This paper describes the design of a programmable QAM transceiver for VDSL applications. A 12-b DAC with 64-dB spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) at 75-MS/s and an 11-b ADC with 72.3-dB SFDR at 70-MS/s are integrated in this complete physical layer IC. A digital IIR notch filter is included in order to not interrupt existing amateur radio bands. The proposed dual loop AGC adjusts the gain of a variable gain amplifier (VGA) to obtain maximum SNR while avoiding saturation. Using several low power techniques, the total power consumption is reduced to 300-mW at 1.8-V core and 3.3-V I/O supplies. The transceiver is fabricated in a 0.18-µm CMOS process and the chip size is 5-mm 5-mm. This VDSL transceiver supports 13-Mbps data rate over a 9000-ft channel with a BER < 10-7.

Optical connectors for printed circuit board interfaces are required for the implementation of high-density multi-fiber connection. We have developed a fiber physical contact (FPC) connector to meet this requirement. The FPC connector has to ensure reliability when bare fibers are used. Moreover, the FPC connector must employ an established coupling mechanism and provide higher density connection. To meet these requirements, we developed a 16-fiber FPC connector that utilizes the MU connector coupling mechanism and a shutter. We connect the 16 fibers in the housing of the duplex MU connector. We developed compact shutters that open only when they come into contact with each other. Moreover, the developed FPC connector enables us to clamp the fibers to a plug without adhesive. This structure can greatly boost the production yield. We confirmed that the developed FPC connector has an easy connection operation and good optical performance, and we verified that the shutters open properly.

This letter describes the design and performance of a new ATM Adaptation Layer (AAL-UDP) for time-critical traffic over wireless ATM networks. The key ideas in the design consist of no discard at the AAL level and header protection with sequence number mechanism. The UDP/IP header is repeated for reliability, because it contains the most important information such as address and port number. The simulation results show that the AAL-UDP provides significant improvement in throughput as well as in application-level performance compared to the conventional AAL 5 case.

Ultrafast all optical switching using pulse trapping by 100 fs ultrashort soliton pulse across zero dispersion wavelength is investigated. The characteristics of pulse trapping are analyzed both experimentally and numerically. Using the pulse trapping, 1 THz ultrafast all optical switching is demonstrated experimentally. Arbitral one pulse is picked off from pulse train. Pulse trapping for CW signal is also demonstrated and ultrashort pulse is generated by pulse trapping. From these investigation, it is shown that ultrafast all optical switching up to 2 THz can be demonstrated using pulse trapping.

This paper proposes the use of the ratio of wavelet extrema numbers taken from the horizontal and vertical counts respectively as a texture feature, which is called aspect ratio of extrema number (AREN). We formulate the classification problem upon natural and synthesized texture images as an optimization problem and develop a coevolving approach to select both scalar wavelet and multiwavelet feature spaces of greater discriminatory power. Sequential searches and genetic algorithms (GAs) are comparatively investigated. The experiments using wavelet packet decompositions with the innovative packet-tree selection scheme ascertain that the classification accuracy of coevolutionary genetic algorithms (CGAs) is acceptable enough.

Over the last twenty years, 3-D audio technologies have advanced significantly despite the difficulties in implementing them. However, their performance in providing information, especially about the distance of a sound source, remains imperfect. Therefore, more researches on distance cues are indispensable to achieve more effective technology. In this paper, we try to show how the conventional cues change as the distance of a sound source varies, by means of measured impulse responses using the swept-sine method and modeled impulse responses using CATT Acoustics. It is well known that the conventional cues comprise loudness, spectral information, reverberation and binaural information. Among these, we focus on the reverberation cue to describe the distance of a sound source. Some researches have shown that reverberation can give listeners absolute distance information, but the implementation using this cue is unfeasible because there are no well-defined parameters. In this paper, we also try to validate reverberation as a feasible distance cue by suggesting early decay time (EDT) and clarity index, C80, as the parameters for controlling the perceived distance with the reverberation cue.

The configuration and operation of an all-optical 3R-regenerator for high-speed data transmission are described. An all-optical 3R-regenerator using a fiber-based optical switch is proposed and successfully demonstrated in a 160 Gbit/s 3R-regenerating transmission experiment.

The oscillation characteristics of a 40 GHz, 1-3 ps regeneratively and harmonically mode-locked erbium-doped fiber laser have been investigated in detail with respect to stability, linewidth, and mode hopping. We show that because the Q value of the microwave filter in the feedback loop is limited to around 1000, which is almost the same as that in a 10 GHz laser, the cavity length should not be greatly increased as this would result in as much as a fourfold increase in the number of longitudinal beat signals. We undertook a detailed stability analysis by using three cavity lengths, 60, 80, and 230 m. The 80 m long cavity greatly improved the long-term stability of the laser because the supermode noise was suppressed and there were not too many longitudinal modes. We measured the linewidth of the longitudinal mode of the laser using a heterodyne method, and it was less than 1 kHz. We also point out that there is a longitudinal mode hopping effect with time that is induced by very small changes in temperature.

We have developed the tunable dispersion compensator based on two twin linearly chirped fiber Bragg gratings with various temperature gradients. Controlling the temperature gradient over one of the twin fiber Bragg gratings by Peltier elements, the dispersion and the dispersion slope were changed independently and continuously. The dispersion and dispersion slope compensator has a large bandwidth of 8 nm and low group-delay ripple of < 4 ps in its chirped fiber Bragg gratings. We experimentally demonstrated a precise controllability of the dispersion and the dispersion slope using linear and parabolic temperature gradient. The dispersion and the dispersion slope changes were achieved continuously with -0.67 ps/nm/ and -0.14 ps/nm2/. The transmission characteristics of the dispersion slope compensation were examined using ultra short pulses in the fiber link. When the total dispersion was zero, the distorted pulse was restored back and the tail was significantly suppressed. 160 Gbit/s signals were also demonstrated over 140 km within 1 dB power penalty by using the dispersion slope compensator.

We demonstrate the wide-band (> 25-nm) long-distance (> 1000-km) chromatic dispersion compensation by midway spectral inversion (MSI) using a periodically-polled LiNbO3 device. In order to achieve a flat zero net dispersion, the fourth order dispersion of the single-mode fibers is canceled by MSI, while the third order dispersion is compensated for by the negative slope dispersion compensation fiber (NS-DCF). The second order dispersion is canceled out by both. The long distance propagation is realized by a double recirculation-loop system. A very flat zero dispersion is measured for the first time for over 1000-km single-mode fiber propagation with MSI dispersion compensation.

Many diverse methods have been developed in the field of biometric identification as a greater emphasis is placed on human-friendliness in the area of intelligent systems. One emerging method is the use of human footprint. However, in the previous research, there were some limitations resulting from the spatial resolution of sensors. One possible method to overcome this limitation is through the use additional information such as dynamic walking information in dynamic footprint. In this study, we suggest a new person recognition scheme based on overlapped foot shape and COP (Center Of Pressure) trajectory during one-step walking. And, we show the usefulness of the suggested method, obtaining a 98.6% recognition rate in our experiment with eleven people.

Recently, Muramatsu proposed source coding algorithms that use the randomness of a past sequence. The technique of his source coding algorithms is one method of constructing codes from the technique of random coding. By using his technique, we propose a channel coding algorithm with random numbers which can be observed by both the encoder and the decoder where the random numbers are independent of the messages to be transmitted. Then the proposed coding algorithm can transmit messages over a discrete memoryless channel up to the channel capacity with an arbitrarily small decoding error rate and arbitrarily small bits of random numbers per message transmission asymptotically.

The generalized fading amplitude can be expressed using the Nakagami-m distribution. The probability density function (PDF) for the sum of m-distributions is needed to evaluate performance of diversity combining technique such as equal gain combining (EGC) receiver. The approximated PDF for the sum of m-distributions gives simpler performance expression and reduces the computational complexity in evaluating EGC performance. We investigate the normalized approximation error of EGC performance. From the observed result, even for m > 2, the approximated BER is not accurate. For example, the normalized error is about 32% for m = 2 with 3 identical and independently distributed (IID) fading branches and 10 dB SNR.

We propose an optical packet switch (OPS) using a hybrid buffer structure for the contention resolution of asynchronous variable length packets. The hybrid buffer consists of a fiber delay line (FDL) buffer as the prime buffer and a shared electronic buffer as the supplementary buffer. For the performance evaluation, a modified void filling scheduling algorithm that can be applied to the OPS was proposed. Simulation results show that the use of the electronic buffer together with the FDL buffer significantly reduce the number of FDLs required for contention resolution and considerably lower packet loss.

General closed-form expressions are derived and analyzed for the exact bit error rate (BER) performance of the arbitrary rectangular Gray coded QAM signal in conjunction with maximal-ratio combining (MRC) diversity on frequency non-selective slow m-distributed Nakagami fading channel. The analyses consider four channel models, independent and identical, independent and nonidentical, identical but correlated, and arbitrary correlated fading. Numerical results demonstrate error performance improvement with the use of MRC diversity reception. The new expressions presented here are suitable for evaluating various cases of practical interest on wireless communication channels.

Braids have been studied by mathematicians for more than one century. Because they are so practical as to be used for cryptography, many cryptographers have been interested in them. For the last five years, there have been proposed some cryptographic applications and cryptanalyses in the area of braids. We survey the main examples of these results.

The suitability of a complex MIMO channel matrix for spatial multiplexing is verified experimentally in terms of the Demmel condition number. The instantaneous 2 2 MIMO-OFDM channel measurements in several indoor environments indicate the location dependency of the condition number. Wideband frequency characteristics are also analyzed to evaluate the applicability of spatial multiplexing.

This paper considers Quasi-Reduced ordered Multi-valued Decision Diagrams with k bits (QRMDD(k)s) to represent binary logic functions. Experimental results show relations between the values of k and the numbers of nodes, the memory sizes, the numbers of memory accesses, and area-time complexity for QRMDD(k). For many benchmark functions, the numbers of nodes and memory accesses for QRMDD(k)s are nearly equal to of the corresponding Quasi-Reduced ordered Binary Decision Diagrams (QRBDDs), and the memory sizes and the area-time complexities for QRMDD(k)s are minimum when k = 2 and k = 3-6, respectively.

In this paper, we derive expressions for the bit error probability of QPSK/OFDM on frequency-selective Rayleigh fading channels. In the OFDM system, ICI (interchannel interference) caused by Doppler spread of the channel degrades the error performance of the system and introduces the error floor even for coherent detection. Analysis results show that the error performance of QPSK/OFDM can be degraded as the normalized maximum Doppler frequency fD /Bsub is increased where fD is the maximum Doppler frequency and Bsub is the subchannel bandwidth. Computer simulations confirm the theoretical analysis results for BPSK and QPSK signals.

In distant-talking speech recognition, the recognition accuracy is seriously degraded by reverberation and environmental noise. A robust speech recognition technique in such environments, HMM separation and composition, has been described in. HMM separation estimates the model parameters of the acoustic transfer function using adaptation data uttered from an unknown position in noisy and reverberant environments, and HMM composition builds an HMM of noisy and reverberant speech, using the acoustic transfer function estimated by HMM separation. Previously, HMM separation has been applied to the acoustic transfer function based on a single Gaussian distribution. However the improvement was smaller than expected for the impulse response with long reverberations. This is because the variance of the acoustic transfer function in each frame increases, since the length of the impulse response of the room reverberation is longer than that of the spectral analysis window. In this paper, HMM separation is extended to estimate the acoustic transfer function based on the Gaussian mixture components in order to compensate for the greater variability of the acoustic transfer function, and the re-estimation formulae are derived. In addition, this paper introduces a technique to adapt the noise weight for each mel-spaced frequency in order to improve the performance of the HMM separation in the linear-spectral domain, since the use of the HMM separation in the linear-spectral domain sometimes causes a negative mean output due to the subtraction operation. The extended HMM separation is evaluated on distant-talking speech recognition tasks. The results of the experiments clarify the effectiveness of the proposed method.