This paper addresses a new surface reconstruction scheme for approximating the isosurface from a set of tomographic cross sectional images. Differently from the novel Marching Cubes (MC) algorithm, our method does not extract the iso-density surface (isosurface) directly from the voxel data but calculates the iso-density point (isopoint) first. After building a coarse initial mesh approximating the ideal isosurface by the cell-boundary representation, it metamorphoses the mesh into the final isosurface by a relaxation scheme, called shrink-wrapping process. Compared with the MC algorithm, our method is robust and does not make any cracks on surface. Furthermore, since it is possible to utilize lots of additional isopoints during the surface reconstruction process by extending the adjacency definition, theoretically the resulting surface can be better in quality than the MC algorithm. According to experiments, it is proved to be very robust and efficient for isosurface reconstruction from cross sectional images.

One challenging issue of sensor networks is extension of overall network system lifetimes. In periodic data gathering applications, the typical sensor node spends more time in the idle state than active state. Consequently, it is important to decrease power consumption during idle time. In this study, we propose a scheduling scheme based on the history of RTS/CTS exchange during the setup phase. Scheduling the transmission during transfer phase enables each node to turn off its RF circuit during idle time. By tracing ongoing RTS/CTS exchange during the steady phase, each node knows the progress of the data transfer process. Thereby, it can wait to receive packets for data aggregation. Simulation results show a 160-260% longer system lifetime with the proposed scheduling scheme compared to the existing approaches.

Pairing based cryptography has been researched intensively due to its beneficial properties. In 2005, Wu et al. [3] proposed an identity-based key agreement for peer group communication from pairings. In this letter, we propose attacks on their scheme, by which the group fails to agree upon a common communication key.

Recently, technology roadmaps have been actively constructed by various organizations such as governments, industry segments, academic societies and companies [1]. While the common basic purpose of these roadmaps is sharing common recognition of the technology among stakeholders, there exists a specific role for each organization. One of the important roles of academic societies is to show the directions in which society is moving. The IEICE technical group on Concurrent System Technology (CST) established in 1993 stands at a turning point and needs to move forward in new directions after more than a decade of activities and contributions. However, neither top-down (market-pull/requirements-pull) nor bottom-up (technology-push) roadmapping is suitable for CST because CST is a kind of systems engineering. This paper proposes a new technology roadmapping methodology (middle-up-down technology roadmapping) for systems engineering and shows three future directions of CST and one roadmap for service systems that integrate CST and services science.

We have built a CLQA (Cross Language Question Answering) system for a source language with limited data resources (e.g. Indonesian) using a machine learning approach. The CLQA system consists of four modules: question analyzer, keyword translator, passage retriever and answer finder. We used machine learning in two modules, the question classifier (part of the question analyzer) and the answer finder. In the question classifier, we classify the EAT (Expected Answer Type) of a question by using SVM (Support Vector Machine) method. Features for the classification module are basically the output of our shallow question parsing module. To improve the classification score, we use statistical information extracted from our Indonesian corpus. In the answer finder module, using an approach different from the common approach in which answer is located by matching the named entity of the word corpus with the EAT of question, we locate the answer by text chunking the word corpus. The features for the SVM based text chunking process consist of question features, word corpus features and similarity scores between the word corpus and the question keyword. In this way, we eliminate the named entity tagging process for the target document. As for the keyword translator module, we use an Indonesian-English dictionary to translate Indonesian keywords into English. We also use some simple patterns to transform some borrowed English words. The keywords are then combined in boolean queries in order to retrieve relevant passages using IDF scores. We first conducted an experiment using 2,837 questions (about 10% are used as the test data) obtained from 18 Indonesian college students. We next conducted a similar experiment using the NTCIR (NII Test Collection for IR Systems) 2005 CLQA task by translating the English questions into Indonesian. Compared to the Japanese-English and Chinese-English CLQA results in the NTCIR 2005, we found that our system is superior to others except for one system that uses a high data resource employing 3 dictionaries. Further, a rough comparison with two other Indonesian-English CLQA systems revealed that our system achieved higher accuracy score.

In rich scattering environments, multiple antenna systems designed to accomplish spatial multiplexing have enormous potential of lifting the capacity of corresponding multiple input multiple output channels. In this paper, we present a new low complexity algorithm for decision feedback equalization detector in the SM scheme. The basic idea is to reduce the joint optimization problem to separate optimization problems to achieve better performance-complexity tradeoffs. Concretely, we separately optimize the detection order and the detector filters so that the complexity of the entire signal detection task is reduced. The new order search rule approximates the optimal Bell Labs layered space time (BLAST) approach from a geometrical perspective, and the detector filters are derived using a Cholesky based QR decomposition. The new algorithm is able to switch from zero forcing to minimum mean square error without additional operations and the computational effort is a small fraction of that in the optimal BLAST algorithm. Despite its low complexity, the error performance of new detector closely approximates that of the standard BLAST.

We explain how network failures were caused by a natural disaster, describe the restoration steps that were taken, and present lessons learned from the recovery. At 21:26 on December 26th (UTC+9), 2006, there was a serious undersea earthquake off the coast of Taiwan, which measured 7.1 on the Richter scale. This earthquake caused significant damage to submarine cable systems. The resulting fiber cable failures shut down communications in several countries in the Asia Pacific networks. In the first post-earthquake recovery step, BGP routers detoured traffic along redundant backup paths, which provided poor quality connection. Subsequently, operators engineered traffic to improve the quality of recovered communication. To avoid filling narrow-bandwidth links with detoured traffic, the operators had to change the BGP routing policy. Despite the routing-level first aid, a few institutions could not be directly connected to the R&E network community because they had only a single link to the network. For these single-link networks, the commodity link was temporarily used for connectivity. Then, cable connection configurations at the switches were changed to provide high bandwidth and next-generation Internet service. From the whole restoration procedure, we learned that redundant BGP routing information is useful for recovering connectivity but not for providing available bandwidth for the re-routed traffic load and that collaboration between operators is valuable in solving traffic engineering issues such as poor-quality re-routing and lost connections of single-link networks.

For simulating i.i.d. time-varying MIMO channels using multiple Jakes' rings, it is desirable to generate channels having stable statistics with fewer scatterers. The statistical property of the conventional Jakes' model may depend on the initial phase set assigned to scattering points. In this letter, we present simple and effective conditions on arrangement of scattering points to achieve stable fading properties. The results show that the proposed arrangement provides higher statistical stability in generating time-varying channels.

In a wireless sensor network (WSN), a large number of sensor nodes are deployed over a wide area and multi-hop communications are required between the nodes. Managing numerous sensor nodes is a very complicated task, especially when the energy issue is involved. Even though a number of ad-hoc management and network structuring approaches for WSNs have been proposed, a management framework covering the entire network management infrastructure from the messaging protocol to the network structuring algorithm has not yet been proposed. In this paper we introduce a management framework for WSNs called SNOWMAN (SeNsOr netWork MANagement) framework. It employs the policy-based management approach for letting the sensor nodes autonomously organize and manage themselves. Moreover, a new light-weight policy distribution protocol called TinyCOPS-PR and policy information base (PIB) are also developed. To facilitate scalable and localized management of sensor networks, the proposed SNOWMAN constructs a 3-tier hierarchy of regions, clusters, and sensor nodes. The effectiveness of the proposed framework is validated through actual implementation and simulation using ns-2. The simulation results reveal that the proposed framework allows smaller energy consumption for network management and longer network lifetime than the existing schemes such as LEACH and LEACH-C for practical size networks.

The objective of this paper is to analyze a pull type multi-product, multi-line and multi-stage flexible manufacturing system whose resources are subject to planned and unplanned breakdown conditions. To ensure a continual supply of the finished products, under breakdown conditions, parts/materials flow through alternate routes exhibiting routing flexibility. The machine resources are flexible in this study and are capable of producing more than one item. Every machining and assembly station has been equipped with automated inspection units to ensure the quality of the products. The system is modelled through coloured Petri net methodology and the impact of input factors have been shown on the performance of the system. The study has been extended to explore near-optimal conditions of the system using design of experiment and response surface methods.

A method is presented that can substantially reduce the memory requirements of non-binary turbo decoders by efficient representation of the extrinsic information. In the case of the duo-binary turbo decoder employed by the IEEE 802.16e standard, the extrinsic information memory can be reduced by about 43%, which decreases the total decoder complexity by 18%. We also show that the proposed algorithm can be implemented by simple hardware architecture.

We have been developing a secure and reliable distributed storage system, which uses a secret sharing scheme. In order to efficiently store data in the system, this paper introduces an optimal share transfer problem, and proves it to be, generally, NP-hard. It is also shown that the problem can be resolved into a Steiner tree problem. Finally, through computational experiments we perform the comparison of heuristic algorithms for the Steiner tree problem.

In this paper, we employ time-reversal space-time block coding (TR-STBC) in single-carrier direct sequence code-division multiple access (DS-CDMA) block transmission in the presence of multiple access interference (MAI) as well as intersymbol interference (ISI), which is subject to fairly long delay spread. We introduce the transmission rate improvement by capitalizing on the assignment of additional spreading codes to each user so as to expand the cardinality of space-time code matrix with no sacrifice of diversity order. Given perfect channel state information at the receiver, a simple linear frequency-domain interference suppression scheme on a basis of symbol-by-symbol processing is developed under certain circumstances. A "turbo principle" receiver is facilitated by exploiting the serially concatenated structure at the transmitter to further enhance system performance. Simulation results justify the efficacy of our proposed system and also present performance comparisons with some existing systems in terms of bit error rate (BER).

A novel low-complexity iterative receiver for coded multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems is proposed in this letter. The iterative receiver uses the parallel interference cancellation (PIC)-maximum ratio combining (MRC) detector for MIMO-OFDM detection, which is a popular alternative to the minimum mean square error (MMSE) detector due to its lower computational complexity. However, we have found that the conventional PIC-MRC detector tends to underestimate the magnitude of its output log likelihood ratios (LLRs). Based on this discovery, we propose to multiply these LLRs by a constant factor, which is optimized according to the extrinsic information transfer (EXIT) chart of the soft-in soft-out (SISO) detector. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme significantly improves the performance of the PIC-MRC-based receiver with little additional cost in computational complexity, allowing it to closely approach the performance of receiver using the much more complex MMSE detector.

This paper discusses an on-line Tasks Assignment and Routing Problem (TARP) for Autonomous Transportation Systems (ATSs) in manufacturing systems. The TARP results in a constrained version of the Pickup and Delivery Problem with Time Windows (PDPTW). As an approach to this problem, a cooperative algorithm with autonomous distributed agents has been proposed. The algorithm is able to plan deadlock-free routes even though the buffer capacity is less, but includes reformability at the point that computation time of that case increases drastically. This paper proposes an initial task assignment method to reduce computation time on planning routes. Results of computational experiments show effectiveness of the proposed method.

In this paper, we describe a new ultrasonic oscillosensor and its application in a biological information measurement system. This ultrasonic sensor has a cylindrical tank of 26 mm (diameter)20 mm (height) filled with water and an ultrasonic probe. It detects the vibration of the target object by obtaining echo signals reflected from the water surface. This sensor can noninvasively detect the vibration of a patient by placing it under a bed frame. We propose a recognition system for humans in bed. Using this sensor, we could determine whether or not a patient is in the bed. Moreover, we propose a heart rate monitoring system using this sensor. When our system was tested on four volunteers, we successfully detected a heart rate comparable to that in the case of using an electrocardiograph. Fuzzy logic plays a primary role in the recognition. Consequently, this system can noninvasively determine whether a patient is in the bed as well as their heart rate using a constraint-free and compact device.

This paper investigates two issues of cellular engineering for cellular systems enhanced with two-hop fixed relay nodes (FRNs): spectrum partitioning and relay positioning, under the assumption of frequency reuse distance being equal to one. A channel-dependent spectrum partitioning scheme is proposed. According to this scheme, the ensemble mean of signal-to-interference-ratio on respective sets of links are taken into account to determine the bandwidths assigned to links connecting base station (BS) and FRNs, those connecting FRNs and mobile terminals (MTs) and those connecting BS and MTs. The proper FRN positioning is formulated as a constraint optimization problem, which tries to maximize the mean user data rate while at the same time ensures in probability 95% users being better served than in conventional cellular systems without relaying. It is demonstrated with computer simulations that FRN positioning has a strong impact on system performance. In addition, when FRNs can communicate with BS over line-of-sight channels the FRN enhanced cellular system with our proposed spectrum partitioning can remarkably outperform that with a known channel-borrowing based scheme and the conventional cellular systems without relaying. Simulation results also show that with proper FRN positioning the proposed spectrum partitioning scheme is robust against the unreliability of links connecting BS and FRNs.

Since we can accumulate a large amount of data including useless information in recent years, it is important to investigate various extraction method of clusters from data including much noises. The Self-Organizing Map (SOM) has attracted attention for clustering nowadays. In this study, we propose a method of using plural SOMs (TSOM: Tentacled SOM) for effective data extraction. TSOM consists of two kinds of SOM whose features are different, namely, one self-organizes the area where input data are concentrated, and the other self-organizes the whole of the input space. Each SOM of TSOM can catch the information of other SOMs existing in its neighborhood and self-organizes with the competing and accommodating behaviors. We apply TSOM to data extraction from input data including much noise, and can confirm that TSOM successfully extracts only clusters even in the case that we do not know the number of clusters in advance.

In this paper, we present a novel technique to detect and defeat kernel backdoors which cannot be identified by conventional security solutions. We focus on the fact that since the packet flows of common network applications go up and down through the whole network subsystem but kernel backdoors utilize only the lower layers of the subsystem, we can detect kernel backdoors by employing two host-based monitoring sensors (one at higher layer and the other at lower layer) and by inspecting the packet flow differentials. We also provide strategies to mitigate false positives and negatives and to defeat kernel backdoors. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed technique, we implemented a detection system (KbGuard) and performed experiments in a simulated environment. The evaluation results indicate that our approach can effectively detect and deactivate kernel backdoors with a high detection rate. We also believe that our research can help prevent stealthy threats of kernel backdoors.

In this letter, we present a modified printed folded λ/2 dipole antenna design for Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) applications in UHF band (470-862 MHz). The arms of dipole are meandered to yield an asymmetrical structure. Wideband operation is obtained by increasing dipole-area. The impedance matching of the dipole structure is obtained by inserting some slots on the dipole-arms. This antenna combines omni-directional radiation pattern and wide bandwidth in an easy-to-fabricate structure. The experimental results of the constructed prototype are presented.