an improved charge pump (CP) and a modified nonlinear phase frequency detector (PFD) are designed and fabricated in a 90-nm CMOS process. The CP is optimized with a combination of circuit techniques such as pedestal error cancel scheme to eliminate the charge injection and the other non-ideal characteristics. The nonlinear PFD is based on a modified circuit topology to enhance the acquisition capability of the PLL. The optimized CP and nonlinear PFD are integrated into a Ka-band PLL. The measured output current mismatch ratio of the improved CP is less than 1% when the output voltage V_out fluctuates between 0.2 to 1.1V from a 1.2V power supply. The measured phase error detection range of the modified nonlinear PFD is between -2π and 2π. Owing to the modified CP and PFD, the measured reference spur of the Ka-band PLL frequency synthesizer containing the optimized CP and PFD is only -56.409dBc at 30-GHz at the locked state.

A novel low power sense-amplifier based flip-flop (FF) is presented. By using a simplified SRAM based latch design and pass transistor logic (PTL) circuit scheme, the transistor-count of the FF design is greatly reduced as well as leakage power performance. The performance claims are verified through extensive post-layout simulations. Compared to the conventional sense-amplifier FF design, the proposed circuit achieves 19.6% leakage reduction. Moreover, the delay, and area are reduced by 21.8% and 31%, respectively. The performance edge becomes even better when the flip-flop is integrated in N-bit register file.

When the track density of two-dimensional magnetic recording (TDMR) systems is increased, intertrack interference (ITI) inevitably grows, resulting in the extreme degradation of an overall system performance. In this work, we present coding, writing, and reading techniques which allow TDMR systems with multi-readers to overcome severe ITI. A rate-5/6 two-dimensional (2D) modulation code is adopted to protect middle-track data from ITI based on cross-track data dependence. Since the rate-5/6 2D modulation code greatly improves the reliability of the middle-track, there is a bit-error rate gap between middle-track and sidetracks. Therefore, we propose the different track width writing technique to optimize the reliability of all three data tracks. In addition, we also evaluate the TDMR system performance using an user areal density capability (UADC) as a main key parameter. Here, an areal density capability (ADC) can be measured by finding the bit-error rate of the system with sweeping track and linear densities. The UADC is then obtained by removing redundancy from the ADC. Simulation results show that a system with our proposed techniques gains the UADC of about 4.66% over the conventional TDMR systems.