Multimedia transactions between vehicles are expected to become a promising application in VANETs but security is a fundamental issue that must be resolved before such transactions can become practical and trusted. Existing certificate-based digital signature schemes are ineffective for ensuring the security of multimedia transactions in VANETs. This ineffectiveness exists because there is no guarantee that (1) vehicles can download the latest certificate revocation lists or that (2) vehicles can complete a multimedia transaction before leaving their communication range. These two problems result, respectively, from a lack of infrastructure and from the inconsistent connectivity inherent in VANETs. In this paper, we propose a digital signature approach that combines a certificateless signature scheme and short-lived public keys to alleviate these problems. We then propose a security protocol that uses the proposed signature approach for multimedia transactions between vehicles. The proposed protocol enables vehicles to trade in multimedia resources without an online trust authority. We provide an analytical approach to optimizing the security of the proposed protocol. The security and performance of our protocol are evaluated via simulation and theoretical analysis. Based on these evaluations, we contend that the proposed protocol is practical for multimedia transactions in VANETs in terms of security and performance.

In DC/DC converters with low output voltage and high output current, the technique of synchronous rectification is widely used for improving the output efficiency. However, SR buck converters can experience the abnormal phenomenon called “self turn-on” which will occur in the low-side switch under some circuit conditions. “Self turn-on” is a malfunction of the low-side switch, basically caused by the resonance of the parasitic inductance and the parasitic capacitance. It results in noticeable power dissipation. In this paper, the phenomenon will be clearly described and investigated. With the theoretical analysis and the experimental verification, strategies that can suppress this phenomenon are proposed.

Combining scheduled channel polling with channel diversity is a promising way for a MAC protocol to achieve high energy efficiency and performance under both light and heavy traffic conditions. However, the deafness problem may cancel out the benefit of channel diversity. In this paper, we first investigate the deafness problem of scheduled multi-channel polling MACs with experiments. Then we propose and evaluate two schemes to handle the deafness problem. Our experiment shows that deafness is a significant reason for performance degradation in scheduled multi-channel polling MACs. A proper scheme should be chosen depending on the traffic pattern and the design objective.

A time-reversal (TR) approach with multiple signal classification (MUSIC) provides super-resolution for detection and localization using multistatic data collected from an array antenna system. The theory of TR-MUSIC assumes that the number of antenna elements is greater than that of scatterers (targets). Furthermore, it requires many sets of frequency-domain data (snapshots) in seriously noisy environments. Unfortunately, these conditions are not practical for real environments due to the restriction of a reasonable antenna structure as well as limited measurement time. We propose an approach that treats both noise reduction and relaxation of the transceiver restriction by using a time-domain gating technique accompanied with the Fourier transform before applying the TR-MUSIC imaging algorithm. Instead of utilizing the conventional multistatic data matrix (MDM), we employ a modified MDM obtained from the gating technique. The resulting imaging functions yield more reliable images with only a few snapshots regardless of the limitation of the antenna arrays.

The authors have proposed Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO)-Constant Envelope Modulation, (MIMO-CEM), as a power and complexity efficient alternative to MIMO-OFDM, suitable for wireless backhaul networks in which relay nodes are fixed in their positions. One of the major problems hindering the real application of MIMO-CEM is to estimate MIMO channel characteristics. MIMO-CEM is based upon two contrary schemes; one is nonlinear equalization such as maximum likelihood sequence estimator, which needs accurate channel information to replicate the received signal passing through it. The other is a low resolution analog-to-digital converter (ADC), e.g., 1-bit in the default operation that removes the received signal amplitude fluctuation. In this paper, as a solution to the channel estimation problem in MIMO-CEM with low resolution ADC receiver, we propose an adaptive MIMO-CEM channel estimation scheme where iterative adaptive channel estimation is carried out to minimize the error between the received preamble signal and the replicated one. We also prove that Code Division Multiplexing (CDM) preamble transmission is effective in estimating MIMO channel parameters in the presence of large quantization noise. Computer simulation results show that MIMO-CEM with the proposed channel estimator using CDM preambles achieves identical BER performance to that with the ideal channel estimation even in presence of severe quantization noise caused by a low resolution ADC.

In the MIMO-OFDM multiple access channel (MIMO-OFDM-MAC) uplink scenario, the base station decides the uplink parameters for multiple users based on channel state information (CSI) from each user in the system. The performance of MIMO-OFDM-MAC systems can be significantly improved by using an adaptive transmission and resource allocation schemes which consider the correlation effect of line of sight (LOS) and non line of sight (NLOS) channel conditions for different users in the system. A lot of papers have been published on resource allocation schemes for MIMO-OFDM systems. However, most of these resource allocation schemes have been considered for MIMO-OFDMA systems, where users are separated in the frequency domain and each user uses the same uplink and downlink channels in the same channel conditions. On the other hand, in the mulituser MIMO-OFDM systems, more than one user can be assigned the same frequency and channel conditions for the MIMO-OFDM broadcast channel (downlink) and MIMO-OFDM-MAC channel (uplink) are not the same. Therefore, the same resource allocation schemes for the conventional MIMO-OFDM systems can not be applied to multiuser MIMO-OFDM systems with different uplink and downlink channel conditions. Until now, most of the resource allocation schemes have been considered only for downlink MIMO-OFDM broadcast (MIMO-OFDM-BC) channel and very few papers tackle the fairness among users. Moreover, no paper considers a scheme to realize proportional data rate fairness among users in the MIMO-OFDM-MAC condition. In this paper, we propose a proportional data rate fairness resource allocation scheme with adaptive bit loading for MIMO-ODFM-MAC systems by considering the correlation effects of LOS and NLOS channel conditions in both spatial and frequency domains. Computer simulation results show that the proposed scheme can give larger system capacity while maintaining the proportional data rate fairness requirements among users in the system under the constraint of total transmit power and predetermined target BER.

In this letter, an ordered sphere decoding (OSD) algorithm for spatial modulation (SM) is proposed to reduce receiver complexity. The proposed algorithm relies on a developed matched filter (MF), where the initial solution vector is obtained and the transmit-antenna set is sorted, so as to perform a fast tree search. Furthermore, a threshold parameter is introduced to balance the tradeoff between complexity and performance. Simulation results show that the proposed SM-OSD algorithm achieves considerable complexity reduction compared to the SM-SD, especially in unbalanced multiple-input multiple output (MIMO) channels.

In this paper, we propose an effective mutation operators for Cooperative Genetic Algorithm (CGA) to be applied to a practical Nurse Scheduling Problem (NSP). The nurse scheduling is a very difficult task, because NSP is a complex combinatorial optimizing problem for which many requirements must be considered. In real hospitals, the schedule changes frequently. The changes of the shift schedule yields various problems, for example, a fall in the nursing level. We describe a technique of the reoptimization of the nurse schedule in response to a change. The conventional CGA is superior in ability for local search by means of its crossover operator, but often stagnates at the unfavorable situation because it is inferior to ability for global search. When the optimization stagnates for long generation cycle, a searching point, population in this case, would be caught in a wide local minimum area. To escape such local minimum area, small change in a population should be required. Based on such consideration, we propose a mutation operator activated depending on the optimization speed. When the optimization stagnates, in other words, when the optimization speed decreases, the mutation yields small changes in the population. Then the population is able to escape from a local minimum area by means of the mutation. However, this mutation operator requires two well-defined parameters. This means that user have to consider the value of these parameters carefully. To solve this problem, we propose a periodic mutation operator which has only one parameter to define itself. This simplified mutation operator is effective over a wide range of the parameter value.

It is known that the optimal sensor coverage of a mission space is performed by a Voronoi partition, which is called a Voronoi coverage problem. We consider the case that the mission space has several obstacles where mobile sensors cannot be deployed and search an optimal deployment to maximize the sensing performance. Inspired by the potential field method, we introduce a repulsive potential for obstacle avoidance and define the objective function by a combination of two functions: one for evaluation of the sensing performance and the other for obstacle avoidance. We introduce a space where a sensor can move, called its moving space. In general, a moving space may not coincide with the mission space. We assume that the respective moving spaces of each sensor may differ from each other. By introducing a barycentric coordinate over the moving space, we show that the Voronoi coverage problem to maximize the objective function is transformed into a potential game. In potential games, local maximizers of a potential function are stable equilibrium points of the corresponding replicator dynamics. We propose a distributed sensor coverage control method based on the replicator dynamics to search a local maximizer of the objective function and a path to it. Using simulations, we also compare the proposed method with the Lloyd and TangentBug algorithm proposed by Breitenmoser et al.

Ternary content addressable memory (TCAM) is becoming very popular for designing high-throughput forwarding engines on routers. However, TCAM has potential problems in terms of hardware and power costs, which limits its ability to deploy large amounts of capacity in IP routers. In this paper, we propose new hardware architecture for fast forwarding engines, called fast prefix search RAM-based hardware (FPS-RAM). We designed FPS-RAM hardware with the intent of maintaining the same search performance and physical user interface as TCAM because our objective is to replace the TCAM in the market. Our RAM-based hardware architecture is completely different from that of TCAM and has dramatically reduced the costs and power consumption to 62% and 52%, respectively. We implemented FPS-RAM on an FPGA to examine its lookup operation.

This paper shows a new pulse swallow programmable frequency divider with the division step size of 0.5. To realize the division step size of 0.5 by a conventional pulse swallow method, we propose a parallel dual modulus prescaler with the division ratio of P and P + 0.5. It consists of simple circuit elements and has an advantage over the conventional dual modulus prescaler with the division step size of 0.5 in high frequency operation. The proposed parallel dual modulus prescaler with the division ratio 8 and 8.5 is implemented in the 0.13-µm CMOS technology. The proposed architecture achieves 7 times higher frequency operation than the conventional one theoretically. It is verified the functions over 5 GHz.

This paper presents a novel architecture design to optimize the reconfiguration process of a coarse-grained reconfigurable architecture (CGRA) called Reconfigurable Multimedia System II ( REMUS-II ). In REMUS-II, the tasks in multi-media applications are divided into two parts: computing-intensive tasks and control-intensive tasks. Two Reconfigurable Processor Units (RPUs) for accelerating computing-intensive tasks and a Micro-Processor Unit (µPU) for accelerating control-intensive tasks are contained in REMUS-II. As a large-scale CGRA, REMUS-II can provide satisfying solutions in terms of both efficiency and flexibility. This feature makes REMUS-II well-suited for video processing, where higher flexibility requirements are posed and a lot of computation tasks are involved. To meet the high requirement of the dynamic reconfiguration performance for multimedia applications, the reconfiguration architecture of REMUS-II should be well designed. To optimize the reconfiguration architecture of REMUS-II, a hierarchical configuration storage structure and a 3-stage reconfiguration processing structure are proposed. Furthermore, several optimization methods for configuration reusing are also introduced, to further improve the performance of reconfiguration process. The optimization methods include two aspects: the multi-target reconfiguration method and the configuration caching strategies. Experimental results showed that, with the reconfiguration architecture proposed, the performance of reconfiguration process will be improved by 4 times. Based on RTL simulation, REMUS-II can support the 1080p@32 fps of H.264 HiP@Level4 and 1080p@40 fps High-level MPEG-2 stream decoding at the clock frequency of 200 MHz. The proposed REMUS-II system has been implemented on a TSMC 65 nm process. The die size is 23.7 mm2 and the estimated on-chip dynamic power is 620 mW.

When the residual resources on a virtualized substrate network (SN) are insufficient to meet the resource demands from the requested virtual network (VN) at specific locations, we can attempt to accommodate the VN by allocating resources at alternative locations and transparently serve the accesses to the VN by having them internally rerouted to the actually allocated locations. In this letter, we explore the feasibility of nodal resource splitting in such alternative allocation scenarios. We find that in order to facilitate such alternative allocations, we should first define the node-link resource dependencies. Once the dependencies are given, we demonstrate that the splitting can visibly improve the SN utilization and the request rejection rate for VN embedding requests under many network scenarios.

In the reverse link of OFDMA, different users (subcarriers) may have different frequency offsets, which causes severe performance degradation. It is also difficult to estimate/compensate these frequency offsets in the reverse link. Even if the frequency offsets are correctly estimated, the compensation of one subcarrier (or user) may worsen the inter-carrier interference from the frequency offsets of other subcarriers (users). One of the key ideas in this letter is to merge frequency offset compensation into the FFT matrix. The new inverse transform matrix is used in lieu of regular FFT. A single MMSE-based transform is used to perform both inverse Fourier transform and frequency offset compensation. Compared to the conventional methods such as circular convolution, this approach has lower computational complexity with comparable performance.

In this paper, we propose a novel architecture for large-scale regular expression matching, called dynamically reconfigurable bit-parallel NFA architecture (Dynamic BP-NFA), which allows dynamic loading of regular expressions on-the-fly as well as efficient pattern matching for fast data streams. This is the first dynamically reconfigurable hardware with guaranteed performance for the class of extended patterns, which is a subclass of regular expressions consisting of union of characters and its repeat. This class allows operators such as character classes, gaps, optional characters, and bounded and unbounded repeats of character classes. The key to our architecture is the use of bit-parallel pattern matching approach, in which the information of an input non-deterministic finite automaton (NFA) is first compactly encoded in bit-masks stored in a collection of registers and block RAMs. Then, the NFA is efficiently simulated by a fixed circuitry using bitwise Boolean and arithmetic operations consuming one input character per clock regardless of the actual contents of an input text. Experimental results showed that our hardwares for both string and extended patterns were comparable to previous dynamically reconfigurable hardwares in their performances.

The applications of dynamic content updates for a group of users, for example weather reports and news broadcast, have been shown to benefit significantly from Delay Tolerant Networks (DTNs) communication mechanisms. In this paper, we study the performance of dynamic content updates over DTNs by focusing on the latest content distribution, which is an important factor of the system energy consumption and content update efficiency. By characterizing the content generating process and content sharing process, we obtain an explicit expression for the latest content distribution, and prove it theoretically. Moreover, through simulations based on two synthetical mobility models and a real-world scenario, we demonstrate the accuracy and correctness of the theoretically obtained result.

In this paper, the research advances in silicon based millimeter wave and THz ICs in the State Key Laboratory of Millimeter Waves is reviewed, which consists of millimeter wave amplifiers, mixers, oscillators at Q, V and W and D band based on CMOS technology, and several research approaches of THz passive ICs including cavity and filter structures using SIW-like (Substrate Integrated Waveguide-like) guided wave structures based on CMOS and MEMs process. The design and performance of these components and devices are presented.

A generalized version of a piece-wise constant (ab. PWC) spiking neuron model is presented. It is shown that the generalization enables the model to reproduce 20 activities in the Izhikevich model. Among the activities, we analyze tonic bursting. Using an analytical one-dimensional iterative map, it is shown that the model can reproduce a burst-related bifurcation scenario, which is qualitatively similar to that of the Izhikevich model. The bifurcation scenario can be observed in an actual hardware.

The hyper H∞ filter derived in our previous work provides excellent convergence, tracking, and robust performances for linear time-varying system identification. Additionally, a fast algorithm of the hyper H∞ filter, called the fast H∞ filter, is successfully developed so that identification of linear system with impulse response of length N is performed at a computational complexity of O(N). The gain matrix of the fast filter is recursively calculated through estimating the forward and backward linear prediction coefficients of an input signal. This suggests that the fast H∞ filter may be applicable to linear prediction of the signal. On the other hand, an alternative fast version of the hyper H∞ filter, called the J-fast H∞ filter, is derived using a J-unitary array form, which is amenable to parallel processing. However, the J-fast H∞ filter explicitly includes no linear prediction of input signals in the algorithm. This work reveals that the forward and backward linear prediction coefficients and error powers of the input signal are indeed included in the recursive variables of the J-fast H∞ filter. These findings are verified by computer simulations.

We define a family of 2e+1-periodic binary threshold sequences and a family of p2-periodic binary threshold sequences by using Carmichael quotients modulo 2e (e > 2) and 2p (p is an odd prime), respectively. These are extensions of the construction derived from Fermat quotients modulo an odd prime in our earlier work. We determine exact values of the linear complexity, which are larger than half of the period. For cryptographic purpose, the linear complexities of the sequences in this letter are of desired values.