Near-fields of electromagnetic waves scattered by slightly rough metal surfaces which support the surface plasmon mode at optical frequencies were studied theoretically by using the stochastic functional approach. Fidelity of near-field intensity images, defined by the correlation coefficient between the surface profile and the intensity of the scattered wave field, was investigated in order to discuss field distributions of the surface plasmon on complicated structures. We show that the fidelity strongly depends on the incident wavenumber and polarization when the incident wave corresponds to the surface plasmon mode.

In OFDM-CDMA down link (base-to-mobile) transmissions, each user's transmit data symbol is spread over a number of orthogonal sub-carriers using an orthogonal spreading sequence defined in the frequency-domain. The radio propagation channel is characterized by a frequency- and time-selective multipath fading channel (which is called a doubly selective multipath fading channel in this paper). Frequency-domain equalization is necessary at the receiver to restore orthogonality among different users. This requires accurate estimation of the time varying transfer function of the multipath channel. Furthermore, the noise enhancement due to orthogonality restoration degrades transmission performance. In this paper, pilot-aided threshold detection combining (TDC) is presented that can effectively suppress the noise enhancement. If the estimated channel gain is smaller than the detection threshold, it is replaced with the detection threshold in the frequency equalization. There exists an optimal threshold that can minimize the bit error rate (BER) for a given received Eb/N0. The average BER performance of OFDM-CDMA down link transmissions using the TDC is evaluated by computer simulations. It is found that TDC using optimum detection threshold can significantly reduce the BER floor and outperforms DS-CDMA with ideal rake combining.

An efficient method for calculating impedance matrix elements is proposed for analysis of microstrip structures with an arbitrary substrate thickness. Closed-form Green's functions are derived by applying the GPOF method to the remaining function after the extraction of the contributions of the surface wave pole, source dipole itself, and quasi-static (i.e.real images) from a spectral domain Green's function. When closed-form Green's functions are used in conjunction with rooftop-pulse subsectional basis functions and the razor testing function in an MoM with an MPIE formulation, the integrals appearing in the calculation procedure of the diagonal matrix elements are of two types. The first is x0n [e^(-jk0(x02 + y02 +a2)1/2)/(x02 + y02 +a2)1/2)]dx0dy0 (where n=0, 1) for the contribution of both the source dipole itself or real images where a=0 and complex images where a=complex constant, while the other is x0n H0(2)(kρp (x02 + y02)1/2)dx0dy0 for the contribution of the surface wave pole where kρp is a real pole due to the surface wave. Adopting a polar coordinate for the integral for both cases of n=0 and n=1 and performing analytical integrations for n=1 with respect to the variable x0 for both types not only removes the singularities but also drastically reduces the evaluation time for the numerical integration. In addition, the above numerical efficiency is also retained for the off-diagonal elements. To validate the proposed method, several numerical examples are presented.

The network duplicating can achieve significant improvements of the Local Area Network (LAN)'s performance, availability, and security. For LAN duplicating, a Dual-Path Ethernet Module (DPEM) is developed. Since a DPEM is simply located at the front end of any network device as a transparent add-on type independent hardware machine, it does not require sophisticated server reconfiguration. We examine the desirable properties and the characteristics on the Dual-LAN structure. Our evaluation results show that the developed scheme is more efficient than the conventional Single-LAN structures in various aspects.

In this paper, we propose an efficient quality-providing scheme to satisfy delay bound and loss ratio requirements for real-time video applications. To utilize network resources more efficiently while meeting service requirements, the network resources are dynamically allocated to each video connection based on the predicted traffic and currently provided quality of service degree. With the proposed bandwidth allocation method, a fair quality of service support in terms of packet loss ratio and maximum packet transfer delay to each video source can be achieved. To avoid possible quality violation by incoming new video connections, we present a connection admission control based on the provided QoS for existing connections and the measured traffic statistics. Simulation results show that our proposed dynamic method is able to provide accurate quality control.

In this paper, we propose and describe a new synchronizer for the FFT timing applicable to multi-carrier spread-spectrum (MC-SS) communication systems. The performance of the synchronizer is evaluated in terms of false- and miss-detection probabilities in the presence of additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) and Rayleigh fading.

We introduce stepwise resonant excitation by two-color optical near fields in order to detect Rb atoms with a slit-type detector. Blue fluorescence of the second D2 line is monitored for background-free detection. Feasibility of the method is shown from an experiment with a Rb vapor cell, where a sub-Doppler spectrum with the FWHM of 80 MHz is obtained. The detection efficiency is estimated at about 3% for cold Rb atoms.

This paper develops a modular synthesis algorithm for timed circuits that is dramatically accelerated by partial order reduction. This algorithm synthesizes each module in a hierarchical design individually. It utilizes partial order reduction to reduce the state space explored for the other modules by considering a single interleaving of concurrently enabled transitions. This approach better manages the state explosion problem resulting in a more than 2 order of magnitude reduction in synthesis time. The improved synthesis time enables the synthesis of a larger class of timed circuits than was previously possible.

The existing methods for reconstruction of a super-resolution image from undersampled and shubpixel shifted image sequence have two disadvantages. One is that most of them have to perform a lot of computations which lead to taking a lot of time and cannot meet the need of realtime processing. Another is that they cannot achieve satisfactory results in the case that the undersampling rate is too low. This paper considers applying a pyramid structure method to the super-resolution of the image sequence since it has some iterative optimization and parallel processing abilities. Based on the Iterative Back-Projection proposed by Peleg, a practical implementation, called Pyramid Iterative Back-Projection, is presented. The experiments and the error analysis show the effectiveness of this method. The image resolution can be improved better even in the case of severely undersampled images. In addition, the proposed method can be done in parallel and meet the need of real-time processing. The implementation framework of the method can be easily extended to the other general super-resolution methods.

Adaptive beamforming, using the Conjugate Gradient Normal Equation Residual problem, is applied to a base station array, in the UTRA-TDD up-link. A Wideband Directional Channel Model is used, characterising specific micro-cell, street-type scenarios. These differ in the number of mobile terminals, grouped and placed along the street axis, and on their distances to the base station. Time- and angle-of-arrival spreads, and on-the-air interference content are the main parameters inherently varied and analysed. The average beamforming gain and signal-to-noise ratio are evaluated, also varying the number of array elements. The high number of arriving correlated and closely correlated signals, together with the composed nature of the correlation matrix in the algorithm's cost function, result in that other than the MMSE solutions may lead to the best interference suppression, for the tested scenarios. Among the several weighted interfering power components, the most relevant is due to the delayed signals from all the other links. The combination of the number of arriving orthogonal codes, time-of-arrival and angle-of-arrival spreads condition beamforming performance: the number of array elements affect performance, depending on the mobile terminal distance to the base station, and on the number of active links; for short distances and large number of users, larger time-of-arrival spread degrades beamformer performance, over the opposing effect of angle-of-arrival spread; the number of active users affects beamforming gain especially in the case that delay spreads are larger, i.e., for shorter mobile terminal distances to the base station.

In this letter, we address geometry coding of 3-D mesh models. Using a joint prediction, the encoder predicts vertex positions in the layer traversal order. After we apply the joint prediction algorithm to eliminate redundancy among vertex positions using both position and angle values of neighboring triangles, we encode those prediction errors using a uniform quantizer and an entropy coder. The proposed scheme demonstrates improved coding efficiency for various VRML test data.

A shared binary decision diagram (SBDD) represents a multiple-output function, where nodes are shared among BDDs representing the various outputs. A partitioned SBDD consists of two or more SBDDs that share nodes. The separate SBDDs are optimized independently, often resulting in a reduction in the number of nodes over a single SBDD. We show a method for partitioning a single SBDD into two parts that reduces the node count. Among the benchmark functions tested, a node reduction of up to 23% is realized.

We propose linearization techniques for MMIC amplifiers. The key points of these techniques are increased linearity of a newly-developed low-distortion MESFET (LD-FET) and maximized IP3 by combining the LD-FET with a high-gain depletion-mode MESFET (D-FET) with no increase in power consumption. The LD-FET is characterized by its unique channel dopant-profile prepared by a buried p-type ion-implantation and double n-type ion-implantations with high- and low-acceleration energies. This FET achieves flatter behavior in terms of mutual conductance (gm) compared with conventional MESFETs irrespective of changes in the gate bias voltage (Vgs). A self-alignment/selective ion-implantation process enables the LD-FET and D-FET to be fabricated simultaneously. This process encourages IP3 maximization of the multi-stage amplifier by appropriately combining the advantages of the two differently characterized MESFETs. We fabricated and tested a highly linearized two-stage MMIC amplifier utilizing the proposed techniques, and found that its third-order intermodulation ratio (IMR) performance was 8.7 dB better than that of conventional MMIC amplifiers at an input signal level of -20 dBm with no increase in current dissipation. The configuration constructed by using the proposed techniques equivalently reduces the current dissipation of the second stage to 1/2.72 times that of the conventional configuration, which requires a 2.72 times larger D-FET at the second stage to obtain an 8.7-dB IMR improvement. Furthermore, we were able to improve the IMR by 3.5 dB by optimizing the gate bias conditions for the LD-FET. These results confirm the validity of the proposed techniques.

This paper proposes and investigates a coding and decoding scheme to achieve adaptive channel coding using a Finite State Machine (FSM) for Software Defined Radio (SDR). Adaptive channel coding and decoding systems that can switch between different coding rates and error correcting capabilities in order to adapt to changing applications and environments, are effective for SDR. However, in these systems, a receiver cannot always select the correct decoder which causes decoding errors, usually referred to as Decoder-Selection-Errors (DSE). We propose a trellis encoder estimation scheme that compensates for this problem. This scheme uses the circuit of FSM to limit the encoder transition and the Viterbi algorithm for maximum likelihood trellis encoder estimation. Computer simulations are applied for evaluating the DSE rate, the Bit Error Rate (BER) and Throughput of the proposed scheme in comparison with a conventional scheme.

In this paper, we consider the similar software cost models with periodic rejuvenation to Garg, Puliafito, Telek and Trivedi (1995) under the cost effectiveness criteria. First, an alternative model as well as the original one are analyzed by Markov regenerative processes. We derive analytically the optimal periodic software rejuvenation policies which maximize the cost-effectiveness in the steady state for two models. Further, we develop statistical non-parametric algorithms to estimate the optimal software rejuvenation policies, provided that the sample data to characterize the system failure times are given. Then, the total time on test (TTT) concept is used. In numerical examples, we compare the periodic software rejuvenation policy with the non-periodic one, and investigate the asymptotic properties of the non-parametric estimators for the optimal software rejuvenation policies through a simulation experiment.

Using the finite-difference time-domain method, we evaluated the performance of apertured near-field fiber probes with a double-tapered structure, which have exhibited, in recent experiments, a much higher collection efficiency of localized light in comparison with single-tapered probes. We clarified that this high collection efficiency could be attributed to the shortening of the cutoff region, and the efficient coupling to the guiding mode of the optical fiber. By reproducing the experimental results in terms of the spatial resolution and the collection efficiency as a function of the aperture diameter, our calculation was confirmed to be valid and useful for the design of probes in a variety of applications.

This paper presents a method of extracting car license plates captured from the arbitrary directions by using symmetry features. The generalized symmetry transform (GST) produces continuous features of symmetry between two points by combining locality constraint and reflectional symmetry, but its time complexity of GST is increased by the second power of the radius of a searching window. To achieve considerable reduction of this time complexity, we propose a scan line based GST (SLGST) which calculates the symmetry between a pair of edge pixels along the scan lines. Instead of calculating the global symmetry of a license plate, we assign the symmetry contribution acquired from SLGST to the corner point estimated from two edge points and their gradient orientations. The right angle tuned SLGST (RATSLGST) is newly proposed to detect the right angle corners more effectively. Image normalization by image warping is adopted to make such segmentation of license plate and later identification much easier. We also adopt the verifier that evaluates a candidate license plate to enhance extraction rate. Our experiments show that the proposed method for extracting perspectively distorted license plates is fairly reliable.

Recently, information display equipment such as a navigation system has often come to be installed in a vehicle, and a variety of useful information has been offered to the driver by voice and images while driving. The necessity of improving safety when the driver receives such information has come to be stressed. As one of the means of solving this problem, we can develop a system that presents the driving and road conditions information such as a lane changing car to the driver by using a warning sound. The purpose of our study is to clarify the effectiveness of an auditory display that uses spatial sounds on such a system. An experiment for measuring the driver's reaction time and eye movements to LED lighting during actual driving has been carried out to investigate whether the spatial sound can quicken the driver's operation and decrease human error. We evaluated the effectiveness by two measures, average reaction time and the number of largely delayed reactions. We considered that the average reaction time corresponds to the quickness of the driver's operation, and the number of largely delayed reactions corresponds to the probability of human error. As a result of the experiment, the use of directional sound clearly showed better performance than the use of monaural sound and no sound in the number of largely delayed reactions. Moreover, we analyzed the factors involved in delay of the reaction by the results of eye movement measurements. Consequently, it has been found that directional sound can decrease the number of the largely delayed reactions, which lead to an accident during actual driving.

The one-sample locally optimum rank detector test statistics for composite signals in multiplicative and signal-dependent noise are obtained. Since the one-sample locally optimum rank detector makes use of the sign statistics of observations as well as the rank statistics, both 'even' and 'odd' score functions have to be considered. Although the one-sample locally optimum rank detector requires two score functions while the two-sample detector requires only one score function, the one-sample detector requires fewer calculations since it has to rank fewer observations.

A virtual city, a virtual reality system to display an urban scene, is one of the most promising tools for ITS applications, including car navigation aids, shopping guides, and city planning, to name a few. This paper overviews our effort to create virtual cities through a sequence of images obtained with vision/range sensors. Our virtual city consists not of only stationary buildings but also of running and parked vehicles, which reflect the current activities in the real city. The first part of this paper describes how to construct still building images from a sequence of images. Here, we focus on methods employing an omni image camera that acquires images containing rays of 360 degrees viewing directions. The second part describes a system to display vehicle movement in the virtual city based on the image sequence given with a monitoring TV camera at an intersection. It also describes a preliminary step toward displaying illegal parked vehicles from information collected by a probe car.