Recent advances of superconducting single-flux-quantum (SFQ) circuit technology make it attractive to investigate computing systems using SFQ circuits, where arithmetic circuits play important roles. In order to develop excellent SFQ arithmetic circuits, we have to design or select their underlying algorithms, called hardware algorithms, from different point of view than CMOS circuits, because SFQ circuits work by pulse logic while CMOS circuits work by level logic. In this paper, we compare implementations of hardware algorithms for addition by synchronous-clocking SFQ circuits. We show that a set of individual bit-serial adders and Kogge-Stone adder are superior to others.

Major challenges of the conventional spread-transform dither modulation (STDM) watermarking approach are two-fold: (i) it exploits a fixed watermarking strength (more particularly, the quantization index step size) to the whole cover image; and (ii) it is fairly vulnerable to the amplitude changes. To tackle the above challenges, an adaptive spread-transform dither modulation (ASTDM) approach is proposed in this paper for conducting robust color image watermarking by incorporating a new perceptual model into the conventional STDM framework. The proposed approach exploits a new perceptual model to adjust the quantization index step sizes according to the local perceptual characteristics of a cover image. Furthermore, in contrast to the conventional Watson's model is vulnerable to the amplitude changes, our proposed new perceptual model makes the luminance masking thresholds be consistent with any amplitude change, while keeping the consistence to the properties of the human visual system. In addition, certain color artifacts could be incurred during the watermark embedding procedure, since some intensity values are perceptibly changed to label the watermark. For that, a color artifact suppression algorithm is proposed by mathematically deriving an upper bound for the intensity values according to the inherent relationship between the saturation and the intensity components. Extensive experiments are conducted using 500 images selected from Corel database to demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed ASTDM approach.

This letter suggests an opportunistic resource scheduling scheme for supporting users with variety of services in wireless network. This scheme is designed to increase resource utilization while meeting diverse quality of service (QoS) requirements. It can be achieved by considering the channel status and the urgency for QoS support synthetically.

We propose PM (Project Management) patterns to prevent schedule delays caused by changes in requirements on empirical studies. Changes or late elicitation of requirements during the design, coding and test processes are one of the most serious risks, which may delay project schedules. However, changes and late elicitation of requirements are usually accepted during development processes. Therefore, the PM methods for preventing schedule delays caused by changes and late elicitation of requirements during development processes are an important area of study. In this study, we examined the actual conditions of various projects which succeeded in preventing schedule delays resulting from changes and late elicitation of requirements during development processes. We were able to extract various typical PM techniques for preventing these schedule delays. The techniques, known as "PM patterns", were also applied to other projects. The patterns were arranged on a two-dimensional framework. We discuss a framework of PM patterns aimed at solving the problems caused by changes in requirements.

Thinking process development diagram is a graphical expression from which readers can easily find not only the hierarchy of a given problem but the relationship between the problem and the solution. Although that has been developed as an idea creation support tool in the field of mechanical design, we referred to the restricted version as clamshell diagram to attempt to apply to other fields. In this paper we propose the framework for drawing the diagram of the SQL statement. The basic idea is to supply the hierarchical code fragments of a given SQL statement in the left side of the diagram and to put the meaning written in a natural language in the right. To verify the usefulness of the diagram expression, we actually drew several clamshell diagrams. For three SQL statements that are derived from the same specification, the resulting diagrams enable us to understand the difference visually.

This paper proposes a method to generate alternative scenarios from a normal scenario written with a scenario language. This method includes (1) generation of alternative plans and (2) generation of alternative scenario by a user's selection of these plans. The proposed method enables users to decrease the omission of the possible alternative scenarios in the early stages of development. The method will be illustrated with some examples.

Given a question and a set of its candidate answers, the task of answer validation (AV) aims to return a Boolean value indicating whether a given candidate answer is the correct answer to the question. Unlike previous works, this paper presents an unsupervised model, called the U-model, for AV. This approach regards AV as a classification task and investigates how effectively using redundancy of the Web into the proposed architecture. Experimental results with TREC factoid test sets and Chinese test sets indicate that the proposed U-model with redundancy information is very effective for AV. For example, the top@1/mrr@5 scores on the TREC05, and 06 tracks are 40.1/51.5% and 35.8/47.3%, respectively. Furthermore, a cross-model comparison experiment demonstrates that the U-model is the best among the redundancy-based models considered. Even compared with a syntax-based approach, a supervised machine learning approach and a pattern-based approach, the U-model performs much better.

The bit error rate (BER) performance of multicode multi-carrier code division multiple access (MC-CDMA) severely degrades due to the inter-code interference (ICI) in a strong frequency-selective channel. Recently a spreading code group construction method was proposed for MC-CDMA. The Walsh-Hadmard (WH) codes are divided into a number of code groups such that the code orthogonality can be maintained within each group even in a strong frequency-selective channel; any code pair taken from different groups is not orthogonal. The number of spreading codes in each group is determined by the maximum time delay difference of the channel. In this paper, we point out that the number of codes in each group is determined by the distribution of time delay differences among the propagation paths of the channel, not the maximum time delay difference. Based on that observation, we show that more orthogonal spreading codes can exist in each code group. The conditional BER is derived taking into account the interference from other code groups and the achievable downlink BER performance using the proposed spreading code group construction is numerically evaluated in a frequency-selective Rayleigh fading channel.

This study employs a simple measurement methodology that is based on the de-convolution of a square test stimulus to measure the transmission characteristics of the human body channel in an electrostatic-coupling intra body communication system. A battery-powered square waveform generator was developed to mimic the electrostatic-coupling intra body communication system operating in the environment of the ground free. The measurement results are then confirmed using a reliable measuring method (single tone) and spectral analysis. The results demonstrate that the proposed measurement approach is valid for up to 32.5 MHz, providing a data rate of over 16 Mbps.

We have proposed a human-area networking technology that uses the surface of the human body as a data transmission path and uses an AC electric field signal below the resonant frequency of the human body. This technology aims to achieve a "touch and connect" intuitive form of communication by using the electric field signal that propagates along the surface of the human body, while suppressing both the electric field radiating from the human body and mutual interference. To suppress the radiation field, the frequency of the AC signal that excites the transmitter electrode must be lowered, and the sensitivity of the receiver must be raised while reducing transmission power to its minimally required level. We describe how we are developing AC electric field communication technologies to promote the further evolution of a human-area network in support of ubiquitous services, focusing on three main characteristics, enabling-transceiver technique, application-scenario modeling, and communications quality evaluation. Special attention is paid to the relationship between electro-magnetic compatibility evaluation and regulations for extremely low-power radio stations based on Japan's Radio Law.

This paper describes a channel-adaptive packet scheduler for improved error control performance in a peer-cooperative distributed media streaming system. The proposed packet-scheduling algorithm was designed for the case in which streaming server peers rely on an error-recovery strategy using retransmission and application-layer automatic repeat request rather than error protection using forward error correction. The proposed scheduler can maximize retransmission opportunities and reduce the frame loss rate by using the observed channel status from each server peer. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm enhances error-recovery performance in distributed multimedia streaming better than other schedulers.

In this paper, we consider the error performance of the regular triangular quadrature amplitude modulation (TQAM). In particular, using an accurate exponential bound of the complementary error function, we derive a simple approximation for the average symbol error rate (SER) of TQAM over Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) and fading channels. The accuracy of our approach is verified by some simulation results.

Due to the low complexity and cost characteristics of ultra-wideband (UWB) systems, a weighted acquisition algorithm based on energy detection is proposed in this paper. This method is divided into two steps to acquire the direct path (DP) component. Firstly, weighted energy detection is applied to determine which energy block the DP lies in by generalized likelihood ratio test (GLRT). A sub-optimal weighted vector is obtained, by which the closed form of detection performance is proposed. In the second step, the precise position of DP within the detected energy block is obtained by the statistical characteristics of the channel energy distributions. Key parameters that affect acquisition performance are studied by analytical and numerical methods. Simulations and experiments are carried out for performance and complexity comparison with traditional ones. The results show that weighted acquisition achieves better performance under relative low complexity conditions.

Cooperative transmission protocols attract a great deal of attention in recent years as an efficient way to increase the capacity of multi-hop wireless networks in fading environments. In this paper, we propose and analyze a cooperative transmission method, called Cooperative-Aided Skipping multi-Hop protocol (CASH), for multi-hop wireless networks with Rayleigh fading environments. For performance evaluation, we compare and verify the results of the theoretical analysis with the results of simulations.

In this letter, a novel 4-way X-band spatial power divider/combiner has been developed using a modified quasi-Yagi antenna transition. The divider has an insertion loss of less than 0.5 dB and a power balance of +/-0.8 dB over a bandwidth of 3.5 GHz in the X-band. A power combiner amplifier using this circuit and four MMIC amplifiers has been demonstrated with 84% combining efficiency. The obtained results show that the modified quasi-Yagi antenna is a suitable element to develop a broadband spatial power combiner.

It is important to improve a cell-edge throughput of next generation mobile communication systems. Frequency reuse schemes such as three-cell reuse or fractional frequency reuse are suitable for achieving this goal. Another candidate is multi-link transmission; signals on different sub-carriers from adjacent base stations are received by a mobile. However, the orthogonality of these signals can collapse if a frequency offset between adjacent base stations is excessive; this loss triggers adjacent-channel interference. This paper proposes an interference canceller to solve this problem and confirms the effectiveness of the method through numerical analysis and computer simulations.

This paper introduces a packet forwarding scheme based on interworking architecture that can provide quite a good QoS by minimizing processing delay which is the major part of the timeliness factor in New Generation IP-based networks. Based on path and resource reservation mechanism, the POSIA makes routers on the packet forwarding path synchronize with each other and then forward packets. We have shown that the POSIA outperforms the existing packet forwarding schemes like IntServ, DiffServ and MPLS through computer simulations using OPNET.

For automatic repeat request (ARQ)-aided TSTD (Time Switched Transmit Diversity) system, a receiver sends the acknowledgement signal (ACK or NACK) to a transmitter in order to predict the condition of the channel. In this paper, two antenna switching schemes, in which the NACK trigger the transmit antenna switching in the proposed antenna switching patterns, are proposed for the TSTD with the ARQ in WCDMA LCR-TDD systems. In addition, the system performances are investigated. Simulation results demonstrate that the performances of the TSTD systems can be improved by applying the ARQ scheme. Furthermore, the performances of ARQ-aided TSTD systems may be significantly improved by applying the proposed antenna switching schemes, especially when the mobile's speed is low.

A physics-based equivalent circuit model of the ceramic capacitor is proposed, which can reproduce frequency characteristics of its impedance including the often observed yet hitherto physically unexplained kinks appearing above the primary series resonance frequency. The model can also account for parasitic effects of external inductances. In order to efficiently analyze and gain engineering insight into ceramic capacitors with a large number of metallic laminae, a two-dimensional method of moments is developed that treats the laminar structure as a uniform, effective medium. It turns out that the primary resonance and the kinks can be well understood and modeled by a lossy transmission line stub with a drastic wavelength reduction. The capacitor model is completed by adding components describing the skin effect and external inductances. The modeled impedance stays within a 4% margin of error up to 5 GHz. The proposed model could greatly improve the accuracy of power distribution network simulation.

We consider a single-link multi-source network with FAST TCP sources. We adopt a continuous-time dynamic model for FAST TCP sources, and propose a static model to adequately describe the queuing delay dynamics at the link. The proposed model turns out to have a structure that reveals the time-varying network feedback delay, which allows us to analyze FAST TCP with due consideration of the time-varying network feedback delay. Based on the proposed model, we establish sufficient conditions for the boundedness of congestion window of each source and for the global asymptotic stability. The asymptotic stability condition shows that the stability property of each source is affected by all other sources sharing the link. Simulation results illustrate the validity of the sufficient condition for the global asymptotic stability.