This paper presents a method for markerless human motion capture using a single camera. It uses tree-based filtering to efficiently propagate a probability distribution over poses of a 3D body model. The pose vectors and associated shapes are arranged in a tree, which is constructed by hierarchical pairwise clustering, in order to efficiently evaluate the likelihood in each frame. A new likelihood function based on silhouette matching is proposed that improves the pose estimation of thinner body parts, i.e. the limbs. The dynamic model takes self-occlusion into account by increasing the variance of occluded body-parts, thus allowing for recovery when the body part reappears. We present two applications of our method that work in real-time on a Cell Broadband EngineTM: a computer game and a virtual clothing application.

In this letter, we propose a new energy efficient online routing algorithm for QoS-sensitive sensor networks. An important design principle underlying our algorithm is online decision making based on real time network estimation. This on-line approach gives adaptability and flexibility to solve a wide range of control tasks for efficient network performance. In addition, our distributed control paradigm is practical for real sensor network management. Simulation results indicate the superior performance of our algorithm between energy efficiency and QoS provisioning.

In this paper, we propose a novel solution to improving wireless channel quality of wireless local area networks (WLANs) in fast-mobile environments, which uses a media-access-control (MAC) layer approach: adaptive frame-length control and block acknowledgement (ACK). In fast-mobile environments, using short frame lengths can suppress channel estimation error and decrease frame errors. However, it increases the MAC overhead, resulting in decreased throughput. To solve this tradeoff, we combined block ACK, which is specified in IEEE802.11e as an optional function, with adaptive frame-length control. Although adaptive frame-length control considering this tradeoff has previously been investigated, the targets were different from WLANs using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) in fast-mobile environments. The MAC-overhead reduction using block ACK is suitable for our frame-length control because it does not change the frame format in the physical layer. Also, it is a new idea to use block ACK as a solution to improving channel quality in fast-mobile environments. In this paper, we evaluate our method through computer simulations and verify the effectiveness of adaptive frame-length control that can accommodate relative speeds.

The adaptive predistorter and the negative feedback system are known as methods to compensate for the nonlinear distortion of a power amplifier. Although the feedback method is a simple technique, its instability impedes the capability of high-feedback gain to achieve a high-compensation effect. On the other hand, the predistorter requires a long time for convergence of the adaptive predistorters. In this paper, we propose a nonlinear distortion compensation method for a narrow-band signal. In this method, an adaptive predistorter and negative feedback are combined. In addition, to shorten the convergence time to minimize nonlinear distortion, a variable step-size (VS) method is also applied to the algorithm to determine the parameters of the adaptive predistorter. Using computer simulations, we show that the proposed scheme achieves both five times faster convergence speed than that of the predistorter and three times higher permissible delay time in the feedback amplifier than that of a negative feedback only amplifier.

In this letter, we propose a coding mode selection method for the AMR-WB+ audio coder based on a decision tree. In order to reduce computation while maintaining good performance, decision tree classifier is adopted with the closed loop mode selection results as the target classification labels. The size of the decision tree is controlled by pruning, so the proposed method does not increase the memory requirement significantly. Through an evaluation test on a database covering both speech and music materials, the proposed method is found to achieve a much better mode selection accuracy compared with the open loop mode selection module in the AMR-WB+.

In this letter, we analyze the performance of limited feedback beamforming in a distributed antenna system. We propose a novel codebook design scheme to maximize a lower bound of the averaged effective signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), which is a function of the power of the signal and noise, the number of antennas, and the number of total feedback bits for characterizing the quantized channel vector. Simulations verify that the proposed scheme can provide effective capacity improvement.

The center-feed in a single-layer slotted waveguide array[1]-[3] is one of the key components in polarization division duplex (PDD) wireless systems. Two center-feed arrays with orthogonal polarization and boresight beams are orthogonally arranged side-by-side for transmission and reception, simultaneously. Each antenna has extremely high XPD (almost 50 dB in measurement) and a very high isolation (over 80 dB in measurement) between two arrays is observed provided the symmetry of slot arrangement is preserved [4]. Unfortunately, the area blocked by the center feed causes high sidelobe levels. This paper proposes the ridged cross-junction multiple-way power divider for realizing blockage reduction and symmetrical slot arrangement at the same time.

In this letter, we study the performance of the multiple-input multiple-output macrodiversity transmission with limited feedback. We modify the model of the quantized channel by Jindal [9] such that the phase ambiguity in the vector quantization procedure can be characterized. Using the modified model, we show that the conventional limited feedback methods cannot obtain the macrodiversity gain even with asymptotically large codebook size, and that the macrodiversity gain can be attained by adding only one bit of phase feedback.

A method was developed for automatic recognition of syllable tone types in continuous speech of Mandarin by integrating two techniques, tone nucleus modeling and neural network classifier. The tone nucleus modeling considers a syllable F0 contour as consisting of three parts: onset course, tone nucleus, and offset course. Two courses are transitions from/to neighboring syllable F0 contours, while the tone nucleus is intrinsic part of the F0 contour. By viewing only the tone nucleus, acoustic features less affected by neighboring syllables are obtained. When using the tone nucleus modeling, automatic detection of tone nucleus comes crucial. An improvement was added to the original detection method. Distinctive acoustic features for tone types are not limited to F0 contours. Other prosodic features, such as waveform power and syllable duration, are also useful for tone recognition. Their heterogeneous features are rather difficult to be handled simultaneously in hidden Markov models (HMM), but are easy in neural networks. We adopted multi-layer perceptron (MLP) as a neural network. Tone recognition experiments were conducted for speaker dependent and independent cases. In order to show the effect of integration, experiments were conducted also for two baselines: HMM classifier with tone nucleus modeling, and MLP classifier viewing entire syllable instead of tone nucleus. The integrated method showed 87.1% of tone recognition rate in speaker dependent case, and 80.9% in speaker independent case, which was about 10% relative error reduction as compared to the baselines.

In this paper, we investigated the effect of chromaticity and luminance of surround to decide subject neutral white, and conducted a mathematical model of adapting degree for environment. Factors for adapting degree consist of two parts, adapting degree of ambient chromaticity and color saturation. These can be applied to color appearance models (CAM), actually improve the performance of color matching of CAM, hence would produce the method of image reproduction to general display systems.

We describe a statistical parametric speech synthesis system developed by a joint group from the Nagoya Institute of Technology (Nitech) and the Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST) for the annual open evaluation of text-to-speech synthesis systems named Blizzard Challenge 2006. To improve our 2005 system (Nitech-HTS 2005), we investigated new features such as mel-generalized cepstrum-based line spectral pairs (MGC-LSPs), maximum likelihood linear transform (MLLT), and a full covariance global variance (GV) probability density function (pdf). A combination of mel-cepstral coefficients, MLLT, and full covariance GV pdf scored highest in subjective listening tests, and the 2006 system performed significantly better than the 2005 system. The Blizzard Challenge 2006 evaluations show that Nitech-NAIST-HTS 2006 is competitive even when working with relatively large speech databases.

A three-phase complex filter for a balanced three-phase analog signal processing is proposed. The proposed three-phase active-RC Tow-Thomas biquad complex filter can reduce total resistance by 10 percent, total capacitance by 25 percent, and power consumption by 22 percent compared to a conventional fully differential quadrature complex one.

In a centralized localization scenario, the limited throughput of the central node constrains the possible number of target node locations that can be estimated simultaneously. To overcome this limitation, we propose a method which effectively decreases the traffic load associated with target node localization, and therefore increases the possible number of target node locations that can estimated simultaneously in a localization system based on received signal strength indicator (RSSI) and maximum likelihood estimation. Our proposed method utilizes a threshold which limits the amount of forwarded RSSI data to the central node. As the threshold is crucial to the method, we further propose a method to theoretically determine its value. We experimentally verified the proposed method in various environments and the experimental results revealed that the method can reduce the load by 32-64% without significantly affecting the estimation accuracy.

This paper illustrates a feasible health informatics domain knowledge management process which helps gather useful technology information and reduce many knowledge misunderstandings among engineers who have participated in the IBM mainframe rightsizing project at National Taiwan University (NTU) Hospital. We design an asynchronously sharing mechanism to facilitate the knowledge transfer and our health informatics domain knowledge management process can be used to publish and retrieve documents dynamically. It effectively creates an acceptable discussion environment and even lessens the traditional meeting burden among development engineers. An overall description on the current software development status is presented. Then, the knowledge management implementation of health information systems is proposed.

Prior studies have shown that the performance of amplify-and-forward (AF) relay systems can be considerably improved by using multiple antennas and low complexity linear processing at the relay nodes. However, there is still a lack of performance analysis for the cases where the processing is based on limited feedback (LFB). Motivated by this, we derive the closed-form expression of the outage probability of AF relay systems with LFB beamforming in this letter. Simulation results are also provided to confirm the analytical studies.

A phase-retrieval method is applied to the quasioptical feed system of the offset Cassegrain antenna of the Superconducting Submillimeter-Wave Limb-Emission Sounder (JEM/SMILES) to be aboard the International Space Station for evaluating the beam alignment by estimating the phase pattern from the beam amplitude pattern measurements. As the result, the application of the phase retrieval method is demonstrated to be effective for measuring and evaluating the quasioptical antenna feed system. It is also demonstrated that the far-field radiation pattern of the antenna main reflector can be estimated from the phase-retrieved beam pattern of the feed system.

Due to the demand of dual-band modern wireless communications, this paper presents a dual-band patch antenna for IEEE802.11 a and g wireless local area network (WLAN) system. The antenna has bidirectional patterns that can be switched by an RF switch to select the feeding probe positions. The 2.4 GHz and 5.2 GHz patches are stacked on a ground plane and are matched to the RF switch by open stubs. Analysis and design are illustrated and throughput improvement is demonstrated in an indoor environment.

There are many protocols proposed for protecting Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) system privacy and security. A number of these protocols are designed for protecting long-term security of RFID system using symmetric key or public key cryptosystem. Others are designed for protecting user anonymity and privacy. In practice, the use of RFID technology often has a short lifespan, such as commodity check out, supply chain management and so on. Furthermore, we know that designing a long-term security architecture to protect the security and privacy of RFID tags information requires a thorough consideration from many different aspects. However, any security enhancement on RFID technology will jack up its cost which may be detrimental to its widespread deployment. Due to the severe constraints of RFID tag resources (e.g., power source, computing power, communication bandwidth) and open air communication nature of RFID usage, it is a great challenge to secure a typical RFID system. For example, computational heavy public key and symmetric key cryptography algorithms (e.g., RSA and AES) may not be suitable or over-killed to protect RFID security or privacy. These factors motivate us to research an efficient and cost effective solution for RFID security and privacy protection. In this paper, we propose a new effective generic binary tree based key agreement protocol (called BKAP) and its variations, and show how it can be applied to secure the low cost and resource constraint RFID system. This BKAP is not a general purpose key agreement protocol rather it is a special purpose protocol to protect privacy, un-traceability and anonymity in a single RFID closed system domain.

Spoken language understanding (SLU) aims to map a user's speech into a semantic frame. Since most of the previous works use the semantic structures for SLU, we verify that the structure is useful even for noisy input. We apply a structured prediction method to SLU problem and compare it to an unstructured one. In addition, we present a combined method to embed long-distance dependency between entities in a cascaded manner. On air travel data, we show that our approach improves performance over baseline models.

This research considers an efficient method for calculating the transition matrix in an MPL (Max-Plus Linear) state-space representation. This matrix can be generated by applying the Kleene star operator to an adjacency matrix. The proposed method, based on the idea of a topological sort in graph theory and block splitting, is able to calculate the transition matrix efficiently.