In a shared-memory multiprocessor, shared data are usually accessed in a critical section that is protected by a lock variable. Therefore, the order of accesses by multiple processors to the shared data corresponds to the order of acquiring the ownership of the lock variable. This paper presents a selective write-update protocol, where data modified in a critical section are stored in a write cache and, at a synchronization point, they are transferred only to the processor that will execute the critical section following the current processor. By using QOLB synchronization primitives, the next processor can be determined at the execution time. We prove that the selective write-update protocol ensures data coherency of parallel programs that comply with release consistency, and evaluate the performance of the protocol by analytical modeling and program-driven simulation. The simulation results show that our protocol can reduce the number of coherence misses in a critical section while avoiding the multicast of write-update requests on an interconnection network. In addition, we observe that synchronization latency can be decreased by reducing both the execution time of a critical section and the number of write-update requests. From the simulation results, it is shown that our protocol provides better performance than a write-invalidate protocol and a write-update protocol as the number of processors increases.

Space Division Multiple Access (SDMA) will form an important part of the new Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) standard that will realize the Universal Mobile Telephone System (UMTS). This paper addresses a few issues of importance when SDMA techniques are used in a cellular CDMA system. Firstly, a brief overview of SDMA techniques are presented followed by a theoretical analysis of a SDMA/CDMA system. The analysis is focused on a single cell, multipath Rayleigh fading scenario with imperfect power control. As system performance measure Bit Error Rate (BER) is used to investigate the influence of user location, number of antennas and power control error. An important parameter in a SDMA system is the antenna array element spacing. In our analysis a Uniform Linear Array (ULA) is considered and a measure is defined to determine the optimal antenna element spacing in a CDMA cellular environment. Normally the mobile users in a cell are assumed to be uniformly distributed in cellular performance calculations. To reflect a more realistic situation, we propose a novel probability density function for the non-uniform distribution of the mobile users in the cell. It is shown that multipath and imperfect power control, even with antenna arrays, reduces the system performance substantially.

We discuss optimal rotation estimation from two sets of 3-D points in the presence of anisotropic and inhomogeneous noise. We first present a theoretical accuracy bound and then give a method that attains that bound, which can be viewed as describing the reliability of the solution. We also show that an efficient computational scheme can be obtained by using quaternions and applying renormalization. Using real stereo images for 3-D reconstruction, we demonstrate that our method is superior to the least-squares method and confirm the theoretical predictions of our theory by applying bootstrap procedure.

This paper describes a factorization-based algorithm that reconstructs 3D object structure as well as motion from a set of multiple uncalibrated perspective images. The factorization method introduced by Tomasi-Kanade is believed to be applicable under the assumption of linear approximations of imaging system. In this paper we describe that the method can be extended to the case of truly perspective images if projective depths are recovered. We established this fact by interpreting their purely mathematical theory in terms of the projective geometry of the imaging system and thereby, giving physical meanings to the parameters involved. We also provide a method to recover them using the fundamental matrices and epipoles estimated from pairs of images in the image set. Our method is applicable for general cases where the images are not taken by a single moving camera but by different cameras having individual camera parameters. The experimental results clearly demonstrates the feasibility of the proposed method.

Backfire quadrifilar helical antennas combined with parasitic loops are investigated in detail, focusing on clarifying the function of parasitic loops. First, the basic property is examined for the case of one parasitic loop, and it is found that the loop behaves as a director when the circumferential length of the loop is nearly 0. 9λ, and a reflector when the circumferential length of the loop is nearly 1. 2λ provided the distance between the parasitic loop and the top plane of helical antennas is approximately 0. 1λ, where λ is the wavelength. Next, the function of the parasitic loop is investigated by comparing the current distributions on the helices and the loop with those on a monofilar helix with a ground plane. It is found that the function of the parasitic loop is quite different from that of the ground plane. Then, the case of two parasitic loops is examined, and it is shown that the use of two parasitic loops is very effective and simple measures to control the radiation pattern and gain of the backfire quadrifilar helical antennas. Finally, for this type of antennas with two parasitic loops, an example of structural parameters suited to the use in satellite communications is presented.

We consider a finite-capacity single-server queue with constant service and vacation times, which is seen in the time division multiple access (TDMA) scheme. First we derive the probability that j customers remain in the queue when a test customer arrives. Using this probability we then evaluate the probability that the test customer who arrives during the vacation or service time has to wait in the queue for longer than a given time. From these results, we obtain the waiting time distribution for the customer arriving at an arbitrary time. We also show a practical application to wireless TDMA communications systems.

Image classification is an important task in document image analysis and understanding, page segmentation-based document image compression, and image retrieval. In this paper, we present a new approach for distinguishing textual images from pictorial images using the Kolmogorov Complexity (KC) measure with randomly extracted blocks. In this approach, a number of blocks are extracted randomly from a binarized image and each block image is converted into a one-dimensional binary sequence using either horizontal or vertical scanning. The complexities of these blocks are then computed and the mean value and standard deviation of the block complexities are used to classify the image into textual or pictorial image based on two simple fuzzy rules. Experimental results on different textual and pictorial images show that the KC measure with randomly extracted blocks can efficiently classified 29 out 30 images. The performance of our approach, where an explicit training process is not needed, is comparable favorably to that of a neural network-based approach.

This paper investigates the lossless video aggregation and transport, a concept of transmitting a group of video sessions as a bundle over a communication network. We focus on the design of optimal transmission plan with minimum receiver buffer requirement for stored variable bit-rate (VBR) videos over a constant bit-rate (CBR) channel without incurring buffer underflow and overflow. For a single video, an efficient algorithm is proposed to calculate the optimal transmission plan in only O(N) time, a significant improvement of the previous result with time complexity of O(N2log N). For multiple video sessions, we propose an aggregation scheme to calculate the changes of optimal transmission plans at the joints or separations, where a session bundled in the aggregated video stream begins or stops. The experimental results show that our algorithms stand out in terms of simplicity and efficiency.

This paper describes a new Artificial Neural Network (ANN), UNItary Decomposition ANN (UNIDANN), which can perform the unitary eigendecomposition of the synaptic weight matrix. It is shown both analytically and quantitatively that if the synaptic weight matrix is Hermitian positive definite, the neural output, based on the proposed dynamic equation, will converge to the principal eigenvectors of the synaptic weight matrix. Compared with previous works, the UNIDANN possesses several advantageous features such as low computation time and no synchronization problem due to the underlying analog circuit structure, faster convergence speed, accurate final results, and numerical stability. Some simulations with a particular emphasis on the applications to high resolution bearing estimation problems are also furnished to justify the proposed ANN.

Ion beam irradiation effects on a novolac positive-tone photoresist and its application to micron-size field emitters have been investigated. Irradiation of Ar and P ions was examined. The electrical resistivity of the photoresist film is found to decrease after Ar ion implantation at doses on the order of 1016 cm-2. Baking of the photoresist prior to irradiation at a high temperature is preferred to produce electrical conductivity. P ions show weaker effects than Ar ions. Raman spectroscopy shows that carbon-carbon bonds such as the graphite bond are produced due to ion bombardment. The field emission of electrons is observed from emitters made of the ion-irradiated photoresist. The emission current is shown to be fairly stable when it is compared with an emission characteristic of synthesized diamond. Fabrication of field emitter arrays using a mold technique is demonstrated. The field emitter array shows emission at a current level of about 40 µA.

This letter proposes a new retransmission control scheme for slow-frequency-hopped communication systems, in which the number of (re)transmitted packets is adaptively decreased in a certain period. Performance of the proposed scheme is analyzed and compared with that of the conventional scheme in terms of the normalized throughput and the 98% packet transmission delay. The numerical results show the superiority of the proposed scheme.

This paper addresses the important issue of estimating realistic grasping postures, and presents a methodology and algorithm to automate the generation of hand and body postures during the grasp of arbitrary shaped objects. Predefined body postures stored in a database are generalized to adapt to a specific grasp using inverse kinematics. The reachable space is represented discretely dividing into small subvolumes, which enables to construct the database. The paper also addresses some common problems of articulated figure animation. A new approach for body positioning with kinematic constraints on both hands is described. An efficient and accurate manipulation of joint constraints is presented. Obtained results are quite satisfactory, and some of them are shown in the paper. The proposed algorithms can find application in the motion of virtual actors, all kinds of animation systems including human motion, robotics and some other fields such as medicine, for instance, to move the artificial limbs of handicapped people in a natural way.

Differences in the behavior of dispenser cathodes and oxide cathodes in laminar-flow type and crossover type electron guns were investigated by experiments and simulations under high-current-density conditions. When an oxide cathode is operated under such conditions, the heating effect due to Joule heat in the oxide layer exceeds the cooling effect, depending on the product of the work function and the cathode current, resulting in a rise in the cathode temperature. This rise in cathode temperature aggravates deterioration of emission characteristics during the life of an oxide cathode. In the case of the dispenser cathode, however, the cathode temperature decreases under high-current-density conditions. When an oxide cathode in a crossover type electron gun is operated, equipotential surfaces are formed in the curved surface in the oxide layer. The formation of an equipotential surface leads to relaxation of the loading. It is considered that this is the reason for the longer life of an oxide cathode in a crossover type electron gun than that of an oxide cathode in a laminar-flow type electron gun.

This paper investigates the problem of communication errors in distributed shared memory (DSM) systems. Communication errors can introduce two critical problems: damage and loss. The damage problem makes the transmitted data destroyed and then produces incorrect computational results. The loss problem causes the transmitted data lost during transmission and then not received. However, the loss problem can be easily resolved using acknowledgement. Therefore, we focus on how to efficiently handle the damage problem. In DSM systems, the size of data transferred between nodes is larger than the size actually shared between nodes. That is, when a processing node receives data, not all the data items in this received data will be used. Based on this property, we present a new technique to resolve the data damage problem in DSM systems. This technique allows a processing node to continue computation without being blocked to wait for the correct data when it receives damaged data. Therefore, the latency for handling the data damage can be hidden. However, there is an optimistic assumption made in the proposed technique. If this optimistic assumption is not valid, the latency will not be hidden. To show the advantage and the overhead of the proposed technique, we perform extensive trace-driven simulations. The simulation results show that at least 62% of the latency for handling data damage can be hidden.

One-way sensing simple multihead finite automata with bounds on the number of times of use of sensing function in accepting computations are studied. It is shown that the languages accepted by one-way sensing simple multihead finite automata with constant sensing function bound satisfy the semilinear property, and that for one-way sensing simple multihead finite automata, m+1 times of the use of sensing function are better than m.

In this paper, a novel pass-transistor logic with an efficient level restoration circuit, named Power Saved Pass-transistor Logic (PSPL), is proposed. It is shown how, through the use of regenerative feedback with pMOS switches, we reduce the power consumption and propagation delay compared to conventional pass-transistor logic. To demonstrate the performance of PSPL, a 5454-bit multiplier is designed. For speed and power optimization, the multiplier uses high compression-rate compressors without Booth Encoding, and a 108-bit conditional sum adder with separated carry generation block. The measured multiplication time was 13. 5 ns in a 0. 6 µm single-poly triple-metal 3. 3 V CMOS process. Furthermore, a sequential circuit of a low power 7-bit serial counter is designed and fabricated in a 0. 6 µm single-poly triple-metal 3. 3 V CMOS process. The measured operating speed was 250 MHz.

This paper describes code assignment and the multicode sense scheme for an inter-vehicle CDMA communication network. When considering an inter-vehicle broadcasting CDMA communication network, spreading code assignment and notification problems arise. In such a CDMA network, the use of common codes is a solution. Then an objective function of common code assignment in an IVCN is formulated as a combinatorial optimization problem. In addition, a multicode sense (MCS)/CDMA system is proposed as a simple code assignment scheme. Computer simulations show that the MCS/CDMA system can autonomously perform spatial rearrangement of the common codes using only local information that each vehicle can obtain by sensing the code channels.

A new identification algorithm based on output over-sampling scheme is proposed for a IIR model whose input signal can not be available directly. By using only an output signal sampled at higher rate than unknown input, parameters of the IIR model can be identified. It is clarified that the consistency of the obtained parameter estimates is assured under some specified conditions. Further an efficient recursive algorithm for blind parameter estimation is also given for practical applications. Simulation results demonstrate its effectiveness in both system and channel identification.

The slope of transient waveform is dominated by the characteristics of the discharging (or charging) path, including the path topology, the sizes and the states of MOS transistors. The slope value of transient waveform can be obtained by calculating the equivalent RC time constant of the evaluated cluster circuit, and it can be obtained efficiently by traversing the tree recursively. However, bottleneck effect always exists in the charging/discharging path and plays an important role on the charging/discharging behavior of the output. If neglect the effect, the waveform approximation technique used in BTS will give rise to a larger error in some cases. Therefore, we propose an algorithm to solve this problem.

M-ary/SS systems are compared with DS/SS systems applied the multicarrier systems and the RAKE receiver in the presence of AWGN, frequency selective Rayleigh fading and partial-band interference. In particular, the BER performance and SSMA capability are evaluated. Consequently, the M-ary/SSMA system using the multicarrier techniques is subject to the M-ary/SSMA system with the RAKE receiver in the presence of partial-band interference. The BER performance of the M-ary/SSMA system is better than that of the DS/SSMA system when the number of users is smaller than 20. And the spectral efficiency of the multicarrier M-ary/SSMA system is best in the four systems when JSR=20 [dB] and BER=10-3.