Many services rely on the Internet to provide their customers with immediate access to information. To provide a stable service to a large number of customers, a service provider needs to monitor demand fluctuations and adjust the number and the location of replica servers around the world. Unfortunately, Flash crowds make it quite difficult to determine good number and locations of replica servers because they must be repositioned very quickly to respond to rapidly changing demands. We are developing ExaPeer, an infrastructure for dynamically repositioning replica servers on the Internet on the basis of demand fluctuations. In this paper we introduce ExaPeer Server Reposition (EPSR), a mechanism that quickly finds appropriate number and locations of replica servers. EPSR is designed to be lightweight and responsive to Flash crowds. EPSR enables us to position replica servers so that no server becomes overloaded. Even though no dedicated server collects global information such as the distribution of clients or the load of all servers over the Internet, the peer-to-peer approach enables EPSR to find number and locations of replica servers quickly enough to respond to flash crowds. Simulation results demonstrate that EPSR locates high-demand areas, estimates their scale correctly and determines appropriate number and locations of replica servers even if the demand for a service increases/decreases rapidly.

With development of wireless communication technologies, users are no longer satisfied with only a single service provided per time. They are willing to enjoy multiple services simultaneously. Therefore scheduling multiple services per user becomes quite important usability issue in the area of resource management. In this paper, the multiple-service scheduling problem is firstly formulated as an integrated optimization problem based on a utility function in homogeneous service systems. Due to its NP-hard characteristic, a set of low-complexity sub-optimal algorithms is therefore proposed and used to schedule resources for multiple services per user at the downlink of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) systems. The proposed algorithms are capable to effectively and efficiently distribute assigned resources among multiple services for one user. Moreover the utility of our algorithms is further extended from homogeneous service systems to heterogeneous service systems. And full exploitation of multi-user diversity gain is achieved while guaranteeing quality of service (QoS). The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms traditional algorithm in terms of system best effort service throughput and fairness criterion.

A structured codebook with various codeword configurations is proposed to overcome the sum capacity limitation in a region with finite number of users. Specifically, based on multi-user MIMO platform with a codebook of multiple orthonormal sets, called as per user unitary rate control (PU2RC), we diversify the codeword configuration of each orthonormal set and expand the corresponding codeword configuration. Numerical experiments with respect to several system parameters, such as user density and received signal to noise ratio, show that the proposed codebook offers throughput gains over the conventional system in a small to moderate number of user region.

The rapid growth of IT technology has enabled ship navigation and automation systems to gain better functionality and safety. However, they generally have their own proprietary structures and networks, which makes interfacing with and remote access to them difficult. In this paper, we propose a total ship service framework that includes a ship area network to integrate separate system networks with heterogeneity and dynamicity, and a ship-shore communication infrastructure to support a remote monitoring and maintenance service using satellite communications. Finally, we present some ship service systems to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed framework.

Platforms of hosting services are expected to provide a virtual private computing infrastructure with guaranteed levels of performance to support each reservation request sent by a client. To enhance the performance of the computing infrastructure in responding to reservation requests, the platforms are required to reserve, coordinate, and control globally distributed computing and network resources across multiple domains. This paper proposes Grid Network Service -- Web Services Interface version 2 (GNS-WSI2). GNS-WSI2 is a resource-reservation messaging protocol that establishes a client-server relationship. A server is a kind of management system in the management plane, and it allocates available network resources within its own domain in response to each reservation request from a client. GNS-WSI2 has the ability to reserve network resources rapidly and reliably over multiple network domains. This paper also presents the results of feasibility tests on a transpacific testbed that validate GNS-WSI2 in terms of the scalable reservation of network resources over multiple network domains. In the tests, two computing infrastructures over multiple network domains are dynamically provided for scientific computing and remote-visualization applications. The applications are successfully executed on the provided infrastructures.

Recently, privacy preservation has become one of the key issues in data mining. In many data mining applications, computing frequencies of values or tuples of values in a data set is a fundamental operation repeatedly used. Within the context of privacy preserving data mining, several privacy preserving frequency mining solutions have been proposed. These solutions are crucial steps in many privacy preserving data mining tasks. Each solution was provided for a particular distributed data scenario. In this paper, we consider privacy preserving frequency mining in a so-called 2-part fully distributed setting. In this scenario, the dataset is distributed across a large number of users in which each record is owned by two different users, one user only knows the values for a subset of attributes, while the other knows the values for the remaining attributes. A miner aims to compute the frequencies of values or tuples of values while preserving each user's privacy. Some solutions based on randomization techniques can address this problem, but suffer from the tradeoff between privacy and accuracy. We develop a cryptographic protocol for privacy preserving frequency mining, which ensures each user's privacy without loss of accuracy. The experimental results show that our protocol is efficient as well.

This letter presents results showing improved field uniformity in a reverberation chamber using quadratic residue diffusers. The optimal occupying ratio of the diffusers on one side wall of the chamber is presented. A reverberation chamber is an alternative to the semi-anechoic chamber, which is widely used for the analysis and measurement of electromagnetic interference and immunity. To analyze the field characteristics, quadratic residue diffusers were designed for the 1-3 GHz frequency band, and the FDTD method was used. At 1-3 GHz, the standard deviation of the test volume in the reverberation chamber was investigated. The reverberation chamber had good field uniformity when quadratic residue diffusers occupy 37.5-50% of one side wall of the reverberation chamber; the field uniformity saturated at the diffuser occupancy rate of 75%.

Encryption can provide strong security for sensitive data against inside and outside attacks. This is especially true in the "Database as Service" model, where confidentiality and privacy are important issues for the client. In fact, existing encryption approaches are vulnerable to a statistical attack because each value is encrypted to another fixed value. This paper presents a novel database encryption scheme called MV-OPES (Multivalued--Order Preserving Encryption Scheme), which allows privacy-preserving queries over encrypted databases with an improved security level. Our idea is to encrypt a value to different multiple values to prevent statistical attacks. At the same time, MV-OPES preserves the order of the integer values to allow comparison operations to be directly applied on encrypted data. Using calculated distance (range), we propose a novel method that allows a join query between relations based on inequality over encrypted values. We also present techniques to offload query execution load to a database server as much as possible, thereby making a better use of server resources in a database outsourcing environment. Our scheme can easily be integrated with current database systems as it is designed to work with existing indexing structures. It is robust against statistical attack and the estimation of true values. MV-OPES experiments show that security for sensitive data can be achieved with reasonable overhead, establishing the practicability of the scheme.

Cognitive radio has emerged as an efficient approach to reusing the licensed spectrums. How to appropriately set parameters of secondary user (SU) plays a rather important role in constructing cognitive radio networks. In this letter, we have analyzed the theoretical value of SUs' density, which provides a standard for controlling the number of SUs around one primary receiver, in order to guarantee that primary communication links do not experience excessive interference. The simulation result of secondary density well matches with the theoretical result derived from our analysis. Additionally, the achievable rate of secondary user under density control is also analyzed and simulated.

We describe a user scheduling scheme suitable for zero-forcing beamforming (ZFBF) downlink multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) transmissions in time-division-duplex distributed antenna systems. This user scheduling scheme consists of inter-cell-interference mitigation scheduling by using fractional frequency reuse, proportional fair scheduling in the OFDM frequency domain, and high-capacity ZFBF-MU-MIMO scheduling by using zero-forcing with selection (ZFS). Simulation results demonstrate in a severe user-distribution condition that includes cell-edge users that the proposed user scheduling scheme achieves high average cell throughputs close to that provided by only ZFS and that it also achieves almost the same degree of user fairness as round-robin user scheduling.

This paper presents an adaptive modulation and power allocation method for uplink multiuser multiple-input multiple-output systems under the assumption that there is perfect channel information at the receiver but not at the transmitter. The receiver jointly optimizes the power level and modulation order for all users under constraints of transmit power and error requirements, and returns these information to each user via a low-rate feedback channel. Power and modulation optimization maximizes the total throughput under a tolerable bit error ratio for each user. The ellipsoid method is used to design efficient algorithms for optimal power and modulation level.

Interrupt service routines are a key technology for embedded systems. In this paper, we introduce the standard approach for using Generalized Stochastic Petri Nets (GSPNs) as a high-level model for generating CTMC Continuous-Time Markov Chains (CTMCs) and then use Markov Reward Models (MRMs) to compute the performance for embedded systems. This framework is employed to analyze two embedded controllers with low cost and high performance, ARM7 and Cortex-M3. Cortex-M3 is designed with a tail-chaining mechanism to improve the performance of ARM7 when a nested interrupt occurs on an embedded controller. The Platform Independent Petri net Editor 2 (PIPE2) tool is used to model and evaluate the controllers in terms of power consumption and interrupt overhead performance. Using numerical results, in spite of the power consumption or interrupt overhead, Cortex-M3 performs better than ARM7.

This paper studies the performance of a coded convolutional spreading CDMA system with cyclic prefix (CS-CDMA/CP) combined with the zero correlation zone code generated from the M-sequence (M-ZCZ code) for downlink transmission over a multipath fast fading channel. In particular, we propose a new pilot-aided channel estimation scheme based on the shift property of the M-ZCZ code and show the robustness of the scheme against fast fading through comparison with the W-CDMA system empolying time-multiplexed pilot signals.

Maido-1 satellite was launched on 23 January 2009. The satellite carries the radio-frequency payload, Broadband Measurement of Waveform for VHF Lightning Impulses (VHF sensor), for research on lightning discharges. The final goal of our research is to locate sources of impulsive VHF radiation from lightning discharges and constantly monitor lightning activity from space. Maido-1 satellite has the aim of proving the functions of the sensor in space and to study the radio propagation characteristics of the ionosphere. Through the operation/observation for 5 months, more than 10,000 VHF signals have been recorded. The locations where VHF signals are detected and the examples of the received waveforms are presented in this paper. We discuss the regional dependency of the received signals.

Next generation network characteristics increase the complexity in the design and provision of advanced services, making inappropriate the selection of traditional approaches. Future networks are becoming larger in scale, more dynamic and more heterogeneous. In order to cope with these requirements, services are expected to adapt to environmental conditions and require minimum human intervention. In this paper a new model for providing autonomous and decentralized services is proposed, especially focusing on mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). Using a newly proposed four-layered approach, service development may be realized independently from the underlying physical network. In a reference implementation, it is demonstrated that it is possible to set up an overlay network that hides any network changes from the service layer. Multiple mechanisms have been adapted in order to efficiently -- in terms of message exchanges and convergence time -- operate over an ad hoc environment. Finally, it is demonstrated that a specific service could operate over a dynamic network with multiple failures.

In this paper, we study an opportunistic scheduling scheme for the TDMA wireless network with relay stations. We model the time-varying channel condition of a wireless link as a stochastic process. Based on this model, we formulate an optimization problem for the opportunistic scheduling scheme that maximizes the expected system throughput while satisfying the QoS constraint of each user. In the opportunistic scheduling scheme for the system without relay stations, each user has only one communication path between the base station and itself, and thus only user selection is considered. However, in our opportunistic scheduling scheme for the system with relay stations, since there may exist multiple paths between the base station and a user, not only user selection but also path selection for the scheduled user is considered. In addition, we also propose an opportunistic time-sharing method for time-slot sharing between base station and relay stations. With the opportunistic time-sharing method, our opportunistic scheduling provides opportunistic resource sharing in three places in the system: user selection in a time-slot, path selection for the selected user, and time-slot sharing between base station and relay stations. Simulation results show that as the number of places that opportunistic resource sharing is applied to increases, the performance improvement also increases.

The robust reduced order observer for a class of discrete-time Lipschitz nonlinear systems with external disturbance is proposed. It is shown that the proposed observer design can suppress the effect on the estimation error of external disturbance up to the prescribed level. Also, linear matrix inequalities are used to represent sufficient conditions on the existence of the proposed observer. Moreover, the maximum admissible Lipschitz constant of the proposed design is obtained for a given disturbance attenuation level. Finally, an illustrative example is given to verify the effectiveness of the proposed design.

This paper studies the optimum combining (OC) system with multiple arbitrary-power interferers and thermal noise in a flat Rayleigh fading environment. The main contribution of the paper is a concise performance analysis for the overload OC system where the number of interferers exceeds or is equal to the number of antennas elements. Simple closed-form formulas are derived for the moment generating function (m.g.f) of the output signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) and the symbol error rate (SER) with M-ary phase shift keying (M-PSK). These formulas are expressed as a finite sum involving polynomial, exponential and exponential integral terms. Based on the derived m.g.f, the closed-form explicit expressions for the moments of the output SINR are determined. Finally, asymptotic analysis illustrates that employing distinguished power control is an effective approach to combat the SER floor for the overload OC system.

User privacy preservation is critical to prevent many sophisticated attacks that are based on the user's server access patterns and ID-related information. We propose a password-based user authentication scheme that provides strong privacy protection using one-time credentials. It eliminates the possibility of tracing a user's authentication history and hides the user's ID and password even from servers. In addition, it is resistant against user impersonation even if both a server's verification database and a user's smart card storage are disclosed. We also provide a revocation scheme for a user to promptly invalidate the user's credentials on a server when the user's smart card is compromised. The schemes use lightweight operations only such as computing hashes and bitwise XORs.

In wireless sensor networks, adversaries can easily launch application layer attacks, such as false data injection attacks and false vote insertion attacks. False data injection attacks may drain energy resources and waste real world response efforts. False vote insertion attacks would prevent reporting of important information on the field. In order to minimize the damage from such attacks, several prevention based solutions have been proposed by researchers, but may be inefficient in normal condition due to their overhead. Thus, they should be activated upon detection of such attacks. Existing detection based solutions, however, does not address application layer attacks. This paper presents a scheme to adaptively counter false data injection attacks and false vote insertion attacks in sensor networks. The proposed scheme consists of two sub-units: one used to detect the security attacks and the other used to select efficient countermeasures against the attacks. Countermeasures are activated upon detection of the security attacks, with the consideration of the current network status and the attacks. Such adaptive countering approach can conserve energy resources especially in normal condition and provide reliability against false vote insertion attacks.