A dual band 0.18 µm CMOS LC-tank injection locked frequency divider (ILFD) is proposed. The ILFD circuit is realized with a cross-coupled pMOS LC-tank oscillator with an inductor switch for frequency band selection. The self-oscillating VCO is injection-locked by nth-harmonic input to obtain the division factor of n. The division ratio of 1, 2, and 3 has been found for the proposed ILFD. Measurement results show that at the supply voltage of 1.1 V, the free-running frequency is from 2.28(3.09) GHz to 2.78(3.72) GHz for the low- (high-) frequency band. The power consumption of the ILFD core is 3.7 mW (6.2 mW) at low (high) band. The total area including the output buffer and the pads is 0.8410.764 mm2.

Motion estimation (ME) is a computation and data intensive module in video coding system. The search window reuse methods play a critical role in bandwidth reduction by exploiting the data locality in video coding system. In this paper, a search window reuse method (Level C+) is proposed for MPEG-2 to H.264/AVC transcoding. The proposed method is designed for ultra-low bandwidth application, while the on-chip memory is not a main constraining factor. By loading search window for the motion estimation unit (MEU) and applying motion vector clipping processing, each MB in MEU can utilize both horizontal and vertical search reuse. A very low bandwidth level (Rα<2) can be achieved with an acceptable on-chip memory.

In general-synchronous framework, in which the clock is distributed periodically to each register but not necessarily simultaneously, the circuit performance such as the clock period is expected to be improved by delay insertion. However, if the amount of inserted delays is too much, then the circuit is changed too much and the circuit performance might not be improved. In this paper, we propose an efficient delay insertion method that minimizes the amount of inserted delays in the clock period improvement in general-synchronous framework. In the proposed method, the amount of inserted delays is minimized by using an appropriate clock schedule and by inserting delays into appropriate places in the circuit. Experiments show that the proposed method can obtain optimum solutions in short time in many cases.

Utilizing a heterogeneous multiprocessor system has become a popular design paradigm to build an embedded system at a cheap cost within short development time. A reliability issue for embedded systems, which is vulnerability to single event upsets (SEUs), has become a matter of concern as technology proceeds. This paper discusses reliability inherent in heterogeneous multiprocessors and proposes task scheduling for minimizing SEU vulnerability of them. This paper experimentally shows that increasing performance of a CPU core deteriorates its reliability. Based on the experimental observation, we propose task scheduling for reducing SEU vulnerability of a heterogeneous multiprocessor system. The experimental results demonstrate that our task scheduling technique can reduce much of SEU vulnerability under real-time constraints.

A state-discretization approach [11], which was introduced for stability of constant delayed systems, will be extended to time-varying delayed systems. The states not only in constructing the Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional but also in designing the integral inequality technique [12] will be discretized. Based on the discretized-state, [9],[17] 's piecewise analysis method will be applied to confirm the system stability in whole delay bound. Numerical examples show that the results obtained by this criterion improve the allowable delay bounds over the existing results in the literature.

The use of cross-polarized antennas for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems is receiving attention as they are able to double the number of antenna for half antenna spacing needs. This paper presents the channel correlation property of the 3rd Generation Partner Project (3GPP)/3GPP2 spatial channel model (SCM) with the polarization propagation. The statistical average of the per path polarization correlation given random cross-polarization discrimination (XPD) with co-located ideal tilted dipole antennas is derived. The impact on the random behavior of the polarization correlation due to the slant offset angle, the per path angular spread (AS), and the random XPD is analyzed. The simulation results show that the variation of polarization correlation caused by the random XPD is maximized with a 58 slant offset angle under the assumptions of all predefined scenarios in SCM. The per path AS has minor impact on the statistics of the polarization correlations. The randomness of polarization correlation is negligible for an XPD with small standard deviation.

Logical operations in CMOS digital integration are highly prone to fail as the amount of power supply (PS) drop approaches to failure threshold. PS voltage variation is characterized by built-in noise monitors in a 32-bit microprocessor of 90-nm CMOS technology, and related with operation failures by instruction-level programming for logical failure analysis. Combination of voltage drop size and activated logic path determines failure sensitivity and class of failures. Experimental observation as well as simplified simulation is applied for the detailed understanding of the impact of PS noise on logical operations of digital integrated circuits.

Cooperative transmission is an efficient approach to improve the performance of wireless communications over fading channels without the need for physical co-located antenna arrays. In this paper, we propose a novel cooperative protocol with selective decode-and-forward relays and generalized selection combining (GSC) technique at destination. The advantage of this scheme is that it not only allows us to optimize the structure of destination but also to fully exploit the diversity offered by the channels with an appropriate number of chosen strongest paths. For an arbitrary number of relays, an exact and closed-form expression of the Symbol Error Rate (SER) is derived for M-ary PSK in independent but not identically distributed Rayleigh fading channels. Various simulations are performed and their results exactly match the results of analyses.

We propose a polynomial-time algorithm for the scheduling of real-time parallel tasks on multicore processors. The proposed algorithm always finds a feasible schedule using the minimum number of processing cores, where tasks have properties of linear speedup, flexible preemption, arbitrary deadlines and arrivals, and parallelism bound. The time complexity of the proposed algorithm is O(M3log N) for M tasks and N processors in the worst case.

In this paper, a multi-cell joint channel estimation (JCE) method is proposed for the TD-SCDMA downlink. In the proposed multi-cell JCE approach, the received midambles from adjacent cells are jointly processed, rather than being treated as interference as in single cell channel estimation. By jointly processing all the received midambles, the user can simultaneously estimate the channel impulse responses (CIRs) for both its home cell and adjacent cells. If the received signal from adjacent cells has a delay, multi-cell JCE is still operable with slight adjustment in the midamble matrix, and the performance loss is also minor. The performance of multi-cell JCE is analyzed and evaluated by simulations. The results demonstrate that the proposed multi-cell JCE method can significantly improve the channel estimation accuracy. When the signal from each cell has similar power level, the mean square error (MSE) of the estimated CIRs for all cells is lower than 0.01. With more accurate CIRs from multi-cell JCE, multi-cell JD also yields better performance compared with the single cell channel estimation methods.

Recently, the appearance frequency of computer virus variants has increased. Updates to virus information using the normal pattern matching method are increasingly unable to keep up with the speed at which viruses occur, since it takes time to extract the characteristic patterns for each virus. Therefore, a rapid, automatic virus detection algorithm using static code analysis is necessary. However, recent computer viruses are almost always compressed and obfuscated. It is difficult to determine the characteristics of the binary code from the obfuscated computer viruses. Therefore, this paper proposes a method that unpacks compressed computer viruses automatically independent of the compression format. The proposed method unpacks the common compression formats accurately 80% of the time, while unknown compression formats can also be unpacked. The proposed method is effective against unknown viruses by combining it with the existing known virus detection system like Paul Graham's Bayesian Virus Filter etc.

Various scanning algorithms have been proposed to enhance the performance of intra prediction of H.264 codec. In this paper, an adaptive scanning scheme is proposed to achieve the entropy coding gain in intra coding, where scanning patterns are updated based on the probabilistic distribution of quantized coefficients of previous macroblocks so that the consecutive zeros are located at the rear part of the scanned data stream. Simulation results show that the average bit-rate reduction is about 2.15% in common test conditions.

A Policy-based Network Management (PBNM) in Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETs) should be efficient and reliable. In this letter, we propose a mechanism for the policy-based management in ad hoc networks and we discuss methods to discover the Policy Decision Point (PDP), set the management area, and manage the movements of nodes in the PBNM system. Finally, we assess the results through simulations.

Optical burst switching (OBS) is a promising approach for the realization of future flexible high-speed optical networks. In particular, a multicast forwarding method for optical bursts is important if an efficient high-speed grid computing network is to be realized. In OBS networks, the number of burst replicas generated at each node is strongly restricted due to optical power impairment of multicast bursts. Moreover, unrestricted replication of multicast bursts at each OBS node may not be advantageous because an increase in the number of multicast bursts within the network causes more frequent deflection forwarding of both multicast and unicast bursts. This paper proposes an efficient hop-by-hop multicast forwarding method for optical bursts, where idle output ports are selected based on scores simply calculated using a routing table that each OBS node holds. This method can mitigate increases in loss rate and transfer delay of multicast bursts, even if the number of burst replicas generated at each OBS node is strongly restricted. Moreover, this method can efficiently mitigate an increase in the number of multicast bursts within the network by avoiding unnecessary replication of multicast bursts at each OBS node. Simulation results show that the proposed method can actually mitigate degradation of the loss rate and transfer delay for multicast bursts under the restricted number of burst replicas at each OBS node. Moreover, when the arrival rate of multicast bursts is large relative to that of unicast bursts, the proposed method is able to improve the loss rates of both multicast and unicast bursts by switching the forwarding method for the multicast bursts to the simple unicast forwarding method without burst replication.

Interpretations by physicians of capsule endoscopy image sequences captured over periods of 7-8 hours usually require 45 to 120 minutes of extreme concentration. This paper describes a novel method to reduce diagnostic time by automatically controlling the display frame rate. Unlike existing techniques, this method displays original images with no skipping of frames. The sequence can be played at a high frame rate in stable regions to save time. Then, in regions with rough changes, the speed is decreased to more conveniently ascertain suspicious findings. To realize such a system, cue information about the disparity of consecutive frames, including color similarity and motion displacements is extracted. A decision tree utilizes these features to classify the states of the image acquisitions. For each classified state, the delay time between frames is calculated by parametric functions. A scheme selecting the optimal parameters set determined from assessments by physicians is deployed. Experiments involved clinical evaluations to investigate the effectiveness of this method compared to a standard-view using an existing system. Results from logged action based analysis show that compared with an existing system the proposed method reduced diagnostic time to around 32.5 7 minutes per full sequence while the number of abnormalities found was similar. As well, physicians needed less effort because of the systems efficient operability. The results of the evaluations should convince physicians that they can safely use this method and obtain reduced diagnostic times.

In this paper, we introduce layered low-density generator matrix (Layered-LDGM) codes for super high definition (SHD) scalable video systems. The layered-LDGM codes maintain the correspondence relationship of each layer from the encoder side to the decoder side. This resulting structure supports partial decoding. Furthermore, the proposed layered-LDGM codes create highly efficient forward error correcting (FEC) data by considering the relationship between each scalable component. Therefore, the proposed layered-LDGM codes raise the probability of restoring the important components. Simulations show that the proposed layered-LDGM codes offer better error resiliency than the existing method which creates FEC data for each scalable component independently. The proposed layered-LDGM codes support partial decoding and raise the probability of restoring the base component. These characteristics are very suitable for scalable video coding systems.

In laparoscopic surgery, the lack of tactile sensation and 3D visual feedback make it difficult to identify the position of a blood vessel intraoperatively. An unintentional partial tear or complete rupture of a blood vessel may result in a serious complication; moreover, if the surgeon cannot manage this situation, open surgery will be necessary. Differentiation of arteries from veins and other structures and the ability to independently detect them has a variety of applications in surgical procedures involving the head, neck, lung, heart, abdomen, and extremities. We have used the artery's pulsatile movement to detect and differentiate arteries from veins. The algorithm for change detection in this study uses edge detection for unsupervised image registration. Changed regions are identified by subtracting the systolic and diastolic images. As a post-processing step, region properties, including color average, area, major and minor axis lengths, perimeter, and solidity, are used as inputs of the LVQ (Learning Vector Quantization) network. The output results in two object classes: arteries and non-artery regions. After post-processing, arteries can be detected in the laparoscopic field. The registration method used here is evaluated in comparison with other linear and nonlinear elastic methods. The performance of this method is evaluated for the detection of arteries in several laparoscopic surgeries on an animal model and on eleven human patients. The performance evaluation criteria are based on false negative and false positive rates. This algorithm is able to detect artery regions, even in cases where the arteries are obscured by other tissues.

Two discrete-time Wirtinger-type inequalities relating the power of a finite-length signal to that of its circularly-convolved version are developed. The usual boundary conditions that accompany the existing Wirtinger-type inequalities are relaxed in the proposed inequalities and the equalizing sinusoidal signal is free to have an arbitrary phase angle. A measure of this sinusoidal signal's power, when corrupted with additive noise, is proposed. The application of the proposed measure, calculated as a ratio, in the evaluation of the power of a sinusoid of arbitrary phase with the angular frequency π/N, where N is the signal length, is thoroughly studied and analyzed under additive noise of arbitrary statistical characteristic. The ratio can be used to gauge the power of sinusoids of frequency π/N with a small amount of computation by referring to a ratio-versus-SNR curve and using it to make an estimation of the noise-corrupted sinusoid's SNR. The case of additive white noise is also analyzed. A sample permutation scheme followed by sign modulation is proposed for enlarging the class of target sinusoids to those with frequencies M π/N, where M and N are mutually prime positive integers. Tandem application of the proposed scheme and ratio offers a simple method to gauge the power of sinusoids buried in noise. The generalization of the inequalities to convolution kernels of higher orders as well as the simplification of the proposed inequalities have also been studied.

By use of the shadow theory developed recently, this paper deals with the transverse electric (TE) wave diffraction by a perfectly conductive periodic array of rectangular grooves. A set of equations for scattering factors and mode factors are derived and solved numerically. In terms of the scattering factors, diffraction amplitudes and diffraction efficiencies are calculated and shown in figures. It is demonstrated that diffraction efficiencies become discontinuous at an incident wave number where the incident wave is switched from a propagating wave to an evanescent one, whereas scattering factors and diffraction amplitudes are continuous even at such an incident wave number.

This paper proposes a scan design for delay fault testability of dual circuits. In normal operation mode, each proposed scan flip flop operates as a master-slave flip flop. In test mode, the proposed scan design performs scan operation using two scan paths, namely master scan path and slave scan path. The master scan path consists of master latches and the slave scan path consists of slave latches. In the proposed scan design, arbitrary two-patterns can be set to flip flops of dual circuits. Therefore, it achieves complete fault coverage for robust and non-robust testable delay fault testing. It requires no extra latch unlike enhanced scan design. Thus the area overhead is low. The evaluation shows the test application time of the proposed scan design is 58.0% of that of the enhanced scan design, and the area overhead of the proposed scan design is 13.0% lower than that of the enhanced scan design. In addition, in testing of single circuits, it achieves complete fault coverage of robust and non-robust testable delay fault testing. It requires smaller test data volume than the enhanced scan design in testing of single circuits.