We propose a new method of direct mode motion compensation for bi-directionally predicted pictures (B-pictures). The proposed direct mode system is utilized in extended multiple picture prediction, in which blocks in B-pictures are encoded by referring to previous B-pictures in addition to I- or P-pictures as forward reference pictures in a multiple picture prediction framework. The proposed direct mode is suitable for extended multiple picture prediction, since it always uses the immediately previous picture as the forward reference picture. In the simulation, our proposed method is implemented in the H.26L codec. The simulation results show that the extended multiple picture prediction employing the proposed direct mode can reduce the bit rate of B-pictures by up to nearly 13% compared to conventional multiple picture prediction under typical encoding conditions. We also evaluate the performance of the proposed direct mode with the extended multiple picture prediction under several different encoding conditions.

We propose a robust edge detection method based on independent component analysis (ICA). It is known that most of the basis functions extracted from natural images by ICA are sparse and similar to localized and oriented receptive fields, and in the proposed edge detection method, a target image is first transformed by ICA basis functions and then the edges are detected or reconstructed with sparse components only. Furthermore, by applying a shrinkage algorithm to filter out the components of noise in the ICA domain, we can readily obtain the sparse components of the original image, resulting in a kind of robust edge detection even for a noisy image with a very low SN ratio. The efficiency of the proposed method is demonstrated by experiments with some natural images.

In future high-speed networks, provision of diverse multimedia services with strict quality-of-service (QoS) requirements, such as bandwidth, delay and so on, is desired. QoS routing is a possible solution to handle these services. Generally, a path selection for QoS routing is formulated as a shortest path problem subject to multiple constraints. However, it is known to be NP-complete when more than one QoS constraint is imposed. As a result, many heuristic algorithms have been proposed so far. The authors proposed a path selection algorithm Fallback+ for QoS routing, which focuses not only on the path selection with multiple constraints but also on the efficient use of network resources. This paper proposes an enhanced version of Fallback+, named Enhanced Fallback+, where in a shrewd way, it keeps tentative paths produced in the conventional Fallback algorithm with Dijkstra's algorithm. Simulation experiments prove the excellent performance of Enhanced Fallback+, compared with the original Fallback+ and other existing path selection algorithms.

Integrated implementation of RF front-end components has been shown to posses many benefits. Furthermore, it presents a new way of approaching RF design. This paper will discuss the recent developments by the author's group in the field of RF front-end technology. This will include stand-alone RF front-end components such as a self-heterodyne mixer as well as more functional front-end circuitry such as digital beamformer arrays, retrodirective arrays and an array error calibration scheme.

This paper deals with an on-line identification method based on a radial basis function (RBF) network model for continuous-time nonlinear systems. The nonlinear term of the objective system is represented by the RBF network. In order to track the time-varying system parameters and nonlinear term, the recursive least-squares (RLS) method is combined in a bootstrap manner with the genetic algorithm (GA). The centers of the RBF are coded into binary bit strings and searched by the GA, while the system parameters of the linear terms and the weighting parameters of the RBF are updated by the RLS method. Numerical experiments are carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

In this paper, we propose a set of broadcast streaming protocols designed for unidirectional radio channels. Considering the limited size and implementation overhead on a mobile terminal, the proposed protocol set is almost compliant with the current mobile streaming protocols, i.e. 3GPP PSS (Packet-switched Streaming Service), except for that the proposed protocols are designed to work on a unidirectional downlink channel. This protocol set enables flexible layout rendering by SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language) in combination with SDP (Session Description Protocol), and reliable and synchronized static media (including still image and text) delivery by RTP (Real-time Transport Protocol) carousel. We present the prototype of this protocol set and measure its performance of video quality and waiting time for video presentation through a W-CDMA radio channel emulator and header compression nodes. From the experimental results, we show 1) trade-off between video quality and waiting time, 2) advantage and disadvantage of header compression, 3) effectiveness of synchronized transmission of SDP, SMIL, and I-frames of video objects, and 4) reliability of RTP-carousel. This protocol set is applicable to 3G MBMS (Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service) streaming service.

We propose a post-filter (digital filter applied after the correlator) to reduce multiple-access interference (MAI) in the correlator output in asynchronous communications. Optimum filter coefficients are derived for Markov and i.i.d. codes. It is shown that post-filter is not needed for Markov case. Variance of MAI is reduced in i.i.d. codes and it becomes equal to that of Markov codes; thus, both will have the same bit error rate (BER) performance. This post-filter reduces level of MAI in the correlator output for Gold codes as well.

Broadcasting in wireless mobile computing environments is an effective technique to disseminate information to a massive number of clients equipped with powerful, battery operated devices. To conserve the usage of energy, which is scarce resource, the information to be broadcast must be organized so that the client can selectively tune in at the desired portion of the broadcast. In this letter, the power efficient behavior of a predeclaration-based transaction processing in mobile broadcast environments is examined. The analytical studies have been performed to observe the effectiveness of predeclaration-based transaction processing combined with selective tuning ability in mobile broadcast environments.

This paper presents a simplified maximum likelihood detection (MLD) scheme for multiple-input and multiple-output spatial division multiplexing (MIMO-SDM) systems. In the scheme, ordered successive detection (OSD) is applied to multiple symbol candidates retained in the preceding stage to limit the number of symbol vector candidates. Accordingly, the subsequent MLD searches for the most likely signal vector among the limited symbol-vector candidates. Simulation results demonstrated that the proposed scheme provides the bit error rate performance close to that achieved by MLD while reducing the computational complexity.

This paper discusses stability boundaries in an electric power system with dc transmission based on a differential-algebraic equation (DAE) system. The DAE system is derived to analyze transient stability of the ac/dc power system: the differential equation represents the dynamics of the generator and the dc transmission, and the algebraic equation the active and reactive power relationship between the ac system and the dc transmission. In this paper complete characterization of stability boundaries of stable equilibrium points in the DAE system is derived based on an energy function for the associated singularly perturbed (SP) system. The obtained result completely describes global structures of the stability boundaries in solution space of the DAE system. In addition the characterization is confirmed via several numerical results with a stability boundary.

In this paper, we propose a design method of filters by successive projection (SP) method using multiple extreme frequency points based on Fritz John's theorem. In conventional SP method, only one extreme frequency point at which the deviation from the given specification is maximized is used in the update of the filter coefficients. Therefore, enormous amount of iteration numbers are necessary for research the solution which satisfies the given specification. In the proposed method, the updating coefficient using multiple extreme frequency points is possible by Fritz John's theorem. As a result, the solution converges less iteration number than the conventional SP method.

This paper provides a novel signal processing for detecting defects based on the spatio-temporal gradient analysis over the Lamb-wave field. The proposed processing classifies the wave field through the rank of the covariance matrix which is defined by the four-dimensional vector with following components: a vertical displacement, its vertical velocity, and a pair of out-of-plane shearing strains. The covariance matrix provides the information about defects. Its determinant, therefore, is proposed as the inhomogeneity-index of the object surface. In this study, the physical meanings of the proposed index are shown, the computational process in the Lamb-wave field near the defects is discussed and their behaviors are investigated through FDTD-simulations and acoustic experiments.

In this letter, adaptive multi-stage parallel interference cancellation (PIC) receiver is considered for multi-rate DS-CDMA system. In each stage of the adaptive multi-stage PIC receiver, multiple access interference (MAI) estimates are obtained by the sub-bit estimates from the previous stage and the adaptive weights for the sub-bit estimates. The adaptive weights are obtained by minimizing the mean squared error between the received signal and its estimate through normalized least mean square (LMS) algorithm. It is shown that the adaptive multi-stage PIC receiver achieves smaller BER than the matched filter receiver, multi-stage PIC receiver, and multi-stage partial PIC receiver for the multi-rate DS-CDMA system in a Rayleigh fading channel.

Active replication is a common approach to building highly available and reliable distributed software applications. The redundant nested invocation (RNI) problem arises when servers in a replicated group issues nested invocations to other server groups in response to a client invocation. Automatic suppression of RNI is always a desirable solution, yet it is usually a difficult design issue. If the system has multithreading support, the difficulties of implementation increase dramatically. Intuitively, to design a deterministic thread execution control mechanism is a possible approach. Unfortunately, some modern operating systems implement thread on kernel level for execution fairness. For the kernel thread case, modification on thread control implies modifying the operating system kernel. This approach loses system portability which is one of the important requirements of CORBA or middleware. In this work, we propose a mechanism to perform the auto-suppression of redundant nested invocation in an active replication fault-tolerant (FT) CORBA system. Besides the mechanism design, we discuss the design correctness semantic and the correctness proof of our design.

Arrival of the packet data is acknowledged by detecting the preambles of the received bursty packets. To increase system throughput and reduce transmission latency, a simple and robust signal detection algorithm is required. Furthermore, the threshold for signal detection must be set adaptively for different channel conditions. In this paper, we design and compare three signal detection algorithms for bursty packet systems.

Recently, Yeh, Shen, and Hwang proposed a smartcard-based one-time password authentication scheme as an improved version of S/KEY, and claimed that their scheme is superior to other similar schemes in security and efficiency. In this letter, we show that Yeh-Shen-Hwang's scheme is still vulnerable to a stolen-verifier attack that may cause serious security problems.

In this proposed method, CRC coding is only applied to data unit, not to padded zeros that are to fill up the fixed length of data unit. So improved frame error rate and protocol efficiency are possible instead of increment of receiver complexity.

We report a flexible and lightweight wearable microstrip antenna that can be sewn into clothing and hats. This antenna is composed of felt and a conductive woven fabric. Experimental results clearly show that this antenna operates normally as a conventional microstrip antenna, and is practical and feasible for personal satellite communications.

A new and fast fingerprint classification method based on direction patterns is presented in this paper. This method is developed to be applicable to today's embedded fingerprint authentication system, in which small area sensors are widely used. Direction patterns are well treated in the direction map at block level, where each block consists of 88 pixels. It is demonstrated that the search of directions pattern in specific area, generally called as pattern area, is able to classify fingerprints clearly and quickly. With our algorithm, the classification accuracy of 89% is achieved over 4000 images in the NIST-4 database, slightly lower than the conventional approaches. However, the classification speed is improved tremendously up to about 10 times as fast as conventional singular point approaches.

This paper presents a novel blind multiple access interference (MAI) suppression filter in DS/CDMA systems. The filter is adaptively updated by parallel projections onto a series of convex sets. These sets are defined based on the received signal as well as a priori knowledge about the desired user's signature. In order to achieve fast convergence and good performance at steady state, the adaptive projected subgradient method (Yamada et al., 2003) is applied. The proposed scheme also jointly estimates the desired signal amplitude and the filter coefficients based on an approximation of an EM type algorithm, following the original idea proposed by Park and Doherty, 1997. Simulation results highlight the fast convergence behavior and good performance at steady state of the proposed scheme.