In this paper, we propose an automatic design support system for compact acoustic devices such as microspeakers inside smartphones. The proposed design support system outputs the dimensions of compact acoustic devices with the desired acoustic characteristic. This system uses a deep neural network (DNN) to obtain the relationship between the frequency characteristic of the compact acoustic device and its dimensions. The training data are generated by the acoustic finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method so that many training data can be easily obtained. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed system through some comparisons between desired and designed frequency characteristics.

MQTT is one of the promising protocols for various data exchange in IoT environments. Typically, those environments have a characteristic called “edge-heavy”, which means that things at the network edge generate a massive volume of data with high locality. For handling such edge-heavy data, an architecture of placing multiple MQTT brokers at the network edges and making them cooperate with each other is quite effective. It can provide higher throughput and lower latency, as well as reducing consumption of cloud resources. However, under this kind of architecture, heterogeneity could be a vital issue. Namely, an appropriate product of MQTT broker could vary according to the different environment of each network edge, even though different products are hard to cooperate due to the MQTT specification providing no interoperability between brokers. In this paper, we propose Interworking Layer of Distributed MQTT brokers (ILDM), which enables arbitrary kinds of MQTT brokers to cooperate with each other. ILDM, designed as a generic mechanism independent of any specific cooperation algorithm, provides APIs to facilitate development of a variety of algorithms. By using the APIs, we also present two basic cooperation algorithms. To evaluate the usefulness of ILDM, we introduce a benchmark system which can be used for both a single broker and multiple brokers. Experimental results show that the throughput of five brokers running together by ILDM is improved 4.3 times at maximum than that of a single broker.

This paper proposes a novel multi-exposure image fusion (MEF) scheme for single-shot high dynamic range imaging with spatially varying exposures (SVE). Single-shot imaging with SVE enables us not only to produce images without color saturation regions from a single-shot image, but also to avoid ghost artifacts in the producing ones. However, the number of exposures is generally limited to two, and moreover it is difficult to decide the optimum exposure values before the photographing. In the proposed scheme, a scene segmentation method is applied to input multi-exposure images, and then the luminance of the input images is adjusted according to both of the number of scenes and the relationship between exposure values and pixel values. The proposed method with the luminance adjustment allows us to improve the above two issues. In this paper, we focus on dual-ISO imaging as one of single-shot imaging. In an experiment, the proposed scheme is demonstrated to be effective for single-shot high dynamic range imaging with SVE, compared with conventional MEF schemes with exposure compensation.

The natural gradient descent is an optimization method for real-valued neural networks that was proposed from the viewpoint of information geometry. Here, we present an extension of the natural gradient descent to complex-valued neural networks. Our idea is to use the Hermitian extension of the Fisher information matrix. Moreover, we generalize the projected natural gradient (PRONG), which is a fast natural gradient descent algorithm, to complex-valued neural networks. We also consider the advantage of complex-valued neural networks over real-valued neural networks. A useful property of complex numbers in the complex plane is that the rotation is simply expressed by the multiplication. By focusing on this property, we construct the output function of complex-valued neural networks, which is invariant even if the input is changed to its rotated value. Then, our complex-valued neural network can learn rotated data without data augmentation. Finally, through simulation of online character recognition, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

The latency and the energy consumption of DRAM are serious concerns because (1) the latency has not improved much for decades and (2) recent machines have huge capacity of main memory. Device-level studies reduce them by shortening the wait time of DRAM internal operations so that they finish fast and consume less energy. Applying these techniques aggressively to achieve approximate memory is a promising direction to further reduce the overhead, given that many data-center applications today are to some extent robust to bit-flips. To advance research on approximate memory, it is required to evaluate its effect to applications so that both researchers and potential users of approximate memory can investigate how it affects realistic applications. However, hardware simulators are too slow to run workloads repeatedly with different parameters. To this end, we propose a lightweight method to evaluate effect of approximate memory. The idea is to count the number of DRAM internal operations that occur to approximate data of applications and calculate the probability of bit-flips based on it, instead of using heavy-weight simulators. The evaluation shows that our system is 3 orders of magnitude faster than cycle accurate simulators, and we also give case studies of evaluating effect of approximate memory to some realistic applications.

The bulk execution of a sequential algorithm is to execute it for many different inputs in turn or at the same time. It is known that the bulk execution of an oblivious sequential algorithm can be implemented to run efficiently on a GPU. The bulk execution supports fine grained bitwise parallelism, allowing it to achieve high acceleration over a straightforward sequential computation. The main contribution of this work is to present a Bitwise Parallel Bulk Computation (BPBC) to accelerate the Smith-Waterman Algorithm (SWA) using the affine gap penalty. Thus, our idea is to convert this computation into a circuit simulation using the BPBC technique to compute multiple instances simultaneously. The proposed BPBC technique for the SWA has been implemented on the GPU and CPU. Experimental results show that the proposed BPBC for the SWA accelerates the computation by over 646 times as compared to a single CPU implementation and by 6.9 times as compared to a multi-core CPU implementation with 160 threads.

Free/libre open source software (FLOSS) are being rapidly employed in several companies and organizations, because it can be modified and used for free. Hence, the use of FLOSS could contribute to its originally intended benefits and to the competence of its users. In this study, we analyzed the effect of using FLOSS on related competences. We investigated the change in the competences through an empirical study before and after the use of FLOSS among project participants. Consequently, it was confirmed that the competences of the participants improved after utilizing FLOSS.

We propose an efficient two-layer near-lossless coding method using an extended histogram packing technique with backward compatibility to the legacy JPEG standard. The JPEG XT, which is the international standard to compress HDR images, adopts a two-layer coding method for backward compatibility to the legacy JPEG standard. However, there are two problems with this two-layer coding method. One is that it does not exhibit better near-lossless performance than other methods for HDR image compression with single-layer structure. The other problem is that the determining the appropriate values of the coding parameters may be required for each input image to achieve good compression performance of near-lossless compression with the two-layer coding method of the JPEG XT. To solve these problems, we focus on a histogram-packing technique that takes into account the histogram sparseness of HDR images. We used zero-skip quantization, which is an extension of the histogram-packing technique proposed for lossless coding, for implementing the proposed near-lossless coding method. The experimental results indicate that the proposed method exhibits not only a better near-lossless compression performance than that of the two-layer coding method of the JPEG XT, but also there are no issue regarding the combination of parameter values without losing backward compatibility to the JPEG standard.

Hadamard matrix is defined as a square matrix where any components are -1 or +1, and where any pairs of rows are mutually orthogonal. In this work, we consider the similar matrix on finite field GF(p) where p is an odd prime. In such a matrix, every component is one of the integers on GF(p){0}, that is, {1,2,...,p-1}. Any additions and multiplications should be executed under modulo p. In this paper, a method to generate such matrices is proposed. In addition, the paper includes the applications to generate n-shift orthogonal sequences and complete complementary codes. The generated complete complementary code is a family of multi-valued sequences on GF(p){0}, where the number of sequence sets, the number of sequences in each sequence set and the sequence length depend on the various divisors of p-1. Such complete complementary codes with various parameters have not been proposed in previous studies.

Linear complexity and the k-error linear complexity of periodic sequences are the important security indices of stream cipher systems. This paper focuses on the distribution of p-error linear complexity of p-ary sequences with period pn. For p-ary sequences of period pn with linear complexity pn-p+1, n≥1, we present all possible values of the p-error linear complexity, and derive the exact formulas to count the number of the sequences with any given p-error linear complexity.

Most of latency-sensitive mobile applications depend on computational resources provided by a cloud computing service. The problem of relying on cloud computing is that, sometimes, the physical locations of cloud servers are distant from mobile users and the communication latency is long. As a result, the concept of distributed cloud service, called mobile edge computing (MEC), is being introduced in the 5G network. However, MEC can reduce only the communication latency. The computing latency in MEC must also be considered to satisfy the required total latency of services. In this research, we study the impact of both latencies in MEC architecture with regard to latency-sensitive services. We also consider a centralized model, in which we use a controller to manage flows between users and mobile edge resources to analyze MEC in a practical architecture. Simulations show that the interval and controller latency trigger some blocking and error in the system. However, the permissive system which relaxes latency constraints and chooses an edge server by the lowest total latency can improve the system performance impressively.

Pseudo-random sequences with good statistical property, such as low autocorrelation, high linear complexity and 2-adic complexity, have been widely applied to designing reliable stream ciphers. In this paper, we explicitly determine the 2-adic complexities of two classes of generalized cyclotomic binary sequences with order 4. Our results show that the 2-adic complexities of both of the sequences attain the maximum. Thus, they are large enough to resist the attack of the rational approximation algorithm for feedback with carry shift registers. We also present some examples to illustrate the validity of the results by Magma programs.

In this letter, a construction of sparse measurement matrices is presented. Based on finite fields, a base matrix is obtained. Then a Hadamard matrix or a discrete Fourier transform (DFT) matrix is nested in the base matrix, which eventually formes a new deterministic measurement matrix. The coherence of the proposed matrices is low, which meets the Welch bound asymptotically. Thus these matrices could satisfy the restricted isometry property (RIP). Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed matrices give better performance than Gaussian counterparts.

Sparse arrays can usually achieve larger array apertures than uniform linear arrays (ULA) with the same number of physical antennas. However, the conventional direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation algorithms for sparse arrays usually require the spatial smoothing operation to recover the matrix rank which inevitably involves heavy computational complexity and leads to a reduction in the degrees-of-freedom (DOFs). In this paper, a low-complex DOA estimation algorithm by exploiting the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) is proposed. Firstly, the spatial spectrum of the virtual array constructed from the sparse array is established by exploiting the DFT operation. The initial DOA estimation can obtain directly by searching the peaks in the DFT spectrum. However, since the number of array antennas is finite, there exists spectrum power leakage which will cause the performance degradation. To further improve the angle resolution, an iterative process is developed to suppress the spectrum power leakage. Thus, the proposed algorithm does not require the spatial smoothing operation and the computational complexity is reduced effectively. In addition, due to the extention of DOF with the application of the sparse arrays, the proposed algorithm can resolve the underdetermined DOA estimation problems. The superiority of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated by simulation results.

Distributed compressive video sensing (DCVS) has received considerable attention due to its potential in source-limited communication, e.g., wireless video sensor networks (WVSNs). Multi-hypothesis (MH) prediction, which treats the target block as a linear combination of hypotheses, is a state-of-the-art technique in DCVS. The common approach is under the supposition that blocks that are dissimilar from the target block are given lower weights than blocks that are more similar. This assumption can yield acceptable reconstruction quality, but it is not suitable for scenarios with more details. In this paper, based on the joint sparsity model (JSM), the authors present a Tikhonov-regularized MH prediction scheme in which the most similar block provides the similar common portion and the others blocks provide respective unique portions, differing from the common supposition. Specifically, a new scheme for generating hypotheses and a Euclidean distance-based metric for the regularized term are proposed. Compared with several state-of-the-art algorithms, the authors show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme when there are a limited number of hypotheses.

Fill-a-Pix is a pencil-and-paper puzzle, which is popular worldwide since announced by Conceptis in 2003. It provides a rectangular grid of squares that must be filled in to create a picture. Precisely, we are given a rectangular grid of squares some of which has an integer from 0 to 9 in it, and our task is to paint some squares black so that every square with an integer has the same number of painted squares around it including the square itself. Despite its popularity, computational complexity of Fill-a-Pix has not been known. We in this paper show that the puzzle is NP-complete, ASP-complete, and #P-complete via a parsimonious reduction from the Boolean satisfiability problem. We also consider the fewest clues problem of Fill-a-Pix, where the fewest clues problem is recently introduced by Demaine et al. for analyzing computational complexity of designing “good” puzzles. We show that the fewest clues problem of Fill-a-Pix is Σ2P-complete.

To efficiently collect sensor readings in cluster-based wireless sensor networks, we propose a structural compressed network coding (SCNC) scheme that jointly considers structural compressed sensing (SCS) and network coding (NC). The proposed scheme exploits the structural compressibility of sensor readings for data compression and reconstruction. Random linear network coding (RLNC) is used to re-project the measurements and thus enhance network reliability. Furthermore, we calculate the energy consumption of intra- and inter-cluster transmission and analyze the effect of the cluster size on the total transmission energy consumption. To that end, we introduce an iterative reweighed sparsity recovery algorithm to address the all-or-nothing effect of RLNC and decrease the recovery error. Experiments show that the SCNC scheme can decrease the number of measurements required for decoding and improve the network's robustness, particularly when the loss rate is high. Moreover, the proposed recovery algorithm has better reconstruction performance than several other state-of-the-art recovery algorithms.

Since first introduced in 2008 with the 1.0 specification, OpenCL has steadily evolved over the decade to increase its support for heterogeneous parallel systems. In this paper, we accelerate stochastic simulation of biochemical reaction networks on modern GPUs (graphics processing units) by means of the OpenCL programming language. In implementing the OpenCL version of the stochastic simulation algorithm, we carefully apply its data-parallel execution model to optimize the performance provided by the underlying hardware parallelism of the modern GPUs. To evaluate our OpenCL implementation of the stochastic simulation algorithm, we perform a comparative analysis in terms of the performance using the CPU-based cluster implementation and the NVidia CUDA implementation. In addition to the initial report on the performance of OpenCL on GPUs, we also discuss applicability and programmability of OpenCL in the context of GPU-based scientific computing.

We numerically investigate that optimal robust onion-like networks can emerge even with the constraint of surface growth in supposing a spatially embedded transportation or communication system. To be onion-like, moderately long links are necessary in the attachment through intermediations inspired from a social organization theory.

Many quality metrics have been proposed for the compliance perception to assess haptic device performance and perceived results. Perceived compliance may be influenced by factors such as object properties, experimental conditions and human perceptual habits. In this paper, analysis of softness perception was conducted to find out relevant quality metrics dominating in the compliance perception system and their correlation with perception results, by expressing these metrics by basic physical parameters that characterizing these factors. Based on three psychophysical experiments, just noticeable differences (JNDs) for perceived softness of combination of different stiffness coefficients and damping levels rendered by haptic devices were analyzed. Interaction data during the interaction process were recorded and analyzed. Preliminary experimental results show that the discrimination ability of softness perception changes with the ratio of damping to stiffness when subjects exploring at their habitual speed. Analysis results indicate that quality metrics of Rate-hardness, Extended Rate-hardness and ratio of damping to stiffness have high correlation for perceived results. Further analysis results show that parameters that reflecting object properties (stiffness, damping), experimental conditions (force bandwidth) and human perceptual habits (initial speed, maximum force change rate) lead to the change of these quality metrics, which then bring different perceptual feeling and finally result in the change of discrimination ability. Findings in this paper may provide a better understanding of softness perception and useful guidance in improvement of haptic and teleoperation devices.