Acoustic data transmission is a technique which embeds data in a sound wave imperceptibly and detects it at a receiver. The data are embedded in an original audio signal and transmitted through the air by playing back the data-embedded audio using a loudspeaker. At the receiver, the data are extracted from the received audio signal captured by a microphone. In our previous work, we proposed an acoustic data transmission system designed based on phase modification of the modulated complex lapped transform (MCLT) coefficients. In this paper, we propose the spectral magnitude adjustment (SMA) technique which not only enhances the quality of the data-embedded audio signal but also improves the transmission performance of the system.

This paper presents an efficient algorithm, NEAR, that allows sensor nodes to acquire their off-duty eligibility. Any node only needs to calculate the coverage degrees of the intersections on its sensing boundary, and cooperates with its neighbors to know if it is redundant or not. The computing complexity of NEAR is only O(nlogn).

A simple image compression scheme is presented for various types of images, which include color/grayscale images, color-quantized images, and bilevel images such as document and digital halftone images. It is a bitplane coding composed of a new context modeling and adaptive binary arithmetic coding. A target bit to be encoded is conditioned by the estimates of the neighboring pixels including non-causal locations. Several functionalities are also integrated. They are arbitrary shaped ROI transmission, selective tile partitioning, accuracy scalability, and others. The proposed bitplane codec is competitive with JPEG-LS in lossless compression of 8-bit grayscale and 24-bit color images. The proposed codec is close to JBIG2 in bilevel image compression. It outperforms the existing standards in compression of 8-bit color-quantized images.

Although there have been enormous investments into English education all around the world, not many differences have been made to change the English instruction style. Considering the shortcomings for the current teaching-learning methodology, we have been investigating advanced computer-assisted language learning (CALL) systems. This paper aims at summarizing a set of POSTECH approaches including theories, technologies, systems, and field studies and providing relevant pointers. On top of the state-of-the-art technologies of spoken dialog system, a variety of adaptations have been applied to overcome some problems caused by numerous errors and variations naturally produced by non-native speakers. Furthermore, a number of methods have been developed for generating educational feedback that help learners develop to be proficient. Integrating these efforts resulted in intelligent educational robots – Mero and Engkey – and virtual 3D language learning games, Pomy. To verify the effects of our approaches on students' communicative abilities, we have conducted a field study at an elementary school in Korea. The results showed that our CALL approaches can be enjoyable and fruitful activities for students. Although the results of this study bring us a step closer to understanding computer-based education, more studies are needed to consolidate the findings.

Network structures can be found in almost any kind of natural or artificial systems as transport medium for communication between the respective nodes. In this paper we study certain key topological features of brain functional networks obtained from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) measurements. We compare complex network measures of the extracted topologies with those from Internet service providers (ISPs). Our goal is to identify important features which will be helpful in designing more robust and adaptive future information network architectures.

of late, many researchers have been interested in sparse representation of signals and its applications such as Compressive Sensing in Cognitive Radio (CR) networks as a way of overcoming the issue of limited bandwidth. Compressive sensing based wideband spectrum sensing is a novel approach in cognitive radio systems. Also in these systems, using spatial-frequency opportunistic reuse is emerged interestingly by constructing and deploying spatial-frequency Power Spectral Density (PSD) maps. Since the CR sensors are distributed in the region of support, the sensed PSD by each sensor should be transmitted to a master node (base-station) in order to construct the PSD maps in space and frequency domains. When the number of sensors is large, this data transmission which is required for construction of PSD map can be challenging. In this paper, in order to transmit the CR sensors' data to the master node, the compressive sensing based scheme is used. Therefore, the measurements are sampled in a lower sampling rate than of the Nyquist rate. By using the proposed method, an acceptable PSD map for cognitive radio purposes can be achieved by only 30% of full data transmission. Also, simulation results show the robustness of the proposed method against the channel variations in comparison with classical methods. Different solution schemes such as Basis Pursuit, Lasso, Lars and Orthogonal Matching Pursuit are used and the quality performance of them is evaluated by several simulation results over a Rician channel with respect to several different compression and Signal to Noise Ratios. It is also illustrated that the performance of Basis Pursuit and Lasso methods outperform the other compression methods particularly in higher compression rates.

Hypercomplex polar Fourier analysis treats a signal as a vector field and generalizes the conventional polar Fourier analysis. It can handle signals represented by hypercomplex numbers such as color images. Hypercomplex polar Fourier analysis is reversible that means it can reconstruct image. Its coefficient has rotation invariance property that can be used for feature extraction. However in order to increase the computation speed, fast algorithm is needed especially for image processing applications like realtime systems and limited resource platforms. This paper presents fast hypercomplex polar Fourier analysis based on symmetric properties and mathematical properties of trigonometric functions. Proposed fast hypercomplex polar Fourier analysis computes symmetric points simultaneously, which significantly reduce the computation time.

Reversible color component transforms derived by the LU factorization are briefly described. It is possible to obtain an reversible implementation to a given component transform, even if the original transform is irreversible. Some examples are presented and their performances are compared in image compression.

Program comprehension using dynamic information is one of key tasks of software maintenance. Software visualization with sequence diagrams is a promising technique to help developer comprehend the behavior of object-oriented systems effectively. There are many tools that can support automatic generation of a sequence diagram from execution traces. However it is still difficult to understand the behavior because the size of automatically generated sequence diagrams from the massive amounts of execution traces tends to be beyond developer's capacity. In this paper, we propose an execution trace slicing and visualization method. Our proposed method is capable of slice calculation based on a behavior model which can treat dependencies based on static and dynamic analysis and supports for various programs including exceptions and multi-threading. We also introduce our tool that perform our proposed slice calculation on the Eclipse platform. We show the applicability of our proposed method by applying the tool to two Java programs as case studies. As a result, we confirm effectiveness of our proposed method for understanding the behavior of object-oriented systems.

Maximum likelihood block signal detection employing QR decomposition and M-algorithm (QRM-MLBD) can significantly improve the bit error rate (BER) performance of single-carrier (SC) transmission while significantly reducing the computational complexity compared to maximum likelihood detection (MLD). However, its computational complexity is still high. In this paper, we propose the computationally efficient 2-step QRM-MLBD. Compared to conventional QRM-MLBD, the number of symbol candidates can be reduced by using preliminary decision made by minimum mean square error based frequency-domain equalization (MMSE-FDE). The BER performance achievable by 2-step QRM-MLBD is evaluated by computer simulation. It is shown that it can significantly reduce the computational complexity while achieving almost the same BER performance as the conventional QRM-MLBD.

In this paper, the author proposes an electromagnetic coupling fed inverted-FL antenna design. The inverted-FL antenna with a self-complementary structure has been reported as a way to achieve a constant impedance of 188 ohms without the need for a matching load, since the axially symmetric self-complementary antenna has constant impedance, even though it has a finite structure. This design has been realized by integrating an inverted-F antenna with a self-complementary structure for achieving a broadband characteristic and an inverted-L element for operation on a frequency lower than the minimum frequency of the antenna. The proposed antenna realizes a broadband characteristic without attaching the matching load and the impedance transformer to match 50 ohms. The impedance transformer necessary for the inverted-FL antenna with a self-complementary structure is removed by using an electromagnetic coupling feed structure. This antenna, which has a volume of 101045 mm3, obtained broadband and multi-band characteristics covering the GSM850/GSM900/DCS/PCS/UMTS2100/UMTS2600 bands and the 2.5 G/3.5 G bands for Mobile-WiMAX in simulation and measurement.

By using a quadratic compensation slope, a CMOS current-mode buck DC-DC converter with constant frequency characteristics over wide input and output voltage ranges has been developed. The use of a quadratic slope instead of a conventional linear slope makes both the damping factor in the transfer function and the frequency bandwidth of the current feedback loop independent of the converter's output voltage settings. When the coefficient of the quadratic slope is chosen to be dependent on the input voltage settings, the damping factor in the transfer function and the frequency bandwidth of the current feedback loop both become independent of the input voltage settings. Thus, both the input and output voltage dependences in the current feedback loop are eliminated, the frequency characteristics become constant, and the frequency bandwidth is maximized. To verify the effectiveness of a quadratic compensation slope with a coefficient that is dependent on the input voltage in a buck DC-DC converter, we fabricated a test chip using a 0.18 µm high-voltage CMOS process. The evaluation results show that the frequency characteristics of both the total feedback loop and the current feedback loop are constant even when the input and output voltages are changed from 2.5 V to 7 V and from 0.5 V to 5.6 V, respectively, using a 3 MHz clock.

A novel high speed 4-2 compressor using static and pass-transistor logic, has been designed in a 0.35 µm CMOS technology. In order to reduce gate level delay and increase the speed, some changes are performed in truth table of conventional 4-2 compressor which leaded to the simplification of logic function for all parameters. Therefore, power dissipation is decreased. In addition, because of similar paths from all inputs to the outputs, the delays are the same. So there will be no need for extra buffers in low latency paths to equalize the delays.

An adaptive rate controller (ARC) based on an adaptive neural fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) is designed to autonomously adjust the data rate of a mobile heterogeneous network to adapt to the changing traffic load and the user speed for multimedia call services. The effect of user speed on the handoff rate is considered. Through simulations, it has been demonstrated that the ANFIS-ARC is able to maintain new call blocking probability and handoff failure probability of the mobile heterogeneous network below a prescribed low level over different user speeds and new call origination rates while optimizing the average throughput. It has also been shown that the mobile cognitive wireless network with the proposed CS-ANFIS-ARC protocol can support more traffic load than neural fuzzy call-admission and rate controller (NFCRC) protocol.

In remote control, efficient compression or representation of control signals is essential to send them through rate-limited channels. For this purpose, we propose an approach of sparse control signal representation using the compressive sampling technique. The problem of obtaining sparse representation is formulated by cardinality-constrained 2 optimization of the control performance, which is reducible to 1-2 optimization. The low rate random sampling employed in the proposed method based on the compressive sampling, in addition to the fact that the 1-2 optimization can be effectively solved by a fast iteration method, enables us to generate the sparse control signal with reduced computational complexity, which is preferable in remote control systems where computation delays seriously degrade the performance. We give a theoretical result for control performance analysis based on the notion of restricted isometry property (RIP). An example is shown to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach via numerical experiments.

To reconstruct low-resolution facial photographs which are in focus and without motion blur, a novel algorithm based on local similarity preserving is proposed. It is based on the theories of local manifold learning. The innovations of the new method include mixing point-based entropy and Euclidian distance to search for the nearest points, adding point-to-patch degradation model to restrict the linear weights and compensating the fusing patch to keep energy coherence. The compensation reduces the algorithm dependence on training sets and keeps the luminance of reconstruction constant. Experiments show that our method can effectively reconstruct 1612 images with the magnification of 88 and the 3224 facial photographs in focus and without motion blur.

In this paper, a study on discrete-time coined quantum walks on the line is presented. Clear mathematical foundations are still lacking for this quantum walk model. As a step toward this objective, the following question is being addressed: Given a graph, what is the probability that a quantum walk arrives at a given vertex after some number of steps? This is a very natural question, and for random walks it can be answered by several different combinatorial arguments. For quantum walks this is a highly non-trivial task. Furthermore, this was only achieved before for one specific coin operator (Hadamard operator) for walks on the line. Even considering only walks on lines, generalizing these computations to a general SU(2) coin operator is a complex task. The main contribution is a closed-form formula for the amplitudes of the state of the walk (which includes the question above) for a general symmetric SU(2) operator for walks on the line. To this end, a coin operator with parameters that alters the phase of the state of the walk is defined. Then, closed-form solutions are computed by means of Fourier analysis and asymptotic approximation methods. We also present some basic properties of the walk which can be deducted using weak convergence theorems for quantum walks. In particular, the support of the induced probability distribution of the walk is calculated. Then, it is shown how changing the parameters in the coin operator affects the resulting probability distribution.

We have developed a portable NIRS-based optical BCI system that features a non-invasive, facile probe attachment and does not require muscle movement to control the target devices. The system consists of a 2-channel probe, a signal-processing unit, and an infrared-emission device, which measures the blood volume change in the participant's prefrontal cortex in a real time. We use the threshold logic as a switching technology, which transmits a control signal to a target device when the electrical waveforms exceed the pre-defined threshold. Eight healthy volunteers participated in the experiments and they could change the television channel or control the movement of a toy robot with average switching times of 11.5 ± 5.3 s and the hit rate was 83.3%. These trials suggest that this system provides a novel communication aid for people with motor disabilities.

Given a collection of k sets consisting of a total of n points in the plane, the distance from any point in the plane to each of the sets is defined to be the minimum among distances to each point in the set. The farthest-color Voronoi diagram is defined as a generalized Voronoi diagram of the k sets with respect to the distance functions for each of the k sets. The combinatorial complexity of the diagram is known to be Θ(kn) in the worst case. This paper initiates a study on farthest-color Voronoi diagrams having O(n) complexity. We introduce a realistic model, which defines a certain class of the diagrams with desirable geometric properties observed. We finally show that the farthest-color Voronoi diagrams under the model have linear complexity.

With the development of COMPASS system, finding suitable and efficient multiplexing solutions have become important for the system signal design. In this paper, based on the alternative BOC (AltBOC) modulation technique, the multiplexing scheme for COMPASS Phase II B1 signals is proposed. Then, to combine all COMPASS Phase III (CP III) B1 components into a composite signal with constant envelope, the generalized majority voting (GMV) technique is employed based on the characteristics of CP III B1 signals. The proposed multiplexing schemes also provide potential opportunities for GNSS modernization and construction, such as GPS, Galileo, etc.