In this paper, we proposed a new high-rate oblique deposition method using two sputtering sources to obtain SiO2 films for a liquid crystal alignment layer. One sputtering source that operates in a metal mode supplies Si atoms to a substrate, and the other source that operates in an oxide mode supplies oxygen radicals to a substrate. To reduce the gas pressure of a deposition chamber and make the two sputtering sources operate in different modes, the sputtering sources were separated from the deposition chamber with stainless meshes, and Ar and oxygen gases were introduced separately through the two sputtering sources, i.e., Ar gas was introduced through the Si supply source and oxygen gas was introduced through the oxygen radical source. When Ar gas of 30 sccm and oxygen gas of 4 sccm were introduced into the system, the gas pressure of the deposition chamber was maintained below 1.7 mTorr and the films deposited at an incidence angle of more than 70 showed an elongated inclined columnar structure. Under this condition, a deposition rate of 30 nm/min was realized even at an incidence angle above 70, where most of the Si atoms incident to the substrate were supplied by the Si supply source and the oxygen radical source supplied oxygen radicals and promoted the oxidation of the film.

Hierarchical approaches using multi-resolution images are well-known techniques to reduce the computational amount without degrading quality. One major issue in designing image processors is to design a memory system that supports parallel access with a simple interconnection network. The complexity of the interconnection network mainly depends on memory allocation; it maps pixels onto memory modules and determines the required number of memory modules. This paper presents a memory allocation method to minimize the number of memory modules for image processing using multi-resolution images. For efficient search, the proposed method exploits the regularity of window-type image processing. A practical example demonstrates that the number of memory modules is reduced to less than 14% that of conventional methods.

In this study, attenuated total reflection (ATR) utilizing surface plasmon (SP) excitation and SP emission lights were observed for the adsorption of polystyrene (PS) spheres and a water-soluble polymer. The PS spheres contained fluorescent dyes and exhibited red fluorescence. The ATR properties indicated film deposition with increasing number of adsorption cycles. The SP emission light induced by the fluorescent dye in the spheres was also measured, and an increase in the peak intensity, as well as an angle shift, was observed. Furthermore, the SP emission light spectra were investigated at various emission angles. The dispersion relation obtained from the SP emission light almost corresponded to that obtained from the ATR curves.

A nonlinear piecewise scheme for non-uniformity correction in infrared focal plane arrays (IRFPA) is presented. In this method, utilizing the nonlinear piecewise scheme of detector response has extended the larger dynamic range of IRFPA response and the higher correcting accuracy than the non-uniformity correction algorithms based on linear response model of IRFPA detector. Based on the principle of this method, the mathematical model is established. At last experimental results are given out. The results show that it has higher correction precision, fewer calculations, and is easier to implement real-time non-uniformity correction of IRFPA by hardware circuit.

In this paper, we give some resuts on primitive words, square-free words and disjunctive languages. We show that for a word u ∈Σ+, every element of λ(cp(u)) is d-primitive iff it is square-free, where cp(u) is the set of all cyclic-permutations of u, and λ(cp(u)) is the set of all primitive roots of it. Next we show that pmqn is a primitive word for every n, m ≥1 and primitive words p, q, under the condition that |p| = |q| and (m, n) ≠ (1, 1). We also give a condition of disjunctiveness for a language.

This paper describes a new color segmentation based on a normalized RGB chromaticity diagram for face detection. Face skin is extracted from color images using a coarse skin region with fixed boundaries followed by a fine skin region with variable boundaries. Two newly developed histograms that have prominent peaks of skin color and non-skin colors are employed to adjust the boundaries of the skin region. The proposed approach does not need a skin color model, which depends on a specific camera parameter and is usually limited to a particular environment condition, and no sample images are required. The experimental results using color face images of various races under varying lighting conditions and complex backgrounds, obtained from four different resources on the Internet, show a high detection rate of 87%. The results of the detection rate and computation time are comparable to the well known real-time face detection method proposed by Viola-Jones [11],[12].

In this paper, a new lifting-based shape-direction-adaptive discrete wavelet transform (SDA-DWT) which can be used for arbitrarily shaped segments is proposed. The SDA-DWT contains three major techniques: the lifting-based DWT, the adaptive directional technique, and the concept of object-based compression in MPEG-4. With SDA-DWT, the number of transformed coefficients is equal to the number of pixels in the arbitrarily shaped segment image, and the spatial correlation across subbands is well preserved. SDA-DWT also can locally adapt its filtering directions according to the texture orientations to improve energy compaction for images containing non-horizontal or non-vertical edge textures. SDA-DWT can be applied to any application that is wavelet based and the lifting technique provides much flexibility for hardware implementation. Experimental results show that, for still object images with rich orientation textures, SDA-DWT outperforms SA-DWT up to 5.88 dB in PSNR under 2.15-bpp (bit / object pixel) condition, and reduces the bit-budget up to 28.5% for lossless compression. SDA-DWT also outperforms DA-DWT up to 5.44 dB in PSNR under 3.28-bpp condition, and reduces the bit-budget up to 14.0%.

This paper describes a method for recognizing romanized Japanese words in learner English. They become noise and problematic in a variety of systems and tools for language learning and teaching including text analysis, spell checking, and grammatical error detection because they are Japanese words and thus mostly unknown to such systems and tools. A problem one encounters when recognizing romanized Japanese words in learner English is that the spelling rules of romanized Japanese words are often violated. To address this problem, the described method uses a clustering algorithm reinforced by a small set of rules. Experiments show that it achieves an F-measure of 0.879 and outperforms other methods. They also show that it only requires the target text and an English word list of reasonable size.

An indirectly reactive sputtering coater has been developed to deposit various high quality metallic and metal oxide films at high deposition rate. In this letter, several kinds of filters such as antireflection (AR) coating, IR-cut filter, and Rugate filter were deposited for the benchmark test of implemental capabilities. Our coater was established to be a powerful tool for both discrete multilayer and Rugate filters due to high stability and reproducibility of the refractive index and the deposition rate.

This paper proposes the Gramian-preserving frequency transformation for linear discrete-time state-space systems. In this frequency transformation, we replace each delay element of a discrete-time system with an allpass system that has a balanced realization. This approach can generate transformed systems that have the same controllability/observability Gramians as those of the original system. From this result, we show that the Gramian-preserving frequency transformation gives us transformed systems with different magnitude characteristics, but with the same structural property with respect to the Gramians as that of the original system. This paper also presents a simple method for realization of the Gramian-preserving frequency transformation. This method makes use of the cascaded normalized lattice structure of allpass systems.

A novel electronically tunable high input impedance voltage-mode multifunction filter with single inputs and three outputs employing two single-output-operational transconductance amplifiers, one differential difference current conveyor and two capacitors is proposed. The presented filter can be realized the highpass, bandpass and lowpass functions, simultaneously. The input of the filter exhibits high input impedance so that the synthesized filter can be cascaded without additional buffers. The circuit needs no any external resistors and employs two grounded capacitors, which is suitable for integrated circuit implementation.

Selecting transparently a proper network connection for voice communication will be a fundamental requirement in future multi-mode heterogeneous wireless network. This paper presented a smart session selection (S3) scheme to meet this requirement. Instead of selecting a best access network as in conventional Always Best Connected (ABC) paradigm, S3 enables users to select a best network connection, which consists of source and destination access network pair, to satisfy quality constraint and users' preference. To support S3, we develop a user profile to specify network connection priority. Meanwhile IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) is extended to make smart decision for users. Finally, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is used to recommend a network connection with assistance of user profile and IMS signaling. An example is illustrated to show that AHP can successfully select a good network connection that fulfills the requirement of users.

In this paper, we present and analyze a predictive closed-loop power control (CLPC) scheme which employs a comb-type sample arrangement to effectively compensate multiple power control group (PCG) delays over mobile fading channels. We consider both least squares and recursive least squares filters in our CLPC scheme. The effects of channel estimation error, prediction filter error, and power control bit transmission error on the performance of the proposed CLPC method along with competing non-predictive and predictive CLPC schemes are thoroughly investigated. Our results clearly indicate the superiority of the proposed scheme with its improved robustness under non-ideal conditions. Furthermore, we carry out a Monte-Carlo simulation study of a 55 square grid cellular network and evaluate the user capacity. Capacity improvements up to 90% are observed for a typical cellular network scenario.

The performance of the ordered successive interference cancellation (OSIC) signal detection method is well known to depend on the successful detection of the first layer. In a previous work, in an effort to mitigate the error propagation effect, all the constellation points were tried as the first layer symbol, thereby achieving a better performance. In this letter, we show that the selection of the first layer impacts the error performance significantly, and based on the observation, we propose a novel signal detection method QR-LRL. In the proposed work, the least reliable layer (LRL) is chosen to be the first layer, which is shown to be the best choice in terms of noise enhancement in detecting the other layers. Also, we discuss Log Likelihood Ratio (LLR) computation when the proposed method is used. Computer simulations confirm the efficacy of the proposed method.

A multi-agent object attention system is proposed, which is based on biologically inspired attractor selection model. Object attention is facilitated by using a video sequence and a depth map obtained through a compound-eye image sensor TOMBO. Robustness of the multi-agent system over environmental changes is enhanced by utilizing the biological model of adaptive response by attractor selection. To implement the proposed system, an efficient VLSI architecture is employed with reducing enormous computational costs and memory accesses required for depth map processing and multi-agent attractor selection process. According to the FPGA implementation result of the proposed object attention system, which is accomplished by using 7,063 slices, 640512 pixel input images can be processed in real-time with three agents at a rate of 9 fps in 48 MHz operation.

This paper gives a survey and comparison of algorithms for the detection of binary data in the presence of two-dimensional (2-D) intersymbol interference. This is a general problem of communication theory, because it can be applied to various practical problems in data storage and transmission. Major results on trellis-based detection algorithms, previously disparate are drawn together, and placed into a common framework. All algorithms have better complexity than optimal detection, and complexity is compared. On the one hand, many algorithms perform within 1.0 dB or better of optimal performance. On the other hand, none of these proposed algorithms can find the optimal solution at high SNR, which is surprising. Extensive discussion outlines further open problems.

We propose an antenna grouping method that improves the error rate performance of space-time codes in a wide range of mobility environments. The idea is to group symbols to antennas based on limited feedback from the mobile station to utilize all antennas. Our approach requires only two bits of feedback information to achieve better link performance and full rate for a certain four transmit antenna system. Numerical results confirm the bit/frame error gains over the Alamouti-based space-time block code and antenna subset selection strategies.

Since Bellare and Ristenpart showed a multi-property preserving domain extension transform, the problem of the construction for multi-property hash functions has been reduced to that of the construction for multi-property compression functions. However, the Davies-Meyer compression function that is commonly used for standard hash functions is not a multi-property compression function. That is, in the ideal cipher model, the Davies-Meyer compression function is collision resistant, but it is not indifferentiable from a random oracle. In this paper, we show that the compression function proposed by Lai and Massey is a multi-property compression function. In addition, we show that the simplified version of the Lai-Massey compression function is also a multi-property compression function. The use of these compression functions enables us to construct multi-property hash functions by the multi-property preserving domain extension transform.

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.

The properties of the surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED) are mainly decided by the surface-conduction electron emitters (SCE), which are normally made from the expensive metal Pd. In this study, we propose to use metal Zn instead of Pd as the emitter material. Both the device electrode and ZnO thin film are deposited by a sputter, and the electron emitters (SCE) are formed by the electro-forming process. The electron emission characteristic is obtained and the luminescence is observed.