This paper introduces a common database, an evaluation framework, and its baseline recognition results for in-car speech recognition, CENSREC-3, as an outcome of the IPSJ-SIG SLP Noisy Speech Recognition Evaluation Working Group. CENSREC-3, which is a sequel to AURORA-2J, has been designed as the evaluation framework of isolated word recognition in real car-driving environments. Speech data were collected using two microphones, a close-talking microphone and a hands-free microphone, under 16 carefully controlled driving conditions, i.e., combinations of three car speeds and six car conditions. CENSREC-3 provides six evaluation environments designed using speech data collected in these conditions.

In this paper, we first briefly discuss the newly emerging Secured JPEG (JPSEC) standard for security services for JPEG 2000 compressed images. We then propose our novel approach for applying authentication to JPEG 2000 images in a scalable manner. Our authentication technique can be used for source authentication, nonrepudiation and integrity verification for the received possibly transcoded JPEG 2000 images in such a way that it is possible to authenticate different resolutions or different qualities extracted or received from a JPEG 2000 encoded image. Three different implementation methods for our authentication technique are presented. Packet-Based Authentication involves using the MD5 hashing algorithm for calculating the hash value for each individual packet in the JPEG 2000 codestream. Hash values are truncated to a specified length to reduce the overhead in storage space, concatenated into a single string, and then signed using the RSA algorithm and the author's private key for repudiation prevention. Resolution-Based Authentication and Quality-Based Authentication methods involve generating a single hash value from all contiguous packets from each entire resolution or each entire quality layer, respectively. Our algorithms maintain most of the inherent flexibility and scalability of JPEG 2000 compressed images. The resultant secured codestream is still JPEG 2000 compliant and compatible with JPEG 2000 compliant decoders. Also, our algorithms are compatible with the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) for preventing signing repudiation from the sender and are implemented using the new JPSEC standard for security signaling.

An analytic approach for the generation of non-periodic and periodic complementary sequences is advanced for lengths that are powers of two. The periodic complementary sequences can be obtained using symmetric or anti-symmetric extensions. The properties of their autocorrelation functions are studied. The non-periodic complementary sequences are the intersection between anti-symmetric and symmetric periodic sequences. These non-periodic and periodic complementary sequences are identified to be special cases of non-periodic and periodic (or cyclic) orthogonal wavelet transforms. This relationship leads to the novel approach.

This paper overviews the high-speed power-line communication (PLC) technology, and the related standardization and regulatory activities are described. PLC modems of 200 Mbps class become a practical use stage in the West, and the standardization activity is active now. The discussion for deregulation is being continued in also Japan, and regulation values have been proposed. Another topic in this paper is a sensor network application of PLC, which is an indoor fine-grained localization system by acoustic Direct-Sequence Code Division Multiplexed (DS-CDM) signals. The obtained average accuracy of the localization in a 4 m2 plane was 1 cm if there was no obstacle. To realize the localization system, some novel ideas, such as PLC speakers, a synchronization method based on the zero-crossing timing of the mains frequency, and integrated wired/wireless PLC, are introduced.

We have developed a code-division-multiplexing (CDM) transmission scheme for future road-vehicle communication systems, which uses cyclic shifted-and-extended (CSE) codes generated from a basic code with superior auto-correlation characteristics. This paper proposes to use a Quasi-Orthogonal (QO) sequence as the basic code. Its auto-correlation values are zero except at zero and middle shifts. When the CDM transmission is performed by the CSE codes based on the QO sequence, a desired correlation value is, at a receiver, interfered by the auto-correlation value at middle shift. Therefore, an elimination technique for the interfered correlation value is proposed and realizes zero cross-correlation characteristics within the cyclical shift interval. The new CDM transmission scheme based on the proposed scheme is evaluated by computer simulations in terms of the bit-error-rate performance.

This paper presents an automated design of analog circuits starting with idealized elements. Our system first synthesizes circuits using idealized elements by a genetic algorithm (GA). GA evolves circuit topologies and transconductances of idealized elements to achieve the given specifications. The use of idealized elements effectively reduces search space and make the synthesis efficient. Second, idealized elements in a generated circuit are replaced by MOSFETs. Through the two processes, a circuit satisfying the given specifications can be obtained. The capability of this method was demonstrated through experiments of synthesis of a trans-impedance amplifier and a cubing circuit and benchmark tests. The results of the benchmark tests show the proposed CAD is more than 10 times faster than the CAD which does not use idealized elements.

Outdoor wireless services quality is greatly tarnished by the existence of coverage blind spots or any areas of inadequate reception. It is thus of interest to eliminate or fill in the blind spots in order to boost the receiving signal strength which ultimately leads to better service quality. The authors propose the use of a simple flat metallic reflector as a device to divert some energy in the service coverage towards the blind spots or any existing areas of inadequate reception. The method of moment is employed in analysing the effectiveness of the authors' proposed technique. Experiments have been carried out to verify calculation results as well as to find out on the proposed technique's viability. It is found that the elimination of blind spots by using a reflector is a viable approach. The received power at the blind spot locations are increased by about 3 dB to 5 dB when the reflector is present.

In this letter, it is shown that a MAP detector can be employed with differential pulse-position modulation (L-DPPM) in an indoor optical wireless system. The MAP detector error performance is evaluated and compared with that of a hard-decision detector and MLSD over an intersymbol interference channel. It is shown that a MAP detector provides superb performance even in a dispersive channel with high DT.

Since the control input of a feedback linearizable system depends on the diffeomorphism, the transient behavior of the controlled system is different. In this paper, we propose a switching rule for selecting a diffeomorphism so that the transient behavior is improved and the switched system is stable. Specifically, we show the sufficient condition for the exponential stability and the exponential upper bound of the trajectory of the switched system.

This paper presents an overview of research, development, standardization and regulation activities on ultra wideband (UWB) technologies in National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT). NICT started a project on UWB technologies since 2002, and organized UWB consortium in cooperation with more than 20 companies and 7 universities in Japan. Up to now, we have been conducting numerous UWB R&D including the following main works: i) key technology development such as MMIC chips, antennas and other devices, ii) measurement and channel modeling for UWB signal propagation, iii) standardization in international activities of IEEE 802.15, ITU-R TG1/8 as well as in a national regulatory committee of Ministry of Internal Affair and Communications (MIC). The UWB systems we have studied occupy frequency bands range from microwave band (3-5 GHz) to quasi-millimeter wave band (24-29 GHz). Various prototype UWB systems including multi-functional terminals have been developed. The output of NICT has been succeeded by industrial parties with with national and international standardization and regulation.

This paper proposes a new codec design method based on JPEG for face images and presents its application to face recognition. Quantization table is designed using the R-D optimization for the Yale face database. In order to use in the embedded systems, fast codec design is also considered. The proposed codec achieves better compression rates than JPEG codec for face images. In face recognition experiments using the linear discriminant analysis (LDA), the proposed codec shows better performance than JPEG codec.

Recently, efficient algorithms have been proposed for finding all characteristic curves of one-port piecewise-linear (PWL) resistive circuits. Using these algorithms, a middle scale one-port circuit can be represented by a PWL resistor that is neither voltage nor current controlled. By modeling often used one-port subcircuits by such resistors (macromodels), large scale circuits can be analyzed efficiently. In this paper, an efficient method is proposed for finding DC operating points of nonlinear circuits containing such neither voltage nor current controlled resistors using the SPICE-oriented approach. The proposed method can be easily implemented on SPICE without programming.

We developed an olfactory display to blend 8 component odors at any composition. The solenoid valves controlled by an algorithm with delta sigma modulation showed the sufficient capability. Then, we developed a system for presenting a movie together with scents. We actually made a movie with scents and evaluated it using questionnaire survey. It was found that the scene with smell attracted the experimental subjects' attention and, moreover, the contrast of the pleasant smell with the offensive one emphasized their attention. Furthermore, we established several guidelines for producing movies with scents.

This letter proposed a linear precoding scheme for the V-BLAST system that requires only knowledge of the statistical CSI; the transmitter does not need the instantaneous CSI. Power allocation on the eigenmodes of the transmit correlation matrix is one way to minimize bit error rate (BER). Simulation results show that the proposed precoding V-BLAST system provides a significant reduction in the BER compared with the conventional V-BLAST systems.

This paper introduces a block based motion estimation algorithm based on projection with adaptive window size selection. The blocks cannot match well if their corresponding 1D projection does not match well, with this as foundation 2D block matching problem is translated to a simpler 1D matching, which eliminates majority of potential pixel participation. This projection method is combined with adaptive window size selection in which, appropriate search window for each block is determined on the basis of motion vectors and prediction errors obtained for the previous block, which makes this novel method several times faster than exhaustive search with negligible performance degradation. Encoding QCIF size video by the proposed method results in reduction of computational complexity of motion estimation by roughly 45% and over all encoding by 23%, while maintaining image/video quality.

It is well known that the diversity gain attained by DCA (Dynamic Channel Allocation) is generally very high over OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing)-based broadband networks. This paper introduces a numerical approach for measuring the performance gain afforded by DCA. In the mathematical analysis, the property of order statistics is adopted to derive the upper bound of the expected throughput via the use of DCA. In the simulation, it was possible to achieve a gain of 5 dB by exploiting multi-user and spectral diversities when the number of users is 16 and the total number of subcarriers is 256.

In this paper, the relationship between correlation interval (CI) and estimate is investigated. Then a special correlation interval is explored that is adaptive to all levels of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and velocity conditions, and the mean square error is deduced. Finally, we propose an iterative algorithm that achieves the special correlation interval and calculates the Doppler spread by increasing the resolution on time-domain iteratively. Simulation results show that compared with conventional schemes, performance of the proposed algorithm is basically independent of velocity variation and less sensitive to SNR, especially in low SNR environments. It achieves high accurate estimation directly without any post-rectification.

Recently, Dutta and Barua proposed provably secure constant round authenticated group key agreement protocols in dynamic scenario. In this letter, we show that their Leave Protocol does not provide forward secrecy, that is, a leaving user can still obtain the new session key used in subsequent sessions.

In computer simulation of a large number of moving objects (MOs), how to enlarge Δt (the interval between the simulation time steps) without introducing causality errors is one of the primary keys to enhancing performance. Causality errors can be avoided by using the same Δt among related MOs when they are in the scene of detection (SoD). But in a large-scale MO simulation, MOs interact with one another in a complicated manner requiring a large calculation cost to predict the beginning time of SoD. In this paper we propose an event-aware dynamic time step synchronization method (DTSS) for distributed MO simulation, which increases Δt without introducing causality errors and speeds up the simulation. DTSS can be implemented with little calculation cost because: (1) DTSS does not calculate the beginning time of SoD exactly, but calculates the time for possible entry into SoD with a simple mechanisim, and (2) MO simulation consists of a "movement"-phase and a "detection"-phase in which the distance-calculation between MOs requires a heavy load, and DTSS utilizes the distance values to calculate Δt. In this paper, we also discuss a suitable HLA based time management mechanism to implement DTSS on a distributed computing environment. In the performance evaluation of DTSS, the calculation cost of DTSS is implemented by using the HLA suitable time management mechanism. The results show that DTSS can be executed within the ideal time plus its 1% over-cost when a basic scenario of war-game simulation is employed. Therefore if the ratio of SoD to the total simulation is small, the execution time is expected to decrease to nearly this ratio. We also introduce the criterion for determining when DTSS is superior to the conventional method by using the performance evaluation results. The results presented in this paper are effectively utilized when DTSS is applied to practical applications.

Pneumatic pressure, which is easy enough to be handled in comparison with hydraulic pressure and is endowed with high safety, is available for a power source of a robot arm to be utilized in concert with human beings to do various types of work. But pneumatic pressure is so low in comparison with hydraulic pressure that an air cylinder having a diameter long enough and stroke wide enough is required to obtain great output power. In this study, therefore, the investigation was made with layout of air cylinders and transmission mechanisms of the motion power directed toward the driving joints to be followed by development of a new humanoid robot arm with seven degrees of freedom in which air cylinders are compactly incorporated. To be concrete with this, contrivance was made with an endoskeleton structure allowing almost all of the structure materials of the individual arm joints to be shared by the air cylinder with incorporation of the air cylinder in the axes of the upper arm joint and forearm joints by paying attention to the fact that the cylinder itself has high strength. The evaluation experiments driving the robot arm referred to above were conducted by means of I-PD control. The results suggested that the mechanism of the robot with seven degrees of freedom having pneumatic actuators proposed in this study is useful as the humanoid robot arm. The quick and accurate motions were accomplished with I-PD control which is relatively easy to be dealt with but not suitable for non-linear actuator system.