We propose a thresholding method based on interval-valued fuzzy sets which are used to define the grade of a gray level belonging to one of the two classes, an object and the background of an image. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by comparing our classification results on eight test images to results from the conventional methods.

Shamir's (k,n)-threshold secret sharing scheme (threshold scheme) has two problems: a heavy computational cost is required to make shares and recover the secret, and a large storage capacity is needed to retain all the shares. As a solution to the heavy computational cost problem, several fast threshold schemes have been proposed. On the other hand, threshold ramp secret sharing schemes (ramp scheme) have been proposed in order to reduce each bit-size of shares in Shamir's scheme. However, there is no fast ramp scheme which has both low computational cost and low storage requirements. This paper proposes a new (k,L,n)-threshold ramp secret sharing scheme which uses just EXCLUSIVE-OR(XOR) operations to make shares and recover the secret at a low computational cost. Moreover, by proving that the fast (k,n)-threshold scheme in conjunction with a method to reduce the number of random numbers is an ideal secret sharing scheme, we show that our fast ramp scheme is able to reduce each bit-size of shares by allowing some degradation of security similar to the existing ramp schemes based on Shamir's threshold scheme.

This paper proposes a new sieving algorithm that employs a bucket sort as a part of a factoring algorithm such as the number field sieve. The sieving step requires an enormous number of memory updates; however, these updates usually cause cache hit misses. The proposed algorithm significantly reduces the number of cache hit misses when the size of the sieving region is roughly less than the square of the cache size, and the memory updates are several times faster than the straightforward implementation according to the PC experiments.

This paper introduces a new folding amplifier in a folding and interpolating 10-b ADC. The amplifier consists of current mirrors and differential stages. Only one current source is exploited in cascaded differential pairs, which reduces the power consumption significantly. In the folding circuit, the interpolation is implemented with a current division technique. An experiment of the amplifier in 10-b folding signal has been integrated in a single-poly four-metal 0.35 µm CMOS process. The simulation in 10-b folding ADC shows that power consumption is 225 mW at the sampling speed of 250 Msample/s and the power supply of 3.3 V. The preliminary experiment indicates the current steering folder and digital bits operate as expected.

We present a real-time video-based rendering system using a network camera array. Our system consists of 64 commodity network cameras that are connected to a single PC through a gigabit Ethernet. To render a high-quality novel view, our system estimates a view-dependent per-pixel depth map in real time by using a layered representation. The rendering algorithm is fully implemented on the GPU, which allows our system to efficiently perform capturing and rendering processes as a pipeline by using the CPU and GPU independently. Using QVGA input video resolution, our system renders a free-viewpoint video at up to 30 frames per second, depending on the output video resolution and the number of depth layers. Experimental results show high-quality images synthesized from various scenes.

By modifying the private key and the public key setting in Boneh-Lynn-Shacham's short signature shcheme, a variation of BLS' short signature scheme is proposed. Based on this variation, we present a very efficient threshold signature scheme where the number of pairing computation for the signaure share verification reduces to half.

This study involves implementing an intelligent controller using the fuzzy control algorithm to minimize cold weld and splash in inverter AC spot welding. This study presents an experimental curve of a welding output current and the maximum value of the Instantaneous Heating Rate (IHRmax) using the contact diameter of an electrode as the parameter. It also presents the experimental curve of a welding output current and the slope (S) of the instantaneous dynamic resistance using the instantaneous contact area of an electrode as the parameter. To minimize cold weld and splash, this study proposes an intelligent controller that controls the optimum welding current in real time by estimating the contact diameter of an electrode and the contact area of the initial welding part.

In this letter, we analyze the convergence speed of layered decoding of block-type low-density parity-check codes and verify that the layered decoding gives faster convergence speed than the sequential decoding with randomly selected check node subsets. Also, it is shown that using more subsets than the maximum variable node degree does not improve the convergence speed.

Low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes are linear block codes defined by sparse parity-check matrices. The codes exhibit excellent performance under iterative decoding, and the weight distribution is used to analyze lower error probability of their decoding performance. In this paper, we propose a probabilistic method for computing the weight distribution of LDPC codes. The proposed method efficiently finds low-weight codewords in a given LDPC code by using Stern's algorithm, and stochastically computes the low part of the weight distribution from the frequency of the found codewords. It is based on a relation between the number of codewords with a given weight and the rate of generating the codewords in Stern's algorithm. In the numerical results for LDPC codes of length 504, 1008 and 4896, we could compute the weight distribution by the proposed method with greater accuracy than by conventional methods.

We describe a co-channel interference rejection scheme that is suitable for QR-decomposition maximum likelihood detection (MLD) in multiple-input and multiple output (MIMO) systems. A pre-whitening matrix for interference rejection is decomposed into a triangular matrix and its Hermitian matrix by using a complex Gaxpy version of the Cholesky algorithm. The decomposed triangular matrix is used as a spatial pre-filter to whiten co-channel interference. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme can suppress co-channel interference streams at the cost of receive diversity order and achieves better transmission performance than QR-decomposition MLD itself in MIMO channels with co-channel interference.

This paper presents a high-throughput bit-serial low-density parity-check (LDPC) decoder that uses an asynchronous interleaver. Since consecutive log-likelihood message values on the interleaver are similar, node computations are continuously performed by using the most recently arrived messages without significantly affecting bit-error rate (BER) performance. In the asynchronous interleaver, each message's arrival rate is based on the delay due to the wire length, so that the decoding throughput is not restricted by the worst-case latency, which results in a higher average rate of computation. Moreover, the use of a multiple-valued data representation makes it possible to multiplex control signals and data from mutual nodes, thus minimizing the number of handshaking steps in the asynchronous interleaver and eliminating the clock signal entirely. As a result, the decoding throughput becomes 1.3 times faster than that of a bit-serial synchronous decoder under a 90 nm CMOS technology, at a comparable BER.

Time-interleaving is an efficient approach to increase the effective sampling rate of the ΣΔ modulators, but time-interleaved (TI) ΣΔ modulators are sensitive to channel mismatch, which causes the quantization noise folded back into the band of interest. To reduce the folded noise caused by the channel mismatch of two-channel TI ΣΔ modulators, a low-power second-order two-channel TI ΣΔ modulator is proposed. The noise transfer function (NTF) of the modulator is a band-pass filter. By using this band-pass NTF, the folded noised can be reduced. The entire modulator can be implemented by employing three op-amps, which is beneficial for power consumption. The circuit of implementation for the proposed modulator is designed in 0.18 µm COMS technology. The proposed modulator can achieve a SNDR of 78.9 dB with a channel mismatch of 0.5% and a linear gradient mismatch of 0.4% for unity sampling capacitors. Monte Carlo simulation is done with a random Gaussian mismatch of 0.4% standard deviation for all capacitors, resulting in an average SNDR of 80.5 dB. It is indicated that the proposed TI modulator is insensitive to the channel mismatch. The total power consumption is 19.5 mW from a 1.8 V supply.

In this paper, we propose a new system for controlling radiated sound directivity. The proposed system artificially induces a bending vibration on a planar diaphragm by vibrating it artificially using multiple vibrators. Because the bending vibration in this case is determined by not one but all of the accelerated vibrations, the vibration of the diaphragm can be controlled by modulating the accelerated vibration waveforms relatively for each frequency. As a consequence, the directivity of the radiated sound is also varied. To investigate the feasibility of this system, we constructed a prototype that has for a diaphragm a circular plate-one of the most typical shapes considered for discussing plate vibration-and three vibrators. The measurement data showed visually that with this system, surface vibration and sound directivity change depending on the phases of the accelerated vibrations.

This paper proposes a method to construct a basis conversion matrix between two given bases in Fpm. In the proposed method, Gauss period normal basis (GNB) works as a bridge between the two bases. The proposed method exploits this property and construct a basis conversion matrix mostly faster than EDF-based algorithm on average in polynomial time. Finally, simulation results are reported in which the proposed method compute a basis conversion matrix within 30 msec on average with Celeron (2.00 GHz) when mlog p≈160.

This paper describes an analysis of the effects of electric field on nerve cells by using the Hodgkin-Huxley model. When evaluating our model, which combines an additional ionic current source and generated membrane potential, we derive the peak-to-peak value, the accumulated square of variation, and Kolmogorov-Sinai (KS) entropy of the cell-membrane potential excited by 10, 100, 1 k, and 10 kHz-sinusoidal electric fields. In addition, to obtain a comprehensive view of the time-variation patterns of our model, we used a self-organizing map, which provides a way to map high-dimensional data onto a low-dimensional domain. Simulation results confirmed that lower-frequency electric fields tended to increase fluctuations of the cell-membrane potential, and the additional ionic current source was a more dominant factor for fluctuations of the cell-membrane potential. On the basis of our model, we visually confirmed that the obtained data could be projected onto the map in accordance with responses of cell-membrane potential excited by electric fields, resulting in a combined depiction of the effects of KS entropy and other parameters.

Almost all the existing secret sharing schemes are based on a single dealer. Maybe in some situations, the secret needs to be maintained by multiple dealers. In this paper, we proposed a novel secret sharing scheme based on the multi-dealer by means of Shamir's threshold scheme and T. Okamoto and S. Uchiyama's public-key cryptosystem. Multiple dealers can commonly maintain the secret and the secret can be dynamically renewed by any dealer. Meanwhile, the reusable secret shadows just needs to be distributed only once. In the secret updated phase, the dealer just needs to publish a little public information instead of redistributing the new secret shadows. Its security is based on the security of Shamir's threshold scheme and the intractability of factoring problem and discrete logarithm problem.

In a low dropout (LDO) linear regulator whose reference voltage is supplied by a bandgap reference, double stacked diodes increase the effective junction area ratio in the bandgap reference, which significantly lowers the output spectral noise of the LDO. A low noise LDO with the area-efficient bandgap reference is implemented in 0.18 µm CMOS. An effective diode area ratio of 105 is obtained while the actual silicon area is saved by a factor of 4.77. As a result, a remarkably low output noise of 186 nV/sqrt(Hz) is achieved at 1 kHz. Moreover, the dropout voltage, line regulation, and load regulation of the LDO are measured to be 0.3 V, 0.04%/V, and 0.46%, respectively.

In prior work, contact welding phenomena were observed in automotive relays during break of motor inrush current. The switching performance of the type of relay investigated could be correlated with the parameters: over-travel, coil suppression, and the break current. In the present work the author further explores the impact of both the contact material (silver tin oxide versus fine grain silver) and the contact surface topography (brand new and pre-aged contacts). He further assesses the robustness of the system "relay" with those parameters using the Taguchi methods for robust design. Furthermore, the robustness of two alternative automotive relay types will be discussed.

This paper presents experimental results in real propagation channel environments of real-time 1-Gbps packet transmission using antenna-dependent adaptive modulation and channel coding (AMC) with 4-by-4 MIMO multiplexing in the downlink Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) radio access. In the experiment, Maximum Likelihood Detection employing QR decomposition and the M-algorithm (QRM-MLD) with adaptive selection of the surviving symbol replica candidates (ASESS) is employed to achieve such a high data rate at a lower received signal-to-interference plus background noise power ratio (SINR). The field experiments, which are conducted at the average moving speed of 30 km/h, show that real-time packet transmission of greater than 1 Gbps in a 100-MHz channel bandwidth (i.e., 10 bits/second/Hz) is achieved at the average received SINR of approximately 13.5 dB using 16QAM modulation and turbo coding with the coding rate of 8/9. Furthermore, we show that the measured throughput of greater than 1 Gbps is achieved at the probability of approximately 98% in a measurement course, where the maximum distance from the cell site was approximately 300 m with the respective transmitter and receiver antenna separation of 1.5 m and 40 cm with the total transmission power of 10 W. The results also clarify that the minimum required receiver antenna spacing is approximately 10 cm (1.5 carrier wave length) to suppress the loss in the required received SINR at 1-Gbps throughput to within 1 dB compared to that assuming the fading correlation between antennas of zero both under non-line-of-sight (NLOS) and line-of-sight (LOS) conditions.

Pairing-based cryptography provides us many novel cryptographic applications such as ID-based cryptosystems and efficient broadcast encryptions. The security problems in ubiquitous sensor networks have been discussed in many papers, and pairing-based cryptography is a crucial technique to solve them. Due to the limited resources in the current sensor node, it is challenged to optimize the implementation of pairings on sensor nodes. In this paper we present an efficient implementation of pairing over MICAz, which is widely used as a sensor node for ubiquitous sensor network. We improved the speed of ηT pairing by using a new efficient multiplication specialized for ATmega128L, called the block comb method and several optimization techniques to save the number of data load/store operations. The timing of ηT pairing over GF(2239) achieves about 1.93 sec, which is the fastest implementation of pairing over MICAz to the best of our knowledge. From our dramatic improvement, we now have much high possibility to make pairing-based cryptography for ubiquitous sensor networks practical.