A cycle search algorithm based on a message-passing in a Tanner graph is proposed for designing good LDPC codes. By applying the message-passing algorithm with a message alphabet composed of only two messages to a cycle search, we can perform a cycle search with less computational complexity than tree-based search algorithms. Also, the proposed algorithm can be easily implemented by using an existing message-passing decoder and can easily adopt different kind of criteria for an LDPC code design with a slight modification in the node update equations.

Recently, software development projects have been required to produce highly reliable systems within a short period and with low cost. In such situation, software quality prediction helps to confirm that the software product satisfies required quality expectations. In this paper, by using a Bayesian Belief Network (BBN), we try to construct a prediction model based on relationships elicited from the embedded software development process. On the one hand, according to a characteristic of embedded software development, we especially propose to classify test and debug activities into two distinct activities on software and hardware. Then we call the proposed model "the BBN for an embedded software development process". On the other hand, we define "the BBN for a general software development process" to be a model which does not consider this classification of activity, but rather, merges them into a single activity. Finally, we conducted experimental evaluations by applying these two BBNs to actual project data. As the results of our experiments show, the BBN for the embedded software development process is superior to the BBN for the general development process and is applicable effectively for effective practical use.

In a direct conversion receiver for mobile communication, it is important to reduce power dissipation. Because a low pass filter in a direct conversion receiver must suppress adjacent channel signals, a high order and high power dissipation is often required in the low pass filter. We propose a new phase compensation technique suitable for a low power transconductor used in a GmC filter as a low pass filter. The new phase compensation technique reduces 10% of power dissipation.

An even-harmonic mixer using a bipolar differential pair (bipolar harmonic mixer;BHMIX) is theoretically analyzed from the direct conversion point of view; i.e, conversion gain, third-order input intercept point (IIP3), self-mixing induced dc offset level, and second-order input intercept point (IIP2). Also, noise are analyzed based on nonlinear large-signal model, and numerical results are given. Noises are treated as cyclostationary noises, thus all the folding effects are taken into account. Factors determining IIP3, IIP2, dc offset, and noise are identified and estimation procedures for these characteristics are obtained. For example, design guidelines for the optimal noise performance are given. Measured results support all the analysis results, and they are very useful in the practical BHMIX design.

Due to the continuous growth of wireless communication technology and mobile equipment, the need for storing and processing data of moving objects arises in a wide range of location-based applications. In this paper, we propose a new spatio-temporal index structure for moving objects, namely the TPKDB-tree, which supports efficient retrieval of future positions and reduces the update cost.

In this paper, the channel segregation dynamic channel allocation (CS-DCA) scheme is applied to a multi-hop DS-CDMA virtual cellular network (VCN). After all multi-hop routes are constructed over distributed wireless ports in a virtual cell, the CS-DCA is carried out to allocate the channels to multi-hop up and down links. Each wireless port is equipped with a channel priority table. The transmit wireless port of each link initiates the CS-DCA procedure and selects a channel among available ones using its channel priority table to check. In this paper, the channel allocation failure rate is evaluated by computer simulation. It is shown that CS-DCA reduces remarkably the failure rate compared to FCA. The impact of propagation parameters on the failure rate is discussed.

We have proposed a recognition method for pulmonary nodules based on experimentally selected feature values (such as contrast, circularity, etc.) of pathologic candidate regions detected by our Variable N-Quoit (VNQ) filter. In this paper, we propose a new recognition method for pulmonary nodules by use of not experimentally selected feature values, but each CT value itself in a region of interest (ROI) as a feature value. The proposed method has 2 phases: learning and recognition. In the learning phase, first, the pathologic candidate regions are classified into several clusters based on a principal component score. This score is calculated from a set of CT values in the ROI that are regarded as a feature vector, and then eigen vectors and eigen values are calculated for each cluster by application of principal component analysis to the cluster. The eigen vectors (we call them "eigen-images") corresponding to the S-th largest eigen values are utilized as base vectors for subspaces of the clusters in a feature space. In the recognition phase, correlations are measured between the feature vector derived from testing data and the subspace which is spanned by the eigen-images. If the correlation with the nodule subspace is large, the pathologic candidate region is determined to be a nodule, otherwise, it is determined to be a normal organ. In the experiment, first, we decide on the optimal number of subspace dimensions. Then, we demonstrated the robustness of our algorithm by using simulated nodule images.

The efficiency of algorithms managing data caches has a major impact on the performance of systems that utilize client-side data caching. In these systems, two versions of data can be maintained without additional overhead by exploiting the replication of data in the server's buffer and clients' caches. In this paper, we present a new cache consistency algorithm employing versions: Two Versions-Callback Locking (2V-CBL). Our experimental results indicate that 2V-CBL provides good performance, and in particular outperforms a leading cache consistency algorithm, Asynchronous Avoidance-based Cache Consistency, when some clients run only read-only transactions.

Polling I/O mechanisms on the Unix platform such as select() and poll() cause high processing overhead when they are used in a heavily-loaded network server with many concurrent open sockets. Large waste of processing power incurs not only service degradation but also various troubles such as high electronic power consumption and worsened MTBF of server hosts. It is thus a serious issue especially in large-scale service providers such as an Internet data center (iDC) where a great number of heavily-loaded network servers are operated. As a solution of this problem, we propose a technique of fine-grained control on the invocation intervals of the polling I/O function. The uniqueness of this study is the utilization of POSIX real-time scheduling to enable the fine-grained execution control. Although earlier solutions such as an explicit event delivery mechanism also addressed the problem, they require major modification in the OS kernel and transition from the traditional polling I/O model to the new explicit event-notification model. On the other hand, our technique can be implemented with low cost because it just inserts a few small blocks of codes into the server program and does not require any modification in the OS kernel.

There have been many arguments that the underlying structure of natural languages is beyond the descriptive capacity of context-free languages. A well-known example is tree adjoining grammars; less common are spine grammars, linear indexed grammars, head grammars, and combinatory categorial grammars. It is known that these models of grammars have the same generative power of string languages and fall into the class of mildly context-sensitive grammars. For an automaton, it is known that the class of languages accepted by transfer pushdown automata is exactly the class of linear indexed languages. In this paper, deterministic transfer pushdown automata is introduced. We will show that the language accepted by a deterministic transfer pushdown automaton is generated by an unambiguous spine grammar. Moreover, we will show that there exists an inherently ambiguous language.

We introduce a method, so called FC method, for maintaining software resources, such as source codes and design documents, in consumer electronics products. Because a consumer electronics product is frequently and rapidly revised, software components in such product are also revised in the same way. However, it is not so easy for software engineers to follow the revision of the product because requirements changes for the product, including the changes of its functionalities and its hardware components, are largely independent of the structure of current software resources. FC method lets software engineers to restructure software resources, especially design documents, stepwise so as to follow the requirements changes for the product easily. We report an application of this method in our company to validate it. From the application, we can confirm that the quality of software was improved about in twice, and that efficiency of development process was also improved over four times.

Direct parameter extraction is believed to be the most accurate method for equivalent-circuits modeling of heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBT's). Using this method, the parasitic elements, followed by the intrinsic elements, are determined analytically. Therefore, the quality of the extrinsic elements extraction plays an important role in the accuracy and robustness of the entire extraction algorithm. This study proposes a novel extraction method for the extrinsic elements, which have been proven to be strongly correlated with the intrinsic elements. By utilizing the specific correlation, the equivalent circuit modeling is reduced to an optimization problem of determining six specific extrinsic elements. Converting the intrinsic equivalent circuit into its common-collector configuration, all intrinsic circuit elements are extracted using exact closed-form equations for both the hybrid-π and the T-topology equivalent circuits. Additionally, a general explicit equation on the total extrinsic elements is derived, subsequently reducing the number of optimization variables. The modeling results are presented, showing that the proposed method can yield a good fit between the measured and calculated S parameters.

Periodically nonuniform coupled microstrip line (PNC-ML) loaded with transverse slits is characterized using the fullwave method of moments and short-open calibration technique. Guided-wave characteristics of both even- and odd-modes are thoroughly investigated in terms of two extracted per-unit-length transmission parameters, i.e., phase constants and characteristic impedances. As such, frequency-dependent coupling between the lines of the finite-extended PNCML is exposed via two dissimilar impedances. Meanwhile, two phase constants try to be equalized at a certain frequency by properly adjusting the slit depth and periodicity, aiming at realizing the transmission zero. Further, equivalent J-inverter network parameters of this finite-length PNCML are derived to reveal the relationship between the transmission zero and harmonic resonance. By allocating this zero to the frequency twice the fundamental passband, one-stage and two-stage PNCML filters are then designed, fabricated and measured to showcase the advantageous capacity of the proposed technique in harmonic suppression.

Larger object classes often become more costly classes in the maintenance phase of object-oriented software. Consequently class would have to be constructed in a medium or small size. In order to discuss such desirable size, this paper proposes a simple method for predictively discriminating costly classes in version-upgrades, using a class size metric, Stmts. Concretely, a threshold value of class size (in Stmts) is provided through empirical studies using many Java classes. The threshold value succeeded as a predictive discriminator for about 73% of the sample Java classes.

Mainly, a uniform linear array (ULA) has been used for DOA estimation of coherent signals because we can apply the spatial smoothing preprocessing (SSP) technique. However, estimation by a ULA has ambiguity due to the symmetry, and the estimation accuracy depends on the DOA. Although these problems can be solved by using a uniform circular array (UCA), we cannot estimate the DOA of coherent signals because the SSP technique cannot be applied directly to the UCA. In this paper, we propose to estimate 2-dimensional DOA (polar angles and azimuth angles) estimation of coherent signals using a cylindrical array which is composed of stacked UCAs.

A signature-matching co-processor in 130 nm CMOS technology for application in the network-security field is presented. Two key search technologies, implemented with fully-parallel CAM-based search cores, enable the removal of misused packets from Giga-bit-per-second (G-bps) networks in real-time without disturbing the normal network traffic. The first technology is a thorough search through packet header as well as payload in byte-shifting manner and is capable of detecting viruses, even if they are hidden at an arbitrary position within the packet. A 1.125 Mbit ternary CAM, operated at the speed of 125 Mega-searches per second (M-sps), integrates the primary lookup table for thorough packet search. The second technology applies an additional relational search with programmable logical operations to detect recently appearing more complicated misused packets. A small 192-bit binary CAM operated at 31.25 M-sps is also included for this purpose. Power dissipation, being a major concern of CAM-based application-specific LSIs, is addressed in the light of the signature-matching application, which has a high probability of multiple matches and which doesn't require to mask individual bits of the search word. Consequently, two application-driven power-reduction methods are implemented, namely an improved pipelined search for efficiently reducing power even in the case of a large number of multiple matches, and a search-line encoding for cutting search-line related power dissipation. As a result the signature-matching co-processor features low power dissipation between 0.4 W and 1.1 W for the best case and the worst case search configurations, respectively.

This paper demonstrates a small compact 5.7 GHz upconversion Gilbert micromixer using 0.35 µm SiGe HBT technology. A micromixer has a broadband matched single-ended input port. A passive LC current combiner is used to convert micromixer differential output into a single-ended output and doubles the output current for single-ended-input and single-ended-output applications. Thus, a truly balanced operation of a Gilbert upconversion mixer with a single-ended input and a single-ended output is achieved in this paper. The fully matched upconversion micromixer has conversion gain of -4 dB, OP1 dB of -9 dBm and OIP3 of 4 dBm when input IF=0.3 GHz, LO=5.4 GHz and output RF=5.7 GHz. The IF input return loss is better than 18 dB for frequencies up to 20 GHz while RF output return loss is 25 dB at 5.7 GHz. The supply voltage is 3.3 V and the current consumption is 4.6 mA. The die size is 0.90.9 mm2 with 3 integrated on-chip inductors.

A feedforward-based active shielding technique for digital noise suppression is more preferred for its capability of reducing the noise on the entire area inside the guard ring. In order to compensate for the variation of substrate parameters, an automatic control scheme to tune the gain of the active shield circuit is proposed. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed system in reducing the digital noise regardless of circuit layout. Simulation results also show that noise suppression improvement from passive guard ring to active shield with tuning is 20 dB or one tenth while that from active shield without tuning to active shield with tuning is 12 dB.

An ultralow power constant reference current circuit with low temperature dependence for micropower electronic applications is proposed in this paper. This circuit consists of a constant-current subcircuit and a bias-voltage subcircuits, and it compensates for the temperature characteristics of mobility µ, thermal voltage VT, and threshold voltage VTH in such a way that the reference current has small temperature dependence. A SPICE simulation demonstrated that reference current and total power dissipation is 97.7 nA, 1.1 µW, respectively, and the variation in the reference current can be kept very small within 4% in a temperature range from -20 to 100.

A method to monitor the GaInP/GaAs HBT device structure including emitter ledge thickness is demonstrated in this paper. The base thickness and base doping density are obtained through base transit time and base sheet resistance measurements while the base transit time is measured through the cut-off frequency measurements at various bias points. A large size two-emitter HBT device is used to measure the ledge thickness. Emitter doping profile and collector doping profile are obtained by the large size HBT device through C-V measurements. An FATFET device formed by two emitters as drain and source terminals and the interconnect metal as the on-ledge Schottky gate between two emitters is used to measure the ledge thickness.