The authors present R2Power, an effective approach to the realizable reduction of RC networks with independent current sources. The proposed approach is based on the entrywise perturbation theory for diagonally dominant M-matrices. The accuracy of the node voltages of the reduced network, as compared to those of the original network, is maintained on the order of the entrywise perturbation performed during reduction. R2Power can be used to reduce the size of RC networks used to model the power networks of SoCs, for efficient IR-drop analysis. Experiments showed that R2Power reduced the size of industrial examples by more than 95%, with maximum relative node voltage errors of less than 0.012%.

A novel automatic quality factor (Q) tuning scheme for an low-power and wideband active-RC filter is presented. Although Q-tuning is effective to reduce the power consumption of wideband active-RC filters, there are several problems since the Q-tuning normally relies on a magnitude locked loop (MLL). MLL is not accurate due to the amplitude detection circuits, and occupied area and power consumption tends to be large due to its complexity. In addition, flexibility to the reference signal may be the problem, since the reference signal which has a fixed accurate frequency is required. In order to solve these problems, we propose a Q-tuning scheme, which does not require a MLL. Therefore, proposed Q-tuning scheme has good accuracy, small die area, low power consumption and flexibility to the reference signal. In our proposed scheme, Q is tuned by adjusting the phase of an integrator to 90 degrees. The phase of an integrator is adjusted by detecting and controlling the oscillation frequency of a two-stage ring-integrator to the cutoff frequency of a filter, since the phase shift of an integrator is exactly 90 degrees at the oscillation frequency. The frequency is easily detected and controlled by counters and variable resistors, respectively. The Q-tuning circuit with a 5th-order Chebyshev LPF is implemented in a 0.13 µm CMOS technology. The tuning circuit occupies 0.12 mm2 and consumes 2.6 mW from 1.2 V supply.

One method for achieving high-speed waveform digitizing uses time-interleaved A-D Converters (ADCs). It is known that, in this method, using multiple ADCs enables sampling at a rate higher than the sampling rate of the ADC being used. Degradation of the dynamic range, however, results from such factors as phase error in the sampling clock applied to the ADC, and mismatched frequency characteristics among the individual ADCs. This paper describes a method for correcting these mismatches using a digital signal processing (DSP) technique for automatic test equipment applications. This method can be applied to any number of interleaved ADCs, and it does not require any additional hardware; good correction and improved accuracy can be obtained simply by adding a little to the computing overhead.

When a store sells items to customers, the store wishes to determine the prices of the items to maximize its profit. Intuitively, if the store sells the items with low (resp. high) prices, the customers buy more (resp. less) items, which provides less profit to the store. So it would be hard for the store to decide the prices of items. Assume that the store has a set V of n items and there is a set E of m customers who wish to buy those items, and also assume that each item i ∈ V has the production cost di and each customer ej ∈ E has the valuation vj on the bundle ej ⊆ V of items. When the store sells an item i ∈ V at the price ri, the profit for the item i is pi=ri-di. The goal of the store is to decide the price of each item to maximize its total profit. We refer to this maximization problem as the item pricing problem. In most of the previous works, the item pricing problem was considered under the assumption that pi ≥ 0 for each i ∈ V, however, Balcan, et al. [In Proc. of WINE, LNCS 4858, 2007] introduced the notion of "loss-leader," and showed that the seller can get more total profit in the case that pi < 0 is allowed than in the case that pi < 0 is not allowed. In this paper, we derive approximation preserving reductions among several item pricing problems and show that all of them have algorithms with good approximation ratio.

We propose a new filter method for feature selection for SELDI-TOF mass spectrum datasets. In the method, a new relevance index was defined to represent the goodness of a feature by considering the distribution of samples based on the counts. The relevance index can be used to obtain the feature sets for classification. Our method can be applied to mass spectrum datasets with extremely high dimensions and process the clinical datasets with practical sizes in acceptable calculation time since it is based on simple counting of samples. The new method was applied to the three public mass spectrum datasets and showed better or comparable results than conventional filter methods.

For the purpose of the application of odor to information technology, we have developed an odor-emitting apparatus coupled with chemical capsules made of alginic acid polymer. This apparatus consists of a chemical capsule cartridge including chemical capsules of odor ingredients, valves to control odor emission, and a temperature control unit. Different odors can be easily emitted by using the apparatus. We have developed an integrated system of vision, audio and olfactory information in which odor strength can be controlled coinciding with on-screen moving images based on analytical results from the odor scanner.

The process of designing analogue circuits is formulated as a controlled dynamic system. For analysis of such system's properties it is suggested to use the concept of Lyapunov's function for a dynamic system. Various forms of Lyapunov's function are suggested. Analyzing the behavior of Lyapunov's function and its first derivative allowed us to determine significant correlation between this function's properties and processor time used to design the circuit. Numerical results prove the possibility of forecasting the behavior of various designing strategies and processor time based on the properties of Lyapunov's function for the process of designing the circuit.

This paper analyzes the spurious sources in DDS synthesizers and deduces the simple model of DDS output signal. The method of feeding pseudo-random noise into the phase accumulator for spurious reduction is discussed. A new method for spurious reduction by compensating for DAC integer nonlinearity is proposed with two DACs and a power combiner. One DAC generates the error signal to compensate for the other DAC INL. The factor how the amplitude error and the phase error between the two combined signals affect the spurious level is also analyzed. The experiment shows that the spurious reduction can be improved by at least 18 dB, which proves the validity of the DAC INL compensation method for the spurious reduction.

Break prediction is an important step in text-to-speech systems as break indices (BIs) have a great influence on how to correctly represent prosodic phrase boundaries. However, an accurate prediction is difficult since BIs are often chosen according to the meaning of a sentence or the reading style of the speaker. In Japanese, the prediction of an accentual phrase boundary (APB) and major phrase boundary (MPB) is particularly difficult. Thus, this paper presents a method to complement the prediction errors of an APB and MPB. First, we define a subtle BI in which it is difficult to decide between an APB and MPB clearly as a variable break (VB), and an explicit BI as a fixed break (FB). The VB is chosen using the classification and regression tree, and multiple prosodic targets in relation to the pith and duration are then generated. Finally, unit-selection is conducted using multiple prosodic targets. The experimental results show that the proposed method improves the naturalness of synthesized speech.

We present a novel frequency partitioning technique of fractional frequency reuse (FFR) that reduces the effect of co-channel interference and increases the capacity of OFDM systems. The usable sub-channel sets are classified into the common sub-channel sets for all cells and the dedicated sub-channel sets for specific cell types in FFR. The proposed fractional frequency reuse with ordering scheme (FFRO) can decrease the amount of interference in the common sub-channel sets by specially designing the sub-channel sets and the order of sub-channel assignment for specific cell types. Simulation results show that the proposed FFRO yields enhanced performance for both uniform and non-uniform distributions of traffic load.

This paper proposes a new charge pump to suppress spurious noise of phase-locked loops. The spurious noise is induced by charge injection generated from the parasitic capacitors associated with switches and the current-mismatch between the charging and discharging currents of the charge pump. A new charge pump is configured by adding an operational amplifier, a sample-and-hold circuit, and switches to a basic charge pump. During the idling time of the charge pump, the currents of the current sources are adjusted and the current-mismatch are reduced to 0.3%. Applying the proposed charge pump to a phase-locked loop, we can suppress the spurious noise by 18 dB compared with a PLL using a basic one.

In multiple antenna systems that use spatial multiplexing to raise transmission rates, it is preferable to use maximum likelihood (ML) detection to exploit the full receive diversity and minimize the error probability. In this paper, we present two tree based approximate ML detectors that use new two ordering criteria in conjunction with efficient search strategies. Unlike conventional tree detectors, the new detectors closely approximate the error performance of the exact ML detector while achieving a dramatic reduction in complexity. Moreover, they ensure a fixed detection delay and high level of parallelization in the tree search.

This paper describes an improved local search method for synthesizing arbitrary Multiple-Valued Logic (MVL) function. In our approach, the MVL function is mapped from its algebraic presentation (sum-of-products form) on a multiple-layered network based on the functional completeness property. The output of the network is evaluated based on two metrics of correctness and optimality. A local search embedded with chaotic dynamics is utilized to train the network in order to minimize the MVL functions. With the characteristics of pseudo-randomness, ergodicity and irregularity, both the search sequence and solution neighbourhood generated by chaotic variables enables the system to avoid local minimum settling and improves the solution quality. Simulation results based on 2-variable 4-valued MVL functions and some other large instances also show that the improved local search learning algorithm outperforms the traditional methods in terms of the correctness and the average number of product terms required to realize a given MVL function.

This letter proposes a neurobiological approach for action recognition. In this approach, actions are represented by a visual-neuron feature (VNF) based on a quantitative model of object representation in the primate visual cortex. A supervised classification technique is then used to classify the actions. The proposed VNF is invariant to affine translation and scaling of moving objects while maintaining action specificity. Moreover, it is robust to the deformation of actors. Experiments on publicly available action datasets demonstrate the proposed approach outperforms conventional action recognition models based on computer-vision features.

This letter proposes a new transceiver for OFDM systems based on Smooth Local Trigonometric Transform (LTT). In our transceiver, the transmitter is realized by first modulating the original serial data using a constellation mapper, then feeding the results into the inverse LTT modulator. Unlike the conventional DFT-OFDM system, which always uses the roll cosine function as its window function, the proposed system needs no additional window function for the reason that LTT transform includes a bell-shaped window function by itself. Moreover, each LTT-OFDM symbol has a much more rapid attenuation rate outside of the spectral bandwidth and better spectrum convergence. In the receiver, the original data is recovered by demodulating the received data using forward LTT. Comparative simulation results from the conventional DFT-OFDM system, the system we proposed, and the recently proposed DCT based OFDM system are discussed in terms of bit error rate (BER).

We propose a gap-less optical interconnection between BGA package and board for practical on-board, chip-to-chip optical interconnection. The optical interconnect consists of polymer optical waveguides, an integral mirror on the PWB (printed wiring board), an optical via hole through package, and a connection structure and method requiring no alignment process. Optical waveguide, mirror, waveguide extensions and alignment studs were fabricated on the PWB as horizontal optical interconnect. Coaxial structured optical vias with core and cladding were formed through the package and with precise holes for alignment. Two packages were attached onto the PWB using standard BGA technology utilizing passive optical alignment. The optical characteristics and 10 Gbit/s open-eye diagram were measured. A completely gap-less three dimensional optical interconnect between package-PWB-package was demonstrated.

Background modeling is one of the most challenging and time consuming tasks in motion detection from video sequence. This paper presents a background independent moving object segmentation algorithm utilizing the spatio-temporal information of the last three frames. Existing three-frame based methods face challenges due to the insignificant gradient information in the overlapping region of difference images and edge localization errors. These methods extract scattered moving edges and experience poor detection rate especially when objects with slow movement exist in the scene. Moreover, they are not much suitable for moving object segmentation and tracking. The proposed method solves these problems by representing edges as segments and applying a novel segment based flexible edge matching algorithm which makes use of gradient accumulation through distance transformation. Due to working with three most recent frames, the proposed method can adapt to changes in the environment. Segment based representation facilitates local geometric transformation and thus it can make proper use of flexible matching to provide an effective solution for tracking. To segment the moving object region from the detected moving edges, we introduce a watershed based algorithm followed by an iterative background removal procedure. Watershed based segmentation algorithm helps to extract moving object with more accurate boundary which eventually achieves higher coding efficiency in content based applications and ensures a good visual quality even in the limited bit rate multimedia communication.

A Feedback Error Learning (FEL) scheme was found to be applicable to joint angle control by Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) in our previous study. However, the FEL-FES controller had a problem in learning of the inverse dynamics model (IDM) in some cases. In this paper, methods of applying the FEL to FES control were examined in controlling 1-DOF movement of the wrist joint stimulating 2 muscles through computer simulation under several control conditions with several subject models. The problems in applying FEL to FES controller were suggested to be in restricting stimulation intensity to positive values between the minimum and the maximum intensities and in the case of very small output values of the IDM. Learning of the IDM was greatly improved by considering the IDM output range with setting the minimum ANN output value in calculating ANN connection weight change.

The block based motion estimation technique is adopted by various video coding standards to reduce the temporal redundancy in video sequences. The core of that technique is the search algorithm implemented to find the location of the best matched block. Indeed, the full search algorithm is the most straightforward and optimal but computationally demanding search algorithm. Consequently, many fast and suboptimal search algorithms have been proposed. Reduction of the number of location being searched is the approach used to decrease the computational load of full search. In this paper, hybridization between an adaptive search algorithm and the full search algorithm is proposed. The adaptive search algorithm benefits from the correlation within spatial and temporal adjacent blocks. At the same time, a feature domain based matching criteria is used to reduce the complexity resulting from applying the pixel based conventional criteria. It is shown that the proposed algorithm produces good quality performance and requires less computational time compared with popular block matching algorithms.

A new constant false alarm rate (CFAR) detection scheme based on the goodness-of-fit (GoF) test is proposed to deal with the problem of extended object detection in high resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images. The performance of this detector is compared with that of the traditional detectors using the MSTAR database. Results show that the proposed detector is superior to the traditional detectors in controlling false alarms in nonhomogeneous environment where boundaries widely exist.