To attain good performance in an acoustic echo cancellation system, it is important to have a variable step size (VSS) algorithm as part of an adaptive filter. In this paper, we are concerned with the development of a VSS algorithm for a recently proposed subband affine projection (SAP) adaptive filter. Two popular VSS algorithms in the literature are the methods of delayed coefficients (DC) and variable regularization (VR). However, the merits and demerits of them are mutually exclusive. We propose a VSS algorithm that is a hybrid of both methods and combines their advantages. An extensive study of the new algorithm in different scenarios like the presence double-talk (DT) during the transient phase of the adaptive filter, DT during steady state, and varying DT power is conducted and reasoning is given to support the observed behavior. The importance of the method of VR as part of a VSS algorithm is emphasized.

The use of cross-polarized antennas for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems is receiving attention as they are able to double the number of antenna for half antenna spacing needs. This paper presents the channel correlation property of the 3rd Generation Partner Project (3GPP)/3GPP2 spatial channel model (SCM) with the polarization propagation. The statistical average of the per path polarization correlation given random cross-polarization discrimination (XPD) with co-located ideal tilted dipole antennas is derived. The impact on the random behavior of the polarization correlation due to the slant offset angle, the per path angular spread (AS), and the random XPD is analyzed. The simulation results show that the variation of polarization correlation caused by the random XPD is maximized with a 58 slant offset angle under the assumptions of all predefined scenarios in SCM. The per path AS has minor impact on the statistics of the polarization correlations. The randomness of polarization correlation is negligible for an XPD with small standard deviation.

A method for measuring similarity between two variables is presented. Our approach considers the case where available observations are arbitrarily filtered versions of the variables. In order to measure the similarity between the original variables from the observations, we propose an error-minimizing filter (EMF). The EMF is designed so that an error between outputs of the EMF is minimized. In this paper, the EMF is constructed by a finite impulse response (FIR) filter, and the error between the outputs is evaluated by the mean square error (EMF). We show that minimization of the MSE results in an eigenvalue problem, and the optimal solution is given in a closed form. We also reveal that the minimal MSE by the EMF is efficient in the measurement of the similarity from the viewpoint of a correlation coefficient between the originals.

This paper investigates noise reduction performance and performs convergence analysis of a Variable Error Data Normalized Step-Size Least Mean Square (VEDNSS LMS) algorithm. Adopting VEDNSS LMS provides fast convergence at early stages of adaptation while ensuring small final misadjustment. An analysis of convergence and steady-state performance for zero-mean Gaussian inputs is provided. Simulation results comparing the proposed algorithm to existing algorithms indicate its superior performance under various noise and frequency environments.

This paper proposes a DCT-based steganographic method named StegErmelc in the JPEG domain. Three strategies are proposed, namely (i) edge-like block selection, (ii) recursive matrix encoding, and (iii) largest coefficient serving, to form a novel steganographic method for achieving scalable carrier capacity, low detectability by universal blind steganalyzer, and high image quality, simultaneously. For a given message length, StegErmelc flexibly scales its carrier capacity to accommodate the message while trading off with stego detectability. At full capacity, StegErmelc has comparable carrier capacity relative to the existing methods. When embedding the same amount of information, StegErmelc remarkably reduces the stego detection rate to about 0.3-0.5 lower than that of the existing methods considered, and consequently StegErmelc can withstand blind steganalyzer when embedding up to 0.10 bpc. Under the same condition, StegErmelc produces stego image with quality higher than that of the existing methods considered. Graphical comparison with three additional evaluation metrics is also presented to show the relative performance of StegErmelc with respect to the existing methods considered.

A compact built-in handset antenna for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system at 2 GHz, comprising two elements array of newly proposed L-shaped folded monopole antenna (LFMA), is evaluated under the multipath radio wave propagation environments. By analyzing the fundamental characteristics, mean effective gain (MEG), correlation, and channel capacity, the significant enhancement in the capability, as a handset MIMO antenna under practical use conditions, was confirmed. The performances were also compared to those of an array antenna comprising two planar inversed-F antenna (PIFA) elements in order to verify the effectiveness of the proposed antenna. The results show that the equivalent or improved performances can be realized, by using the proposed LFMA array with a compact size, taking only the volume of 44% of a PIFA array. The LFMA array provides almost the same bandwidth and enhanced isolation compared with a PIFA array, and the sufficiently low correlation and acceptable effective gain are obtained under the multipath radio wave propagation environments. In addition, a greater channel capacity than a PIFA array is achieved especially when the proposed LFMA array is inclined for the display-viewing mode, and moreover, an almost doubled increase in the channel capacity is obtained by using MIMO transmission compared with single-input single-output (SISO). This study also show that the MEG has much effects on the channel capacity, rather than the correlations, for the proposed antenna.

A novel design for temperature-compensated complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) voltage reference sources by using the 1st order voltage reference taking into account the electrical property of the conventional current generator was proposed to minimize a temperature coefficient. A temperature coefficient of the proposed voltage reference source was estimated by using the current generator, which operated at smaller or larger temperature in comparison with the optimized operating temperature. The temperature coefficient at temperature range between -40 and 125, obtained from the simulated data by using hynix 0.35 µm CMOS technology, was 3.33 ppm/. The simulated results indicate that the proposed temperature-compensated CMOS voltage reference sources by using the 1st order voltage reference taking into account the electrical properties of the conventional current generator can be used to decrease the temperature coefficient.

This paper investigates the design curves of the class DE amplifier with the nonlinear shunt capacitances for any output Q and any grading coefficient m of the diode junction in the MOSFET. The design curves are derived by the numerical calculation using Spice. The results of this paper have two important meanings. Firstly, it is clarified that the nonlinearities of the shunt capacitances affect the design curves of the class DE amplifier, especially, for low output Q. Moreover, the supply voltage is a quite important parameter to design the class DE amplifier with the nonlinear shunt capacitances. Secondly, it is also clarified that the numerical design tool using Spice, which is proposed by authors, can be applied to the derivation of the design curves. This shows the possibility of the algorithm to be a powerful tool for the analysis of the class E switching circuits. The waveforms from Spice simulations denote the validity of the design curves.

Stochastic approaches for effective power distribution network optimization are proposed. Considering node voltages obtained using dynamic voltage drop analysis as sample variables, multi-variate regression is conducted to optimize clock timing metrics, such as clock skew or jitter. Aggregate correlation coefficient (ACC) which quantifies connectivity between different chip regions is defined in order to find a possible insufficiency in wire connections of a power distribution network. Based on the ACC, we also propose a procedure using linear regression to find the most effective region for improving clock timing metrics. By using the proposed procedure, effective fixing point were obtained two orders faster than by using brute force circuit simulation.

Bone Mineral Density (BMD) is an indicator of osteoporosis that is an increasingly serious disease, particularly for the elderly. To calculate BMD, we need to measure the volume of the femur in a noninvasive way. In this paper, we propose a noninvasive bone volume measurement method using x-ray attenuation on radiography and medical knowledge. The absolute thickness at one reference pixel and the relative thickness at all pixels of the bone in the x-ray image are used to calculate the volume and the BMD. First, the absolute bone thickness of one particular pixel is estimated by the known geometric shape of a specific bone part as medical knowledge. The relative bone thicknesses of all pixels are then calculated by x-ray attenuation of each pixel. Finally, given the absolute bone thickness of the reference pixel, the absolute bone thickness of all pixels is mapped. To evaluate the performance of the proposed method, experiments on 300 subjects were performed. We found that the method provides good estimations of real BMD values of femur bone. Estimates shows a high linear correlation of 0.96 between the volume Bone Mineral Density (vBMD) of CT-SCAN and computed vBMD (all P<0.001). The BMD results reveal 3.23% difference in volume from the BMD of CT-SCAN.

Classification of terrain is one of the most important applications of Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (POLSAR) image analysis. This paper presents a simple method to classify terrain by the use of the correlation coefficients in the circular polarization basis together with the total power of the scattering matrix in the X-band. The reflection symmetry condition that the co-polarized and the cross-polarized correlations are close to zero for natural distributed scatterers is utilized to extract characteristic parameters of small forests or cluster of trees, and oriented urban building blocks with respect to the direction of the radar illumination. Both of these kinds of scatterers are difficult to identify in high resolution POLSAR images of complex urban areas. The indices employed here are the correlation coefficient, a modified coefficient normalized by the reflection symmetric conditional case, and the total power. It is shown that forest areas and oriented building blocks are easily detected and identified. The terrain classification yielded by these combinations is very accurate as confirmed by photographic ground truth images.

A new unified method is proposed to calculate the basic resonator parameters, i.e., the resonant frequency, external Q, unloaded Q and coupling coefficient in the time domain. By exciting the resonator from a weakly coupled external circuit, one can inject only a narrow resonant spectrum from the broad spectrum of the excitation pulse. The resonant frequency is easily counted by the number of zero crossings of the internal field intensity, whereas the Q's are calculated by the decay rate of the field amplitude. The coupling coefficient computed by the energy exchange rate between two resonators completes the new time domain algorithm.

This paper presents an adaptive transform coefficient scan method that effectively improves intra coding efficiency of H.264. Instead of applying one zig-zag scan to all transform blocks, the proposed method applies a field scan to a horizontally predicted block, a horizontal scan to a vertically predicted block, and a zig-zag scan to blocks predicted in other prediction modes. Experiments based on JM9.6 were performed using only intra coding. Results of the experiments show that the proposed method yields an average PSNR enhancement of 0.16 dB and a maximum PSNR enhancement of 0.31 dB over the current H.264 using zig-zag scan.

The effect of wall and indoor scatterers on the indoor multiple input multiple output (MIMO) communication system is investigated by using the hybrid technique of finite difference time domain (FDTD) method and method of moments (MoM). MIMO channel capacity with the wall reflection is investigated with consideration of the eigenvalue of channel covariance matrix, the received power and the effective multipaths of MIMO system. It is found that the stronger side wall reflection can lead to the higher MIMO channel capacity. MIMO system with indoor scatterers is also analyzed and compared with the line of sight (LOS) indoor MIMO system. It is found that the scatterer material has different effect on the received power and the effective multipaths of MIMO system.

We propose a method to retrieve similar and duplicate images from a JPEG (Joint Photographic Image Group) image database. Similarity level is decided based on the DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform) coefficients signs. The method is simple and fast because it uses the DCT coefficients signs as features, which can be obtained directly after partial decoding of JPEG bitstream. The method is robust to JPEG compression, in which similarity level of duplicate images, i.e., images that are compressed from the same original images with different compression ratios, is not disguised due to JPEG compression. Simulation results showed the superiority of the method compared to previous methods in terms of computational complexity and robustness to JPEG compression.

The possibility of using three kinds of new type composite materials as material for high speed sliding contacts was investigated. The results of this investigation were compared with the results of the low speed tests that were reported earlier. As a result of the above, it was discovered that for high speed rotation in the range from 0.014 m/s to 2 m/s, the order of merit did not significantly change. Based on this, it was concluded that if solid lubricant is effectively supplied to the sliding surface, the influence by frictional heat generated by high speed is slight. Of the three kinds of composite material, it was clarified that composite material (CMML-1) had the lowest contact resistance and Composite Material (CMML-3) had the lowest maximum frictional coefficient of friction. 'CM' and 'ML' are initialisms for 'Composite Material' and 'Material of Lubrication' respectively. The number that is attached to the material name is a numeric value that was set by this laboratory.

In this paper, we propose a predictive block-constrained trellis-coded quantization (BC-TCQ) to quantize cepstral coefficients for distributed speech recognition. For prediction of the cepstral coefficients, the first order auto-regressive (AR) predictor is used. To quantize the prediction error signal effectively, we use the BC-TCQ. The quantization is compared to the split vector quantizers used in the ETSI standard, and is shown to lower cepstral distance and bit rates.

A low-power sub-1-V self-biased low-voltage reference is proposed for micropower electronic applications based on body effect. The proposed reference has a very low temperature dependence by using a MOSFET with body effect compared with other reported low-power references. An HSPICE simulation shows that the reference voltage and the total power dissipation are 181 mV and 1.1 µW, respectively. The temperature coefficient of the reference voltage is 33 ppm/ at temperatures from -40 to 100. The supply voltage can be as low as 0.95 V in a standard CMOS 0.35 µm technology with threshold voltages of about 0.5 V and -0.65 V for n-channel and p-channel MOSFETs, respectively. Furthermore, the supply voltage dependence is -0.36 mV/V (Vdd=0.95-3.3 V).

In this paper, based on the variation of the modified Booth encoding method, an efficient modified Booth multiplier design method for predetermined coefficient groups is proposed. In the case of pulse-shaping filter design used in CDMA, it is shown that by the proposed method, area and power consumption can be reduced up to 44% and 48%, respectively, compared with the conventional designs. Also, it is shown that in the case of 128-point radix-24 FFT, the area and power consumption can be reduced by 18% and 36%, respectively.

The effects of wall reflection on indoor MIMO channel capacity are statistically investigated with consideration of the average received power, the effective degrees of freedom (EDOF) of multipaths and the eigenvalues of transfer channel covariance matrix. It is found that the stronger wall reflection can lead to higher MIMO channel capacity.