We propose the asynchronous receiver-initiated MAC protocol with the stair-like sleep mode; each node reduces its own sleep time by the sleep-change-rate depending on the number of hops from the source to the sink in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Using the stair-like sleep approach, our protocol achieves high delivery ratio, low packet delay, and high energy efficiency due to the reduction in idle listening time. Our protocol can formulate the upper bound of the idle listening time because of the feature that the sleep time decreases in a geometric progression, and the reduction of the idle listening time is obtained by using the stair-like sleep approach. In our proposed scheme, the sink calculates the sleep change rate based on the number of hops from the source to the sink. By using the control packets which have the role of the acknowledgment (ACK), our proposed protocol can achieve the stair-like sleep with no additional control packets. In addition, even in the network condition that multi-targets are detected, and the number of hops to the sink are changed frequently, our proposed protocol can change the sleep change rate adaptively because the sink can always obtain the number of hops from the source to the sink. Simulation results show that the proposed protocol can improve the performance in terms of the packet delivery ratio, the packet delay, and the energy efficiency compared to the conventional receiver-initiated MAC (RI-MAC) protocol.

Memory deduplication improves the utilization of physical memory by sharing identical blocks of data. Although memory deduplication is most effective when many virtual machines with same operating systems run on a CPU, cross-user memory deduplication is a covert channel and causes serious memory disclosure attack. It reveals the existence of an application or file on another virtual machine. The covert channel is a difference in write access time on deduplicated memory pages that are re-created by Copy-On-Write, but it has some interferences caused by execution environments. This paper indicates that the attack includes implementation issues caused by memory alignment, self-reflection between page cache and heap, and run-time modification (swap-out, anonymous pages, ASLR, preloading mechanism, and self-modification code). However, these problems are avoidable with some techniques. In our experience on KSM (kernel samepage merging) with the KVM virtual machine, the attack could detect the security level of attacked operating systems, find vulnerable applications, and confirm the status of attacked applications.

Flow mobility is an emerging technology to support flexible network selection for an application flow and to spread concentrated load to less-overloaded Internet access. Network-based flow mobility (FMO) does not require a massive amount of software logic and system resources on the mobile node. Under this approach, there are two kinds of modes available: network-initiated and user-initiated. Network-initiated FMO decides the best access network suited for a specific flow, but the decisions depend on the operator's policy. Therefore, it has limitations in supporting the user's preference and private network selection. In the user-initiated mode, users can hand off specific flow so that information of both the current user's preference and the conditions of private network are reflected. User-initiated flow mobility method has not been what should be specified and how it can be supported with the protocol sequence for real deployment. This paper extends Internet Exchange Key v2 (IKEv2) and an Attach request message to support user-initiated FMO when a flow moves between 3G and Wi-Fi access. Through performance analysis, we confirm that user-initiated FMO is superior to network-initiated FMO in terms of signaling overhead and handover latency costs.

Existing salient object detection methods either simply use a threshold to detect desired salient objects from saliency map or search the most promising rectangular window covering salient objects on the saliency map. There are two problems in the existing methods: 1) The performance of threshold-dependent methods depends on a threshold selection and it is difficult to select an appropriate threshold value. 2) The rectangular window not only covers the salient object but also contains background pixels, which leads to imprecise salient object detection. For solving these problems, a novel saliency threshold-free method for detecting the salient object with a well-defined boundary is proposed in this paper. We propose a novel window search algorithm to locate a rectangular window on our saliency map, which contains as many as possible pixels belonging the salient object and as few as possible background pixels. Once the window is determined, GrabCut is applied to extract salient object with a well-defined boundary. Compared with existing methods, our approach doesn't need any threshold to binarize the saliency map and additional operations. Experimental results show that our approach outperforms 4 state-of-the-art salient object detection methods, yielding higher precision and better F-Measure.

In this paper, we study decentralized supervisory control of timed discrete event systems, where we adopt the OR rule for fusing local enablement decisions and the AND rule for fusing local enforcement decisions. Under these rules, necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a decentralized supervisor that achieves a given specification language are easily obtained from the result of literature. If a given specification language does not satisfy these existence conditions, we must compute its sublanguage satisfying them. The main contribution of this paper is proposing a method for computing such a sublanguage.

Because of the algebraic attacks, a high algebraic immunity is now an important criteria for Boolean functions used in stream ciphers. In 2011, X.Y. Zeng et al. proposed three constructions of balanced Boolean functions with maximum algebraic immunity, the constructions are based on univariate polynomial representation of Boolean functions. In this paper, we will improve X.Y. Zeng et al.' constructions to obtain more even-variable Boolean functions with maximum algebraic immunity. It is checked that, our new functions can have as high nonlinearity as X.Y. Zeng et al.' functions.

In this note we suggest a new parallelizable mode of operation for message authentication codes (MACs). The new MAC algorithm iterates a pseudo-random function (PRF) FK:{0,1}m → {0,1}n, where K is a key and m,n are positive integers such that m ≥ 2n. The new construction is an improvement over a sequential MAC algorithm presented at FSE2008, solving positively an open problem posed in the paper – the new mode is capable of fully parallel execution while achieving rate-1 efficiency and “full n-bit” security. Interestingly enough, PMAC-like parallel structure, rather than CBC-like serial iteration, has beneficial side effects on security. That is, the new construction is provided with a more straightforward security proof and with an even better (“-free”) security bound than the FSE 2008 construction.

Testbeds play a key role in the advancement of network science and the exploration of new network architectures. Because the scale and scope of any individual testbed is necessarily limited, federation is a useful technique for constructing testbeds that serve a wide range of experimenter needs. In a federated testbed, individual facilities maintain local autonomy while cooperating to provide a unified set of abstractions and interfaces to users. Forming an international federation is particularly challenging, because issues of trust, user access policy, and local laws and regulations are of greater concern that they are for federations within a single country. In this paper, we describe an architecture, based on the US National Science Foundation's GENI project, that is capable of supporting the needs of an international federation.

In this letter we propose a new Whiteman generalized cyclotomic sequence of order 4. Meanwhile, we determine its linear complexity and minimal polynomial. The results show that this sequence possesses both high linear complexity and optimal balance on 1 s and 0 s, which may be attractive for cryptographic applications.

A garbage collector relieves programmers from manual memory management and improves productivity and program reliability. However, there are many other finite system resources that programmers must manage by themselves, such as sockets and database connections. Growing resource leaks can lead to performance degradation and even program crashes. This paper presents the automatic resource collection approach called Resco (RESource COllector) to tolerate non-memory resource leaks. Resco prevents performance degradation and crashes due to resource leaks by two steps. First, it utilizes monitors to count resource consumption and request resource collections independently of memory usage when resource limits are about to be violated. Second, it responds to a resource collection request by safely releasing leaked resources. We implement Resco based on a Java Virtual Machine for Java programs. The performance evaluation against standard benchmarks shows that Resco has a very low overhead, around 1% or 3%. Experiments on resource leak bugs show that Resco successfully prevents most of these programs from crashing with little increase in execution time.

In this letter, we analyze the outage performance of cognitive spectrum sharing in two-way relaying systems. We derive expressions of outage probability for the primary and secondary network over independent but not necessarily identically distributed (i.n.i.d.) Rayleigh fading channels. Monte Carlo simulations are presented to verify the theoretical analyses.

Network slicing for wide-area coordinated packet processing has attracted attentions for improving efficiency of handling network traffic. We have recently proposed a tag-based network slicing mechanism called OpenTag, and introduced the prototype implementation of the OpenTag redirector on an evaluation board. In this paper, we investigate the integration of the OpenTag redirector into a commercial network device. Our contributions are three-fold: (1) designing the architecture aiming OpenTag-capable intermediaries embedded on commercial network devices, (2) implementing a prototype of the embedded OpenTag redirector using the Advanced Mezzanine Card (AMC) which has an OCTEON network processor, (3) showing our implementation can tolerate high bandwidth environment.

Recently, Shao et al. [M. Shao and Y. Chin, A privacy-preserving dynamic id-based remote user authentication scheme with access control for multi-server environment, IEICE Transactions on Information and Systems, vol.E95-D, no.1, pp.161–168, 2012] proposed a dynamic ID-based remote user authentication scheme with access control for multi-server environments. They claimed that their scheme could withstand various attacks and provide anonymity. However, in this letter, we will point out that Shao et al.'s scheme has practical pitfalls and is not feasible for real-life implementation. We identify that their scheme is vulnerable to two kinds of attacks and cannot provide anonymity.

An important factor determining the performance of delay tolerant networks (DTNs) is packet delivery delay. In this paper, we study the block delivery delay of DTN with the epidemic routing scheme based on random linear network coding (RLNC). First, simulations show that the influence of relay buffer size on the delivery delay is not as strong in RLNC-based routing as it is in replica-based routing. With this observation,we can simplify the performance analysis by constraining the buffer of the relay node to just one size. Then we derive the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of block delivery delay with difference equations. Finally, we validate the correctness of our analytical results by simulations.

Ultra-Wide-Band (UWB) devices need detect and avoid techniques in order to avoid or reduce interference to primary systems whose spectra overlap bands of the UWB systems. Some avoidance techniques require a knowledge of signal level received from the primary systems to control the transmitted power. Thus, detection schemes have to accurately estimate the primary signal level using the observed signal includes an additive noise and to provide it for the avoidance schemes. In this paper, we propose a new method to estimate the Primary Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) for the detection scheme. Our proposed method uses the fast Fourier transform output of a Multi-Band Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing system. We generate models based on whether the primary signals are present, estimate the PSNR using a maximum likelihood criterion in each model and obtain the PSNR estimate by selecting the most preferable model using an Akaike information criterion. The propose method does not need any a priori information of the primary signal and the additive noise. By computer simulations, we evaluate an accuracy of the PSNR estimation of the proposed method.

In this paper, we propose a new data association method termed the highest probability data association (HPDA) and apply it to real-time recursive nonlinear tracking in heavy clutter. The proposed method combines the probabilistic nearest neighbor (PNN) with a modified probabilistic strongest neighbor (PSN) approach. The modified PSN approach uses only the rank of the measurement amplitudes. This approach is robust as exact shape of amplitude probability density function is not used. In this paper, the HPDA is combined with particle filtering for nonlinear target tracking in clutter. The measurement with the highest measurement-to-track data association probability is selected for track update. The HPDA provides the track quality information which can be used in for the false track termination and the true track confirmation. It can be easily extended to multi-target tracking with nonlinear particle filtering. The simulation studies demonstrate the HPDA functionality in a hostile environment with high clutter density and low target detection probability.

This letter describes the design methodology for reduced reconfigurable logic circuits based on double gate carbon nanotube field effect transistors (DG-CNTFETs) with ambipolar propoerty. Ambipolar Binary Decision Diagram (Am-BDD) which represents the cornerstone for automatic pass transistor logic (PTL) synthesis flows of ambipolar devices was utilized to build DG-CNTFET based n-input reconfigurable cells in the conventional approach. The proposed method can reduce the number of ambipolar devices for 2-inputs reconfigurable cells, incorporating the simple Boolean algebra in the Am-BDD compared with the conventional approach. As a result, the static 2-inputs reconfigurable circuit with 16 logic functions can be synthesized by using 8 DG-CNTFETs although the previous design method needed 12 DG-CNTFETs for the same purpose.

Wireless power transfer research has been receiving a great deal of attention in recent years. In resonant-type wireless power transfer, energy is transferred via LC resonant circuits. However, system performance is dependent on the circuit components. To transfer power efficiently and safely, information, such as frequency, required power and element values, need to be transmitted reliably in the system. This paper investigates data communication using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation in resonant-type wireless power transfer systems. The equivalent circuit used in the transmitting and receiving antennas is a band pass filter (BPF) and its bandwidth is evaluated through circuit simulations and experimental measurements. Numerical results obtained through computer simulation show that the bit error rate (BER) performance is affected by the splitting resonant frequency.

This paper proposes a Reduced Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computing Processor (REPICP) which is an independently designed, 64-bit, general-purpose microprocessor. The REPICP based on EPIC architecture overcomes the disadvantages of hardware-based superscalar and software-based Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW) and utilizes the cooperation of compiler and hardware to enhance Instruction-Level Parallelism (ILP). In REPICP, we propose the Optimized Lock-Step execution Model (OLSM) and instruction control pipeline method. We also propose reduced innovative methods to optimize the design. The REPICP is fabricated in Artisan 0.13 µm Nominal 1P8M process with 57 M transistors. The die size of the REPICP is 100 mm2 (1010), and consumes only 12 W power when running at 300 MHz.

To better understand antenna properties in a narrow space such as in a densely-packed device, a circular microstrip antenna in a narrow parallel-plate waveguide is theoretically studied. An analytical expression is derived for the input impedance in a parallel-plate waveguide by using the cavity model with surface admittance on the side wall. The surface admittance is defined by the external magnetic field due to the equivalent magnetic current at the aperture and takes into account the contribution of the parallel plates to the antenna. The magnetic field external to the antenna, that is in the parallel-plate region, is determined by using a dyadic Green's function. The input impedance is then calculated by a basic definition based on the conservation of the complex power. An analytical expression which couples the resonant frequency and the surface susceptance is also formulated. Presented expressions are validated by comparison with experimental results.