Triboelectric generator is attracting much attention as a power source of electronics application. Electromotive force induced by rubbing is a key for triboelectric generator. From dielectric physics point of view, there are two microscopic origins for electromotive force, i.e., electronic charge displacement and dipolar rotation. A new way for evaluating these two origins is an urgent task. We have been developing an optical second-harmonic generation (SHG) technique as a tool for probing charge displacement and dipolar alignment, selectively, by utilizing wavelength dependent response of SHG to the two origins. In this paper, an experimental way that identifies polarity of electronic charge displacement, i.e., positive charge and negative charge, is proposed. Results showed that the use of local oscillator makes it possible to identify the polarity of charges by means of SHG. As an example, positive and negative charge distribution created by rubbing polyimide surface is illustrated.

SPHINCS+ is a state-of-the-art post-quantum hash-based signature that is a candidate for the NIST post-quantum cryptography standard. For a target bit security, SPHINCS+ supports many different tradeoffs between the signature size and the signing speed. SPHINCS+ provides 6 parameter sets: 3 parameter sets for size optimization and 3 parameter sets for speed optimization. We propose new parameter sets with better performance. Specifically, SPHINCS+ implementations with our parameter sets are up to 26.5% faster with slightly shorter signature sizes.

The power consumption of optical network units (ONUs) is a major issue in optical access networks. The downstream buffer is one of the largest power consumers among the functional blocks of an ONU. A cyclic sleep scheme for reducing power has been reported, which periodically powers off not only the downstream buffer but also other components, such as optical transceivers, when the idle period is long. However, when the idle period is short, it cannot power off those components even if the input data rate is low. Therefore, as continuous traffic, such as video, increases, the power-reduction effect decreases. To resolve this issue, we propose another sleep scheme in which the downstream buffer can be partially powered off by cooperative operation with an optical line terminal. Simulation and experimental results indicate that the proposed scheme reduces ONU power consumption without causing frame loss even while the ONU continuously receives traffic and the idle period is short.

Computer networks are facing serious threats from the emergence of sophisticated new DGA bots. These DGA bots have their own dictionary, from which they concatenate words to dynamically generate domain names that are difficult to distinguish from human-generated domain names. In this letter, we propose an approach for identifying the callback communications of DGA bots based on relations among the words that constitute the character string of each domain name. Our evaluation indicates high performance, with a recall of 0.9977 and a precision of 0.9869.

Deep learning is playing an increasingly important role in signal processing field due to its excellent performance on many inference problems. Parametric bilinear generalized approximate message passing (P-BiG-AMP) is a new approximate message passing based approach to a general class of structure-matrix bilinear estimation problems. In this letter, we propose a novel feed-forward neural network architecture to realize P-BiG-AMP methodology with deep learning for the inference problem of compressive sensing under matrix uncertainty. Linear transforms utilized in the recovery process and parameters involved in the input and output channels of measurement are jointly learned from training data. Simulation results show that the trained P-BiG-AMP network can achieve higher reconstruction performance than the P-BiG-AMP algorithm with parameters tuned via the expectation-maximization method.

In this letter, we study an interference scenario under a smart interferer which observes color channels and interferes with a visible light communication (VLC) network. We formulate the smart interference problem based on a Stackelberg game and propose an optimal response algorithm to overcome the interference by optimizing transmit power and sub-color channel allocation. The proposed optimization algorithm is composed with Lagrangian dual decomposition and non-linear fractional programming to have stability to get optimum points. Numerical results show that the utility by the proposed algorithm is increased over that of the algorithm based on the Nash game and the baseline schemes.

Cognitive radio network (CRN) provides an effective way of improving efficiency and flexibility in spectrum usage. Due to the coexistence of secondary user (SU) and primary user (PU), managing interference is a critical issue to be addressed if we are to reap the full benefits. In this paper, we consider the problem of joint interference management and resource allocation in a multi-channel ad hoc CRN. We formulate the problem as an overlapping coalition formation game to maximize the sum rate of SU links while guaranteeing the quality of service (QoS) of PU links. In the game, each SU link can make an autonomous decision and is allowed to participate in one or more cooperative coalitions simultaneously to maximize its payoff. To obtain the solution of the formulated game, a distributed, self-organizing algorithm is proposed for performing coalition formation. We analyze the properties of the algorithm and show that SU links can cooperate to reach a final stable coalition structure. Compared with existing approaches, the proposed scheme achieves appreciable performance improvement in terms of the sum rate of SU links, which is demonstrated by simulation results.

Information-centric networking (ICN) provides an alternative to the traditional end-to-end communication model of the current Internet architecture by focusing on information dissemination and information retrieval. Named Data Networking (NDN) is one of the candidates that implements the idea of ICN on a practical level. Implementing NDN in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) will bring all the benefits of NDN to WSNs, making them more efficient. By applying the NDN paradigm directly to wireless multi-hop ad-hoc networks, various drawbacks are observed, such as packet flooding due to the broadcast nature of the wireless channel. To cope with these problems, in this paper, we propose an Interest called the accumulation-based forwarding scheme, as well as a novel content store architecture to increase its efficiency in terms of storing and searching data packets. We have performed extensive simulations using the ndnSIM simulator. Experimental results showed that the proposed scheme performs better when compared to another scheme in terms of the total number of Interests, the content store search time, and the network lifetime.

This paper describes a method to control prosodic features using phonetic and prosodic symbols as input of attention-based sequence-to-sequence (seq2seq) acoustic modeling (AM) for neural text-to-speech (TTS). The method involves inserting a sequence of prosodic symbols between phonetic symbols that are then used to reproduce prosodic acoustic features, i.e. accents, pauses, accent breaks, and sentence endings, in several seq2seq AM methods. The proposed phonetic and prosodic labels have simple descriptions and a low production cost. By contrast, the labels of conventional statistical parametric speech synthesis methods are complicated, and the cost of time alignments such as aligning the boundaries of phonemes is high. The proposed method does not need the boundary positions of phonemes. We propose an automatic conversion method for conventional labels and show how to automatically reproduce pitch accents and phonemes. The results of objective and subjective evaluations show the effectiveness of our method.

Input devices based on direct touch have replaced traditional ones and become the mainstream interactive technology for handheld devices. Although direct touch interaction proves to be easy to use, its problems, e.g. the occlusion problem and the fat finger problem, lower user experience. Camera-based mobile interaction is one of the solutions to overcome the problems. There are two typical interaction styles to generate camera-based pointing interaction for handheld devices: move the device or move an object before the camera. In the first interaction style, there are two approaches to move a cursor's position across the handheld display: move it towards the same direction or the opposite direction which the device moves to. In this paper, the results of a comparison research, which compared the pointing performances of three camera-based pointing techniques, are presented. All pointing techniques utilized input from the rear-facing camera. The results indicate that the interaction style of moving a finger before the camera outperforms the other one in efficiency, accuracy, and throughput. The results also indicate that within the interaction style of moving the device, the cursor positioning style of moving the cursor to the opposite direction is slightly better than the other one in efficiency and throughput. Based on the findings, we suggest giving priority to the interaction style of moving a finger when deploying camera-based pointing techniques on handheld devices. Given that the interaction style of moving the device supports one-handed manipulation, it also worth deploying when one-handed interaction is needed. According to the results, the cursor positioning style of moving the cursor towards the opposite direction which the device moves to may be a better choice.

In this paper, we propose a robust output feedback control method for nonlinear systems with uncertain time-varying parameters associated with diagonal terms and there are additional external disturbances. First, we provide a new practical guidance of obtaining a compact set which contains the allowed time-varying parameters by utilizing a Lyapunov equation and matrix inequalities. Then, we show that all system states and observer errors of the controlled system remain bounded by the proposed controller. Moreover, we show that the ultimate bounds of some system states and observer errors can be made (arbitrarily) small by adjusting a gain-scaling factor depending on the system nonlinearity. With an application example, we illustrate the effectiveness of our control scheme over the existing one.

We propose a video authentication scheme to verify whether a given video file is recorded by a camera device or touched by a video editing tool. The proposed scheme prepares software characteristics of camera devices and video editing tools in advance, and compares them with the metadata of the given video file. Through practical implementation, we show that the proposed scheme has benefits of fast analysis time, high accuracy and full automation.

This paper proposes an encryption-then-compression (EtC) system-friendly data hiding scheme for images, where an EtC system compresses images after they are encrypted. The EtC system divides an image into non-overlapping blocks and applies four block-based processes independently and randomly to the image for visual encryption of the image. The proposed scheme hides data to a plain, i.e., unencrypted image and the scheme can take hidden data out from the image encrypted by the EtC system. Furthermore, the scheme serves reversible data hiding, so it can perfectly recover the unmarked image from the marked image whereas the scheme once distorts unmarked image for hiding data to the image. The proposed scheme copes with the three of four processes in the EtC system, namely, block permutation, rotation/flipping of blocks, and inverting brightness in blocks, whereas the conventional schemes for the system do not cope with the last one. In addition, these conventional schemes have to identify the encrypted image so that image-dependent side information can be used to extract embedded data and to restore the unmarked image, but the proposed scheme does not need such identification. Moreover, whereas the data hiding process must know the block size of encryption in conventional schemes, the proposed scheme needs no prior knowledge of the block size for encryption. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

Since wild animals are causing more accidents and damages, it is important to safely detect them as early as possible. In this paper, we propose two battery-powered wild animal detection nodes based on deep learning that can automatically detect wild animals; the detection information is notified to the people concerned immediately. To use the proposed nodes outdoors where power is not available, we devise power saving techniques for the proposed nodes. For example, deep learning is used to save power by avoiding operations when wild animals are not detected. We evaluate the operation time and the power consumption of the proposed nodes. Then, we evaluate the energy consumption of the proposed nodes. Also, we evaluate the detection range of the proposed nodes, the accuracy of deep learning, and the success rate of communication through field tests to demonstrate that the proposed nodes can be used to detect wild animals outdoors.

Silver electrical contacts were separated at constant opening speed in a 200V-500VDC/10A resistive circuit. Break arcs were extinguished by magnetic blowing-out with transverse magnetic field of a permanent magnet. The permanent magnet was appropriately located to simplify the lengthened shape of the break arcs. Magnetic flux density of the transverse magnetic field was varied from 20 to 140mT. Images of the break arcs were observed from the horizontal and vertical directions using two high speed cameras simultaneously. Arc length just before extinction was analyzed from the observed images. It was shown that shapes of the break arcs were simple enough to trace the most part of paths of the break arcs for all experimental conditions owing to simplification of the shapes of the break arcs by appropriate arrangement of the magnet. The arc length increased with increasing supply voltage and decreased with increasing magnetic flux density. These results will be discussed in the view points of arc lengthening time and arc lengthening velocity.

In a multiple-user MIMO system in which numerous users simultaneously communicate in a cell, the channel matrix properties depend on the parameters of the individual users in such a way that they can be modeled as points randomly moving within the cell. Although these properties can be simulated by computer, they need to be expressed analytically to develop MIMO systems with diversity. Given a small area with an equivalent multi-path, we assume that a user u is at a certain “user point” $P^u(lambda _p^u,xi _p^u)$ in a cell, or (radius $lambda _p^u$ from origin, angle $xi _p^u)$ and that the user moves with movement $M^u(f_{max}^u, xi_v^u)$ around that point, or (Doppler frequency $f_{max}^u$, direction $xi_v^u$). The MU-MIMO channel model consists of a multipath environment, user parameters, and antenna configuration. A general formula of the correlation $ ho_{i - j,i' - j'}^{u - u'} (bm)$ between the channel matrix elements of users u and u' and one for given multipath conditions are derived. As a feature of the MU-MIMO channel, the movement factor $F^{u - u'}(gamma^u,xi_n ,xi_v^u)$, which means a fall coefficient of the spatial correlation calculated from only the user points of u and u', is also derived. As the difference in speed or direction between u and u' increases, $F^{u - u'}(gamma^u,xi_n ,xi_v^u)$ becomes smaller. Consequently, even if the path is LOS, $ ho_{i - j,i' - j'}^{u - u'} (bm)$ becomes low enough owing to the movement factor, even though the correlation in the single-user MIMO channel is high. If the parameters of u and u' are the same, the factor equals 1, and the channels correspond to the users' own channels and work like SU-MIMO channel. These analytical findings are verified by computer simulation.

Deep neural network (DNN)-based speech synthesis became popular in recent years and is expected to soon be widely used in embedded devices and environments with limited computing resources. The key intention of these systems in poor computing environments is to reduce the computational cost of generating speech parameter sequences while maintaining voice quality. However, reducing computational costs is challenging for two primary conventional DNN-based methods used for modeling speech parameter sequences. In feed-forward neural networks (FFNNs) with maximum likelihood parameter generation (MLPG), the MLPG reconstructs the temporal structure of the speech parameter sequences ignored by FFNNs but requires additional computational cost according to the sequence length. In recurrent neural networks, the recursive structure allows for the generation of speech parameter sequences while considering temporal structures without the MLPG, but increases the computational cost compared to FFNNs. We propose a new approach for DNNs to acquire parameters captured from the temporal structure by backpropagating the errors of multiple attributes of the temporal sequence via the loss function. This method enables FFNNs to generate speech parameter sequences by considering their temporal structure without the MLPG. We generated the fundamental frequency sequence and the mel-cepstrum sequence with our proposed method and conventional methods, and then synthesized and subjectively evaluated the speeches from these sequences. The proposed method enables even FFNNs that work on a frame-by-frame basis to generate speech parameter sequences by considering the temporal structure and to generate sequences perceptually superior to those from the conventional methods.

Impact of sampling frequency and the number of quantization bit of analog-to-digital conversion (ADC) in a direct detection lightwave system using Kramers-Kronig (KK) relation, which has been attracting attention in recent years, are numerically investigated. We studied the effect of spectral broadening caused by nonlinear operations (logarithm, square root) of the KK algorithm when the frequency gap (shift frequency) between the modulated signal and the optical tone is varied. We found that reception performances depend on both the ADC bandwidth and the relative positions of the optical tone and the spectrum. Spectral broadening caused by the logarithm operation of the KK algorithm is found to be the dominant factor of signal distortion in an ADC bandwidth limited system. We studied the effect of the number of quantization bit on the error vector magnitude (EVM) of KK relation based reception in a carrier-to-signal power ratio (CSPR) adjustable transmission system. We found that performances of KK relation based receiver can be improved by increasing the number of quantization bits. For minimum-phase-condition satisfied KK receiver, the required number of quantization bit was found to be 5 bits or more for detection of QPSK, 16-QAM and 64-QAM-modulated signal after 20-km transmission.

To tackle the distributed power optimization problems in wireless sensor networks localization systems, we model the problem as a hierarchical game, i.e. a multi-leader multi-follower Stackelberg game. Existing researches focus on the power allocation of anchor nodes for ranging signals or the power management of agent nodes for cooperative localization, individually. However, the power optimizations for different nodes are indiscerptible due to the common objective of localization accuracy. So it is a new challenging task when the power allocation strategies are considered for anchor and agent nodes simultaneously. To cope with this problem, a hierarchical game is proposed where anchor nodes are modeled as leaders and agent nodes are modeled as followers. Then, we prove that games of leaders and followers are both potential games, which guarantees the Nash equilibrium (NE) of each game. Moreover, the existence of Stackelberg equilibrium (SE) is proved and achieved by the best response dynamics. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can have better localization accuracy compared with the decomposed algorithm and uniform strategy.

High frame rate (HFR) video is attracting strong interest since it is considered as a next step toward providing Ultra-High Definition video service. For instance, the Association of Radio Industries and Businesses (ARIB) standard, the latest broadcasting standard in Japan, defines a 120 fps broadcasting format. The standard stipulates temporally scalable coding and hierarchical transmission by MPEG Media Transport (MMT), in which the base layer and the enhancement layer are transmitted over different paths for flexible distribution. We have developed the first ever MMT transmitter/receiver module for 4K/120fps temporally scalable video. The module is equipped with a newly proposed encapsulation method of temporally scalable bitstreams with correct boundaries. It is also designed to be tolerant to severe network constraints, including packet loss, arrival timing offset, and delay jitter. We conducted a hierarchical transmission experiment for 4K/120fps temporally scalable video. The experiment demonstrated that the MMT module was successfully fabricated and capable of dealing with severe network constraints. Consequently, the module has excellent potential as a means to support HFR video distribution in various network situations.