We investigate the effects of the performance of sensor networks on network availability and in turn evaluate the impact of protocols and network configuration on these effects. The typical wireless sensor network of the future consists of a large number of micro-sized sensors that are equipped with batteries of limited capacity. In such a network, energy consumption is one of the most important issues. Several representative protocols that are applied in ring and linear network configurations are analyzed, and explicit formulae for network availability are derived for each of them. Numerical values derived by using these formulae yielded the surprising result that backup routes do not always improve network availability. This is because the loads imposed by the backup routes on network segments that do not include dead sensor nodes reduce sensor-node lifetimes in these segments.

In ubiquitous computing, or ubiquitous network environment, many sensors and devices are embedded in the environment. Moreover, information appliances and smart space technologies allow users to enjoy high computational power, which also gives freedom and extrication from traditional computing style that often caused users' inconvenience and restriction of their demands and needs. However, due to the characteristics of ubiquitous computing, application's high adaptability to the changes of environments is required. To achieve this high adaptability of applications, we introduce a design approach of "snapshot-based application." The snapshot-based application can store its status as a snapshot. By utilizing the snapshot, an application can be recreated as it is in the status of the snapshot. In this paper, we propose an application framework named "u-Snap," which realizes snapshot-based applications. We have exemplified the effectiveness of this framework with implementation of "u-Photo," which utilize a snapshot of an application as contextual information that is embedded in a photo image.

In this paper, a Web-based management system for the building network is described. We developed a multi-protocol converter based on SoC and embedded Linux. It requires an appropriate operating system for handling protocols and an advanced development environment very similar to embedded linux. The multi-protocol converter integrates control networks of RS-485 and LonWorks devices to BAS through TCP/IP protocol or a client with Java applet. The system consists of three-tier architecture, such as BAS or clients, a multi-protocol converter, and control devices. In order to compare the feasibility of system architecture, it was applied to a small BAS system. By using UML, we modeled a Web-based control system with a unified TCP/IP socket communication and the system architecture. The developed system includes the inverter motor control system with modbus protocol for the RS485 network. The experiment results show that the multi-protocol converter using embedded Linux is a flexible and effective way to build a Web-based monitoring and control system.

In this paper, we propose an advanced location-based service that we call a direction-based service, which utilizes both the position and direction of a user. The direction-based service enables a user to point to an object of interest for command or investigation. We also describe the design, implementation and evaluations of a direction-based service system named Azim. With this system, the direction of the user can be obtained by a magnetic-based direction sensor. The sensor is also used for azimuth-based position estimation, in which a user's position is estimated by having the user point to and measure azimuths of several markers or objects whose positions are already known. Because this approach does not require any other accurate position sensors or positive beacons, it can be deployed cost-effectively. Also, because the measurements are naturally associated with some degree of error, the position is calculated as a probability distribution. The calculation considers the error of direction measurement and the pre-obtained field information such as obstacles and magnetic field disturbance, which enables robust position measurements even in geomagnetically disturbed environments. For wide-area use, the system also utilizes a wireless LAN to obtain rough position information by identifying base stations. We have implemented a prototype system for the proposed method and some applications for the direction-based services. Furthermore, we have conducted experiments both indoors and outdoors, and exemplified that positioning accuracy by the proposed method is precise enough for a direction-based service.

A flooding algorithm is an indispensable and fundamental network control mechanism for achieving some tasks, such notifying all nodes of some information, transferring data with high reliability, getting some information from all nodes, or to reserve a route by flooding the messages in the network. In particular, the flooding algorithm is greatly effective in the heterogeneous and dynamic network environment such as so-called ubiquitous networks, whose topology is indefinite or changes dynamically and whose nodal function may be simple and less intelligent. Actually, it is applied to grasp the network topology in a sensor network or an ad-hoc network, or to retrieve content information by mobile agent systems. A flooding algorithm has the advantages of robustness and optimality by parallel processing of messages. However, the flooding mechanism has a fundamental disadvantages: it causes the message congestion in the network, and eventually increases the processing time until the flooding control is finished. In this paper, we propose and evaluate methods for producing a more efficient flooding algorithm by adopting the growth processes of primitive creatures, such as molds or microbes.

This paper presents an optimal load balancing algorithm based on both of the ANFIS (Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System) modeling and the FIS (Fuzzy Inference System) for the local status of real servers. It also shows the substantial benefits such as the removal of load-scheduling overhead, QoS (Quality of Service) provisioning and providing highly available servers, provided by the suggested method.

In this letter, we propose a low-complexity estimation method of cyclic-prefix (CP) length for a discrete multitone (DMT) very high-speed digital subscriber line (VDSL) system. Using the sign bits of the received DMT VDSL signals, the proposed method provides a good estimate of CP length, which is suitable for various channel characteristics. This simple estimation method is consistent with the initialization procedure of T1E1.4 multi-carrier modulation (MCM)-based VDSL Standard. Finally, simulation results with VDSL test loops are presented.

We present two new parallel algorithms for extending the domain of a UOWHF. The first algorithm is complete binary tree based construction and has less key length expansion than Sarkar's construction which is the previously best known complete binary tree based construction. But only disadvantage is that here we need more key length expansion than that of Shoup's sequential algorithm. But it is not too large as in all practical situations we need just two more masks than Shoup's. Our second algorithm is based on non-complete l-ary tree and has the same optimal key length expansion as Shoup's which has the most efficient key length expansion known so far. Using the recent result, we can also prove that the key length expansion of this algorithm and Shoup's sequential algorithm are the minimum possible for any algorithms in a large class of "natural" domain extending algorithms. But its parallelizability performance is less efficient than complete tree based constructions. However if l is getting larger, then the parallelizability of the construction is also getting near to that of complete tree based constructions. We also give a sufficient condition for valid domain extension in sequential domain extension.

This paper compares a stub and a decoupling capacitor for power supply noise reduction. A quarter-length stub attached to the power supply line of an LSI chip works as a band-eliminate filter, and suppresses the power supply bounce of the designed frequency. The conditions where the stub is more effective than the same-area decoupling capacitor are clarified. The stub will work more efficiently and on-chip integration will be possible on high frequency operation LSIs.

Fingerprinting is a technique to add identifying marks to each copy of digital contents in order to enhance traceability to a distribution system. Collusion attacks, in which the attackers collect two or more fingerprinted copies and try to generate an untraceable copy, are considered to be a threat for the fingerprinting system. With the aim of enhancing collusion security to the fingerprinting system, several collusion secure codes, such as c-frameproof code, c-secure frameproof code and c-identifiable parent property code, have been proposed. Here, c indicates the maximum number of colluding users. However, a practical construction of the above codes is still an issue because of the tight restrictions originated from their combinatorial properties. In this paper, we introduce an evaluation of frameproof, secure frameproof, and identifiable parent property by the probability that a code has the required property. Then, we focus on random codes. For frameproof and secure frameproof properties, we estimate the average probability that random codes have the required property where the probability is taken over the random construction of codes and random construction of coalitions. For the estimation, we assume the uniform distribution of symbols of random codes and the symbols that the coalitions hold. Therefore, we clarify the adequacy of the assumptions by comparison with numerical results. The estimates and numerical results resemble, which implies the adequacy of the assumption at least in the range of the experiment.

In this paper, we present an efficient method to budget on-chip decoupling capacitors (decaps) to optimize power delivery networks in an area efficient way. Our algorithm is based on an efficient gradient-based non-linear programming method for searching the solution. Our contributions are an efficient gradient computation method (time-domain merged adjoint network method) and a novel equivalent circuit modeling technique to speed up the optimization process. Experimental results demonstrate that the algorithm is capable of efficiently optimizing very large scale P/G networks.

A stability of the cascade two-stage Power-Factor-Correction converter is investigated. The first stage is boost PFC converter to achieve a near unity power factor and the second stage is forward converter to regulate the output voltage. Previous researches studied the system using linear analysis. However, PFC boost converter is a nonlinear circuit due to the existence of the multiplier and the large variation of the duty cycle. Moreover, the effect of the second stage DC/DC converter on the first stage PFC converter adds more complexity to the nonlinear circuit. In this issue, low-frequency instability has been detected in the two-stage PFC converter assuring the limitation of the prior linear models. Therefore, nonlinear model is proposed to detected and explain these instabilities. The borderlines between stable and unstable operation has been made clear. It is cleared that feedback gains of the first stage PFC and the second stage DC/DC converters are the main affected parts to the total system stability. Then, a simplified nonlinear model is provided. Experiment confirm the two models with a good agreement. These nonlinear models have introduced new PFC design scheme by choosing the minimum required output capacitor and the feedback loop design.

Wind power generation occupies an important position as a new non-fossil energy in recent years, and the plant scale has been rapidly expanding as wind-farm. Since they are often built in topographically inconvenient places, the remote monitoring system has been required. Ethernet had been said to be unsuitable to the industrial network, it is one of the strong options because of its low cost and easiness to apply. In this case, it is important to secure the throughput enough for updating the data of numerous wind turbines within a fixed time. In order to achieve this, we adopted User Datagram Protocol/Internet Protocol (UDP/IP) and the multi-thread method to make the overhead of software small as possible. This paper presents the scheme of powerful network using Ethernet with multi-thread and multi-cast. The relation between the number of threads and total throughputs of network is clarified. The design procedure to derive the optimum number of threads is shown. And it is demonstrated that this scheme provide the local network of wind-farm with sufficient performance.

This innovative traffic-monitoring-system makes it possible to observe data-communication traffic on an oscilloscope-style display. It provides an efficient way of evaluating streaming-data quality. The monitoring system has a high time-resolution traffic value sampling function and a real-time data representation/recording mechanism that operate in synchrony. The user can directly evaluate the traffic shape with the monitoring system. In this paper, after describing the concept of the traffic monitoring system, we will describe a prototype built with programmable network equipment called A-BOX. We will then review a performance evaluation and other experimental results to prove that our monitoring system is suitable for video streaming.

Charge carrier generation, transport, and exciton diffusion in f ac tris(2-phenylpyridine)iridium(III) Ir(ppy)3 doped in 4,4'-N,N'-dicarbazole-biphenel (CBP) thin films, an emissive layer of green electrophosphorescent devices, have been studied in terms of time-of-flight (TOF) transient photocurrent, steady-state photocurrent and time-resolved photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopies. It is found that the excitation energy rapidly transfer from CBP to Ir(ppy)3, and that the charge carriers are generated on Ir(ppy)3 sites. With increasing Ir(ppy)3 concentration, the electron drift mobility is slightly decreased, while the hole transit signals become unobservable. The electron and hole transport properties of Ir(ppy)3 doped CBP thin films result from the energy levels of the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital and the highest occupied molecular orbital of Ir(ppy)3 with respect to those of CBP. From steady-state photocurrent measurement, the diffusion lengths of 3.5% and 7.0% Ir(ppy)3 doped CBP thin films are determined to be 21 nm and 50 nm, respectively.

This letter presents a novel method to design a power distribution network with highly accurate impedance characteristic. Based on the PBEC (path-based equivalent circuit) model and the network synthesis, the proposed design method exploits simple arithmetic expressions to calculate the electrical parameters of a power distribution network. It directly calculates and determines the size of on-chip decoupling capacitors, the size and location of off-chip decoupling capacitors, and the effective inductances of the package power bus. To evaluate the accuracy of the proposed method, it was applied to a test board with size of 12.5 cm 12.5 cm and with plane-to-plane distance of 200 µm. The proposed method successfully designed a power distribution network keeping its impedance characteristic under 1 Ω with frequency range of 100 kHz-1 GHz. The proposed design method requires negligible computation when compared with conventional PEEC (partial elements equivalent circuit) model-based design approaches, but the simulation results of both methods are almost identical. Consequently, the proposed method enables simple, fast and accurate design of power-distribution networks, which gives economic and practical solutions for commercial tools.

This report describes a concrete method for realizing adiabatic charging reversible logic. First, we investigate the stabilization properties of a charge recycle regenerator using a switched capacitor circuit by SPICE simulation and an analytical method. In the N-step case, we proved that a step waveform is spontaneously generated. Next, for combinational logic, we propose an adiabatic charging binary decision diagram logic gate (AC-BDD) that uses this regenerator. The AC-BDD uses pass transistor logic based on a BDD, which is suitable for adiabatic logic. 8-bit AC-BDD multipliers were fabricated, and it is clarified that power consumption is reduced to 15% that of the same-rule-designed CMOS at 1 V and 1 MHz. Finally, we propose clocked energy reversible logic (CERL) that maintains the CMOS architecture for CMOS compatibility. CERL can reduce the clocked energy, which is used for charging the clock load capacitance, to 10% that of CMOS by using a power clock from the charge recycle regenerator.

This letter considers relationship between cyclic digital-to-analog converters (DACs) and iterated function systems (IFSs). We introduce the cyclic DACs as inverse systems of analog-to-digital converters in terms of one-dimensional maps. We then compare the DACs with a typical example of existing applications of IFSs: chaos game representation for analysis of DNA structures. We also present a simple test circuit of a DAC for Gray decoding based on switched capacitors and confirm the basic operation experimentally.

Subcircuits designed for integrated silicon DCS1800/ PCS1900 base station receivers have been reconfigured into hybrid and single-chip Doppler radar transceivers. Radar chips have been fully integrated in 0.25 µm silicon CMOS and BiCMOS processes. These chips have been used to monitor heart and respiration activity without contact, and they have successfully detected heartbeat and respiration rate up to 1 m from the subject. This monitoring device may be useful in home monitoring, continuous monitoring, and physiological research.

This paper proposes two types of network architectures using UMTS Release 5 architecture and wireless LAN suitable for context-aware information delivery and personal communication services, and it reports on preliminary evaluations of their performance. The first type of network architecture is the NCA (network-centric architecture) and the second is the ECA (end-user-centric architecture). The two architectures are modeled with a queuing network and their response times are compared through theoretical analysis and simulation. The results indicate that with low-performance servers, the response times of the ECA are generally shorter or almost the same as those of the NCA. However with high-performance servers, the response times of the NCA are generally shorter except during high server utilization.