Secure computation of the set intersection functionality allows n parties to find the intersection between their datasets without revealing anything else about them. An efficient protocol for such a task could have multiple potential applications in commerce, health care, and security. However, all currently known secure set intersection protocols for n > 2 parties have computational costs that are quadratic in the (maximum) number of entries in the dataset contributed by each party, making secure computation of the set intersection only practical for small datasets. In this paper, we describe the first multi-party protocol for securely computing the set intersection functionality with both the communication and the computation costs that are quasi-linear in the size of the datasets. For a fixed security parameter, our protocols require O(n2k) bits of communication and Õ(n2k) group multiplications per player in the malicious adversary setting, where k is the size of each dataset. Our protocol follows the basic idea of the protocol proposed by Kissner and Song, but we gain efficiency by using different representations of the polynomials associated with users' datasets and careful employment of algorithms that interpolate or evaluate polynomials on multiple points more efficiently. Moreover, the proposed protocol is robust. This means that the protocol outputs the desired result even if some corrupted players leave during the execution of the protocol.

This paper presents a no-reference (NR) based video-quality estimation method for compressed videos which apply inter-frame prediction. The proposed method does not need bitstream information. Only pixel information of decoded videos is used for the video-quality estimation. An activity value which indicates a variance of luminance values is calculated for every given-size pixel block. The activity difference between an intra-coded frame and its adjacent frame is calculated and is employed for the video-quality estimation. In addition, a blockiness level and a blur level are also estimated at every frame by analyzing pixel information only. The estimated blockiness level and blur level are also taken into account to improve quality-estimation accuracy in the proposed method. Experimental results show that the proposed method achieves accurate video-quality estimation without the original video which does not include any artifacts by the video compression. The correlation coefficient between subjective video quality and estimated quality is 0.925. The proposed method is suitable for automatic video-quality checks when service providers cannot access the original videos.

In recent years, local pattern based features have attracted increasing interest in object detection and recognition systems. Local Binary Pattern (LBP) feature is widely used in texture classification and face detection. But the original definition of LBP is not suitable for human detection. In this paper, we propose a novel feature named gradient local binary patterns (GLBP) for human detection. In this feature, original 256 local binary patterns are reduced to 56 patterns. These 56 patterns named uniform patterns are used for generating a 56-bin histogram. And gradient value of each pixel is set as the weight which is always same in LBP based features in histogram calculation to computing the values in 56 bins for histogram. Experiments are performed on INRIA dataset, which shows the proposal GLBP feature is discriminative than histogram of orientated gradient (HOG), Semantic Local Binary Patterns (S-LBP) and histogram of template (HOT). In our experiments, the window size is fixed. That means the performance can be improved by boosting methods. And the computation of GLBP feature is parallel, which make it easy for hardware acceleration. These factors make GLBP feature possible for real-time pedestrian detection.

In the literature, two connectivity-based distributed clustering schemes exist: CDC (Connectivity-based Distributed node Clustering scheme) and SDC (SCM-based Distributed Clustering). While CDC and SDC have mechanisms for maintaining clusters against nodes joining and leaving, neither method assumes that frequent changes occur in the network topology. In this paper, we propose a lightweight distributed clustering method that we term SBDC (Schelling-Based Distributed Clustering) since this scheme is derived from Schelling's model – a popular segregation model in sociology. We evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed SBDC in an environment where frequent changes arise in the network topology. Our simulation results show that SBDC outperforms CDC and SDC under frequent changes in network topology caused by high node mobility.

Multimedia transactions between vehicles are expected to become a promising application in VANETs but security is a fundamental issue that must be resolved before such transactions can become practical and trusted. Existing certificate-based digital signature schemes are ineffective for ensuring the security of multimedia transactions in VANETs. This ineffectiveness exists because there is no guarantee that (1) vehicles can download the latest certificate revocation lists or that (2) vehicles can complete a multimedia transaction before leaving their communication range. These two problems result, respectively, from a lack of infrastructure and from the inconsistent connectivity inherent in VANETs. In this paper, we propose a digital signature approach that combines a certificateless signature scheme and short-lived public keys to alleviate these problems. We then propose a security protocol that uses the proposed signature approach for multimedia transactions between vehicles. The proposed protocol enables vehicles to trade in multimedia resources without an online trust authority. We provide an analytical approach to optimizing the security of the proposed protocol. The security and performance of our protocol are evaluated via simulation and theoretical analysis. Based on these evaluations, we contend that the proposed protocol is practical for multimedia transactions in VANETs in terms of security and performance.

In DC/DC converters with low output voltage and high output current, the technique of synchronous rectification is widely used for improving the output efficiency. However, SR buck converters can experience the abnormal phenomenon called “self turn-on” which will occur in the low-side switch under some circuit conditions. “Self turn-on” is a malfunction of the low-side switch, basically caused by the resonance of the parasitic inductance and the parasitic capacitance. It results in noticeable power dissipation. In this paper, the phenomenon will be clearly described and investigated. With the theoretical analysis and the experimental verification, strategies that can suppress this phenomenon are proposed.

In order to realize millimeter-wave (MMW) 3-D system-in-package (SiP) front-end modules, we propose a 60-GHz band copper ball vertical interconnection structure, which interconnects between vertically stacked substrates. The structure enables ICs to be placed between the vertically stacked substrates. Since the diameter of the copper balls must exceed the thickness of the ICs, the distance between the substrates in the modules is larger than that of the flip-chip interconnection widely used in the MMW-band. Therefore, the conventional flip-chip interconnection does not scale for the interconnection between the substrates in MMW 3-D SiP front-end modules. The layout of grounded copper balls and the patterns of inner ground layers in the upper/lower substrates are designed using 3-D electromagnetic field simulation. The designed structure allows less than 1 dB transmission loss up to 71.1 GHz, compared with a through transmission line. The result is verified with fabrication and measurement and confirms the feasibility of MMW 3-D SiP front-end modules.

Extracting named entities (NEs) and their relations is more difficult in Thai than in other languages due to several Thai specific characteristics, including no explicit boundaries for words, phrases and sentences; few case markers and modifier clues; high ambiguity in compound words and serial verbs; and flexible word orders. Unlike most previous works which focused on NE relations of specific actions, such as work_for, live_in, located_in, and kill, this paper proposes more general types of NE relations, called predicate-oriented relation (PoR), where an extracted action part (verb) is used as a core component to associate related named entities extracted from Thai Texts. Lacking a practical parser for the Thai language, we present three types of surface features, i.e. punctuation marks (such as token spaces), entity types and the number of entities and then apply five alternative commonly used learning schemes to investigate their performance on predicate-oriented relation extraction. The experimental results show that our approach achieves the F-measure of 97.76%, 99.19%, 95.00% and 93.50% on four different types of predicate-oriented relation (action-location, location-action, action-person and person-action) in crime-related news documents using a data set of 1,736 entity pairs. The effects of NE extraction techniques, feature sets and class unbalance on the performance of relation extraction are explored.

High frequency bands such as the 3-GHz band have received much attention as frequency resources for broadband mobile communication systems. Radio Frequency (RF) integrated antennas are considered to be useful as base station antennas in decreasing the feeding loss that is otherwise inevitable in high frequency bands and they ensure sufficient power for broadband transmission. One problem in actualizing RF integrated antennas is miniaturizing the duplexer, which is generally large, among the RF circuitry components. To downsize the duplexer, we consider separately locating the transmitter (Tx) and receiver (Rx) antennas. To suppress further the mutual coupling between the Tx and Rx antennas, we investigate a filter integrated antenna configuration. In this paper, we consider an aperture coupled patch antenna as the base antenna configuration and propose a new filter integrated antenna that comprises multiple rectangular elements installed between the coupling slot and radiation element of the Rx antenna. The simulation and measurement results confirm that the new antenna reduces the mutual coupling in the transmission frequency band up to 5.7 dB compared to the conventional slot coupled patch antenna configuration.

In this paper, a dual-band bandpass filter (BPF) of multilayer suspended stripline (SSL) structure and an SSL diplexer composed of a low-pass filter (LPF) and a high-pass filter (HPF) are proposed. Bandstop structure creating transmission zeros is adopted in the BPF and diplexer, enhancing the signal selectivity of the former and increasing the isolation between the diverting ports of the latter. The dual-band BPF possesses two distinct bandpass structures and a bandstop circuit, all laid on different metallic layers. The metallic layers together with the supporting substrates are vertically stacked up to save the circuit dimension. The LPF and HPF used in the diplexer structure are designed by a quasi-lumped approach, which the LC lumped-elements circuit models are developed to analyze filters' characteristics and to emulate their frequency responses. Half-wavelength resonating slots are employed in the diplexer's structure to increase the isolation between its two signal diverting ports. Experiments are conducted to verify the multilayer dual-band BPF and the diplexer design. Agreements are observed between the simulation and the measurement.

This work presents a real-time human detection system for VGA (Video Graphics Array, 640480) video, which well suits visual surveillance applications. To achieve high running speed and accuracy, firstly we design multiple fast scalar feature types on the gradient channels, and experimentally identify that NOGCF (Normalized Oriented Gradient Channel Feature) has better performance with Gentle AdaBoost in cascaded classifiers. A confidence measure for cascaded classifiers is developed and utilized in the subsequent tracking stage. Secondly, we propose to use speedup techniques including a detector pyramid for multi-scale detection and channel compression for integral channel calculation respectively. Thirdly, by integrating the detector's discrete detected humans and continuous detection confidence map, we employ a two-layer tracking by detection algorithm for further speedup and accuracy improvement. Compared with other methods, experiments show the system is significantly faster with 20 fps running speed in VGA video and has better accuracy as well.

In NGN standards, End Host, also referred to as Terminal Equipment (TE), holds an important place in end-to-end path performance. However, most researchers neglect TE performance when considering performance of end-to-end paths. As far as the authors' knowledge goes, no previous study has proposed a model for TE performance. This paper proposes a method for measuring performance of TE and model extraction based on measurement data. The measurement was made possible with the use of a special NPU (Network Processing Unit) implemented as a programmable NIC. Along with the probing itself, a framework for removing the skew between the NPU and OS is developed in this paper. The multidimensional analysis includes method of probing, packet size and background traffic volume, and studies their effect on TE performance. A method for extracting a generic TE model is proposed. The outcome of this research can be used for modelling TE in simulations and in modelling end-to-end performance when considering QoS in NGN.

A flexible and computationally efficient method for spectral analysis of sinusoidal signals using the Basis Pursuit De-Noising (BPDN) is proposed. This method estimates a slotted Auto-Correlation Function (ACF) and computes the spectrum as the sparse representation of the ACF in a dictionary of cosine functions. Simulation results illustrate flexibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.

We propose and demonstrate a simple and novel technique to accelerate the carrier injection/depletion processes in an RSOA by applying instantaneous injection/depletion currents at the transition edges of the modulation signal to force the carrier density to respond at a high speed and, as a result, to increase its modulation speed. We theoretically and experimentally show that, by using the proposed technique, it is possible to obtain 5 Gbit/s optical BPSK signal from an RSOA having a modulation bandwidth of only 0.9 GHz.

In this letter, a new method is proposed to solve the direction-of-arrivals (DOAs) estimation problem of coherently distributed sources based on the block-sparse signal model of compressed sensing (CS) and the convex optimization theory. We make use of a certain number of point sources and the CS array architecture to establish the compressive version of the discrete model of coherently distributed sources. The central DOA and the angular spread can be estimated simultaneously by solving a convex optimization problem which employs a joint norm constraint. As a result we can avoid the two-dimensional search used in conventional algorithms. Furthermore, the multiple-measurement-vectors (MMV) scenario is also considered to achieve robust estimation. The effectiveness of our method is confirmed by simulation results.

An asymmetric classifier based on kernel partial least squares is proposed for software defect prediction. This method improves the prediction performance on imbalanced data sets. The experimental results validate its effectiveness.

In this paper, we propose a method capable of shortening the distance from a noise detection microphone to a loudspeaker in active noise control system with non-minimum phase secondary path. The distance can be basically shortened by forming the noise control filter, which produces the secondary noise provided by the loudspeaker, with the cascade connection of a non-recursive filter and a recursive filter. The output of the recursive filter, however, diverges even when the secondary path includes only a minimum phase component. In this paper, we prevent the divergence by utilizing MINT (multi-input/output inverse theorem) method increasing the number of secondary paths than that of primary paths. MINT method, however, requires a large scale inverse matrix operation, which increases the processing cost. We hence propose a method reducing the processing cost. Actually, MINT method has only to be applied to the non-minimum phase components of the secondary paths. We hence extract the non-minimum phase components and then apply MINT method only to those. The order of the inverse matrix thereby decreases and the processing cost can be reduced. We finally show a simulation result demonstrating that the proposed method successfully works.

In this paper, we propose a switchable linear prediction (LP)/warped linear prediction (WLP) hybrid scheme for the transform coded excitation (TCX) coder, which is adopted as a core codec in AMR-WB+ and USAC. The proposed algorithm selects either an LP or WLP filter on a per-frame basis. To provide a smooth transitions between LP and WLP frames, a window switching scheme is developed using sine and rectangular windows. In addition, a Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM)-based classification module is used to determine the prediction mode. Through a subjective listening test it was confirmed that the proposed LP/WLP switching scheme offers improved sound quality.

We propose an anomaly detection method for finding patterns in network traffic that do not conform to legitimate (i.e., normal) behavior. The proposed method trains a baseline model describing the normal behavior of network traffic without using manually labeled traffic data. The trained baseline model is used as the basis for comparison with the audit network traffic. This anomaly detection works in an unsupervised manner through the use of time-periodic packet sampling, which is used in a manner that differs from its intended purpose – the lossy nature of packet sampling is used to extract normal packets from the unlabeled original traffic data. Evaluation using actual traffic traces showed that the proposed method has false positive and false negative rates in the detection of anomalies regarding TCP SYN packets comparable to those of a conventional method that uses manually labeled traffic data to train the baseline model. Performance variation due to the probabilistic nature of sampled traffic data is mitigated by using ensemble anomaly detection that collectively exploits multiple baseline models in parallel. Alarm sensitivity is adjusted for the intended use by using maximum- and minimum-based anomaly detection that effectively take advantage of the performance variations among the multiple baseline models. Testing using actual traffic traces showed that the proposed anomaly detection method performs as well as one using manually labeled traffic data and better than one using randomly sampled (unlabeled) traffic data.

To meet the demand for light sources for on-chip optical interconnections, we demonstrate the continuous-wave (CW) operation of photonic-crystal (PhC) nanocavity lasers at up to 89.8 by using InP buried heterostructures (BH). The wavelength of a PhC laser can be precisely designed over a wide range exceeding 100 nm by controlling the lattice constant of the PhC. The dynamic responses of the PhC laser are also demonstrated with a 3-dB bandwidth of over 7.0 GHz at 66.2. These results reveal the laser's availability for application to wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) optical interconnection on CMOS chips. We discuss the total bandwidths of future on-chip optical interconnections, and report the capabilities of PhC lasers.