In this paper, we propose a method for supervised single-channel speech separation through sparse decomposition using periodic signal models. The proposed separation method employs sparse decomposition, which decomposes a signal into a set of periodic signals under a sparsity penalty. In order to achieve separation through sparse decomposition, the decomposed periodic signals have to be assigned to the corresponding sources. For the assignment of the periodic signal, we introduce clustering using a K-means algorithm to group the decomposed periodic signals into as many clusters as the number of speakers. After the clustering, each cluster is assigned to its corresponding speaker using preliminarily learnt codebooks. Through separation experiments, we compare our method with MaxVQ, which performs separation on the frequency spectrum domain. The experimental results in terms of signal-to-distortion ratio show that the proposed sparse decomposition method is comparable to the frequency domain approach and has less computational costs for assignment of speech components.

Applying Distributed Video Coding (DVC) to mobile devices that have limited computation and power resources can be a very challenging problem due to its high-complexity decoding. To address this, this paper proposes a DVC bitstream organizer. The proposed DVC bitstream organizer reduces the complexity associated with repetitive channel decoding and SI generation in a flexible manner. It allows users to choose a means of minimizing the computational complexity of the DVC decoder according to their preferences and the device's resource limitations. An experiment shows that the proposed method increases decoding speeds by up to 25 times.

We present MIMO-OFDM based broadband power line communication (BPLC) that uses antenna and fading diversity. We evaluate the proposed MIMO-OFDM over BPLC channels, with or without cross-talk between antenna paths. The proposed scheme employs maximum ratio combining (MRC) that effectively combines both multiple antenna diversity gain and multipath fading diversity gain over 3-phase (22 MIMO, outdoor) or 1-phase (SISO, indoor) power line channels. Simulation results prove the performance advantage of the proposed scheme, whether or not cross-talk exists, over existing schemes.

In this paper, we analyze current-voltage characteristics of InSb/AlInSb triple-barrier resonant tunneling diodes (TBRTDs) with spin-splitting under zero magnetic fields. The InSb has very small effective mass, thus we can obtain large spin-splitting by Rashba spin-orbit interaction due to asymmetric InSb/AlInSb quantum wells. In our model, broadening of each resonant tunneling level and spin-splitting energy can be considered to calculate spin-polarized resonant tunneling current.

This paper provides an overview on the recent research on networked control with an emphasis on the tight relation between the two fields of control and communication. In particular, we present several results focusing on data rate constraints in networked control systems, which can be modeled as quantization of control-related signals. The motivation is to reduce the amount of data rate as much as possible in obtaining control objectives such as stabilization and control performance under certain measures. We also discuss some approaches towards control problems based on techniques from signal processing and information theory.

This paper discusses a control system that employs a power line to transfer signals to control the motion of a single machine, and explores the influence of packet losses on the quality of the control. As an example of a controlled system, a controller with a rotary inverted pendulum as a controlled object, is considered. The feedback loop in between is the power line. The control performance is evaluated in the power line cyclostationary noise environment and compared against the performance in a stationary noise environment. As a result, it is confirmed that the power line and its cyclostationary noise features present an advantage against transmission in a channel with stationary noise.

In this paper, we consider an amplify-and-forward cooperative wireless network in which network nodes use multiple input multiple output (MIMO) spatial division multiplexing (SDM) to communicate with one another. We examine the problem of distributed cooperative relay selection and signal combining at the destination. First, we propose three distributed relay selection algorithms based on the maximum channel gains, the maximum harmonic mean of the channel gains, and the minimum mean squared error (MSE) of the signal estimation. Second, we propose a minimum mean square error (MMSE) signal combining scheme which jointly serves as the optimal signal combiner and interference canceler. It is shown that the MSE selection together with the MMSE combining achieves the maximal diversity gain. We also show that in MIMO-SDM cooperative networks increasing the number of candidate nodes does not help to improve the BER performance as opposed to the cooperative networks where each node is equipped with only single antenna. A practical approach to implementation of the combiner based on the current wireless access network protocols will also be presented.

Cognitive radio is an emerging technology to further improve the efficiency of spectrum use. Due to the nature of the technology, it has many facets, including its enabling technologies, its implementation issues and its regulatory implications. In ITU-R (International Telecommunications Union – Radiocommunication sector), cognitive radio systems are currently being studied so that ITU-R can have a clear picture on this new technology and its potential regulatory implications, from a viewpoint of global spectrum management. This paper introduces the recent results of the ITU-R studies on cognitive radio on both regulatory and technical aspects. This paper represents a personal opinion of the author, but not an official view of the ITU-R.

This letter is concerned with cellular controlled short-range communication (CCSRC) systems, which can provide a significant performance gain over the traditional cellular systems as shown in the literature. However, to obtain such a gain, CCSRC systems need perfect channel state information (CSI) of all users and the complexity of setting up the optimal cooperative clusters is factorial with respect to the number of potentially cooperative users, which is very unrealistic in practical systems. To solve this problem, we propose a novel cooperative strategy, where CCSRC systems only need the distances between all user pairs and the complexity of setting up the cooperative clusters is relatively low. Simulation results show that the performance of the proposed strategy is close to optimal.

A new low-power feedback structure for a power amplifier (PA) reduces signal distortion while keeping the power efficiency of the PA high. The feedback structure injects the envelope of the third-order harmonics into the input signal. In adopting this method for a class-A amplifier, we obtain over 10% higher efficiency while maintaining the same adjacent channel power ratio (ACPR). The power consumption of additional circuit is 200 µW.

In this letter, we consider a cognitive radio based multihop network under the spectrum sharing underlay paradigm. By taking into account the interference constraints, we present an exact closed-form expression for outage probability, which is valid for the whole signal-to-noise ratio regime. In addition, some numerical examples of interest that study the effect of the number of hops and/or the interferer threshold on primary users are illustrated and discussed. Numerical results show that multihop systems still offer a considerable gain as compared to direct transmission under the same limit of interference.

This letter studies cellular controlled short-range communication in OFDMA networks. The network needs to decide when to allow direct communication between a closely located device-to-device (D2D) pair instead of conveying data from one device to the other via the base station and when not to, in addition to subchannel and power allocation. Our goal is to maximize the total network throughput while guaranteeing the rate requirements of all users. For that purpose, we formulate an optimization problem subject to subchannel and power constraints. A scheme which combines a joint mode selection and subchannel allocation algorithm based on equal power allocation with a power reallocation scheme is proposed. Simulation results show that our proposed scheme can improve the network throughput and outage probability compared with other schemes.

In this paper, a novel microstrip hairpin-line bandpass filter which employs a modified Minkowski fractal shape is proposed. Although conventional hairpin-line filters are popular for RF front ends, they suffer from undesired spurious responses located at the second harmonic, which causes asymmetry in the upper skirt band. By proper design, the second harmonic of fractal filters can be significantly suppressed through the use of fractal shape. To validate this novel geometry, the proposed filters are fabricated and measured. Simulated results are in good agreement with measured results.

Large-scale adoption of electronic healthcare applications requires semantic interoperability. The new proposals propose an advanced (multi-level) DBMS architecture for repository services for health records of patients. These also require query interfaces at multiple levels and at the level of semi-skilled users. In this regard, a high-level user interface for querying the new form of standardized Electronic Health Records system has been examined in this study. It proposes a step-by-step graphical query interface to allow semi-skilled users to write queries. Its aim is to decrease user effort and communication ambiguities, and increase user friendliness.

This letter presents an analytical study of outage probability of a 3G/Ad Hoc cooperative network. The considered cooperative network can improve the signal quality so as to decrease the outage probability. Meanwhile, it imposes additional interference on other ongoing users. But on the whole, our analytical study and simulation results show that the cooperative network can still effectively overcome outage event and decrease the average outage probability.

A generation effect of higher harmonics for an externally applied signal in a photoconductive (PC) terahertz (THz)-wave emitter has been found. This effect is applicable to accurately measuring for frequencies of THz waves. This paper describes reasons why higher harmonics are generated in a PC device. The dependence of the photoconductance on the applied voltage in the PC device consists of a flat range and a negative slant range, and one sharply bending point is then formed at the boundary between the flat and slant ranges. When the PC device is irradiated by two laser beams with slightly different optical frequencies, the photoconductance is strongly modulated at the optical beat frequency in the THz region by photomixing the two laser beams. As a result, three bending points are formed in the average photoconductance (introduced as the average of the temporal photoconductance varying at the THz frequency). The slants comprised of the three bending points are different from each other. When the variation range of the applied voltage driven by the signal input on the biased voltage covers the voltage of one of the bending points, the photoconductance (or the average photoconductance in optical beating) varies along the different two slopes, the resultant temporal photocurrent is largely distorted, and then the harmonics of the signal input are generated in the photocurrent. The following features are clarified: (1) the harmonics of the signal input are generated by appropriately adjusting the bias voltage and the amplitude of the signal input, regardless of the presence/absence of optical beating; (2) the efficiency of the harmonic generation is about 10-4 -10-5; and (3) the harmonics over 35th order with almost flat amplitudes (-3.8 dB/octave) are generated.

Photonic integrated circuits (PICs) produced by large-scale integration (LSI) on Si platforms have been intensively researched. Since thermal diffusion from the LSI logic layer is a serious obstacle to realizing a Si-based optical integrated circuit, we have proposed and realized athermal wavelength filters using Si slot waveguides embedded with benzocyclobutene (BCB). First, the athermal conditions were theoretically investigated by controlling the waveguide and gap width of the slot waveguides. In order to introduce the calculated waveguide structures to wavelength filters, the propagation losses and bending losses of the Si slot waveguides were evaluated. The propagation losses were measured to be 5.6 and 5.3 dB/cm for slot waveguide widths of 500 and 700 nm, respectively. Finally, athermal wavelength filters, a ring resonator, and a Mach-Zhender interferometer (MZI) with a slot waveguide width of 700 nm were designed and fabricated. Further, a temperature coefficient of -0.9 pm/K for the operating wavelength was achieved with the athermal MZI.

We propose a built-in planar lens for coupling light to a waveguide on a 2-D photonic crystal (PhC) membrane. A 2-D PhC waveguide with the built-in lens has been fabricated with AlGaAs. Improvement in coupling performance is discussed in comparison to waveguides with straight ends as cleaved.

Since most of energy consumed by the telecommunication infrastructure is due to the Base Transceiver Station (BTS), switching off BTSs when traffic load is low has been recognized as an effective way of saving energy. In this letter, an energy saving scheme is proposed to minimize the number of active BTSs based on the space-time structure of traffic loads as determined by principal component analysis. Compared to existing methods, our approach models traffic loads more accurately, and has a much smaller input size. As it is implemented in an off-line manner, our scheme also avoids excessive communications and computing overheads. Simulation results show that the proposed method has a comparable performance in energy savings.

This paper presents an area-effective bandwidth enhancement technique using interwoven inductors. Inductive peaking is a common practice for bandwidth enhancement, however the area overhead of inductors is a serious issue. We implement six or four inductors into an interwoven inductor. Furthermore parasitics of the inductors can be reduced. The proposed inductor is applied to a laser-diode driver in a 0.18 µm CMOS. Compared to conventional shunt-peaking, the proposed circuit achieves 1.6 times faster operation and 60% reduction in power consumption under the condition for the same amount of data transmission and the LD driving current. The interwoven inductor can reduce the circuit area by 26%. Parasitic capacitance in interwoven inductor is discussed. Simulation results reveal that line-to-line capacitance is a significant factor on bandwidth degradation.