In recent years, considerable attention has been devoted to continuously running software systems whose performance characteristics are smoothly degrading in time. Software aging often affects the performance of a software system and eventually causes it to fail. A novel approach to handle transient software failures due to software aging is called software rejuvenation, which can be regarded as a preventive and proactive solution that is particularly useful for counteracting the aging phenomenon. In this paper, we focus on a high assurance software system with fault-tolerance and preventive rejuvenation, and analyze the stochastic behavior of such a highly critical software system. More precisely, we consider a fault-tolerant software system with two-version redundant structure and random rejuvenation schedule, and evaluate quantitatively some dependability measures like the steady-state system availability and MTTF based on the familiar Markovian analysis. In numerical examples, we examine the dependence of two fault tolerant techniques; design and environment diversity techniques, on the system dependability measures.

We study asynchronous SSMA communication systems using binary spreading sequences of Markov chains and prove the CLT (central limit theorem) for the empirical distribution of the normalized MAI (multiple-access interference). We also prove that the distribution of the normalized MAI for asynchronous systems can never be Gaussian if chains are irreducible and aperiodic. Based on these results, we propose novel theoretical evaluations of bit error probabilities in such systems based on the CLT and compare these and conventional theoretical estimations based on the SGA (standard Gaussian approximation) with experimental results. Consequently we confirm that the proposed theoretical evaluations based on the CLT agree with the experimental results better than the theoretical evaluations based on the SGA. Accordingly, using the theoretical evaluations based on the CLT, we give the optimum spreading sequences of Markov chains in terms of bit error probabilities.

Side channel attacks (SCA) are serious attacks on mobile devices. In SCA, the attacker can observe the side channel information while the device performs the cryptographic operations, and he/she can detect the secret stored in the device using such side channel information. Ha-Moon proposed a novel countermeasure against side channel attacks in elliptic curve cryptosystems (ECC). The countermeasure is based on the signed scalar multiplication with randomized concept, and does not pay the penalty of speed. Ha-Moon proved that the countermeasure is secure against side channel attack theoretically, and confirmed its immunity experimentally. Thus Ha-Moon's countermeasure seems to be very attractive. In this paper we propose a novel attack against Ha-Moon's countermeasure, and show that the countermeasure is vulnerable to the proposed attack. The proposed attack utilizes a Markov chain for detecting the secret. The attacker determines the transitions in the Markov chain using side channel information, then detects the relation between consecutive two bits of the secret key, instead of bits of the secret key as they are. The use of such relations drastically reduces the search space for the secret key, and the attacker can easily reveal the secret. In fact, around twenty observations of execution of the countermeasure are sufficient to detect the secret in the case of the standard sizes of ECC. Therefore, the single use of Ha-Moon's countermeasure is not recommended for cryptographic use.

The development of information/communication technology has made it possible to access substantial amounts of data and retrieve information. However, it is often difficult to locate the desired information, and it becomes necessary to spend considerable time determining how to access specific available data. This paper describes a method to quantitatively evaluate the usability of large-scale information-oriented websites and the effects of improvements made to the site design. This is achieved by utilizing the Cognitive Walkthrough for the Web and website modeling using Markov chains. We further demonstrate that we can greatly improve usability through simple modification of the link structure by applying our approach to an actual informational database website with over 40,000 records.

In IP-based mobile networks, a few of mobility agents (e.g., home agent, foreign agent, etc.) are used for mobility management. Recently, Hierarchical Mobile IPv6 (HMIPv6) was proposed to reduce signaling overhead and handoff latency occurred in Mobile IPv6. In HMIPv6, a new mobility agent, called mobility anchor point (MAP), is deployed in order to handle binding update procedures locally. However, the MAP can be a single point of performance bottleneck when there are a lot of mobile node (MNs) performing frequent local movements. This is because the MAP takes binding update procedures as well as data packet tunneling. Therefore, it is required to control the number of MNs serviced by a single MAP. In this paper, we propose a load control scheme at the MAP utilizing an admission control algorithm. We name the proposed load control scheme proactive load control scheme to distinct from the existing load control schemes in cellular networks. In terms of admission control, we use the cutoff priority scheme. We develop Markov chain models for the proactive load control scheme and evaluate the ongoing MN dropping and the new MN blocking probabilities. As a result, the proactive load control scheme can reduce the ongoing MN dropping probability while keeping the new MN blocking probability to a reasonable level.

In this paper, we consider a location management scheme using Limited Pointer forwarding from Commonly visited sites (LPC) strategy for Personal Communication Services (PCS) networks. The Commonly Visited Site (CVS) is defined as a site in which a mobile user is found with high probability. A feature of the strategy is that it skips updating location information of the mobile user, provided that the mobile user moves within its CVSs. Such a strategy is expected to significantly reduce the location update cost. We evaluate the location management cost of the LPC scheme by employing a Continuous-Time Markov Chain (CTMC) model. We show that the LPC scheme can reduce the location management cost of a highly mobile user who is found in its CVS with high probability.

In this paper, we consider QoS-guaranteed wavelength allocation for WDM networks with limited-range wavelength conversion. In the wavelength allocation, the pre-determined number of wavelengths are allocated to each QoS class depending on the required loss probability. Moreover, we consider two wavelength selection rules and three combinations of the rules. We analyze the connection loss probability of each QoS class for a single link using continuous-time Markov chain. We also investigate the connection loss probability for a uni-directional ring network by simulation. In numerical examples, we compare connection loss probabilities for three combinations of selection rules and show how each combination of selection rules affects the connection loss probability of each QoS class. Furthermore, we show how wavelength conversion capability affects the connection loss probability. It is shown that the proposed allocation with appropriate wavelength selection rule is effective for QoS provisioning when the number of wavelengths is large. We also show the effective combination of wavelength selection rules for the case with small wavelength conversion capability.

In mobile multimedia environment, it is very important to minimize handoff latency due to mobility. In terms of reducing handoff latency, Hierarchical Mobile IPv6 (HMIPv6) can be an efficient approach, which uses a mobility agent called Mobility Anchor Point (MAP) in order to localize registration process. However, MAP can be a single point of failure or performance bottleneck. In order to provide mobile users with satisfactory quality of service and fault-tolerant service, it is required to cope with the failure of mobility agents. In, we proposed Robust Hierarchical Mobile IPv6 (RH-MIPv6), which is an enhanced HMIPv6 for fault-tolerant mobile services. In RH-MIPv6, an MN configures two regional CoA and registers them to two MAPs during binding update procedures. When a MAP fails, MNs serviced by the faulty MAP (i.e., primary MAP) can be served by a failure-free MAP (i.e., secondary MAP) by failure detection/recovery schemes in the case of the RH-MIPv6. In this paper, we investigate the comparative study of RH-MIPv6 and HMIPv6 under several performance factors such as MAP unavailability, MAP reliability, packet loss rate, and MAP blocking probability. To do this, we utilize a semi-Markov chain and a M/G/C/C queuing model. Numerical results indicate that RH-MIPv6 outperforms HMIPv6 for all performance factors, especially when failure rate is high.

In this study, a modeling method of the intermittency chaos using the Markov chain is proposed. The performances of the intermittency chaos and the Markov chain model are investigated when they are injected to the Hopfield Neural Network for a quadratic assignment problem or an associative memory. Computer simulated results show that the proposed modeling is good enough to gain similar performance of the intermittency chaos.

Different quality of service (QoS) requirements must be guaranteed in multimedia code division multiple access (CDMA) mobile communication system to support various applications such as voice, video, file transfer, e-mail, and Internet access. In this paper, we analyze the system in a mixed-traffic environment consisting of voice, stream data, and packet data where preemptive priority is granted to delay-intolerant voice service and a buffer is offered to delay-tolerant stream data services. In the case of best-effort packet data service, the probability of access control by transmission permission is applied to obtain throughput improvement. To analyze the multimedia CDMA mobile communication system, we built a two-dimensional Markov chain model on high-priority voice and stream data services, and then performed numerical analyses in conjunction with packet data services based on a residual capacity equation. We investigate the performance of an integrated voice/stream-data/packet-data CDMA mobile system with the finite buffer size of stream data in terms of voice service blocking probability, average stream data service delay, average packet data service delay, and throughput.

We propose a new analytical model of Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) in wireless environments where transmission errors occur frequently. In our proposed model, we consider the exponential increase of a congestion window and the exponential increase of a timeout back-off. Finally, we have clarified the behavior of TCP mechanisms of different versions and TCP throughput characteristics analytically. From our result, the behavior of TCP mechanisms is different in each implementation version. These differences mean that the required characteristics of wireless links are different in each implementation version. Therefore, our proposed model is a base analysis of designing wireless link mechanisms.

Near-optimality of subcodes of the cyclic Hamming codes is demonstrated on the binary additive channel whose noise process is the two-state homogeneous Markov chain, which is a model of bursty communication channels.

This paper describes a random access memory (RAM, sometimes also called an array) test scheme that has the following attributes: (1) Can be used in both built-in mode and off chip/module mode. (2) Can be used to test and diagnose naked arrays. (3) Fault diagnosis is simple and is "free" for some faults during test. (4) Is never subject to aliasing. (5) Depending upon the test length, it can detect many kinds of failures, like stuck-cells, decoder faults, shorts, pattern-sensitive, etc. (6) If used as built-in feature, it does not slow down the normal operation of the array. (7) Does not require storage of correct responses. A single response bit always indicates whether a fault has been detected. Thus, the storage requirement for the implementation of the test scheme is zero. (8) If used as a built-in feature, the hardware overhead is very low.

Motivated by intention to evaluate asymptotically multiple-burst-error-correcting codes on channels with memory, we will derive the following fact. Let {Zi } be a hidden Markov process, i. e. , a functional of a Markov chain with a finite state space, and Wb(Z1Z2Zn) denote the number of burst errors that appear in Z1Z2Zn, where the number of burst errors is counted using Gabidulin's burst metric , 1971. As the main result, we will prove the almost sure convergence of relative burst weight Wb(Z1Z2Zn)/n, i. e. , the relative frequency of occurrence of burst errors, for a broad class of functionals { Zi } of finite Markov chains. Functionals of Markov chains are often adopted as models of the noises on channels, especially on burst-noise channels, the most famous model of which is probably the Gilbert channel proposed in 1960. Those channel models described with Markov chains are called channels with memory (including channels with zero-memory, i. e. , memoryless ones). This work's achievement enables us to extend Gilbert's code performance evaluation in 1952, a landmark that offered the well-known Gilbert bound, discussed its relationship to the (memoryless) binary symmetric channel, and has been serving as a guide for the-Hamming-metric-based design of error-correcting codes, to the case of the-burst-metric-based codes (burst-error-correcting codes) and discrete channels with or without memory.

The aim of this contribution is to take a further step in the study of the impact of chaos-based techniques on classical DS-CDMA systems. The problem addressed here is the sequence phase acquisition and tracking which is needed to synchronize the spreading and despreading sequences of each link. An acquisition mechanism is considered and analyzed in depth to identify analytical expressions of suitable system performance parameters, namely outage probability, link startup delay and expected time to service. Special chaotic maps are considered to show that the choice of spreading sequences can be optimized to accelerate and improve the spreading codes acquisition phase.

In this paper an analysis on the oversampling data recovery circuit is presented. The input waveform is assumed to be non-return-zero (NRZ) binary signals. A finite Markov chain model is used to evaluate the steady-state phase jitter performance. Theoretical analysis enables us to predict the input signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) versus bit error rate (BER) of the oversampling data recovery circuit for various oversampling ratios. The more number of samples per single bit results in the better performance on BER at the same input SNR. To achieve 10-11 BER, 8 times oversampling has about 2 dB input signal penalty compared to 16 times oversampling. In an architectural choice of the oversampling data recovery circuit, the recovered clock can be updated in each data bit or in every multiple bits depending on the input data rate and input noise. Two different clock update schemes were analyzed and compared. The scheme updating clock in every data bit has about 1.5 dB penalty against the multiple bits (4 bits) clock updating scheme with 16 times oversampling in white noise dominant input data. The results were applied to the fabricated circuits to validate the analysis.

CDMA unslotted ALOHA system with finite size of queueing buffers is discussed in this paper. We introduce an analytical model in which the system is divided into two Markov chains; one is in the user part, and the other is in the channel part. In the user part, we can model the queueing behavior of the user station as an M/G/1/B queue. In the channel part, we can consider the number of simultaneously transmitted packets as an M1 + M2/D///K queue. We analyze the queueing system by using this analytical model, and evaluate the effect of buffer capacity in terms of the throughput, the rejection probability and the average delay. As a result, increase in the buffer size brings about an improvement in the grade of service in terms of higher throughput and lower rejection probability.

The location of stations on the buses can not be ignored in the analysis of the DQDB protocol, especially when traffic load is heavy. In this paper, we propose a new method to model the DQDB (Distributed Queue Dual Bus) protocol by assuming that the request arrival process depends on both the value of the request counter and the location of a station on the buses. By taking these dependences, we can catch the real behavior of the DQDB stations, which is locationally dependent and unfair under heavy load traffic. Based on this model, we analyze the DQDB system with finite buffer by considering the request counter states and buffer states separately and obtain the throughput, mean packet delay and packet reject probability of individual stations. The throughput in individual stations matches that of simulation very well within the range of traffic up to the channel capacity. Also the delay and packet reject rate performance is good up to moderate traffic load. These numerical results reveal the properties of the location dependence and the unfairness of DQDB system under heavy load condition. The analytic results under heavy load traffic for a general DQDB system has not been reported till now. Therefore we conclude that our model and analysis are valid and effective.

Many network protocols for routing messages have been proposed for mobile computing environments. In this paper, we consider the query processing strategy which operates over these network protocols. To begin with, we introduce five fundamental location update methods based on ideas extracted from the representative network protocols. They are the single broadcast notification (SBN), the double broadcast notification (WBN), the single default notification (SDN), the double default notification (WDN), and the no notification (NN). As a network protocol, each method is strong in performance in some system enrivonment, but weak in others. In practical situations, where various kinds of applications are used for various purposes, however, it is required to use a single method. We therefore propose an adaptive query processing strategy where these five location update methods can be dynamically selected. Moreover, we analyze the performance of this adaptive query processing strategy via the Markov chain. We also use the statistical approach to estimate the traffic of individual hosts. Finally, we show the efficiency of our proposed strategy over a wide area of system environments.

In this work, the performance evaluation of a voice and data integrated fast PRMA has been done. In this newly proposed protocol, every data terminal has an infinite buffer and voice terminals can work independently of data terminals. Thus voice terminals have the higher priority over data terminals. We can, therefore, analyze voice and data subsystems separately. For voice analysis, we use a Markov analysis, and we use the EPA method for data analysis in order to create an analytic form. As performance measures, the voice packet dropping probability, the average voice and data delays, and the total throughput have been derived. It is shown how many voice and data terminals the fast PRMA protocol can accommodate in a frame under the constraints that the voice packet dropping probability should be less than 0.01, and average data packet delay should be less than 250 msec. We also discuss the stable region for this system. Numerical results show close agreement between analysis and computer simulation.