In this article, a simple structure of the Wilkinson power divider which can suppress the nth harmonics of the Wilkinson power divider is proposed. By replacing the quarter wavelength transmission lines of the conventional Wilkinson power divider with the equivalent P-type transmission lines, a compact power divider which can suppress the nth harmonic is achieved. Design equations of proposed P-type line are achieved by ABCD matrices. To verify the design approach, the proposed power divider is designed, simulated (by ADS, CST Studio, and Sonnet simulators), and fabricated at 1 GHz to suppress the fifth harmonic. The proposed structure is 46% of the conventional Wilkinson power divider, while maintaining the characteristics of the conventional Wilkinson power divider at the fundamental frequency. The insertion losses at the fifth harmonic are larger than 35 dB. Furthermore, the second to seventh harmonic are suppressed by least 10 dB. Here is an excellent agreement between simulated results and measured results.

Semiconducting polymers, poly(1,4-phenylene) (PPP) and poly(4-diphenylaminostyrene) (PDAS), which are soluble to organic solvents, were synthesized and were deposited by means of electrospray deposition (ESD). The ESD generated spherical shells of diameters ranging from a few to several tens of microns. The shells consisted of coagulation of nanometric particles of the semiconducting polymers. Formation of the shells was largely influenced by the concentration of spray solution. It was also found that the formation of shells can be achieved with various types of soluble polymers.

Locality of high frequency electromagnetic scattering phenomena is embodied and imported to the Method of Moments (MoM) to reduce computational load. The proposed method solves currents on small areas only around inner and edge stationary phase points (SPPs) on the scatterer surfaces. The range of MoM area is explicitly specified in terms of Fresnel zone number as a function of frequency, source and observer positions. Based upon this criterion, scatterer of arbitrary size and shape can be solved with almost frequency independent number of unknowns. In some special cases like focusing systems, locality disappears and the method reduces to the standard MoM. The hybrid method called PO-MoM is complementarily introduced to cope with these cases, where Fresnel zone number with analogous but different definition is used. The selective use of Local-MoM and PO-MoM provides frequency insensitive number of unknowns for general combination of source and observation points. Numerical examples of RCS calculation for two dimensional flat and curved surfaces are presented to demonstrate the accuracy and reduction of unknowns of this method. The Fresnel zone, introduced in the scattering analysis for the first time, is a useful indicator of the locality or the boundary for MoM areas.

The logic mapping problem and the problem of finding a largest sub-crossbar with no defects in a nano-crossbar with nonprogrammable-crosspoint defects and disconnected-wire defects are known to be NP-hard. This paper shows that for nano-crossbars with only disconnected-wire defects, the former remains NP-hard, while the latter can be solved in polynomial time.

Relay, which promises to enhance the performance of future communication networks, is one of the most promising techniques for IMT-Advanced systems. In this paper, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) relay channels based on outdoor measurements are investigated. We focus on the link between the base station (BS) and the relay station (RS) as well as the link between the RS and the mobile station (MS). First of all, the channels were measured employing a real-time channel sounder in IMT-Advanced frequency band (2.35 GHz with 50 MHz bandwidth). Then, the parameters of multipath components (MPCs) are extracted utilizing space-alternating generalized expectation algorithm. MPC parameters of the two links are statistically analyzed and compared. The polarization and spatial statistics are gotten. The trends of power azimuth spectrum (PAS) and cross-polarization discrimination (XPD) with the separation between the RS and the MS are investigated. Based on the PAS, the propagation mechanisms of line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight scenarios are analyzed. Furthermore, an approximate closed-form expression of channel correlation is derived. The impacts of PAS and XPD on the channel correlation are studied. Finally, some guidelines for the antenna configurations of the BS, the RS and the MS are presented. The results reveal the different characteristics of relay channels and provide the basis for the practical deployment of relay systems.

Straight microstrip lines alternately loaded with ground slots and open-end stubs are analyzed. Fabricated samples containing slots and stubs with various length combinations demonstrate constant slow-wave factors of 1.7 to 3.0 with negligible amounts of radiation loss and larger characteristic impedance tuning range. A slow-wave band-rejection filter at 1.8 GHz is built for performance comparison with a regular microstrip-line filter.

In this letter, we propose a novel approximate method for throughput calculation of crossbar switch with buffers only in crosspoints, in the case of uniform traffic. It is an iterative method based on the balance equations that describe crosspoint buffer state. Due to some approximations, we derive very simple formulas suitable for matrix calculation. This method gives results very close to the results obtained by numerous simulations, especially for larger switch and long buffers.

A novel square patch antenna with reconfigurable circular polarization (CP) is presented in this letter. A circular slot with perturbation is placed beneath the patch. The circular slot that has an inner perturbation yields right-handed CP, but with an outer perturbation slot yields left-handed CP. Experiments show an antenna gain of 2.8 dBic and a 3-dB axial ratio bandwidth of 30 MHz which well match the corresponding simulation results.

This paper presents a systemic analysis for phase noise performances of differential cross-coupled LC oscillators by using Hajimiri and Lee's model. The effective impulse sensitivity functions (ISF) for each noise source in the oscillator is mathematically derived. According to these effective ISFs, the phase noise contribution from each device is figured out, and phase noise contributions from the device noise in the vicinity of the integer multiples of the resonant frequency, weighted by the Fourier coefficients of the effective ISF, are also calculated. The explicit closed-form expression for phase noise of the oscillator is definitely determined. The validity of the phase noise analysis is verified by good simulation agreement.

The spectrum handoff problem for cognitive radio systems is considered in this paper. The secondary users (SUs) can only opportunistically access the spectrum holes, i.e. the frequency channels unoccupied by the primary users (PUs). As long as a PU appears, SUs have to vacate the channel to avoid interference to PUs and switch to another available channel. In this paper, a prediction-based spectrum handoff scheme is proposed to reduce the negative effect (both the interference to PUs and the service block of SUs) during the switching time. In the proposed scheme, a hidden Markov model is used to predict the occupancy of a frequency channel. By estimating the state of the model in the next time instant, we can predict whether the frequency channel will be occupied by PUs or not. As a cross-layer design, the spectrum sensing performance parameters false alarm probability and missing detection probability are taken into account to enhance accuracy of the channel occupancy prediction. The proposed scheme will react on the spectrum sensing algorithm parameters while the spectrum handoff performance is significantly affected by them. The interference to the PUs could be reduced obviously by adapting the proposed spectrum handoff scheme, associated with a potential increase of switch delay of SUs. It will also be helpful for SUs to save broadband scan time and prefer an appropriate objective channel so as to avoid service block. Numerical results demonstrate the above performance improvement by using this prediction-based scheme.

A stacked rectangular microstrip antenna with a shorting plate and a helical pin is proposed as a car antenna for triple band operation in ITS. The proposed antenna operates as a conventional stacked microstrip antenna at the highest frequency band. At the middle and the lowest frequency bands, the antenna radiates at low elevation angles from the helical pin and the shorting plate. In this paper, as an example of triple band antennas in the ITS, an antenna is designed that supports PHS, VICS and ETC. The proposed antennas have the proper radiation pattern for each application and are small in size.

We consider the backlight calculation of local dimming as an optimization problem. The luminance produced by many LEDs at each pixel considered is calculated which should cover the gray value of each pixel, while the sum of LED currents is to be minimized. For this purpose a specific approach called as "Sorted Sector Covering" (SSC) was developed and is described in this paper. In our pre-processing unit called condenser the source image is reduced to a matrix of much lower resolution so that the computation effort of the SSC algorithm is drastically reduced. During this preprocessing phase, filter functions can be integrated so that a further reduction of the power consumption is achieved. Our processing system allows high power saving and high visual quality at low processor cost. We approach the local dimming problem in the physical viewing direction -- from LED to pixel. The luminance for the pixel is based on the light spread function (LSF) and the PWM values of the LEDs. As the physical viewing direction is chosen, this method is universal and can be applied for any kind of LED arrangement -- direct-lit as well as edge-lit. It is validated on prototypes, e.g., a locally dimmed edge-lit TV.

Binary maximal-length sequences (or m-sequences) are sequences of period 2m-1 generated by a linear recursion of degree m. Decimating an m-sequence {st} by an integer d relatively prime to 2m-1 leads to another m-sequence {sdt} of the same period. The crosscorrelation of m-sequences has many applications in communication systems and has been an important and well studied problem during more than 40 years. This paper presents an updated survey on the crosscorrelation between binary m-sequences with at most five-valued crosscorrelation and shows some of the many recent connections of this problem to several areas of mathematics such as exponential sums and Dickson polynomials.

This paper proposes a cross layer wireless VoIP service which integrates an Adaptive QoS Playout (AQP) algorithm, E-model, Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP), IEEE 802.21 Media Independent Handover (MIH) middleware and two user motion detection services. The proposed AQP algorithm integrates the effect of playout control and lost packet retransmission based on the E-model. Besides, by using the partial reliable transmission service from SCTP and the handoff notification from MIH services in a cross layer manner, AQP can reduce the lateness loss rate and improve speech quality under high frame error rates. In the simulations, the performance of AQP is compared with a fixed playout algorithm and four adaptive playout strategies. The simulation results show that the lateness loss rate of AQP is 2% lower than that of existing playout algorithms and the R-factor is 16% higher than the compared algorithms when a network has 50 ms wired propagation delay and 2.5% frame error rate.

In this letter, a new design of a metamaterial-based microstrip antenna is presented using triangular slots embedded on the ground plane to enhance the impedance bandwidth. To improve the impedance bandwidth of the proposed antenna, two resonant mode frequencies are closely allocated using the slotted ground without changing the radiator element. The impedance bandwidth of VSWR < 2.5 is measured at 2.43 GHz (37.6%) centered on 6.46 GHz, from 5.24 GHz to 7.67 GHz in good agreements with the simulated results.

Narrow-wall-connected microstrip-to-waveguide transition using V-shaped patch element in millimeter-wave band is proposed. Since the microstrip line on the narrow-wall is perpendicular to the E-plane of the waveguide, waveguide field does not couple directly to the microstrip line. The current on the V-shaped patch element flows along inclined edges, then current on the V-shaped patch element couples to the microstrip line efficiently. Three types of transitions are investigated. A numerical investigation of these transitions show some relations between bandwidth and insertion loss. It is confirmed that the improved transition exhibits an insertion loss of 0.6 dB from 76 to 77 GHz, and a bandwidth of 4.1% (3.15 GHz) for the reflection coefficient below -15 dB.

In this letter, compact loop resonator type circular polarization (CP) antennas with a square ring and an X-shaped meander loop are presented. Both antennas are fed to a microstrip line with electromagnetic coupling. By adjusting the gap and length of a coupled microstrip line, the magnitude and phase conditions of two orthogonal modes for CP can be determined. The proposed antennas show good axial ratios and also good agreements between experimented and simulated results.

In this paper, we present a hybrid speech emotion recognition system exploiting both spectral and prosodic features in speech. For capturing the emotional information in the spectral domain, we propose a new spectral feature extraction method by applying a novel non-uniform subband processing, instead of the mel-frequency subbands used in Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC). For prosodic features, a set of features that are closely correlated with speech emotional states are selected. In the proposed hybrid emotion recognition system, due to the inherently different characteristics of these two kinds of features (e.g., data size), the newly extracted spectral features are modeled by Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) and the selected prosodic features are modeled by Support Vector Machine (SVM). The final result of the proposed emotion recognition system is obtained by combining the results from these two subsystems. Experimental results show that (1) the proposed non-uniform spectral features are more effective than the traditional MFCC features for emotion recognition; (2) the proposed hybrid emotion recognition system using both spectral and prosodic features yields the relative recognition error reduction rate of 17.0% over the traditional recognition systems using only the spectral features, and 62.3% over those using only the prosodic features.

An FFT-based full-search block matching algorithm (BMA) is described that uses the sum of squared differences (SSD) criterion. The proposed method does not have to extend a real signal into complex one. This reduces the computational load of FFT approaches. In addition, if two macroblocks share the same search window, they can be matched at the same time. In a simulation of motion estimation, the proposed method achieved the same performance as a direct SSD full search and its processing speed is faster than other FFT-based BMAs.

A one-input four-way power divider is developed for feeding circuit of a microstrip comb-line antenna. The four-way power divider is composed of two-stage tournament-configuration of three Y-junctions. To control the sidelobe level and beam width in radiation pattern of the array, the power dividing ratio is assigned for the four-way power divider. Required dividing ratio is designed by changing the line width to control the impedance. To take impedance matching at the connection parts of the Y-junctions, 1/4-wavelength impedance-transformers are applied to the divider and taper structure is supplied at discontinuities. Four-comb-line antennas are designed and fabricated at 76.5 GHz. We evaluated sidelobe level and beam width by experiment to confirm the performance of the power divider.