Side scan sonar using low frequency can quickly search a wide range, but the images acquired are of low quality. The image super resolution (SR) method can mitigate this problem. The SR method typically uses sparse coding, but accurately estimating sparse coefficients incurs substantial computational costs. To reduce processing time, we propose a region-selective sparse coding based SR system that emphasizes object regions. In particular, the region that contains interesting objects is detected for side scan sonar based underwater images so that the subsequent sparse coding based SR process can be selectively applied. Effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by the reduced processing time required for image reconstruction yet preserving the same level of visual quality as conventional methods.

For capacity expansion of the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS) safety confirmation system, frame slotted ALOHA with flag method has previously been proposed as an access control scheme. While it is always able to communicate in an optimum state, its maximum channel efficiency is only 36.8%. In this paper, we propose adding a reservation channel (R-Ch) to the frame slotted ALOHA with flag method to increase the upper limit of the channel efficiency. With an R-Ch, collision due to random channel selection is decreased by selecting channels in multiple steps, and the channel efficiency is improved up to 84.0%. The time required for accommodating 3 million mobile terminals, each sending one message, when using the flag method only and the flag method with an R-Ch are compared. It is shown that the accommodating time can be reduced to less than half by adding an R-Ch to the flag method.

It is a hot issue that speeding up the network layers and decreasing the network parameters in convolutional neural networks (CNNs). In this paper, we propose a novel method, namely, symmetric decomposition of convolution kernels (SDKs). It symmetrically separates k×k convolution kernels into (k×1 and 1×k) or (1×k and k×1) kernels. We conduct the comparison experiments of the network models designed by SDKs on MNIST and CIFAR-10 datasets. Compared with the corresponding CNNs, we obtain good recognition performance, with 1.1×-1.5× speedup and more than 30% reduction of network parameters. The experimental results indicate our method is useful and effective for CNNs in practice, in terms of speedup performance and reduction of parameters.

This paper proposes a block-permutation-based encryption (BPBE) scheme for the encryption-then-compression (ETC) system that enhances the color scrambling. A BPBE image can be obtained through four processes, positional scrambling, block rotation/flip, negative-positive transformation, and color component shuffling, after dividing the original image into multiple blocks. The proposed scheme scrambles the R, G, and B components independently in positional scrambling, block rotation/flip, and negative-positive transformation, by assigning different keys to each color component. The conventional scheme considers the compression efficiency using JPEG and JPEG 2000, which need a color conversion before the compression process by default. Therefore, the conventional scheme scrambles the color components identically in each process. In contrast, the proposed scheme takes into account the RGB-based compression, such as JPEG-LS, and thus can increase the extent of the scrambling. The resilience against jigsaw puzzle solver (JPS) can consequently be increased owing to the wider color distribution of the BPBE image. Additionally, the key space for resilience against brute-force attacks has also been expanded exponentially. Furthermore, the proposed scheme can maintain the JPEG-LS compression efficiency compared to the conventional scheme. We confirm the effectiveness of the proposed scheme by experiments and analyses.

Recently, image forensics community has paid attention to the research on the design of effective algorithms based on deep learning technique. And facts proved that combining the domain knowledge of image forensics and deep learning would achieve more robust and better performance than the traditional schemes. Instead of improving algorithm performance, in this paper, the safety of deep learning based methods in the field of image forensics is taken into account. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work focusing on this topic. Specifically, we experimentally find that the method using deep learning would fail when adding the slight noise into the images (adversarial images). Furthermore, two kinds of strategies are proposed to enforce security of deep learning-based methods. Firstly, a penalty term to the loss function is added, which is the 2-norm of the gradient of the loss with respect to the input images, and then an novel training method is adopt to train the model by fusing the normal and adversarial images. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can achieve good performance even in the case of adversarial images and provide a security consideration for deep learning-based image forensics.

In this paper, we apply extended regularized channel inversion precoding to address the multiuser multiantenna downlink transmission problem. Different from conventional regularized channel inversion precoding, extended RCI precoding considers non-homogeneous channels, adjusts more regularization parameters, and exploits the information gained by inverting the covariance matrix of the channel. Two ways of determining the regularization parameters are investigated. First, the parameters can be determined by solving a max-min SINR problem. The constraints of the problem can be transformed to the second-order cone (SOC) constraints. The optimal solution of the problem can be obtained by iteratively solving a second-order cone programming (SOCP) problem. In order to reduce the computational complexity, a one-shot algorithm is proposed. Second, the sum-rate maximization problem is discussed. The simple gradient-based method is used to solve the problem and get the regularization parameters. The simulation results indicate that the proposed algorithms exhibit improved max-min SINR performance and sum-rate performance over RCI precoding.

Fully integrated CMOS power amplifiers (PAs) with a two-winding and single-winding combined transformer (TS transformer) are presented. The general analysis of the TS transformer and other power-combining transformers, i.e., the series-combining transformer and parallel-combining transformer, is presented in terms of the transformer design parameters. Compared with other power-combining transformers, the proposed power-combining TS transformer offers high-efficiency with a compact form factor. In addition, a fully integrated CMOS PA using the TS transformer with multi-gated transistors (MGTRs) and adaptive bias circuit has been proposed to improve linearity. The proposed PAs are implemented using 65-nm CMOS technology. The implemented PA with the TS transformer achieves a saturated output power of 26.7 dBm with drain efficiency (DE) of 47.7%. The PA achieves 20.13-dBm output power with 21.4% DE while satisfying the -25-dB error vector magnitude (EVM) requirement when tested with the WLAN 802.11g signal. The implemented PA using the TS transformer with MGTRs and adaptive bias circuit achieves the -30-dB EVM requirement up to an output power of 17.13 dBm with 10.43% DE when tested using the WLAN 802.11ac signal.

Malware has become a growing threat as malware writers have learned that signature-based detectors can be easily evaded by packing the malware. Packing is a major challenge to malware analysis. The generic unpacking approach is the major solution to the threat of packed malware, and it is based on the intrinsic nature of the execution of packed executables. That is, the original code should be extracted in memory and get executed at run-time. The existing generic unpacking approaches need a simulated environment to monitor the executing of the packed executables. Unfortunately, the simulated environment is easily detected by the environment-sensitive packers. It makes the existing generic unpacking approaches easily evaded by the packer. In this paper, we propose a novel unpacking approach, BareUnpack, to monitor the execution of the packed executables on the bare-metal operating system, and then extracts the hidden code of the executable. BareUnpack does not need any simulated environment (debugger, emulator or VM), and it works on the bare-metal operating system directly. Our experimental results show that BareUnpack can resist the environment-sensitive packers, and improve the unpacking effectiveness, which outperforms other existing unpacking approaches.

The learning with errors (LWE) problem is considered as one of the most compelling candidates as the security base for the post-quantum cryptosystems. For the application of LWE based cryptographic schemes, the concrete parameters are necessary: the length n of secret vector, the moduli q and the deviation σ. In the middle of 2016, Germany TU Darmstadt group initiated the LWE Challenge in order to assess the hardness of LWE problems. There are several approaches to solve the LWE problem via reducing LWE to other lattice problems. Xu et al.'s group solved some LWE Challenge instances using Liu-Nguyen's adapted enumeration technique (reducing LWE to BDD problem) [23] and they published this result at ACNS 2017 [32]. In this paper, at first, we applied the progressive BKZ on the LWE challenge cases of σ/q=0.005 using Kannan's embedding technique. We can intuitively observe that the embedding technique is more efficient with the embedding factor M closer to 1. Then we will analyze the optimal number of samples m for a successful attack on LWE case with secret length of n. Thirdly based on this analysis, we show the practical cost estimations using the precise progressive BKZ simulator. Simultaneously, our experimental results show that for n ≥ 55 and the fixed σ/q=0.005, the embedding technique with progressive BKZ is more efficient than Xu et al.'s implementation of the enumeration algorithm in [32][14]. Moreover, by our parameter setting, we succeed in solving the LWE Challenge over (n,σ/q)=(70, 0.005) using 216.8 seconds (32.73 single core hours).

Low-density chaotic binary sequences generated by Bernoulli map are discussed in this paper. We theoretically evaluate auto-correlation functions of the low-density chaotic binary sequences based on chaos theory.

The response times of solid state drives (SSDs) have decreased dramatically due to the growing use of non-volatile memory express (NVMe) devices. Such devices have response times of less than 100 micro seconds on average. The response times of all-flash-array systems have also decreased dramatically through the use of NVMe SSDs. However, there are applications, particularly virtual desktop infrastructure and in-memory database systems, that require storage systems with even shorter response times. Their workloads tend to contain many input-output (IO) concentrations, which are aggregations of IO accesses. They target narrow regions of the storage volume and can continue for up to an hour. These narrow regions occupy a few percent of the logical unit number capacity, are the target of most IO accesses, and appear at unpredictable logical block addresses. To drastically reduce the response times for such workloads, we developed an automated tiered storage system called “automated tiered storage with fast memory and slow flash storage” (ATSMF) in which the data in targeted regions are migrated between storage devices depending on the predicted remaining duration of the concentration. The assumed environment is a server with non-volatile memory and directly attached SSDs, with the user applications executed on the server as this reduces the average response time. Our system predicts the effect of migration by using the previously monitored values of the increase in response time during migration and the change in response time after migration. These values are consistent for each type of workload if the system is built using both non-volatile memory and SSDs. In particular, the system predicts the remaining duration of an IO concentration, calculates the expected response-time increase during migration and the expected response-time decrease after migration, and migrates the data in the targeted regions if the sum of response-time decrease after migration exceeds the sum of response-time increase during migration. Experimental results indicate that ATSMF is at least 20% faster than flash storage only and that its memory access ratio is more than 50%.

A parallel phrase matching (PM) engine for dictionary compression is presented. Hardware based parallel chaining hash can eliminate erroneous PM results raised by hash collision; while newly-designed storage architecture holding PM results solved the data dependency issue; Thus, the average compression speed is increased by 53%.

In this letter, a generic method to construct mutually orthogonal binary zero correlation zone (ZCZ) sequence sets from mutually orthogonal complementary sequence sets (MOCSSs) with certain properties is presented at first. Then MOCSSs satisfying conditions are generated from binary orthogonal matrices with order N×N, where N=p-1, p is a prime. As a result, mutually orthogonal binary ZCZ sequence sets with parameters (2N2,N,N+1)-ZCZ can be obtained, the number of ZCZ sets is N. Note that each single ZCZ sequence set is optimal with respect to the theoretical bound.

Lighting constrained visible-light communications are expected as indoor communications of next generation. In lighting constrained visible-light communications, lighting devices are used not only for illuminating rooms but also for optical wireless communications. For lighting constrained visible-light communications, we have been proposed a variable N-parallel code-shift-keying (VN-CSK) using a modified prime sequence code (MPSC). The VN-CSK system using MPSC has not only a suppression function for reducing co-channel interference from neighboring lighting devices, but also a function for keeping constant data transmission regardless of dimming control. In this paper, the bit error rate (BER) of the VN-CSK system using MPSC is derived under an indoor visible-light communication channel by theoretical analysis. Moreover, we evaluate the BER performance for the brightness level (dimming control stage).

Recent studies utilize multiple kernel learning to deal with incomplete-data problem. In this study, we introduce new methods that do not only complete multiple incomplete kernel matrices simultaneously, but also allow control of the flexibility of the model by parameterizing the model matrix. By imposing restrictions on the model covariance, overfitting of the data is avoided. A limitation of kernel matrix estimations done via optimization of an objective function is that the positive definiteness of the result is not guaranteed. In view of this limitation, our proposed methods employ the LogDet divergence, which ensures the positive definiteness of the resulting inferred kernel matrix. We empirically show that our proposed restricted covariance models, employed with LogDet divergence, yield significant improvements in the generalization performance of previous completion methods.

In this paper, we investigate how to obtain binary locally repairable codes (LRCs) with good locality and availability from binary Simplex codes. We first propose a Combination code having the generator matrix with all the columns of positive weights less than or equal to a given value. Such a code can be also obtained by puncturing all the columns of weights larger than a given value from a binary Simplex Code. We call by block-puncturing such puncturing method. Furthermore, we suggest a heuristic puncturing method, called subblock-puncturing, that punctures a few more columns of the largest weight from the Combination code. We determine the minimum distance, locality, availability, joint information locality, joint information availability of Combination codes in closed-form. We also demonstrate the optimality of the proposed codes with certain choices of parameters in terms of some well-known bounds.

In the past two decades, many generalized cyclotomic sequences have been constructed and they have been used in cryptography and communication systems for their high linear complexity and low autocorrelation. But there are a few of papers focusing on the 2-adic complexities of such sequences. In this paper, we first give a property of a class of Gaussian periods based on Whiteman's generalized cyclotomic classes of order 4. Then, as an application of this property, we study the 2-adic complexity of a class of Whiteman's generalized cyclotomic sequences constructed from two distinct primes p and q. We prove that the 2-adic complexity of this class of sequences of period pq is lower bounded by pq-p-q-1. This lower bound is at least greater than one half of its period and thus it shows that this class of sequences can resist against the rational approximation algorithm (RAA) attack.

Dai-Yuan (DY) conjugate gradient method is an effective method for solving large-scale unconstrained optimization problems. In this paper, a new DY method, possessing a spectral conjugate parameter βk, is presented. An attractive property of the proposed method is that the search direction generated at each iteration is descent, which is independent of the line search. Global convergence of the proposed method is also established when strong Wolfe conditions are employed. Finally, comparison experiments on impulse noise removal are reported to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

In this paper, we propose a generation method of new mutually zero-correlation zone set of optical orthogonal sequences (MZCZ-OOS) consisting of binary and bi-phase sequence pairs based on the optical zero-correlation zone (ZCZ) sequence set. The MZCZ-OOS is composed of several small orthogonal sequence sets. The sequences that belong to same subsets are orthogonal, and there is a ZCZ between the sequence that belong to different subsets. The set is suitable for the M-ary quasi-synchronous optical code-division multiple access (M-ary/QS-OCDMA) system. The product of set size S and family size M of proposed MMZCZ-OOS is more than the upper bound of optical ZCZ sequence set, and is fewer than the that of optical orthogonal sequence set.

In this paper, a perceptual distortion based rate-distortion optimized video coding scheme for High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) is proposed. Structural Similarity Index (SSIM) in transform domain, which is known as distortion metric to better reflect human's perception, is derived for the perceptual distortion model to be applied for hierarchical coding block structure of HEVC. A SSIM-quantization model is proposed using the properties of DCT and high resolution quantization assumption. The SSIM model is obtained as the sum of SSIM in each Coding Unit (CU) depth of HEVC, which precisely predict SSIM values for the hierarchical quadtree structure of CU in HEVC. The rate model is derived from the entropy, based on Laplacian distributions of transform residual coefficients and is jointly combined with the SSIM-based distortion model for rate-distortion optimization in an HEVC video codec and can be compliantly applied to HEVC. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves 8.1% and 4.0% average bit rate reductions in rate-SSIM performance for low-delay and random access configurations respectively, outperforming other existing methods. The proposed method provides better visual quality than the conventional mean square error (MSE)-based RDO coding scheme.