In this paper we show some new look at large deviation theorems from the viewpoint of the information-spectrum (IS) methods, which has been first exploited in information theory, and also demonstrate a new basic formula for the large deviation rate function in general, which is expressed as a pair of the lower and upper IS rate functions. In particular, we are interested in establishing the general large deviation rate functions that are derivable as the Fenchel-Legendre transform of the cumulant generating function. The final goal is to show, under some mild condition, a necessary and sufficient condition for the IS rate function to be derivable as the Fenchel-Legendre transform of the cumulant generating function, i.e., to be a rate function of Gartner-Ellis type.

In this paper, BER (Bit Error Rate) performance in 22 MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output) spatial multiplexing systems under Rician fading channels is evaluated. We examine BER performances employing inverse channel detection (ICD) under Rician fading channels, adding the phase of the direct path and Rician factor as a parameter. The results clearly indicate that the phase of the direct path and Rician factor have a great influence on BER performances employing ICD under Rician fading channels.

In order to evaluate the effect of Nakagami-Rice fading on Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex (OFDM) signal transmission when the delay profile exceeds the guard interval, a simple prediction model is developed by extending the Equivalent Transmission-Path (ETP) model for Rayleigh fading. The validity of the model is demonstrated by comparing the calculated values of BER to those obtained by computer simulation. Using the newly developed ETP-OFDM model, digital transmission characteristics of the OFDM signal in a multipath environment when the delay profile exceeds the guard interval are shown as a function of K factor, delay spread, guard interval and OFDM symbol period.

We propose an effective voice-based gender identification method using a support vector machine (SVM). The SVM is a binary classification algorithm that classifies two groups by finding the voluntary nonlinear boundary in a feature space and is known to yield high classification performance. In the present work, we compare the identification performance of the SVM with that of a Gaussian mixture model (GMM)-based method using the mel frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC). A novel approach of incorporating a features fusion scheme based on a combination of the MFCC and the fundamental frequency is proposed with the aim of improving the performance of gender identification. Experimental results demonstrate that the gender identification performance using the SVM is significantly better than that of the GMM-based scheme. Moreover, the performance is substantially improved when the proposed features fusion technique is applied.

Liquid crystal (LC) lenses that have hole-patterned electrodes and are driven by two voltages used as imaging devices are reported. Two different LC lenses are applied in image formation systems. One LC lens is used with a polarizer in a relay lens scope, and another LC lens that is polarization independent is used in a TV lens. Both LC lenses play roles of focusing elements in lens systems; objects are separately brought into focus by the LC lenses. Very sharp black-and-white and color images are formed by the systems.

In next generation mobile multimedia communications, different wireless access networks are expected to cooperate. However, it is a challenging task to choose an optimal transmission path in this scenario. This paper focuses on the problem of selecting the optimal access network for multicast services in the cooperative mobile and broadcasting networks. An algorithm is proposed, which considers multiple decision factors and multiple optimization objectives. An analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method is applied to schedule the service queue and an artificial neural network (ANN) is used to improve the flexibility of the algorithm. Simulation results show that by applying the AHP method, a group of weight ratios can be obtained to improve the performance of multiple objectives. And ANN method is effective to adaptively adjust weight ratios when users' new waiting threshold is generated.

The authors have demonstrated the local alignment of nematic liquid crystal with local micro-grating structure fabricated by the curing of an ultraviolet curable material via a three dimensional micro-fabrication technique known as two photon excitation direct laser writing [1]. The molecular alignment of the nematic liquid crystals on the fabricated micro-grating structures was firstly investigated by the observations of a local twisted nematic region in a liquid crystal cell made of a substrate with locally fabricated micro-grating structure and a counter substrate with rubbed polyimide. The optical polarizing microscope observation of the micro-grating structures indicated that liquid crystals molecules have aligned parallel to the grooves of the micro-grating structure and that local alignment was successfully achieved. The alignment characteristics of the liquid crystals on these micro-gratings was also investigated and discussed quantitatively in details through the measurement of anchoring energy by the conventional torque balance method and the Berreman method. The azimuthal anchoring energy for the micro-grating was found to be in the order of 10-6 J/m2 and inversely proportional to the grating period.

This paper analyzes the limitations of the multihoming support in the Proxy Mobile IPv6 protocol, then proposes an enhanced multihoming support scheme based on a per-interface address configuration method. The proposed scheme can provide a more flexible multihoming support and also maintain application session continuity during a handoff between two interfaces by using IPv6 extension headers. Plus, flow distribution with filters is also used to realize the advantages of multihoming. Simulation results with the OPNET validate the proposed multihoming support scheme for convergent networks.

This letter presents an efficient adaptive beamformer to deal with the multipath environments created by signal source scatterings. To improve the performance possible with the fixed forgetting factor, the regular adaptive forgetting factor algorithm is derived and applied to the subarray recursive least squares (RLS) beamforming. Simulations confirm that the proposed scheme has better performance than not only the conventional RLS algorithm but also the subarray RLS and adaptive forgetting factor RLS algorithms.

With the ubiquitous application of Internet and wireless networks, H.264 video communication becomes more and more common. However, due to the high-efficiently predictive coding and the variable length entropy coding, it is more sensitive to transmission errors. The current error concealment (EC) scheme, which utilizes the spatial and temporal correlations to conceal the corrupted region, produces unsatisfied boundary artifacts. In this paper, first we propose variable block size error concealment (VBSEC) scheme inspired by variable block size motion estimation (VBSME) in H.264. This scheme provides four EC modes and four sub-block partitions. The whole corrupted macro-block (MB) will be divided into variable block size adaptively according to the actual motion. More precise motion vectors (MV) will be predicted for each sub-block. Then MV refinement (MVR) scheme is proposed to refine the MV of the heterogeneous sub-block by utilizing three step search (TSS) algorithm adaptively. Both VBSEC and MVR are based on our directional spatio-temporal boundary matching algorithm (DSTBMA). By utilizing these schemes, we can reconstruct the corrupted MB in the inter frame more accurately. The experimental results show that our proposed scheme can obtain better objective and subjective EC quality, respectively compared with the boundary matching algorithm (BMA) adopted in the JM11.0 reference software, spatio-temporal boundary matching algorithm (STBMA) and other comparable EC methods.

In an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) receiver with direct-conversion architecture, carrier frequency offset (CFO) and direct-current offset (DCO), which cause severe performance degradation, need to be estimated and compensated. Recently, by investigating the subspace of OFDM signal after coarse DCO cancellation using time-domain average, we have proposed a nullspace-based estimator (NSE), for blind CFO and DCO estimation. In this paper, based on an analysis of the cost function of the NSE, we propose a common nullspace based estimator (CNSE). It is shown that by matching the frequency occupation of the received OFDM signal with CFO and DCO, the CNSE can achieve the full performance potential of the NSE. Also, the performance analysis reveals that the CNSE can asymptotically approach the Cramer-Rao bound (CRB) of OFDM CFO estimation in the presence of DCO. Finally the analysis results are confirmed by simulations.

The frequency domain binaural model (FDBM) has been previously proposed to localize multiple sound sources. Since the method requires only two input signals and uses interaural phase and level differences caused by the diffraction generated by the head, flexibility in application is very high when the head is considered as an object. When an object is symmetric with respect to the two microphones, the performance of sound source localization is degraded, as a human being has front-back confusion due to the symmetry in a median plane. This paper proposes to reduce the degradation of performance on sound source localization by a combination of the microphone pair outputs using the FDBM. The proposed method is evaluated by applying to a security camera system, and the results showed performance improvement in sound source localization because of reducing the number of cones of confusion.

A scheme of the superimposing additional data signal in the time domain for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system is proposed. The proposed scheme has a tradeoff between the degree of freedom for data transmission and inter-carrier interference (ICI), which provides the flexibility of data rate decision when the finite number of modulation and coding levels are available for the given channel condition. A performance analysis of the bit error rate (BER) confirms this tradeoff. In simulation on the practical environment which experiences multipath fading and error of channel estimation, the results show that much improvement of spectral efficiency has been achieved while keeping as nearly good bit error rate as the conventional OFDM. Moreover, the single carrier transmission of the superimposed additional data in the time domain also gives an opportunity of boosting the signal power up to the peak to average power ratio (PAPR) margin of the OFDM system.

In this paper, we propose a coding method for camera raw images with high dynamic ranges. Our encoder has two layers. In the first layer, 24 bit low dynamic range image is encoded by a conventional codec, and then the residual image that represents the difference between the raw image and its approximation is encoded in the second layer. The approximation is derived by a polynomial fitting. The main advantage of this approach is that applying the polynomial model reduces the correlation between the raw and 24 bit images, which increases coding efficiency. Experiments shows compression efficiency is significantly improved by taking an inverse tone mapping into account.

We developed a method for extracting feature patterns from multivariate data using a network of coupled phase oscillators subject to an analogue of the Kuramoto model for collective synchronization. Our method may be called data synchronization. We applied data synchronization to the care-needs-certification data, provided by Otsu City as a historical old city near Kyoto City, in the Japanese public long-term care insurance program to find the trend of the major patterns of the aging process for elderly people needing nursing care.

In this paper, we shall describe about a fuzzy estimation theory based on the concept of set-valued operators, suitable for available operation of extremely complicated large-scale network systems. Fundamental conditions for availability of system behaviors of such network systems are clarified in a form of β-level fixed point theorem for system of fuzzy-set-valued operators. Here, the proof of this theorem is accomplished in a weak topology introduced into the Banach space.

Autonomous Decentralized System (ADS) has been making progress in these 31 years since it was proposed in 1977. During these long years in the rapidly advancing computer and communication technologies, the ADS concept has not been changed but its technologies have been growing in accordance with the change and diversity of the social, economical and personal requirements and through the globalization of the market and the restructuring organizations. The ADS technologies are systematized to cover all processes of system design, operation, maintenance and modification. This paper reviews the work done in fields of ADS in past 31 years from not only technological perspectives, but it also encompasses users requirements and value, system design, industrial activity, academic activity and standardization [1]-[26]. Moreover the new directions of the ADS are suggested.

Motivated by the recent works of coded cooperation this letter presents a composite signal structure based coded cooperation technique. Our proposed protocol performs well in both slow and fast fading whereas, conventional coded cooperation is ineffective in fast fading. We develop the bounds on BER and FER of our proposal. Simulations confirm our developed bound and shows that the proposed coded cooperation protocol outperforms direct transmission in both fast and slow fading environments.

Modern microprocessors achieve high application performance at the acceptable level of power dissipation. In terms of power to performance trade-off, the instruction window is particularly important. This is because enlarging the window size achieves high performance but naive scaling of the conventional instruction window can severely increase the complexity and power consumption. In this paper, we propose low-power instruction window techniques for contemporary microprocessors. First, the small reorder buffer (SROB) reduces power dissipation by deferred allocation and early release. The deferred allocation delays the SROB allocation of instructions until their all data dependencies are resolved. Then, the instructions are executed in program order and they are released faster from the SROB. This results in higher resource utilization and low power consumption. Second, we replace a conventional issue queue by a direct lookup table (DLT) with an efficient tag translation technique. The translation scheme resolves the instruction dependency, especially for the case of one producer to multiple consumers. The efficiency of the translation scheme stems from the fact that the vast majority of instruction dependency exists within a basic block. Experimental results show that our proposed design reduces the power consumption significantly for SPEC2000 benchmarks.

In this paper, we consider a collision detection problem of spheres which asks to detect all pairs of colliding spheres in a set of n spheres located in d-dimensional space. We propose a collision detection algorithm for spheres based on slab partitioning technique and a plane sweep method. We derive a theoretical upper bound on the time complexity of the algorithm. Our bound tells that if both the dimension and the maximum ratio of radii of two spheres are bounded, then our algorithm runs in O(n log n + K) time with O(n + K) space, where K denotes the number of pairs of colliding spheres.