An accurate time-of-arrival (TOA) estimation method for isolated pulses positioning system is proposed in this paper. The method is based on a multi-level crossing timing (MCT) digitizer and least square (LS) criterion, namely LS-MCT method, in which TOA of the received signal is directly described as a parameterized combination of a set of MCT samples of the leading and trailing edges of the signal. The LS-MCT method performs a receiver training process, in which a GPS synchronized training pulse generator (TPG) is used to obtain training data and determine the parameters of the TOA combination. The LS method is then used to optimize the combination parameters with a minimization criterion. The proposed method is compared to the conventional TOA estimation methods such as leading edge level crossing discriminator (LCD), adaptive thresholding (ATH), and signal peak detection (PD) methods. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm leads to lower sensitivity to signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and attains better TOA estimation accuracy than available TOA methods.

The Piece in Hand method is a security enhancement technique for Multivariate Public Key Cryptosystems (MPKCs). Since 2004, many types of this method have been proposed. In this paper, we consider the 2-layer nonlinear Piece in Hand method as proposed by Tsuji et al. in 2009. The key point of this method is to introduce an invertible quadratic polynomial map on the plaintext variables to add perturbation to the original MPKC. An additional quadratic map allows the owner of the secret key to remove this perturbation from the system. By our analysis, we find that the security of the enhanced scheme depends mainly on the structure of the quadratic polynomials of this auxiliary map. The two examples proposed by Tsuji et al. for this map can not resist the Linearization Equations attack. Given a valid ciphertext, we can easily get a public key which is equivalent to that of the underlying MPKC. If there exists an algorithm that can recover the plaintext corresponding to a valid ciphertext of the underlying MPKC, we can construct an algorithm that can recover the plaintext corresponding to a valid ciphertext of the enhanced MPKC.

The emerging high-efficiency video coding (HEVC) standard attempts to improve the coding efficiency by a factor of two over H.264/AVC through the use of new compression tools such as various block sizes with multiple directions. Although multiple-directional predictions are among the features contributing to the improved compression efficiency, its high computational complexity keeps it from being used widely. This paper presents an algorithm to skip backward and bi-directional predictions when merge or forward prediction modes are likely to be determined as the best mode. The proposed algorithm takes advantage of the fact that there is a cost relationship among multi-directional predictions and that the results of backward and bi-directional predictions are therefore predictable before the actual operations. After merge and forward predictions, if the expected results of backward and bi-directional predictions are worse than the results up to that point, then additional backward and bi-directional predictions to search for more accurate motion vectors are not performed. A simulation shows that the encoding time is reduced by about 15.18% with a marginal degradation in compression efficiency.

On March 11, 2011, a huge tsunami caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake destroyed all the electrical power facilities in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. As a result, the reactors were badly damaged, and radioactive particles were widely scattered in the surrounding areas. In order to study the behavior of the radioactive particles emitted from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, different measurement tools were developed. This paper describes two types of wireless radiation sensor networks and a two-dimensional radiation-level mapping system using a radio-controlled multi-copter. The measurements were analyzed, and the following conclusions were made regarding the radioactive particle distribution and its variation with time.(1) Radiation level has gradually decreased with time.(2) The rate of decrease in radiation is faster than that calculated from the half-life.(3) The radiation-level distribution is not uniform and sharply varies even within short distances such as tens of meters.(4) The locations of the hot spots have not changed, and the peak radiation levels are constantly decreasing.By using two-dimensional maps, the radiation levels can be lowered more effectively by selectively removing the highly radioactive materials. The residents can also use the map to reduce their exposure to radiation by avoiding hot spots.

A ferroelectric-based (FE-based) non-volatile logic is proposed for low-power LSI. Standby currents in a logic circuit can be cut off by using FE-based non-volatile flip-flops (NVFFs), and the standby power can be reduced to zero. The FE capacitor is accessed only when the power turns on/off, performance of the NVFF is almost as same as that of the conventional flip-flop (FF) in a logic operation. The use of complementarily stored data in coupled FE capacitors makes it possible to realize wide read voltage margin, which guarantees 10 years retention at 85 degree Celsius under less than 1.5V operation. The low supply voltage and electro-static discharge (ESD) detection technique prevents data destruction caused by illegal access for the FE capacitor during standby state. Applying the proposed circuitry in CPU, the write and read operation for all FE capacitors in 1.6k-bit NVFFs are performed within 7µs and 3µs with access energy of 23.1nJ and 8.1nJ, respectively, using 130nm CMOS with Pb(Zr,Ti)O3(PZT) thin films.

A directional array radiator is presented, the aim of which is to enhance the sound of the television in a particular direction and hence provide a volume boost to improve speech intelligibility for the hard of hearing. The sound radiated by the array in other directions is kept low, so as not to increase the reverberant level of sound in the listening room. The array uses 32 loudspeakers, each of which are in phase-shift enclosures to generate hypercardioid directivity, which reduces the radiation from the back of the array. The loudspeakers are arranged in 8 sets of 4 loudspeakers, each set being driven by the same signal and stacked vertically, to improve the directivity in this plane. This creates a 3D beamformer that only needs 8 digital filters to be made superdirective. The performance is assessed by means of simulations and measurements in anechoic and reverberant environments. The results show how the array obtains a high directivity in a reverberant environment.

A global tree local X-net network (GTLX) is introduced to realize high-performance data transfer in a multiple-valued fine-grain reconfigurable VLSI (MVFG-RVLSI). A global pipelined tree network is utilized to realize high-performance long-distance bit-parallel data transfer. Moreover, a logic-in-memory architecture is employed for solving data transfer bottleneck between a block data memory and a cell. A local X-net network is utilized to realize simple interconnections and compact switch blocks for eight-near neighborhood data transfer. Moreover, multiple-valued signaling is utilized to improve the utilization of the X-net network, where two binary data can be transferred from two adjacent cells to one common adjacent cell simultaneously at each “X” intersection. To evaluate the MVFG-RVLSI, a fast Fourier transform (FFT) operation is mapped onto a previous MVFG-RVLSI using only the X-net network and the MVFG-RVLSI using the GTLX. As a result, the computation time, the power consumption and the transistor count of the MVFG-RVLSI using the GTLX are reduced by 25%, 36% and 56%, respectively, in comparison with those of the MVFG-RVLSI using only the X-net network.

Recently, video surveillance systems have been widely introduced in various places, and protecting the privacy of objects in the scene has been as important as ensuring security. Masking each moving object with a background subtraction method is an effective technique to protect its privacy. However, the background subtraction method is heavily affected by sunshine change, and a redundant masking by over-extraction is inevitable. Such superfluous masking disturbs the quality of video surveillance. In this paper, we propose a moving object masking method combining background subtraction and machine learning based on Real AdaBoost. This method can reduce the superfluous masking while maintaining the reliability of privacy protection. In the experiments, we demonstrate that the proposed method achieves about 78-94% accuracy for classifying superfluous masking regions and moving objects.

Smartphones have become vital devices in the current on-the-go Thai culture. Typically, virtual keyboards serve as tools for text input on smartphones. Due to the limited screen area and the large number of Thai characters, the size of each button on the keyboard is quite small. This leads to character mistyping and low typing speed. In this paper, we present a typical framework of a Thai Input Method on smartphones which includes four processes; Character Candidate Generation, Word Candidate Generation, Word Candidate Display, and Model Update. This framework not only works with Thai, it works with other letter-based languages as well. We also review virtual keyboards and techniques currently used and available for Thai text input.

For an integer q≥2, new sets of q-phase aperiodic complementary sequences (ACSs) are constructed by using known sets of q-phase ACSs and certain matrices. Employing the Kronecker product to two known sets of q-phase ACSs, some sets of q-phase aperiodic complementary sequences with a new length are obtained. For an even integer q, some sets of q-phase ACSs with new parameters are generated, and their equivalent matrix representations are also presented.

Sound field reproduction systems seek to realistically convey 3D spatial audio by re-creating the sound pressure inside a region enclosing the listener. High-order Ambisonics (HOA), a sound field reproduction technology, is notable for defining a scalable encoding format that characterizes the sound field in a system-independent way. Sound fields sampled with a particular microphone array and encoded into the HOA format can be reproduced using any sound presentation device, typically a loudspeaker array, by using a HOA decoder. The HOA encoding format is based on the spherical harmonic decomposition; this makes it easier to design a decoder for large arrays of loudspeakers uniformly distributed over all directions. In practice, it is seldom possible to cover all directions with loudspeakers placed at regular angular intervals. An irregular array, one where the angular separation between adjacent loudspeakers is not constant, does not perform as well as a regular one when reproducing HOA due to the uneven sampling of the spherical harmonics. This paper briefly introduces the techniques used in HOA and advances a new approach to design HOA decoders for irregular loudspeaker arrays. The main difference between conventional methods and our proposal is the use of a new error metric: the radial derivative of the reconstruction error. Minimizing this metric leads to a smooth reproduction, accurate over a larger region than that achieved by conventional HOA decoders. We evaluate our proposal using the computer simulation of two 115-channel loudspeaker arrays: a regular and an irregular one. We find that our proposal results in a larger listening region when used to decode HOA for reproduction using the irregular array. On the other hand, applying our method matches the high-quality reproduction that can be attained with the regular array and conventional HOA decoders.

This study introduces an image sensor based visible light communication (VLC) and its application to pose, position, and range estimations. There are two types of visible-light receiver: a photodiode and an image sensor. A photodiode is usually used as a reception device of VLC, and an image sensor consisting of a large number of pixels can also be used as a VLC reception device. A photodiode detects the signal intensity of incoming light, while an image sensor not only detects the incoming signal intensity but also an accurate angle of arrival of light emitted from a visible light transmitter such as a white LED light. After angles of arrival of light are detected by an image sensor, positioning and data reception can be performed. The ability of an image sensor to detect an accurate angle of arrival will provide attractive applications of VLC such as pose, position calculation, and range estimation. Furthermore, because the image sensor has the ability to spatially separate sources, outdoor positioning even with strong sunlight is possible by discarding the associated pixels of noise sources.

Positive real approximation of sampled frequency data obtained from electromagnetic analysis or measurement is presented. The proposed two methods are based on the Fourier expansion method. The frequency data are approximated by the Laguerre series that becomes the Fourier series with an infinite interval at an imaginary axis of complex plane. The proposed methods do not require any passivity check algorithm. The first method approximates the real parts of sampled data by the piecewise linear matrix function. The second method uses discrete Fourier transform. It is here proven that the approximated matrix function is an interpolative function for the real parts of sampled data. The proposed methods are applied to the approximation of per unit length parameters of multi-conductor system. The capability of the proposed methods is demonstrated.

This paper presents an approximated virtual source imaging system based on crosstalk cancellation with a pair of closely spaced loudspeakers. Utilizing the frequency-dependent relative importance of sound localization cues, the proposed system provides separate approximations for the low- and high-frequency bands. Experimental results show that the system provides good approximations within ±55° in the stereo dipole setup with natural sound quality.

Screen content generally consists of text, images, and videos variously generated or captured by computers and other electronic devices. For the purpose of coding such screen content, we introduce alternative intra prediction (AIP) modes based on the emerging high efficiency video coding (HEVC) standard. With text and graphics, edges are much sharper and a large number of corners exist. These properties make it difficult to predict blocks using a one-directional intra prediction mode. The proposed method provides two-directional prediction by combining the existing vertical and horizontal prediction modes. Experiments show that our AIP modes provide an average BD-rate reduction of 2.8% relative to HEVC for general screen contents, and a 0.04% reduction for natural contents.

The next generation wireless broadcasting systems combining with MIMO technology has drawn much attention recently. Considering the coexistence of receivers equipped with different numbers of antennas in these systems, there exists the special requirement to maximize the transmission rate for receivers having more antennas, while guaranteeing the normal rate for receivers having less antennas. In this letter, superposition coding is proposed to fulfill this requirement and the concept of broadcast cluster is introduced, wherein the optimized power allocation parameters are derived. The BER simulations for multiple services are provided to verify the significant SNR performance gap between receivers with various numbers of receive antennas.

Earlier attempts to deploy two units of parametric loudspeakers have shown encouraging results in improving the accuracy of spatial audio reproductions. As compared to a pair of conventional loudspeakers, this improvement is mainly a result of being free of crosstalk due to the sharp directivity of the parametric loudspeaker. By replacing the normal parametric loudspeaker with the steerable parametric loudspeaker, a flexible sweet spot can be created that tolerates head movements of the listener. However, spatial aliasing effects of the primary frequency waves are always observed in the steerable parametric loudspeaker. We are motivated to make use of the spatial aliasing effects to create two sound beams from one unit of the steerable parametric loudspeaker. Hence, a reduction of power consumption and physical size can be achieved by cutting down the number of loudspeakers used in an audio system. By introducing a new parameter, namely the relative steering angle, we propose a stereophonic beamsteering method that can control the amplitude difference corresponding to the interaural level difference (ILD) between two sound beams. Currently, this proposed method does not support the reproduction of interaural time differences (ITD).

To study the molten bridge phenomenon of contacts at the initial breaking process, an experimental device of molten bridge between slowly opening contacts was developed. The system consists of the contact moving control module, the circuit load and the observation module. The molten bridge of copper contact under two load conditions 9,V/19,A and 9,V/7.3,A were studied. The voltage and current characteristics curves of Cu molten bridge were extracted and the resistance and the instantaneous power of the molten bridge were analyzed. The image of the Cu molten bridge diameter was captured by CCD under 9,V/19,A and the influences of the contact force and the separation speed on the molten bridge length and the crater diameter of the anode were studied. The root profile of the Cu contacts after separation was analyzed by digital microscope. Research results show that the Cu molten bridge length has the same changing trend as the diameter of the anode crater. They both decrease with the increment of the separation speed and the decrement of the contact force.

The unique characteristic of Ternary ripple-carry addition enables us to optimize Ternary Full Adder for this specific application. Carbon nanotube field effect transistors are used in this paper to design new Ternary Half and Full Adders, which are essential components of Ternary ripple-carry adder. The novel designs take the sum of input variables as a single input signal, and generate outputs in a way which is far more efficient than the previously presented similar structures. The new ripple-carry adder operates rapidly, with high performance, and low-transistor-count.