The recent Internet needs a network structure and traffic engineering that can support various applications requiring differentiated traffic processing and a high quality of service. The extension of the Internet from wired to wireless systems that generate location-dependent and burst errors has made the support of good services more difficult with existing packet scheduling algorithms. Accordingly, this paper proposes a wireless differentiated service packet scheduling (WDSPS) algorithm that can provide reliable and fair services in differentiated wireless internet service networks. As such, the proposed scheduling algorithm solves the HOL blocking problem within a class packet queue that occurs in a wireless network, supports differentiated services for each class defined in a differentiated service network, and facilitates gradual and efficient service compensation not only among classes but also among flows within a class, thereby preventing a monopoly by one class or one flow. Simulations confirmed that the proposed WDSPS scheduling algorithm could provide the required QoS differentiation between classes and enhanced the service throughput under various wireless network conditions.

ERS-1/2 wind scatterometers (WSC) data sets may contain cells in which two, instead of three, measurements are available. These data sets are called incomplete. Operational inversion procedures discard such data sets and therefore no wind field is estimated. This is very limiting in semi-closed seas such as the Mediterranean Sea. In this paper we propose a new inversion procedure capable to retrieving near surface wind fields from incomplete data sets. This procedure is an enhancement of an algorithm already proposed and tested by the authors. A set of comprehensive experiments are presented and discussed. It is shown that the inversion procedure gets to remarkable results even in presence of a large number of doublets.

The transient scattering characteristics of millimeter waves from a cylindrical object near a flat boundary were measured by the 50 GHz scatterometer to evaluate the multiple interactions of scattered waves with the objects and the boundary. Both perfectly conducting and dielectric cylinders are considered as a scattering object. The pulse intensities including waves scattered first from the object and then from the flat boundary or vice versa are shown to be significantly influenced by the distance from the object to the boundary, depending on the refractive index of the object. The observed higher order responses including the multiple scattering between the object and the boundary are also discussed. A preliminary comparison of the measured and calculated pulse responses for the perfectly conducting object is presented at slightly oblique incidence on a flat boundary.

Traffic sign recognition usually consists of two stages: detection and classification. In this paper, we describe the classification stage using the ring-partitioned method. The proposed method uses a specified grayscale image in the pre-processing step and ring-partitioned matching in the matching step. The method does not need carefully prepared many samples of traffic sign images for the training process, alternatively only the standard traffic signs are used as the reference images. The experimental results show the effectiveness of the method in the matching of occluded, rotated, and illumination problems of the traffic sign images with the fast computation time.

Visual secret sharing (VSS) scheme is a perfect secure method that protects a secret image by breaking it into shadows. Unlike other secret sharing schemes, the VSS scheme can be easily decoded by the human visual sight when staking the shadows. We replace a pixel in the secret image by m sub pixels in the shadow image and the value m is called as pixel expansion. In general, most papers are dedicated to find the minimum m for a VSS scheme, i.e. a smaller shadow size. However, it seems that no one studies how to trade the shadow size for the contrast. In this paper, we take the lead in studying size-adjustable VSS schemes such that one can choose appropriate shadow size and the recovered image contrast for practical use.

In search of suitable white-LED for general illumination, we fabricated various types of white-LEDs using different methods. As the first method, we used the multichip method in which multiple emitters were mounted in one package. This type showed a good general color-rendering index (Ra) = 90 by the optimizing the emission wavelength of each LED chip. However, the electric driving circuitry was too complex for use in general illumination. Secondly, we used a monolithic white-LED by using the multicolor emitting multiple-quantum well (MQW) for the active layers, which consisted of quantum wells (QWs) with different In compositions. A high Ra = 80.1 was obtained in the three-color-emitting white-LED but the luminous efficacy (ηL) was only 8.11 lm/W. As the third method, we used the color conversion method using phosphors. We fabricated a white-LED which consisted of a near-UV-LED chip and blue/yellow phosphors in order to improve the luminous efficacy of the white-LED under high forward-bias current. At 100 mA, the luminous flux (IL) was estimated to be 7.6 lm. However, this white-LED degraded quickly, because the epoxy resin used for package was the general purpose one and deteriorated under the UV-light from the n-UV-LED. Next, we improved the Ra and ηL of a traditional white-LED which consisted of blue-LED chip and yellow phosphor. In order to improve the Ra, we added a newly developed red phosphor. We obtained a Ra = 87.7 at low-color-temperature. Then, in order to improve the efficiency of the white-LED, we improved the extraction efficiency (ηEX) of the blue-LED by using a patterned sapphire substrate and a high reflection Rh-mesh-patterned p-electrode. Then, we obtained a 62.0 lm/W at 20 mA. As a result, we concluded that the color conversion method of using a blue-LED for general illumination has advantages in efficiency, color-rendering, cost and lifetime. It also has simpler electric driving circuitry.

We observed the optically forbidden energy transfer between cubic CuCl quantum dots coupled via an optical near-field interaction using time-resolved near-field photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. The energy transfer time and exciton lifetime were estimated from the rise and decay times of the PL pump-probe signal, respectively. We found that the exciton lifetime increased as the energy transfer time fell. This result strongly supports the notion that near-field interaction between QD makes the anti-parallel dipole coupling. Namely, a quantum-dots pair coupled by an optical near field has a long exciton lifetime which indicates the anti-parallel coupling of QDs forming a weakly radiative quadrupole state.

A new simple recovery scheme for transient bit errors in the RAM of a ROM-based embedded system is presented, which exploits the information stored in the ROM. And a new scrubbing technique suitable to the proposed recovery scheme is also presented. With the proposed recovery scheme and scrubbing technique, the reliability of the RAM against transient bit errors can be improved remarkably with no additional extra memory and scrubbing overhead.

A method of evaluating the wavelength filter spectrum response is introduced. The increase of the crosstalk level due to the filtering and the relation between the total crosstalk and the spectral efficiency are derived in detail using the Gaussian filter. Since this method can be applied to various kinds of filter spectrum responses, the ultimate spectral efficiencies of filters are compared. In this comparison, the problem of the box-like filter, which has been considered to be desirable, is revealed, and this is improved by cascading the filter spectrum. The requirement on the rejection floor that inheres in the filter is also made clear.

In this letter, we propose an efficient transmission slot selection scheme for Band Division Multi-Carrier-CDMA (BD-MC-CDMA) systems under the constraints of packet loss and delay bound for each individual session. By utilizing channel dynamics together with the delay deadline and loss history, one can determine whether to transmit or not during each time slot, based on the prediction of future channel variations. To validate the efficiency of the proposed algorithm, we model each sub-band as a discrete time Markov Chain using a finite state Markov channel (FSMC) and derive the criteria required for transmission decision. Simulation results show that our proposed scheme can satisfy quality of service (QoS) requirements for real-time traffic with minimum use of resources, while increasing throughput of non-real-time traffic with the resources saved from real-time traffic.

To use the voluntary electromyogram (EMG) as a control signal of the EMG controlled functional electrical stimulator (FES), it is required to reduce the stimulation artifact and non-voluntary contribution (M-wave). In this study, a Gram-Schmidt (GS) prediction error filter (PEF) that can effectively eliminates the M-wave from voluntary EMG is presented. Also, the presented GS PEF is implemented on the field the programmable gate array (FPGA) for real-time processing and the performance is tested with simulated and real signals. Experimental results showed that GS-PEF was effective in reducing M-wave and preserving voluntary EMG.

Traditional network-level Quality of Service (QoS) techniques are efficient from a network perspective, but they have not provided end-to-end QoS that is satisfactory to users. In this letter, a Coordinated Packet Discard scheme for the distribution of end-to-end QoS requirements into local loss constraints, as well as provision of local loss assurance is proposed. Experiments demonstrate its advantages on increasing QoS-satisfied user ratio and improving network efficiency.

In this paper, a design alternative for guaranteeing short-term QoS in the E-PON (Ethernet-Passive Optical Network) OLT (Optical Line Terminal) node is studied. A scheduling algorithm called Short-term QoS Deficit Round Robin (SQ-DRR) is proposed to guarantee tunable deterministic QoS constraints for multimedia applications over E-PON. The major appealing aspect of the scheduler is that it guarantees delay constraint for short-term aggregate burst traffic violating pre-contracted descriptors at the same time without loosing long-term fairness. We then evaluate the scheduler performance with and without admission control scheme under non-stationary long-range dependence (LRD) traffic. The simulation results indicate that the SQ-DRR performs well in dynamic burst traffic conditions.

The four-septum transverse electromagnetic (TEM) cell is like the traditional TEM cell but has four plate-like septa in the internal space. A slowly rotating field can be easily generated in the four-septum TEM cell, thus radiated immunity/susceptibility characteristics of an EUT under arbitrary specific polarizations can be measured without rearranging the test setup. A design approach for the four-septum TEM cell is discussed in this paper. The characteristics of the cell are analyzed based on the telegrapher's equation and decomposition of the transmission mode into four independent modes. Then a design approach is given based on the analytical results. A prototype of the four-septum TEM cell based on the design is constructed and the characteristics of the prototype cell are experimentally evaluated. The validity and effectiveness of the design approach are confirmed.

This paper describes the characteristics of lithium-ion cells developed for stationary use, as in the case of stand-by sources in power systems. The effect of a cell-voltage-equalizing circuit developed for batteries of cells is also demonstrated. The tested lithium-ion cells were suitable to be charged by the constant-current, constant-voltage (CCCV) method and could be charged efficiently over a wide range of temperatures. They also showed good discharge performance with little dependence on the discharge current and temperature. Total capacity reduction of over 60% can be expected in batteries of lithium-ion cells. The cell-voltage-equalizing circuit was shown to be useful and necessary for batteries of lithium-ion cells in order to suppress deviations in the cell voltage and capacity loss.

We initiated development of our own data processing software for laser microscope data with C# language. This software is provided with volume calculation function of a target portion, based on a new calculation algorithm that can precisely handle the volume calculation of the portion located on a tilted surface or on a distorted surface. In this paper, this algorithm and some exemplary results obtained thereby, as well as some further development aims, are briefly described.

Arc occurrence rates are measured for Ag and Pd contacts operated in a DC resistive load circuit. Based on the obtained results, it is confirmed that arc certainly occurs at current levels lower than the conventional minimum arc current value for each of the tested contact materials. Arc occurrence rate in general comes close to 100% at the conventional minimum arc current level. Accordingly, careful attention should be paid to use of the term "minimum arc current" in order to avoid misinterpretation thereof.

We proposed a new electric contact device that suppresses the arc phenomena. The functions of electric contacts are divided into energizing and switching for arc suppression. Switching contacts consist of multielectrodes and each electrode current is suppressed by the series resistance. For realization of multicontacting, cantilever beam array electrodes were formed on a silicon substrate using micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) technology. The finite element method was used to optimize the structure. The fabrication process of the cantilever was examined. Au-Au contact current of 0.97 A was broken without arc ignition.

We propose a new electric contact device for arc discharge suppression. The functions of conventional electric contacts are categorized into energizing switch contacts and transient current switch contacts. A capacitor is connected in series to a transient current switch. Suppression of power consumption and arc discharge at breaking contacts are proposed, experimentally measured, and theoretically analyzed. The transient V-I characteristics at breaking contacts are controlled by the transient current switch and the capacitor. The transient responses at contacts were numerically derived by SPICE, and the energizing switch contacts voltage could be controlled to less than the minimum arc voltage. Using 2 conventional relays, no arc ignition at breaking contacts was confirmed for 50 V/25 A.

This paper proposes two power-constrained test synthesis schemes and scheduling algorithms, under non-scan BIST, for RTL data paths. The first scheme uses boundary non-scan BIST, and can achieve low hardware overheads. The second scheme uses generic non-scan BIST, and can offer some tradeoffs between hardware overhead, test application time and power dissipation. A designer can easily select an appropriate design parameter based on the desired tradeoff. Experimental results confirm the good performance and practicality of our new approaches.