Spectrum sensing, a key technical challenge in cognitive radios (CR) technology, is a technique that enables the spectrum of licensed systems to be accessed without causing undue interference. It is well known that cyclostationarity detectors have great advantages over energy detectors in terms of the robustness to noise uncertainty that significantly degrades the performance as well as the capability to distinguish the signal of interest from the other interferences and noise. The generalized likelihood ratio test (GLRT) is a recognized sensing technique that utilizes the inherent cyclostationarity of the signal and has been intensively studied. However, no comprehensive evaluation on its performance enhancement has been published to date. Moreover high computational complexity is still a significant problem for its realization. This paper proposes a maximum ratio combining multi-cyclic detector which uses multiple cyclic frequencies for performance enhancement with reduced computational complexity. An orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) signal based on the ISDB-T (integrated services digital broadcasting terrestrial), a Japanese digital television broadcasting standard, was used in the evaluation assuming this as a primary system in WRAN (wireless regional area network) applications like IEEE 802.22.

In this paper, we propose a speech enhancement algorithm by using MAP estimation with variable speech spectral amplitude probability density function (speech PDF). The variable speech PDF has two adaptive shape parameters which affect the quality of enhanced speech. Noise can be efficiently suppressed when these parameters are properly applied so that the variable speech PDF shape fits to the real-speech PDF one. We derive adaptive shape parameters from real-speech PDF in various narrow SNR intervals. The proposed speech enhancement algorithm with adaptive shape parameters is examined and compared to conventional algorithms. The simulation results show that the proposed method improved SegSNR around 6 and 9 dB when the input speech signal was corrupted by white and tunnel noises at 0 dB, respectively.

Optical code-division multiple-access (OCDMA) is a promising technique for multimedia transmission in fiber-optic local-area networks (LANs). Variable-weight optical orthogonal codes (OOCs) can be used for OCDMA networks supporting multiple quality of services (QoS). Most constructions for optimal variable-weight OOCs have focused on the case where the number of distinct Hamming weights of all codewords is equal to two, and the codewords of weight 3 are normally included. In this letter, four explicit constructions of optimal (υ,{4,5,6},1,Q)-OOCs are presented, and more new optimal (υ,{4,5,6},1,Q)-OOCs are obtained via recursive constructions. These improve the existing results on optimal variable-weight OOCs with at least three distinct Hamming weights and minimum Hamming weight 4.

This letter proposes an algorithm of determining the BER-minimized block delay for detection and the associated precoder design once the channel state information and limited transmission power are given. Simulation cases demonstrate the adjusting capability of the proposed algorithm for achieving best BER performance of the joint linear transceiver design.

As a result of the rapid development of the Internet in recent years, network security has become an urgent issue. Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are one of the most serious security issues. In particular, 60 percent of the DDoS attacks found on the Internet are TCP attacks, including SYN flood attacks. In this paper, we propose adaptive timer-based countermeasures against SYN flood attacks. Our proposal utilizes the concept of soft-state protocols that are widely used for resource management on the Internet. In order to avoid deadlock, a server releases resources using a time-out mechanism without any explicit requests from its clients. If we change the value of the timer in accordance with the network conditions, we can add more flexibility to the soft-state protocols. The timer is used to manage the resources assigned to half-open connections in a TCP 3-way handshake mechanism, and its value is determined adaptively according to the network conditions. In addition, we report our simulation results to show the effectiveness of our approach.

In recent years, wireless communication technology has been studied intensively. In particular, MIMO which employs several transmit and receive antennas is a key technology for enhancing spectral efficiency. However, conventional MIMO architectures require some transceiver circuits for the sake of transmitting and receiving separate signals, which incurs the cost of one RF front-end per antenna. In addition to that, MIMO systems are assumed to be used in low spatial correlation environment between antennas. Since a short distance between each antenna causes high spatial correlation and coupling effect, it is difficult to miniaturize wireless terminals for mobile use. This paper shows a novel architecture which enables mobile terminals to be miniaturized and to work with a single RF front-end by means of adaptive analog beam-forming with parasitic antenna elements and antenna switching for spatial multiplexing. Furthermore, statistical analysis of the proposed architecture is also discussed in this paper.

This paper proposes an efficient list extension algorithm for soft-output multiple-input-multiple-output (soft-MIMO) detection. This algorithm extends the list of candidate vectors based on the vector selected by initial detection, in order to solve the empty-set problem, while reducing the number of additional vectors. The additional vectors are obtained from multiple detection orders, from which high-quality soft-output can be generated. Furthermore, a method to reduce the complexity of the determination of the multiple detection orders is described. From simulation results for a 44 system with 16- and 64-quadrature amplitude modulations (QAM) and rate 1/2 and 5/6 duo-binary convolutional turbo code (CTC), the soft-MIMO detection to which the proposed list extension was applied showed a performance degradation of less than 0.5 dB at bit error rate (BER) of 10-5, compared to that of the soft-output maximum-likelihood detection (soft-MLD) for all code rate and modulation pairs, while the complexity of the proposed list extension was approximately 38% and 17% of that of an existing algorithm with similar performance in a 44 system using 16- and 64-QAM, respectively.

524,288 NbN-based Josephson junctions were integrated to produce a programmable Josephson voltage standard (PJVS) on a die of 15 mm 15 mm, and the PJVS circuit was cooled to 10 K using a cryocooler and operated with a current margin of about 1.0 mA. Although an output voltage of 10 V was required for a voltage standard, the circuit was designed to generate the maximum output voltage of 17 V because it was difficult to avoid a reduction of the output voltage due to defects. Although a perfect chip without any defect was rarely fabricated, the high voltage chip that generated at least 10 V was fabricated with the fabrication yield of larger than 30%. The fabrication yield was also improved by optimizing the film growth conditions to reduce the film stress and the number of particles. Applications for a secondary voltage standard and an ac Josephson voltage standard are also described.

We use network coding based on coded cooperation for the Two-Way Relay channel, where two nodes communicate with each other assisted by a third, relay node. We consider the time-division two-way relay channel without power control, which means the two users and the relay use the same transmission power. Using the proposed network coding approach, channel codes are used at both users and network coding is used at the relay. It is shown via simulation that the proposed scheme provides substantial coding gain in fading channels.

We have developed a process for the fabrication of high-quality Nb/AlOx/Nb tunnel junctions with small area and high current densities for the heterodyne mixers at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths. Their dc I-V curves are numerically studied, including the broadening of quasiparticle density of states resulting from the existence of an imaginary part of the gap energy of Nb. We have found both experimentally and numerically that the subgap current is strongly dependent on bias voltage at temperatures below 4.2 K unlike the prediction of the BCS tunneling theory. It is shown that calculated dc I-V curves taking into account the complex number of the gap energy agree well with those of Nb/AlOx/Nb junctions measured at temperatures from 0.4 to 4.2 K. We have successfully built receivers at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths with the noise temperature as low as 4 times the quantum photon noise, employing those high-quality Nb/AlOx/Nb junctions. Those low-noise receivers are to be installed in the ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array) telescope and they are going into series production now.

This paper presents an elastic optical path network architecture as a novel networking framework to address the looming capacity crunch problem in internet protocol (IP) and optical networks. The basic idea is to introduce elasticity and adaptation into the optical domain to yield spectrally-efficient optical path accommodation, heightened network scalability through IP traffic offloading to the elastic optical layer, and enhanced survivability for serious disasters.

We have developed a portable NIRS-based optical BCI system that features a non-invasive, facile probe attachment and does not require muscle movement to control the target devices. The system consists of a 2-channel probe, a signal-processing unit, and an infrared-emission device, which measures the blood volume change in the participant's prefrontal cortex in a real time. We use the threshold logic as a switching technology, which transmits a control signal to a target device when the electrical waveforms exceed the pre-defined threshold. Eight healthy volunteers participated in the experiments and they could change the television channel or control the movement of a toy robot with average switching times of 11.5 ± 5.3 s and the hit rate was 83.3%. These trials suggest that this system provides a novel communication aid for people with motor disabilities.

To develop the advanced and rich life, and the also economy and social activity continuously, various types of energy are necessary. At the same time, to protect the global environment and to prevent the depletion of natural resources, the effective and moreover efficient use of energy is becoming important. Electric power is one of the most important forms of energy for our life and society. This paper describes topics and survey results of technical trends regarding the electric power supply systems which are playing a core role as the important infrastructure to support the emergence of information-oriented society. Specifically, the power supply systems that enhance high power quality and reliability (PQR) are important for the steady growth of information and communication services. The direct current (DC) power, which has been used for telecommunications power systems and information and communications technologies (ICT), enables existing utilities' grid and distributed energy resources to keep a balance between supply and demand of small-scaled power systems or microgirds. These techniques are expected to be part of smartgrid technologies and facilitate the installation of distributed generators in mission critical facilities.

Ultra wideband (UWB) radar is considered a promising technology to complement existing camera-based surveillance systems because, unlike cameras, it provides excellent range resolution. Many of the UWB radar imaging algorithms are based on large-scale antenna arrays that are not necessarily practical because of their complexity and high cost. To resolve this issue, we previously developed a two-dimensional radar imaging algorithm that estimates unknown target shapes and motion using only three antennas. In this paper, we extend this method to obtain three-dimensional images by estimating three-dimensional motions from the outputs of five antennas. Numerical simulations confirm that the proposed method can estimate accurately the target shape under various conditions.

Joint transmission (JT) in time-division-duplex code-division multiple-access (TDD-CDMA) systems can provide a low peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) for single paths, but causing a high PAPR in multipath environments. To avoid the high PAPR, we propose a new approach to JT technique by selecting certain paths instead of all paths used in JT processing so that PAPR becomes lower. The path selection proposal involves two methods; path selection by taking certain paths from all paths and by taking paths having path gains above a certain threshold value. To enhance the effectiveness of the proposed techniques, we evaluate a combination of the proposed technique with the clipping technique. We evaluate both PAPR and bit error rate (BER) performance for the proposed techniques and its combination with the clipping technique. We compare the results of the proposed techniques with conventional JT technique and the combination techniques with clipping technique. From the results of computer simulation, we show that the proposed path selection techniques perform low PAPR and good BER performance compared to the conventional JT processing. We also show that the combination of proposed path selection technique and clipping performs low PAPR performance without severe BER degradation compared to the conventional clipping technique.

We show a technique for estimating an upper bound of the Gowers norm of modulo functions over prime fields, which reduces the estimation to the greatest common divisor of some periodic sequences. This estimation provides inapproximability of the modulo functions by low-degree polynomials over prime fields, which is a generalization of Viola and Wigderson's result in the case of the binary field.

In this paper, we propose a power amplifier linearization technique combined with iterative noise cancelation. This method alleviates the effect of added noises which prevents the predistorter (PD) from estimating the exact characteristics of the power amplifier (PA). To iteratively cancel the noise added in the feedback signal, the output signal of the power amplifier without noise is reconstructed by applying the inverse characteristics of the PD to the predistorted signals. The noise can be revealed by subtracting the reconstructed signals from the feedback signals. Simulation results based on the mean-square error (MSE) and power spectral density (PSD) criteria are presented to evaluate PD performance. The results show that the iterative noise cancelation significantly enhances the MSE performance, which leads to an improvement of the out-of-band power suppression. The performance of the proposed technique is verified by computer simulation and hardware test results.

In this paper, we propose a way to improve the classification performance of support vector machines (SVMs), especially for speech and music frames within a selectable mode vocoder (SMV) framework. A myriad of techniques have been proposed for SVMs, and most of them are employed during the training phase of SVMs. Instead, the proposed algorithm is applied during the test phase and works with existing schemes. The proposed algorithm modifies a kernel parameter in the decision function of SVMs to alter SVM decisions for better classification accuracy based on the previous outputs of SVMs. Since speech and music frames exhibit strong inter-frame correlation, the outputs of SVMs can guide the kernel parameter modification. Our experimental results show that the proposed algorithm has the potential for adaptively tuning classifications of support vector machines for better performance.