Our group is exploring interactive multi- and hypermedia, especially applied to virtual and mixed reality multimodal groupware systems. We are researching user interfaces to control source→sink transmissions in synchronous groupware (like teleconferences, chatspaces, virtual concerts, etc.). We have developed two interfaces for privacy visualization of narrowcasting (selection) functions in collaborative virtual environments (CVES): for a workstation WIMP (windows/icon/menu/pointer) GUI (graphical user interface), and for networked mobile devices, 2.5- and 3rd-generation mobile phones. The interfaces are integrated with other CVE clients, interoperating with a heterogeneous multimodal groupware suite, including stereographic panoramic browsers and spatial audio backends & speaker arrays. The narrowcasting operations comprise an idiom for selective attention, presence, and privacy-- an infrastructure for rich conferencing capability.

In this paper, we propose a novel virtual display system for a real object surface by using a video projector, so that the viewer can feel as if digital images are printed on the real surface with arbitrary shape. This system consists of an uncalibrated camera and video projector connected to a same PC and creates a virtual object by rendering 2D contents preserved beforehand onto a white object in a real world via a projector. For geometry registration between the rendered image and the object surface correctly, we regard the object surface as a set of a number of small rectangular regions and perform geometry registration by calculating homographies between the projector image plane and the each divided regions. By using such a homography-based method, we can avoid calibration of a camera and a projector that is necessary in a conventional method. In this system, we perform following two processes. First of all, we acquire the status of the object surface from images which capture the scene that color-coded checker patterns are projected on it and generate image rendered on it without distortion by calculating homographies. After once the projection image is generated, the rendered image can be updated if the object surface moves, or refined when it is stationary by observing the object surface. By this second process, the system always offers more accurate display. In implementation, we demonstrate our system in various conditions. This system enables it to project them as if it is printed on a real paper surface of a book. By using this system, we expect the realization of a virtual museum or other industrial application.

This paper presents a novel analytical approach to evaluate the signaling load of Mobile IPv6 (MIPv6) and Hierarchical Mobile IPv6 (HMIPv6). Previous analytical approaches for IP mobility management have not provided a complete and general framework for the performance analysis; no consideration of either periodic binding refresh cost or extra packet tunneling cost from the viewpoint of IP mobility management, and no in-depth investigation with respect to various system parameters. In this paper, according to the proposed analytical approach, we derive the location update costs (i.e., the sum of binding update costs and binding refresh costs), packet tunneling costs, inside-domain signaling costs, outside-domain signaling costs, and total signaling costs, which are generated by a mobile node (MN) during its average domain residence time in case MIPv6 or HMIPv6 is deployed under the same network architecture, respectively. Moreover, based on these derived costs, we evaluate the impacts of various system parameters on the signaling costs generated by an MN in MIPv6 and HMIPv6. The aim of this paper is not to determine which protocol performs better, but evaluate the performance that can be expected for each protocol under the various conditions, broaden our deep understanding of the various parameters that may influence the performance, and provide insight for the deployment of the two protocols.

In this paper, we propose a framework for virtual reality, I2-NEXT, which enables users to interact with virtual objects by tangible objects in immersive networked virtual environment. The primary goal of this framework is to support rapid development of immersive and interactive virtual reality systems as well as various types of user interfaces. The proposed framework consists of user interface for interactions, immersive virtual environment, and networking interface. In this framework, we adopt several design patterns to guarantee that either developers or users (artists) can easily implement their VR applications without strong knowledge of VR techniques such as programming, libraries etc. One of the key features of this framework is the presence of the device module which supports a natural user interaction in a virtual environment. For example, the proposed framework provides users with tangible objects so that the users are able to manipulate virtual objects by touching real objects. The proposed framework also supports large scale stereoscopic display through clustering technique. To realize the effectiveness of the proposed framework, we have been developing an application for digital heritage reconstruction. Having been through development of the system, we believe that virtual reality technology is one of the promising technologies which enable users to experience realities in a digital space. Detailed explanations of each component and system architecture are presented.

Digital watermarking used for fingerprinting may receive a collusion attack; two or more users collude, compare their data, find a part of embedded watermarks, and make an unauthorized copy by masking their identities. In this paper, assuming that at most c users collude, we give a characterization of the fingerprinting codes that have the best security index in a sense of "(c,p/q)-secureness" proposed by Orihara et al. The characterization is expressed in terms of intersecting families of sets. Using a block design, we also show that a distributor of data can only find asymptotically a set of c users including at least one culprit, no matter how good fingerprinting code is used.

This paper presents an approach that uses the Viterbi algorithm in a stereo correspondence problem. We propose a matching process which is visualized as a trellis diagram to find the maximum a posterior result. The matching process is divided into two parts: matching the left scene to the right scene and matching the right scene to the left scene. The last result of stereo problem is selected based on the minimum error for uniqueness by a comparison between the results of the two parts of matching process. This makes the stereo matching possible without explicitly detecting occlusions. Moreover, this stereo matching algorithm can improve the accuracy of the disparity image, and it has an acceptable running time for practical applications since it uses a trellis diagram iteratively and bi-directionally. The complexity of our proposed method is shown approximately as O(N2P), in which N is the number of disparity, and P is the length of the epipolar line in both the left and right images. Our proposed method has been proved to be robust when applied to well-known samples of stereo images such as random dot, Pentagon, Tsukuba image, etc. It provides a 95.7 percent of accuracy in radius 1 (differing by 1) for the Tsukuba images.

An effective access control scheme in CDMA networks is proposed to provide multimedia services. The proposed scheme controls the access of multimedia traffic using the delay of data traffic and the transmission rate control of video traffic. Numerical results show that throughput and delay are improved by allowing delay of data traffic under low and medium traffic conditions, and by decreasing the transmission rate of video traffic under heavy traffic conditions.

We discuss side channel leakage from modular reduction for NIST recommended domain parameters. FIPS 186-2 has 5 recommended prime fields. These primes have a special form which is referred to as generalized Mersenne prime. These special form primes facilitate especially efficient implementation. A typical implementation of efficient modular reduction with such primes includes conditional reduction. A conditional reduction in modular reduction can constitute an information channel on the secret exponent. Several researchers have produced unified code for elliptic point addition and doubling in order to avoid a simple power analysis (SPA). However, Walter showed that SPA still be possible if Montgomery multiplication with conditional reduction is implemented within the unified code. In this paper we show SPA on the modular reduction with NIST recommended primes, combining with the unified code for elliptic point operations. As Walter stated, our results also indicate that even if the unified codes are implemented for elliptic point operations, underlying field operations should be implemented in constant time. The unified approach in itself can not be a countermeasure for side channel attacks.

In multi-carrier code division multiple access (MC-CDMA) uplink (mobile-to-base station), since different users' signals go through different frequency-selective fading channels, large multi-access interference (MAI) is produced. The use of frequency-domain equalization reception can only partially restore the orthogonality among different users' signals, resulting in a severe degradation in the bit error rate (BER) performance. Hence, frequency-domain pre-equalization transmission, which equalizes the MC-CDMA signal before transmission, is recently attracting attention. In this paper, we present a generalized minimum mean square error (GMMSE) frequency-domain pre-equalization transmission suitable for MC-CDMA/TDD uplink. The pre-equalization weight is derived based on the method of Lagrange multipliers. The theoretical analysis of BER performance using the GMMSE frequency-domain pre-equalization transmission in a frequency-selective Rayleigh fading channel is presented and the result is confirmed by computer simulation.

During devastating natural disasters, numerous people want to make calls to check on their families and friends in the stricken areas, but many call attempts on mobile cellular systems are blocked due to limited radio frequency resources. To reduce call blocking and enable as many people as possible to access mobile cellular systems, placing a limit on the holding time for each call has been studied [1],[2]. However, during a catastrophe, emergency calls, e.g., calls to fire, ambulance, or police services are also highly likely to increase and it is important that the holding time for these calls is not limited. A method of limiting call holding time to make provision for emergency calls while considering the needs of ordinary callers is proposed. In this method, called the HTL-E method, all calls are classified as emergency calls or other according to the numbers that are dialed or the terminal numbers that are given in advance to the particular terminals making emergency calls, and only the holding time of other calls is limited. The performance characteristics of the HTL-E method were evaluated using computer simulations. The results showed that it reduced the rates of blocking and forced call termination at handover considerably, without reducing the holding time for emergency calls. The blocking rate was almost equal for emergency and other calls. In addition, the HTL-E method handles fluctuations in the demand for emergency calls flexibly. A simple method of estimating the holding-time limit for other calls, which reduces the blocking rate for emergency and other calls to the normal rate for periods of increased call demand is also presented. The calculated results produced by this method agreed well with the simulation results.

In this paper, we present a new class of public-key cryptosystem (PKC) using algebraic coding on the basis of superimposition and randomness. The proposed PKC is featured by a generator matrix, in a characteristic form, where the generator matrix of an algebraic code is repeatedly used along with the generator matrix of a random code, as sub-matrices. This generator matrix, in the characteristic form, will be referred to as K-matrix. We show that the K-matrix yields the following advantages compared with the conventional schemes: (i) It realizes an abundant supply of PKCs, yielding more secure PKCs, (ii) It realizes a short public key.

We develop several tools to derive quadratic equations from algebraic S-boxes and to prove their linear independence. By applying them to all known almost perfect nonlinear (APN) power functions and the inverse function, we can estimate the resistance against algebraic attacks. As a result, we can show that APN functions have different resistance against algebraic attacks, and especially S-boxes with Gold or Kasami exponents have very weak resistance.

In this paper, we present the biometric authentication system based on the fusion of two user-friendly biometric modalities: Iris and Face. Using one biometric feature can lead to good results, but there is no reliable way to verify the classification. To achieve robust identification and verification we are combining two different biometric features. We specifically apply 2-D discrete wavelet transform to extract the feature sets of low dimensionality from the iris and face. And then to obtain Reduced Joint Feature Vector (RJFV) from these feature sets, Direct Linear Discriminant Analysis (DLDA) is used in our multimodal system. This system can operate in two modes: to identify a particular person or to verify a person's claimed identity. Our results for both cases show that the proposed method leads to a reliable person authentication system.

This paper examines polarimetric scattering characteristics caused by a dihedral corner reflector of finite size. The dihedral corner reflector is a basic model of double-bounce structure in urban area. The detailed scattering information serves the interpretation of Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (POLSAR) data analysis. The Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) method is utilized for the scattering calculation because of its simplicity and flexibility in the target shape modeling. This paper points out that there exists a stable double-bounce squint angle region both for perfect electric conductor (PEC) and dielectric corner reflectors. Beyond this stable squint angular region, the scattering characteristics become completely different from the assumed response. A criterion on the double-bounce scattering is proposed based on the physical optics (PO) approximation. The detailed analyses on the polarimetric index (co-polarization ratio) with respect to squint angle and an experimental result measured in an anechoic chamber are shown.

Syntax and prosody are closely related to each other. This paper is concerned with the problem of exploiting pause information for recovering dependency structures of read Japanese sentences. Our parser can handle both symbolic information such as dependency rule and numerical information such as the probability of dependency distance of a phrase in a unified way as linguistic information. In our past work, post-phrase pause that immediately succeeds a phrase in question was employed as prosodic information. In this paper, we employed two kinds of pauses in addition to the post-phrase pause: post-post-phrase pause that immediately succeeds the phrase that follows a phrase in question, and pre-phrase pause that immediately precedes a phrase in question. By combining the three kinds of pause information linearly with the optimal combination weights that were determined experimentally, the parsing accuracy was improved compared to the case where only the post-phrase pause was used as in our previous work. Linear combination of pause and fundamental frequency information yielded further improvement of parsing accuracy.

In this paper, we present the Tangible Media Control System (TMCS), which allows users to manipulate media contents through physical objects in an intuitive way. Currently, most people access digital media contents by exploiting GUI. However, it only provides limited manipulation of the contents. The proposed system, instead of a mouse and a keyboard, adopts two types of tangible objects, i.e. a RFID-enabled object and a tracker-embedded object. The TMCS enables users to easily access and control digital media contents through tangible objects. In addition, it supports an interactive media controller which can be used to synthesize media contents according to users' taste. It also offers personalized contents, which suits users' preferences, by exploiting context such as the users' profile and situational information. Accordingly, the TMCS demonstrates that tangible interfaces with context can provide more effective interfaces to satisfy users' demands. Therefore, the proposed system can be applied to various interactive applications such as multimedia education, entertainment, multimedia editor, etc.

There is redundancy in instruction sequences, which can be utilized for information hiding or digital watermarking. This study quantitatively examines the information capacity in the order of variables, basic blocks, and instructions in each basic block. Derived information density was 0.3% for reordering of basic blocks, 0.3% for reordering instructions in basic blocks, and 0.02% for reordering of global variables. The performance degradation caused by this method was less than 6.1%, and the increase in the object file size was less than 5.1%.

Extending the domain of the vector potential in the so-called Hallen's equation, four unknown constants are determined to satisfy the boundary conditions in the same way as the circuit theory, where the vector potential plays the leading role, from which the current density and the current itself are derived. Vanishing of the current density just outside the ends of the antenna is required. For a tube-shaped antenna with walls of infinitesimal thickness, further the current just inside the ends of the antenna should vanish, as a result, the current distribution becomes sinusoidal. Adoption of either the surface current distribution or axial current distribution incurs a crucial effect on the value of the currents calculated from the vector potential. The numerical results of the radiation impedance of a hslf-wave antenna show a tendency of consistency with that relatively newly obtained by employing the exact kernel. The problem on the nonsolvability of Hallen's equation is cleared up. Comments are given on the moment method in relation to the boundary value problems to recommend to add two more undecided constants to Hallen's equation.

An efficient adaptation technique of the delay is introduced for accomplishing more accurate adaptive linear equalization of nonminimum phase channels. It is focused that the filter structure and adaptation procedure of the adaptive Butler-Cantoni (ABC) equalizer is very suitable to deal with a variable delay for each iteration, compared with a classical adaptive linear transversal equalizer (LTE). We derive a cost function by comparing the system mismatch of an optimum equalizer coefficient vector with an equalizer coefficient vector with several delay settings. The cost function is square of difference of absolute values of the first element and the last element for the equalizer coefficient vector. The delay adaptation method based on the cost function is developed, which is involved with the ABC equalizer. The delay is adapted by checking the first and last elements of the equalizer coefficient vector and this results in an LTE providing a lower mean square error level than the other LTEs with the same order. We confirm the performance of the ABC equalizer with the delay adaptation method through computer simulations.

In this paper, we propose a method to solve the distributed optimal power flow problem and discuss the associated implementation. We have combined this method with a projected Jacobi (PJ) method and a modified parallel block scaled gradient (MPBSG) method possessing decomposition effects. With the decomposition, our method can be parallel processed and is computationally efficient. We have tested our method for distributed OPF problems on numerous power systems. As seen from the simulation results, our method achieved a dramatic speed-up ratio compared with the commercial IMSL subroutines.