We propose a non-photorealistic rendering method for automatically generating point-light-style (PLS) images from photographic images using peripheral difference filters with different window sizes. The proposed method can express PLS patterns near the edges of photographic images as dots. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, experiments were conducted to visually confirm PLS images generated from various photographic images.

For massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication systems, simple linear detectors such as zero forcing (ZF) and minimum mean square error (MMSE) can achieve near-optimal detection performance with reduced computational complexity. However, such linear detectors always involve complicated matrix inversion, which will suffer from high computational overhead in the practical implementation. Due to the massive parallel-processing and efficient hardware-implementation nature, the neural network has become a promising approach to signal processing for the future wireless communications. In this paper, we first propose an efficient neural network to calculate the pseudo-inverses for any type of matrices based on the improved Newton's method, termed as the PINN. Through detailed analysis and derivation, the linear massive MIMO detectors are mapped on PINNs, which can take full advantage of the research achievements of neural networks in both algorithms and hardwares. Furthermore, an improved limited-memory Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno (L-BFGS) quasi-Newton method is studied as the learning algorithm of PINNs to achieve a better performance/complexity trade-off. Simulation results finally validate the efficiency of the proposed scheme.

Most quantum circuits require SWAP gate insertion to run on quantum hardware with limited qubit connectivity. A promising SWAP gate insertion method for blocks of commuting two-qubit gates is a predetermined swap strategy which applies layers of SWAP gates simultaneously executable on the coupling map. A good initial mapping for the swap strategy reduces the number of required swap gates. However, even when a circuit consists of commuting gates, e.g., as in the Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA) or trotterized simulations of Ising Hamiltonians, finding a good initial mapping is a hard problem. We present a SAT-based approach to find good initial mappings for circuits with commuting gates transpiled to the hardware with swap strategies. Our method achieves a 65% reduction in gate count for random three-regular graphs with 500 nodes. In addition, we present a heuristic approach that combines the SAT formulation with a clustering algorithm to reduce large problems to a manageable size. This approach reduces the number of swap layers by 25% compared to both a trivial and random initial mapping for a random three-regular graph with 1000 nodes. Good initial mappings will therefore enable the study of quantum algorithms, such as QAOA and Ising Hamiltonian simulation applied to sparse problems, on noisy quantum hardware with several hundreds of qubits.

In this paper, a circuit based on a field programmable analog array (FPAA) is proposed for three types of chaotic spiking oscillator (CSO). The input/output conversion characteristics of a specific element in the FPAA can be defined by the user. By selecting the proper characteristics, three types of CSO are realized without changing the structure of the circuit itself. Chaotic attractors are observed in a hardware experiment. It is confirmed that the dynamics of the CSOs are consistent with numerical simulations.

Canonical decomposition for bipartite graphs, which was introduced by Fouquet, Giakoumakis, and Vanherpe (1999), is a decomposition scheme for bipartite graphs associated with modular decomposition. Weak-bisplit graphs are bipartite graphs totally decomposable (i.e., reducible to single vertices) by canonical decomposition. Canonical decomposition comprises series, parallel, and K+S decomposition. This paper studies a decomposition scheme comprising only parallel and K+S decomposition. We show that bipartite graphs totally decomposable by this decomposition are precisely P6-free chordal bipartite graphs. This characterization indicates that P6-free chordal bipartite graphs can be recognized in linear time using the recognition algorithm for weak-bisplit graphs presented by Giakoumakis and Vanherpe (2003).

We thank Kamata et al. (2023) [1] for their interest in our work [2], and for providing an explanation of the quasi-linear kernel from a viewpoint of multiple kernel learning. In this letter, we first give a summary of the quasi-linear SVM. Then we provide a discussion on the novelty of quasi-linear kernels against multiple kernel learning. Finally, we explain the contributions of our work [2].

This paper summarizes recent reports on the internet's energy consumption and the internet's benefits on climate actions. It discusses energy-efficiency and the need for a common standard for evaluating the climate impact of future communication technologies and suggests a model that can be adapted to different internet applications such as streaming, online reading and downloading. The two main approaches today are based on how much data is transmitted or how much time the data is under way. The paper concludes that there is a need for a standardized method to estimate energy consumption and CO2 emission related to internet services. This standard should include a method for energy-optimizing future networks, where every Wh will be scrutinized.

Various optical fiber connectors have been developed during the 40 years since optical fiber communications systems were first put into practical use. This paper describes the key technologies for optical connectors and recent technical issues.

In 5th generation (5G) and Beyond 5G mobile communication systems, it is expected that numerous antennas will be densely deployed to realize ultra-broadband communication and uniform coverage. However, as the number of antennas increases, total power consumption of all antennas will also increase, which leads to a negative impact on the environment and operating costs of telecommunication operators. Thus, it is necessary to simplify an antenna structure to suppress the power consumption of each antenna. On the other hand, as a way to realize ultra-broadband communication, millimeter waves will be utilized because they can transmit signals with a broader bandwidth than lower frequencies. However, since millimeter waves have a large propagation loss, a propagation distance is shorter than that of low frequencies. Therefore, in order to extend the propagation distance, it is necessary to increase an equivalent isotropic radiated power by beamforming with phased array antenna. In this paper, a phased antenna array module in combined with analog radio over fiber (A-RoF) technology for 40-GHz millimeter wave is developed and evaluated for the first time. An 8×8 phased array antenna for 40-GHz millimeter wave with integrated photodiodes and RF chains has been developed, and end-to-end transmission experiment including 20km A-RoF transmission and 3-m over-the-air transmission from the developed phased array antenna has been conducted. The results showed that the 40-GHz RF signal after the end-to-end transmission satisfied the criteria of 3GPP signal quality requirements within ±50 degrees of main beam direction.

We compare the demodulation performance of an analog OTDM demultiplexing scheme and digitized OTDM demultiplexing with an ultrahigh-speed digital signal processor in a single-channel OTDM coherent Nyquist pulse transmission. We evaluated the demodulation performance for 40, 80, and 160Gbaud OTDM signals with a baseline rate of 10Gbaud. As a result, we clarified that the analog scheme performs significantly better since the bandwidth for handling the demultiplexed signal is as narrow as 10GHz regardless of the symbol rate. This enables us to use a low-speed A/D converter (ADC) with a large effective number of bits (ENOB). On the other hand, in the digital scheme, the higher the symbol rate becomes, the more bandwidth the receiver requires. Therefore, it is necessary to use an ultrahigh-speed ADC with a low ENOB for a 160Gbaud signal. We measured the ENOB of the ultrahigh-speed ADC used in the digital scheme and showed that the measured ENOB was approximately 1.5 bits lower than that of the low-speed ADC used in the analog scheme. This 1.5-bit decrease causes a large degradation in the demodulation performance obtained with the digital demultiplexing scheme.

We have proposed autonomous network diagnosis platform for operation of future large capacity and virtualized network, including 5G and beyond 5G services. As for the one candidate of information collection and analyzing function blocks in the platform, we proposed novel optical sensing techniques that utilized tapped raw signal data acquired from digital coherent optical receivers. The raw signal data is captured before various digital signal processing for demodulation. Therefore, it contains various waveform deformation and/or noise as it experiences through transmission fibers. In this paper, we examined to detect two possible failures in transmission lines including fiber bending and optical filter shift by analyzing the above-mentioned raw signal data with the help of machine learning. For the purpose, we have implemented Docker container applications in WhiteBox Cassini to acquire real-time raw signal data. We generated CNN model for the detections in off-line processing and used them for real-time detections. We have confirmed successful detection of optical fiber bend and/or optical filter shift in real-time with high accuracy. Also, we evaluated their tolerance against ASE noise and invented novel approach to improve detection accuracy. In addition to that, we succeeded to detect them even in the situation of simultaneous occurrence of those failures.

Quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK) and 16-quadrature amplitude modulation (16QAM) formats are deployed in inter-data center networks where high transmission capacity and spectral efficiency are required. However, in intra-data center networks, a four-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM4) format is deployed to satisfy the requirements for a simple and low-cost transceiver configuration. For the seamless and effective connection of such heterogeneous networks without an optical-electrical-optical conversion, an all-optical modulation format conversion technique is required. In this paper, we propose all-optical PAM4 to QPSK and 16QAM modulation format conversions using silicon-rich nitride waveguides. The successful conversions from 50-Gbps-class PAM4 signals to 50-Gbps-class QPSK and 100-Gbps-class 16QAM signals are demonstrated via numerical simulations.

We present our data-collection and deep neural network (DNN)-training scheme for extracting the optical status from signals received by digital coherent optical receivers in fiber-optic networks. The DNN is trained with unlabeled datasets across multiple administrative network domains by combining federated learning and unsupervised learning. The scheme allows network administrators to train a common DNN-based encoder that extracts optical status in their networks without revealing their private datasets. An early-stage proof of concept was numerically demonstrated by simulation by estimating the optical signal-to-noise ratio and modulation format with 64-GBd 16QAM and quadrature phase-shift keying signals.

Multi-band WDM transmission beyond the C+L-band is a promising technology for achieving larger capacity transmission by a limited number of installed fibers. In addition to the C- and L-band, we can expect to use the S-band as the next band. Although the development of optical components for new bands, particularly transceivers, entails resource dispersion, which is one of the barriers to the realization of multi-band systems, wavelength conversion by transparent all-optical signal processing enables new wavelength bandtransmission using existing components. Therefore, we proposed a transmission system including a new wavelength band such as the S-band and made it possible to use a transceiver for the existing band by performing the whole-band wavelength conversion without using a transceiver for the new band. As a preliminary verification to demonstrate multi-band WDM transmission including S-band, we investigated the application of a novel wavelength converter between C-band and S-band, which consists of periodically poled lithium niobate waveguide, to the proposed system. We first characterized the conversion efficiency and noise figure of the wavelength converter and estimated the transmission performance of the system through the wavelength converter. Using the evaluated wavelength converters and test signals of 64 channels arranged in the C-band at 75-GHz intervals, we constructed an experimental setup for S-band transmission through an 80-km standard single-mode fiber. We then demonstrated error-free transmission of real-time 400-Gb/s DP-16QAM signals after forward error correction decoding. From the experimental results, it was clarified that the wavelength converter which realizes the uniform lossless conversion covering the whole C-band effectively achieves the S-band WDM transmission, and it was verified that the capacity improvement of the multi-band WDM system including the S-band can be expected by applying it in combination with the C+L-band WDM system.

With the gradually increase of the application of new energy in microgrids, Electric Spring (ES), as a new type of distributed compensation power electronic device has been widely studied. The Generalized Electric Spring (G-ES) is an improved topology, and the space limitation problem in the traditional topology is solved. Because of the mode of G-ES use in the power grid, a reasonable solution to the voltage loss of the critical section feeder is needed. In this paper, the voltage balance equation based on the feedforward compensation coefficient is established, and a two cascade control strategy based on the equation is studied. The first stage of the two cascade control strategy is to use communication means to realize the allocation of feedforward compensation coefficients, and the second stage is to use the coefficients to realize feedforward fixed angle control. Simulation analysis shows that the proposed control strategy does not affect the control accuracy of the critical load (CL), and effectively improves the operational range of the G-ES.

Multi-core fiber (MCF) is one of the promising space-division multiplexing technologies to increase the capacity of optical networks. MCF-based networks have two challenges. One is the inter-core crosstalk (XT) that degrades the quality of optical signals in two neighboring fiber cores. The other is network protection against link failures that cause massive data loss. One way to protect against multiple link failures is to prepare physically separated links as a backup network. Probabilistic protection improves the efficiency of protection by allowing a certain probability of protection failure. Existing studies on backup network design with probabilistic protection do not target MCF-based networks, which raises problems such as protection failure due to the inter-core XT and excessive consumption of optical resources. To address these problems, this paper proposes a XT-aware backup network design model for the MCF optical path networks. The proposed model protects the network against probabilistic multiple link failures. We adopt probabilistic protection that allows a certain probability of protection failure due to the inter-core XT and minimizes the required number of links in the backup network. We present an algorithm to satisfy the probabilistic protection requirement and formulate the model as an integer linear programming problem. We develop a heuristic approach to apply the proposed model to larger networks. Numerical results observe that the proposed model requires fewer links than the dedicated allocation model, which provisions the backup paths in the same manner as the primary paths.

In this paper, a wireless communication network that uses unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the sky to transmit information between ground users is considered. We highlight a delay-tolerant network, where information is relayed in a store-and-forward fashion by establishing two types of intermittent communication links: between a UAV and a user (UAV-to-user) and between UAVs (UAV-to-UAV). Thus, a flight algorithm that controls the movement of the UAVs is crucial in achieving rapid information transmission. Our study proposes new flight algorithms that simultaneously consider the two types of communication links. In UAV-to-UAV links, the direct information transmission between two UAVs and the indirect transmission through other UAVs are considered separately. The movement of the UAVs is controlled by solving an optimization problem at certain time intervals, with a variable consideration ratio of the two types of links. In addition, we investigate not only the case where all UAVs move cooperatively but also the case where each UAV moves autonomously. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithms are effective. Moreover, they indicate the existence of an optimal consideration ratio of the two types of communication and demonstrate that our approach enables the control of frequencies of establishing the communication links. We conclude that increasing the frequency of indirect communication between UAVs improves network performance.

The Common Media Application Format (CMAF) is a standard for adaptive bitrate live streaming. The CMAF adapts chunk encoding and enables low-latency live streaming. However, conventional bandwidth estimation for adaptive bitrate streaming underestimates bandwidth because download time is affected not only by network bandwidth but also by the idle times between chunks in the same segment. Inaccurate bandwidth estimation decreases the quality of experience of the streaming client. In this paper, we propose a chunk-grouping method to estimate the available bandwidth for adaptive bitrate live streaming. In the proposed method, by delaying HTTP request transmission and bandwidth estimation using grouped chunks, the client estimates the available bandwidth accurately due to there being no idle times in the grouped chunks. In addition, we extend the proposed method to dynamically change the number of grouping chunks according to buffer length during downloading of the previous segment. We evaluate the proposed methods under various network conditions in order to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed methods.

When mission-critical applications are provided over a network, high availability is required in addition to a low delay. This paper proposes a multi-homing network design model, named MHND, that achieves low delay, high availability, and the order guarantee of events. MHND maintains the event occurrence order with a multi-homing configuration using conservative synchronization. We formulate MHND as an integer linear programming problem to minimize the delay. We prove that the distributed server allocation problem with MHND is NP-complete. Numerical results indicate that, as a multi-homing number, which is the number of servers to which each user belongs, increases, the availability increases while increasing the delay. Noteworthy, two or more multi-homing can achieve approximately an order of magnitude higher availability compared to that of conventional single-homing at the expense of a delay increase up to two times. By using MHND, flexible network design is achieved based on the acceptable delay in service and the required availability.