High-performance and low-cost sensors are critical devices for high-throughput analyses of bio-samples in medical diagnoses and life sciences. In this paper, we demonstrate photonic crystal nanolaser sensor, which detects the adsorption of biomolecules from the lasing wavelength shift. It is a promising device, which balances a high sensitivity, high resolution, small size, easy integration, simple setup and low cost. In particular with a nanoslot structure, it achieves a super-sensitivity in protein sensing whose detection limit is three orders of magnitude lower than that of standard surface-plasmon-resonance sensors. Our investigations indicate that the nanoslot acts as a protein condenser powered by the optical gradient force, which arises from the strong localization of laser mode in the nanoslot.

Thin film glucose biosensors were fabricated with organic/inorganic hybrid films based on glucose oxidase (GOx) and Prussian Blue nano-clusters. The biosensors composed of hybrid films were characterized by the low operating potential and the advantage to interference-free detection. In this research, we employed two kinds of thin films for GOx immobilization: Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) and self-assembled monolayer (SAM). The LB film immobilizes GOx in its inside through the electrostatic force, while the SAM immobilizes GOx with the covalent bond. The sensors with LB film produced a relatively high current signal, while the non-linear behavior and a low stability were recognized. On the other hand, the sensors with SAM presented a good linear relationship and a very stable performance.

In this paper, we investigate the error floors of non-binary low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes transmitted over the memoryless binary-input output-symmetric (MBIOS) channels. We provide a necessary and sufficient condition for successful decoding of zigzag cycle codes over the MBIOS channel by the belief propagation decoder. We consider an expurgated ensemble of non-binary LDPC codes by using the above necessary and sufficient condition, and hence exhibit lower error floors. Finally, we show lower bounds of the error floors for the expurgated LDPC code ensembles over the MBIOS channels.

With the increasing popularity of multicast and real-time streaming service applications, efficient channel assignment algorithms that handle both multicast and unicast traffic in wireless mesh networks are needed. One of the most effective approaches to enhance the capacity of wireless networks is to use systems with multiple channels and multiple radio interfaces. However, most of the past works focus on vertex coloring of a general contention graph, which is NP-Complete, and use the greedy algorithm to achieve a suboptimal result. In this paper, we combine unicast and multicast with a transmission set, and propose a framework named Chordal Graph Based Channel Assignment (CGCA) that performs channel assignment for multicast and unicast traffic in multi-channel multi-radio wireless mesh networks. The proposed framework based on chordal graph coloring minimizes the interference of the network and prevents unicast traffic from starvation. Simulation results show that our framework provides high throughput and low end-to-end delay for both multicast and unicast traffic. Furthermore, our framework significantly outperforms other well-known schemes that have a similar objective in various scenarios.

The noise performances under AWGN channel of the IF-derivative and the quadrature differential FM discriminators, which are widely utilized in modern low power wireless radios, are analyzed and compared. The analysis relies upon the time-domain multi-sinusoidal representation of the noise that facilitates accurate and closed-form analytical SNR characteristics. Derivation of the SNR equations is detailed and discussion based on the analysis results is given to provide insights into the discriminators' performance limitation where it is demonstrated that the differential scheme is considerably more advantageous. Simulated SNR characteristics of practical continuous-phase frequency shift keying (CPFSK) systems using both the FM discriminators are presented as analysis verification.

The purpose of this study is to estimate the possible effect of cellular radio on implantable cardiac pacemakers in elevators. We previously investigated pacemaker EMI in elevator by examining the E-field distribution of horizontal plane at the height of expected for implanted pacemakers inside elevators. In this paper, we introduce our method for estimating EMI impact to implantable cardiac pacemakers using EMF distributions inside the region of the human body in which pacemakers are implanted. Simulations of a human phantom in an elevator are performed and histograms are derived from the resulting EMF distributions. The computed results of field strengths are compared with a certain reference level determined from experimentally obtained maximum interference distance of implantable cardiac pacemakers. This enables us to carry out a quantitative evaluation of the EMI impact to pacemakers by cellular radio transmission. This paper uses a numerical phantom model developed based on an European adult male. The simulations evaluate EMI on implantable cardiac pacemakers in three frequency bands. As a result, calculated E-field strengths are sufficiently low to cause the pacemaker to malfunction in the region examined.

Source-drain follower has been designed and implemented for monolithically integrated biosensor array. The circuit acts as a voltage follower, in which a sensing transistor is operated at fixed gate-source and gate-drain voltages. It operates at 10 nW power dissipation. The wide-swing cascode configurations are investigated in constant and non-constant biasing methods. The constant biased cascode source-drain follower has the merit of small cell size. The chip was fabricated using 1.2 µm standard CMOS technology, and a wide range of operation between 1 nW and 100 µW was demonstrated. The accuracy of the voltage follower was 30 mV using minimum sized transistors, due to the variation of threshold voltage. The error in the output except for the threshold voltage mismatch was less than 10 mV. The temperature dependence of the output was 0.11 mV/. To improve the input voltage range and accuracy, non-constant biased cascode source-drain follower is examined. The sensor cell is designed for 10 mV accuracy and the cell size is 105.3µm 81.4 µm in 1.2 µm CMOS design rules. The sensor cell was fabricated and showed that the error in the output except for the threshold voltage mismatch was less than 2 mV in a range of total current between 3 nA and 10 µA and in a temperature range between 30 and 100.

The optimal alignment of two given biosequences is mathematically optimal, but it may not be a biologically optimal one. To investigate more possible alignments with biological meaning, one can relax the scoring functions to get near-optimal alignments. Though the near optimal alignments increase the possibility of finding the correct alignment, they may confuse the biologists because the size of candidates is large. In this paper, we present the filter scheme for the near-optimal alignments. An easy method for tracing the near-optimal alignments and an algorithm for filtering those alignments are proposed. The time complexity of our algorithm is O(dmn) in the worst case, where d is the maximum distance between the near-optimal alignments and the optimal alignment, and m and n are the lengths of the input sequences, respectively.

In this paper, Integration of Fractional Gaussian Window transform (IFRGWT) is proposed for the parameter estimation of linear FM (LFM) signal; the proposal is based on the integration of the Fractional Fourier transform modified by Gaussian Window. The peak values can be detected by adjusting the standard deviation of Gaussian function and locating the optimal rotated angles. And also the parameters of the signal can be estimated well. As an application, detection and parameter estimation of multiple LFM signals are investigated in low signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). The analytic results and simulations clearly demonstrate that the method is effective.

An electron transfer mediated amperometric enzyme biosensor based on a plasma-polymerized thin film of dimethylaminomethylferrocene (DMAMFc) is reported. A nanoscale thin polymer film containing a redox mediator was plasma-deposited directly onto an electrode with physisorbed glucose oxidase (GOD). Since the redox sites were introduced in the vicinity of the reaction centers of GOD, a highly efficient electron transfer system was formed in which almost all the reaction centers of GOD were connected to redox sites of the polymer matrix. The advantages of this strategy were: no need for prior or further chemical modification of the enzyme molecules, and simplicity of design compared with the use of a conventional polymer matrix. Moreover, the fact that the film deposition was performed using a microfabrication-compatible organic plasma promised great potential for high-throughput production of bioelectronic devices.

An alternative human interface enabling the handicapped with severe motor disabilities to control an assistive system is presented. Since this interface relies on the biosignals originating from the contraction of muscles on the face during particular movements, even individuals with a paralyzed limb can use it with ease. For real-world application, a dedicated hardware module employing a general-purpose DSP was implemented and its validity tested on an electrically powered wheelchair. Furthermore, an additional attempt to reduce error rates to a minimum for stable operation was also made based on the entropy information inherent in the signals during the classification phase. In the experiments in which 11 subjects participated, it was found most of them could control the target system at their own will, and thus the proposed interface could be considered a potential alternative for the interaction of the severely handicapped with electronic systems.

In this paper, we present an efficient downlink power control scheme, for wireless networks, based on two key ideas: (i) global-local fixed-point-approximation technique (GLOFPAT) and (ii) bottleneck removal criterion (BRC). The proposed scheme copes with all scenarios including infeasible case where no power allocation can provide all multiple accessing users with target quality of service (QoS). For feasible case, the GLOFPAT efficiently computes a desired power allocation which corresponds to the allocation achieved by conventional algorithms. For infeasible case, the GLOFPAT offers valuable information to detect bottleneck users, to be removed based on the BRC, which deteriorate overall QoS. The GLOFPAT is a mathematically-sound distributed algorithm approximating desired power allocation as a unique fixed-point of an isotone mapping. The unique fixed-point of the global mapping is iteratively computed by fixed-point-approximations of multiple distributed local mappings, which can be computed in parallel by base stations respectively. For proper detection of bottleneck users, complete analysis of the GLOFPAT is presented with aid of the Tarski's fixed-point theorem. Extensive simulations demonstrate that the proposed scheme converges faster than the conventional algorithm and successfully increases the number of happy users receiving target QoS.

In recent works [1],[4], it has been shown that the damping of a linear time invariant system relates to the so-called characteristic ratios (αk, k=1,…, n-1) which are defined by coefficients of the denominator of the transfer function. However, the exact relations are not yet fully understood. For the purpose of exploring the issue, this paper presents the analysis of time response sensitivity to the characteristic ratio change. We begin with the sensitivity of output to the perturbations of coefficients of the system denominator and then the first order approximation of the αk perturbation effect is computed by an explicit transfer function. The results are extended to all-pole systems in order to investigate which characteristic ratios act dominantly on step response. The same analysis is also performed to a special class of systems whose denominator is composed of so called K-polynomial. Finally, some illustrative examples are given.

This paper presents an overview of four on-going European research projects in the field of mobile and wireless communications leading to the next generations of wireless communications. The projects started in 2004. They investigate requirements and definition of access technology, network architecture, antennas and propagation, security, services, applications and socio-economic impact.

In 1960, the famous computer pioneer J.C.R. Licklider described a vision for human-computer interaction that he called "man-computer symbiosis. " Licklider predicted the development of computer software that would allow people "to think in interaction with a computer in the same way that you think with a colleague whose competence supplements your own. " More than 40 years later, one rarely encounters any computer application that comes close to capturing Licklider's notion of human-like communication and collaboration. We echo Licklider by arguing that true symbiotic interaction requires at least the following three elements: a complementary and effective division of labor between human and machine; an explicit representation in the computer of the user's abilities, intentions, and beliefs; and the utilization of nonverbal communication modalities. We illustrate this argument with various research prototypes currently under development at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (USA).

An amperometric thin-film glucose biosensor based on a plasma-polymerized film using hexamethyldisiloxane as the monomer is presented. The plasma-polymerized film, achieved in plasma in the vapor phase, offers a new alternative for use in the design of the electrode-enzyme interface of biosensors. The film shows promise of high sensor performance; namely, rapid sensor response, low noise, a wide dynamic range, reproducibility, and reduction in the effects of interfering materials such as ascorbic acid. In this study, we examined the usefulness of the hexamethyldisiloxane plasma-polymerized film and investigated how the thickness of the plasma-polymerized film on a platinum electrode affected sensor characteristics: the selectivity for hydrogen peroxide versus interfering agents, the sensor response due to enzymatic reaction, and oxygen depletion.

Web Services (WS) have received significant attention recently. Delivering Quality of Service (QoS) on the Internet is a critical and significant challenge for WS community. This article proposes a Web Services Testing Framework (WSTF) for WS participates to perform WS testing. WSTF provides three main distributed components: test master, test agents and test monitor. Test master manages scenarios and generates test scripts. It initiates WS testing by sending test scripts to test agents. Test agents dynamically bind and invoke the WS. Test monitors capture synchronous/asynchronous messages sent and received, attach timestamp, and trace state change information. The benefit to use WSTF is that the user only needs to specify system scenarios based on the system requirements without needing to write test code. To validate the proposed approach, this paper used the framework to test a supply-chain system implemented using WS.

The 2-vertex-connectivity augmentation problem for specified vertices (2VCA-SV) is defined as follows: Given an undirected graph G=(V,E), a subgraph G0=(V,E') of G, a specified set of vertices S V and a weight function w:E R^+ (nonnegative real numbers), find a set E" E-E' with the minimum total weight, such that G0+E"=(V,E' E") has at least two internally disjoint paths between any pair of vertices in S. In this paper, we propose an O(|V||E|+ |V|2 log |V|) time algorithm 2-ABIS, whose performance ratio is 2 (3, respectively), for 2VCA-SV if G0 has a connected component containing S (otherwise).

In the field of computer graphics (CG), some adaptive methods have been proposed in order to make CG images more real in relatively low computational cost. As one of such adaptive methods, in this paper, an adaptive method will be proposed for detection of edges and approximation of surfaces in the use of the so-called automatic differentiation. In the proposed method a CG image with high quality can be generated in suitable computational cost. In this paper, three cases will be considered. The first is an adaptive distributed ray tracing which can adaptively generate anti-aliased CG images in suitable computational cost. The second is a high quality triangular meshing, which guarantees accuracy of the generated meshes according to shape of given surface in suitable computational cost. The last case is used in the so-called radiosity method.

To bridge a wide gap between the end users and the requirements engineers, we propose a business flow diagram for acquiring users' requirements of the object oriented software development in the business application domain. Each field of this diagram shows either a role or a responsibility of a particular person or an organization. This paper proposes a development method that the engineers acquire the requirements by using our diagrams. We have implemented a supporting tool based on this study for collaborating the requirements engineers with their users. At first, the end users of an information system to be developed draw diagrams representing the flows of information and physical objects in their work from their own points of view. Sometimes the engineers write them with the users. If all users submit their diagrams, then our tool collects them and constructs a total diagram. The requirements engineers analyze the total diagram for improving the business flow. After the engineers complete this diagram, our tool can automatically transform it into an initial version of the class diagram. We show the effectiveness of our approach with some experiments. Comparing the related works, we discuss some issues of the practical aspects of this proposal.