We had recently measured a chromatic dispersion of optical fiber and a time delay of chirped fiber grating based on a bidirectional modulation of an optical intensity modulator. In this paper, we analyze characteristics of the chromatic dispersion measurement method using a bidirectional modulation of an optical intensity modulator, and give a detailed explanation about the selection of measurement setup parameters to achieve an accurate measurement. We also propose a modified measurement system to decrease relative intensity noise caused by the bidirectional transmission through a device under test.

A block-matching-based self-organizing map (BMSOM) is presented. Finding a winner is carried out for each block, which is a set of neurons arranged in square. The proposed learning process updates the reference vectors of all of the neurons in a winner block. Then, the degrees of vector modifications are mainly controlled by the size (i.e., the number of neurons) of the winner block. To prevent a single cluster with neurons from splitting into some disjointed clusters, the restriction of the block size is imposed in the beginning of learning. At the main stage, this restriction is canceled. In BMSOM learning, the size of a winner block does not always decrease monotonically. The formula used to update the reference vectors is basically uncontrolled by time. Therefore, even if a map is in a nonstationary environment, training the map is probably pursued without interruption to adjust time-controlled parameters such as learning rate. Numerical results demonstrate that the BMSOM makes it possible to improve the plasticity of maps in a nonstationary environment and incremental learning.

In this paper, three new ultra wideband (UWB) communication systems with quadrature-phase shift keying (QPSK) impulse modulation are proposed. First, direct-sequence (DS) multiple-access scheme is applied. The second proposed system is based on time-hopping (TH) multiple-access scheme. The last proposed system applies TH multiple-access scheme with QPSK impulse modulation and pulse position modulation (PPM). The conventional UWB communications as TH scheme with PPM modulation and DS scheme with binary-phase shift keying (BPSK) are used to compare. The simulation results show that all proposed UWB communication systems can provide obviously better performances compared with the conventional TH-PPM and DS-BPSK UWB communication systems. The comparisons in aspects of transmission bit rate and the number of users are also investigated.

Based on hybrid system theory, we propose a modeling and control approach for a multi-contact planar manipulation system, whereby a dexterous manipulation task is formulated as a mixed logic dynamical (MLD) model. The MLD model provides the possibility of carrying out the selection of modes, the timing for mode switching, and the determination of the continuous control input simultaneously in a systematical way. Model predictive control (MPC) is adopted for the synthesis of the dexterous hand manipulation system. The solution of the MPC can be found by using mixed integer quadric programming (MIQP) algorithm, and corresponds to the optimal motion of the hand manipulation. The validation of the proposed approach is shown by some simulation results.

In our previous work, the hyper H∞ filter is developed for tracking of unknown time-varying systems. Additionally, a fast algorithm, called the fast H∞ filter, of the hyper H∞ filter is derived on condition that the observation matrix has a shifting property. This algorithm has a computational complexity of O(N) where N is the dimension of the state vector. However, there still remains a possibility of deriving alternative forms of the hyper H∞ filter. In this work, a fast J-unitary form of the hyper H∞ filter is derived, providing a new H∞ fast algorithm, called the J-fast H∞ filter. The J-fast H∞ filter possesses a computational complexity of O(N), and the resulting algorithm is very amenable to parallel processing. The validity and performance of the derived algorithm are confirmed by computer simulations.

In order to judge the goodness of zero correlation zone sequence sets, a new concept, called ZCZ characteristic, is proposed. Then by defining a sequence operation, i.e. correlation product, and establishing its basic properties, a new approach to construct sets of sequences with a large zero correlation zone is presented.

A range top-k query returns the topmost k records in the order set by a measure attribute within a specified region of multi-dimensional data. The range top-k query is a powerful tool for analysis in spatial databases and data warehouse environments. In this paper, we propose an algorithm to answer the query by selectively traversing an aggregate R-tree having MAX as the aggregate values. The algorithm can execute the query by accessing only a small part of the leaf nodes within a query region. Therefore, it shows good query performance regardless of the size of the query region. We suggest an efficient pruning technique for the priority queue, which reduces the cost of handling the priority queue, and also propose an efficient technique for leaf node organization to reduce the number of node accesses to execute the range top-k queries.

The minimum initial marking problem MIM of Petri nets is described as follows: "Given a Petri net and a firing count vector X, find an initial marking M0, with the minimum total token number, for which there is a sequence δ of transitions such that each transition t appears exactly X(t) times in δ, the first transition is enabled at M0 and the rest can be fired one by one subsequently." This paper proposes two heuristic algorithms AAD and AMIM + and shows the following (1) and (2) through experimental results: (1) AAD is more capable than any other known algorithm; (2) AMIM + can produce M0, with a small number of tokens, even if other algorithms are too slow to compute M0 as the size of an input instance gets very large.

This paper proposes a new detection ordering scheme, which minimizes average error rate of the MIMO system with per antenna rate control. This paper shows an optimal scheme minimizing average error rate expressed by the Q function, and simplifies the optimal scheme by using the minimum equivalent SINR scaled by modulation indices, based on approximated error rate. In spite of reduced complexity, the simplified scheme demonstrates the almost same performance as the optimal scheme. Owing to the diversity of detection ordering, the proposed scheme has over 2 dB higher SNR gain at the BER of 10-3 than the existing ordering schemes in balanced array size systems.

We can model embedded systems as hybrid systems. Moreover, they are distributed and real-time systems. Therefore, it is important to specify and verify randomness and soft real-time properties. For the purpose of system verification, we formally define probabilistic linear hybrid automaton and its symbolic reachability analysis method. It can describe uncertainties and soft real-time characteristics.

In this paper, we present a game of dice that combines multi-party communication with a tangible interface. The game has been used as a testbed to study typical conversational behavior patterns in interactions between human users and synthetic agents. In particular, we were interested in the question to what extent the interaction with the agent can be considered as natural. As an evaluation criterion, we propose to investigate whether the communicative behaviors of humans differ when conversing with an agent as opposed to conversing with other humans.

The problem of multi-body motion segmentation is important in many computer vision applications. In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm called fuzzy k-subspace clustering for robust segmentation. The proposed method exploits the property that under orthographic camera model the tracked feature points of moving objects reside in multiple subspaces. We compute a partition of feature points into corresponding subspace clusters. First, we find a "soft partition" of feature points based on fuzzy k-subspace algorithm. The proposed fuzzy k-subspace algorithm iteratively minimizes the objective function using Weighted Singular Value Decomposition. Then the points with high partition confidence are gathered to form the subspace bases and the remaining points are classified using their distance to the bases. The proposed method can handle the case of missing data naturally, meaning that the feature points do not have to be visible throughout the sequence. The method is robust to noise and insensitive to initialization. Extensive experiments on synthetic and real data show the effectiveness of the proposed fuzzy k-subspace clustering algorithm.

This work proposes a technique to automatically obtain timing constraints for a given timed circuit to operate correctly. A designated set of delay parameters of a circuit are first set to sufficiently large bounds, and verification runs followed by failure analysis are repeated. Each verification run performs timed state space enumeration under the given delay bounds, and produces a failure trace if it exists. The failure trace is analyzed, and sufficient timing constraints to prevent the failure are obtained. Then, the delay bounds are tightened according to the timing constraints by using an ILP (Integer Linear Programming) solver. This process terminates when either some delay bounds under which no failure is detected are found or no new delay bounds to prevent the failures can be obtained. The experimental results using a naive implementation show that the proposed method can efficiently handle asynchronous benchmark circuits and nontrivial GasP circuits.

Access selection in future multiple radio access environments is considered in this paper from a new perspective, that of the consumer. A model is proposed for the automatic acquisition of user preferences to assist in access selection decision making. The proposed approach uses a two-level Bayesian C-Metanetwork that models individual user preferences in terms of affordable cost, acceptable level of quality of service and reputation of the access networks. User preferences under different contexts, such as leisure and business, are also considered. The model also adapts to the change of user preferences over time. A simulator has been developed to evaluate the proposed model and the simulation results are promising in terms of the proportion of correct preference predictions after a small number of training samples.

This paper describes an approach to generating speech with emotional expressivity and speaking style variability. The approach is based on a speaking style and emotional expression modeling technique for HMM-based speech synthesis. We first model several representative styles, each of which is a speaking style and/or an emotional expression, in an HMM-based speech synthesis framework. Then, to generate synthetic speech with an intermediate style from representative ones, we synthesize speech from a model obtained by interpolating representative style models using a model interpolation technique. We assess the style interpolation technique with subjective evaluation tests using four representative styles, i.e., neutral, joyful, sad, and rough in read speech and synthesized speech from models obtained by interpolating models for all combinations of two styles. The results show that speech synthesized from the interpolated model has a style in between the two representative ones. Moreover, we can control the degree of expressivity for speaking styles or emotions in synthesized speech by changing the interpolation ratio in interpolation between neutral and other representative styles. We also show that we can achieve style morphing in speech synthesis, namely, changing style smoothly from one representative style to another by gradually changing the interpolation ratio.

CR (Computed Radiography) is characterized by high sensitivity and wide dynamic range. Moreover, it has the advantage of being able to transfer exposed images directly to a computer-aided detection (CAD) system which is not possible using conventional film digitizer systems. This paper proposes a high-performance clustered microcalcification detection system for CR mammography. Before detecting and classifying candidate regions, the system preprocesses images with a normalization step to take into account various imaging conditions and to enhance microcalcifications with weak contrast. Large-scale experiments using images taken under various imaging conditions at seven hospitals were performed. According to analysis of the experimental results, the proposed system displays high performance. In particular, at a true positive detection rate of 97.1%, the false positive clusters average is only 0.4 per image. The introduction of geometrical features of each microcalcification for identifying true microcalcifications contributed to the performance improvement. One of the aims of this study was to develop a system for practical use. The results indicate that the proposed system is promising.

In virtue of great progress in computer graphics technologies, CG movies have been getting popular. However, cinematography techniques, which contribute to improving the contents' comprehensibility, need to be learned from professional experiences, and not easily acquired by non-professional people. This paper focuses on film cutting as one of the most important cinematography techniques in conversational scenes, and presents a system that automatically generates shot transitions to improve comprehensibility of CG contents. First, we propose a cognitive model of User Involvement serving as constraints on selecting shot transitions. Then, to examine the validity of the model, we analyze shot transitions in TV programs, and based on the analysis, we implement a CG contents creation system. Results of our preliminary evaluation experiment show the effectiveness of the proposed method, specifically in enhancing contents' comprehensibility.

This paper highlights some of our recent research efforts in designing and evaluating life-like characters that are capable of entertaining affective and social communication with human users. The key novelty of our approach is the use of human physiological information: first, as a method to evaluate the effect of life-like character behavior on a moment-to-moment basis, and second, as an input modality for a new generation of interface agents that we call 'physiologically perceptive' life-like characters. By exploiting the stream of primarily involuntary human responses, such as autonomic nervous system activity or eye movements, those characters are expected to respond to users' affective and social needs in a truly sensitive, and hence effective, friendly, and beneficial way.

Quality of Service (QoS)-constrained policy has an advantage in that it satisfies QoS requirements requested by users. We propose a Quorum based resource management scheme in Grid and resource reconfiguration algorithm based on temporal execution time estimation for satisfying QoS. We compare and evaluate the processing time and deviation of the resource reconfiguration algorithm using a Heart Hemodynamics analysis.

This letter introduces a modified multiband orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MB-OFDM) signal with low peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR). From the presented results, we can see that the modified MB-OFDM signal can be implemented with low PAPR. When MB-OFDM signals is equipped with a partial transmit sequence (PTS) approach, the PAPR of the modified MB-OFDM signals using two partial transmit sequences is almost the same to that of the ordinary MB-OFDM signals using four partial transmit sequences.