The Transition Edge Sensor (TES)-Energy Dispersive Spectrometer (EDS) is an X-ray detector with high-energy resolution (12.8 eV). The TES can be mounted to a scanning electron microscope (SEM). The TES-EDS is based on a cryogen-free dilution refrigerator. The high-energy resolution enables analysis of the distribution of various elements in samples under low acceleration voltage (typically under 5 keV) by using K-lines of light elements and M lines of heavy elements. For example, the energy of the arsenic L line differs from the magnesium K line by 28 eV. When used to analyze the spore of the Pteris vittata L plant, the TES-EDS clearly reveals a different distribution of As and Mg in the micro region of the plant. The TES-EDS with SEM yields detailed information about the distribution of multi-elements in a sample.

This paper focuses on optical integration technology and its application in optical microsensors used in biomedical fields. The integration is based on the hybrid integration approach, achieving high performance, small size and weight, and lower cost. First, we describe the key technologies used in hybrid integration, namely passive alignment technology, low temperature bonding technology, and packaging technology for realizing advanced microsensors. Then, we describe an integrated laser Doppler flowmeter that can monitor blood flow in human skin.

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.

A wide range CMOS voltage detector with low current consumption consisting of CMOS inverters operating in both weak inversion and saturation region is proposed. A terminal of power supply for CMOS inverter can be expanded to a signal input terminal. A voltage-detection point and hysteresis characteristics of the proposed circuit can be designed by geometrical factor in MOSFET and an external bias voltage. The core circuit elements are fabricated in standard 0.18 µm CMOS process and measured to confirm the operation. The detectable voltage is from 0.3 V to 1.8 V. The current consumption of voltage detection, standby current, is changed from 65 pA for Vin = 0.3 V to 5.5 µA for Vin = 1.8 V. The thermal characteristics from 250 K to 400 K are also considered. The measured temperature coefficient of the proposed voltage-detector core operating in weak inversion region is 4 ppm/K and that in saturation region is 10 ppm/K. The proposed voltage detector can be implemented with tiny chip area and is expected to an on-chip voltage detector of power supply for mobile application systems.

The deployment of historical trajectories of moving objects has greatly increased for various applications in road networks. For instance, similar patterns of moving-object trajectories are very useful for designing the transportation network of a new city. In this paper, we define a spatio-temporal similarity measure based on a road network distance, rather than a Euclidean distance. We also propose a new similar trajectory search algorithm based on the spatio-temporal measure by using an efficient pruning mechanism. Finally, we show the efficiency of our algorithm, both in terms of retrieval accuracy and retrieval efficiency.

Minimizing the residual impurity gases is a key factor for reducing temporal dark image sticking. Therefore, this paper uses a vacuum-sealing method that minimizes the residual impurity gases by enhancing the base vacuum level, and the resultant change in temporal dark image sticking is then examined in comparison to that with the conventional sealing method using 42-in. ac-PDPs with a high Xe (11%) content. As a result of monitoring the difference in the display luminance, infrared emission, and perceived luminance between the cells with and without temporal dark image sticking, the vacuum-sealing method is demonstrated to reduce temporal dark image sticking by decreasing the residual impurity gases and increasing the oxygen vacancy in the MgO layer. Furthermore, the use of a modified driving waveform along with the vacuum-sealing method is even more effective in reducing temporal dark image sticking.

Task preemption is a critical mechanism for building an effective multi-tasking environment on dynamically reconfigurable processors. When a task is preempted, its necessary state information must be correctly preserved in order for the task to be resumed later. Not only do coarse-grained Dynamically Reconfigurable Processing Array (DRPAs) devices have different architectures using a variety of development tools, but the great amount of state data of hardware tasks executing on such devices are usually distributed on many different storage elements. To address these difficulties, this paper aims at studying a general method for capturing the state data of hardware tasks targeting coarse-grained DRPAs. Based on resource usage, algorithms for identifying preemption points and inserting preemption states subject to user-specified preemption latency are proposed. Moreover, a modification to automatically incorporate proposed steps into the system design flow is also discussed. The performance degradation caused by additional preemption states is minimized by allowing preemption only at predefined points where demanded resources are small. The evaluation result using a model based on NEC Electronics' DRP-1 shows that the proposed method can produce preemption points satisfying a given preemption latency with reasonable hardware overhead (from 6% to 15%).

In video streaming applications over the Internet, TCP-friendly rate control schemes are useful for improving network stability and inter-protocol fairness. However, they do not always guarantee a smooth video streaming. To simultaneously satisfy both the network and user requirements, video streaming applications should be quality-adaptive. In this paper, we propose a new quality adaptation mechanism to adjust the quality of congestion-controlled video stream by controlling the frame rate. Based on the current network condition, it controls the frame rate of video stream and the sending rate in a TCP-friendly manner. Through a simulation, we prove that our adaptation mechanism appropriately adjusts the quality of video stream while improving network stability.

With the ubiquitous application of Internet and wireless networks, H.264 video communication becomes more and more common. However, due to the high-efficiently predictive coding and the variable length entropy coding, it is more sensitive to transmission errors. The current error concealment (EC) scheme, which utilizes the spatial and temporal correlations to conceal the corrupted region, produces unsatisfied boundary artifacts. In this paper, first we propose variable block size error concealment (VBSEC) scheme inspired by variable block size motion estimation (VBSME) in H.264. This scheme provides four EC modes and four sub-block partitions. The whole corrupted macro-block (MB) will be divided into variable block size adaptively according to the actual motion. More precise motion vectors (MV) will be predicted for each sub-block. Then MV refinement (MVR) scheme is proposed to refine the MV of the heterogeneous sub-block by utilizing three step search (TSS) algorithm adaptively. Both VBSEC and MVR are based on our directional spatio-temporal boundary matching algorithm (DSTBMA). By utilizing these schemes, we can reconstruct the corrupted MB in the inter frame more accurately. The experimental results show that our proposed scheme can obtain better objective and subjective EC quality, respectively compared with the boundary matching algorithm (BMA) adopted in the JM11.0 reference software, spatio-temporal boundary matching algorithm (STBMA) and other comparable EC methods.

In a D.C.42 V-10A resistive circuit, break arcs are generated between electrical contact pairs. The materials of the contact pairs are Ag, Ag/C 2wt%, Ag/SnO2 12wt%, and Ag/ZnO 12wt%. The arc spectral intensities are measured by a time-resolved spectroscopic temperature measurement system. The arc temperature is calculated from the spectral intensities by using the method of relative intensities of two spectra. The experimental results are as follows. The arc temperature gradually decreases with increase of the gap of electrical contacts. The ranges of arc temperature for Ag, Ag/C 2wt%, Ag/SnO2 12wt%, and Ag/ZnO 12wt% contacts pairs are 4500-11000 K, 4000-6000 K, 4000-7000 K, and 4000-11000 K, respectively.

Recently, many application systems have been developed by using a large number of cameras. If 3D points are observed from synchronized cameras, the multiple view geometry of these cameras can be computed and the 3D reconstruction of the scene is available. Thus, the synchronization of multiple cameras is essential. In this paper, we propose a method for synchronizing multiple cameras and for computing the epipolar geometry from uncalibrated and unsynchronized cameras. In particular we using affine invariance to match the frame numbers of camera images for finding the synchronization. The proposed method is tested by using real image sequences taken from uncalibrated and unsynchronized cameras.

In this paper we mainly focus on the effect of a ferromagnetic material on the critical current of Bi-2223 tape. The magnetic field distributions of tapes with several different layouts of a ferromagnetic material are investigated by calculation and the corresponding critical current is tested experimentally. The analysis indicates that the critical current of the tape can be improved effectively by laying the ferromagnetic material perpendicularly next to the tape edge. Furthermore, various other ferromagnetic parameters are also important for reducing the magnetic field induced by the current flowing through the tape.

This paper will review the development of SiC power devices especially SiC power junction field-effect transistors (JFETs). Rationale and different approaches to the development of SiC power JFETs will be presented, focusing on normally-OFF power JFETs that can provide the highly desired fail-save feature for reliable power switching applications. New results for the first demonstration of SiC Power ICs will be presented and the potential for distributed DC-DC power converters at frequencies higher than 35 MHz will be discussed.

In this paper, a channel allocation scheme is studied for overlay wireless networks to optimize connection-level QoS. The contributions of our work are threefold. First, a channel allocation strategy using both horizontal channel borrowing and vertical traffic overflowing (HCB-VTO) is presented and analyzed. When all the channels in a given macro-cell are used, high-mobility real-time handoff requests can borrow channels from adjacent homogeneous cells. In case that the borrowing requests fail, handoff requests may also be overflowed to heterogeneous cells, if possible. Second, high-mobility real-time service is prioritized by allowing it to pre-empt channels currently used by other services. And third, to meet the high QoS requirements of some services and increase the utilization of radio resources, certain services can be transformed between real-time services and non-real-time services as necessary. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed schemes can improve system performance.

We examined how spatial disparity between the auditory and visual stimuli modulated the audio-visual (A-V) prior entry effect. Spatial and temporal proximity of multisensory stimuli are crucial factors for multisensory perception in most cases (e.g. [1],[2]). However our previous research[3],[4] suggested that this well-accepted hypothesis was not applicable to the A-V prior entry effect. In order to examine the effect of the spatial disparity on the A-V prior entry effect, six loudspeakers and two light emitting diodes (LEDs) were used as stimuli. The loudspeakers were located at 10, 25, and 90 degrees from the midline of the participants to both right and left sides. A preceding sound was presented from one of these six loudspeakers. After the preceding sound, two visual targets were presented successively at a short interval and participants judged which visual target was presented first. Two colour changeable ('red' or 'green') LEDs were used for the visual targets and participants judged the order of visual targets by their colour not by their side in order to avoid the response bias as much as possible. The visual targets were situated at 10 degrees or 25 degrees from the participants' midline to both right and left in the Experiment 1. Results showed a biased judgment that the visual target at the sound presented side was presented first. The amplitude of the A-V prior entry effect was greater when the preceding sound source was more apart from the midline of participants. This effect of spatial separation indicated that the clarity of either right or left side of the preceding sound enhanced the amplitude of the A-V prior entry effect (Experiment 2). These results challenge the belief that the spatial proximity of multisensory stimuli is a crucial factor for multisensory perception.

In this paper, we propose a computationally efficient method of compensating temperature for the transaural stereo. The conventional method can be used to estimate the change in impulse responses caused by the fluctuation of temperature with high accuracy. However, the large amount of computation required makes real-time implementation difficult. Focusing on the fact that the amount of compensation depends on the length of the impulse response, we reduce the computation required by segmenting the impulse response. We segment the impulse responses in the time domain and estimate the effect of temperature fluctuation for each of the segments. By joining the processed segments, we obtain the compensated impulse response of the whole length. Experimental results show that the proposed method can reduce the computation required by a factor of nine without degradation of the accuracy.

A novel design for temperature-compensated complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) voltage reference sources by using the 1st order voltage reference taking into account the electrical property of the conventional current generator was proposed to minimize a temperature coefficient. A temperature coefficient of the proposed voltage reference source was estimated by using the current generator, which operated at smaller or larger temperature in comparison with the optimized operating temperature. The temperature coefficient at temperature range between -40 and 125, obtained from the simulated data by using hynix 0.35 µm CMOS technology, was 3.33 ppm/. The simulated results indicate that the proposed temperature-compensated CMOS voltage reference sources by using the 1st order voltage reference taking into account the electrical properties of the conventional current generator can be used to decrease the temperature coefficient.

It is well known that there is relationship between electromagnetic emanation and processing information in IT devices such as personal computers and smart cards. By analyzing such electromagnetic emanation, eavesdropper will be able to get some information, so it becomes a real threat of information security. In this paper, we show how to estimate amount of information that is leaked as electromagnetic emanation. We assume the space between the IT device and the receiver is a communication channel, and we define the amount of information leakage via electromagnetic emanations by its channel capacity. By some experimental results of Tempest, we show example estimations of amount of information leakage. Using the value of channel capacity, we can calculate the amount of information per pixel in the reconstructed image. And we evaluate the effectiveness of Tempest fonts generated by Gaussian method and its threshold of security.

Energy consumption is a major concern in embedded computing systems. Several studies have shown that cache memories account for 40% or more of the total energy consumed in these systems. Active power used to be the primary contributor to total power dissipation of CMOS designs, but with the technology scaling, the share of leakage in total power consumption of digital systems continues to grow. Moreover, temperature is another factor that exponentially increases the leakage current. In this paper, we show the effect of temperature on the optimal (minimum-energy-consuming) cache configuration for low energy embedded systems. Our results show that for a given application and technology, the optimal cache size moves toward smaller caches at higher temperatures, due to the larger leakage. Consequently, a Temperature-Aware Configurable Cache (TACC) is an effective way to save energy in finer technologies when the embedded system is used in different temperatures. Our results show that using a TACC, up to 61% energy can be saved for instruction cache and 77% for data cache compared to a configurable cache that has been configured for only the corner-case temperature (100). Furthermore, the TACC also enhances the performance by up to 28% for the instruction cache and up to 17% for the data cache.

This letter presents the first experimental results that confirm the restorability of Rayleigh backscatter traces from a single-mode fiber measured by using a coherent optical time domain reflectometer (OTDR) with a precisely frequency-controlled light source. Based on this restorability, we can measure the distributed strain and temperature along the fiber with a very high measurand resolution that is one to two orders of magnitude better than that provided by Brillouin-based techniques for a long length of fiber.