At manufacturing sites, mass customization is expanding along with the increasing variety of customer needs. This situation leads to complications in production planning for the factory manager, and production plans are likely to change suddenly at the manufacturing site. Because such sudden fluctuations in production often occur, it is particularly difficult to optimize the parts supply operations in these production processes. As a solution to such problems, Industry 4.0 has expanded to promote the use of digital technologies at manufacturing sites; however, these solutions can be expensive and time-consuming to introduce. Therefore, not all factory managers are favorable toward introducing digital technology. In this study, we propose a method to support parts supply operations that decreases work stagnation and fluctuation without relying on the experience of workers who supply parts in the various production processes. Furthermore, we constructed a system that is inexpensive and easy to introduce using both LPWA and BLE communications. The purpose of the system is to level out work in in-process logistics. In an experiment, the proposed method was introduced to a manufacturing site, and we compared how the workload of the site's workers changed. The experimental results show that the proposed method is effective for workload leveling in parts supply operations.

The BGPsec protocol, which is an extension of the border gateway protocol (BGP) for Internet routing known as BGPsec, uses digital signatures to guarantee the validity of routing information. However, the use of digital signatures in routing information on BGPsec causes a lack of memory in BGP routers, creating a gaping security hole in today's Internet. This problem hinders the practical realization and implementation of BGPsec. In this paper, we present APVAS (AS path validation based on aggregate signatures), a new protocol that reduces the memory consumption of routers running BGPsec when validating paths in routing information. APVAS relies on a novel aggregate signature scheme that compresses individually generated signatures into a single signature. Furthermore, we implement a prototype of APVAS on BIRD Internet Routing Daemon and demonstrate its efficiency on actual BGP connections. Our results show that the routing tables of the routers running BGPsec with APVAS have 20% lower memory consumption than those running the conventional BGPsec. We also confirm the effectiveness of APVAS in the real world by using 800,000 routes, which are equivalent to the full route information on a global scale.

We propose a short signature scheme under the ring-SIS assumption in the standard model. Specifically, by revisiting an existing construction [Ducas and Micciancio, CRYPTO 2014], we demonstrate lattice-based signatures with improved reduction loss. As far as we know, there are no ways to use multiple tags in the signature simulation of security proof in the lattice tag-based signatures. We address the tag-collision possibility in the lattice setting, which improves reduction loss. Our scheme generates tags from messages by constructing a scheme under a mild security condition that is existentially unforgeable against random message attack with auxiliary information. Thus our scheme can reduce the signature size since it does not need to send tags with the signatures. Our scheme has short signature sizes of O(1) and achieves tighter reduction loss than that of Ducas et al.'s scheme. Our proposed scheme has two variants. Our scheme with one property has tighter reduction and the same verification key size of O(log n) as that of Ducas et al.'s scheme, where n is the security parameter. Our scheme with the other property achieves much tighter reduction loss of O(Q/n) and verification key size of O(n), where Q is the number of signing queries.

Proof of Work (PoW), which is a consensus algorithm for blockchain, entails a large number of meaningless hash calculations and wastage of electric power and computational resources. In 2021, it is estimated that the PoW of Bitcoin consumes as much electricity as Pakistan's annual power consumption (91TWh). This is a serious problem against sustainable development goals. To solve this problem, this study proposes Meaningful-PoW (mPoW), which involves a meaningful calculation, namely the application of a genetic algorithm (GA) to PoW. Specifically, by using the intermediate values that are periodically generated through GA calculations as an input to the Hashcash used in Bitcoin, it is possible to make this scheme a meaningful calculation (GA optimization problem) while maintaining the properties required for PoW. Furthermore, by applying a device-binding technology, mPoW can be ASIC resistant without the requirement of a large memory. Thus, we show that mPoW can reduce the excessive consumption of both power and computational resources.

This paper addresses short-length sparse superposition codes (SSCs) over the additive white Gaussian noise channel. Damped approximate message-passing (AMP) is used to decode short SSCs with zero-mean independent and identically distributed Gaussian dictionaries. To design damping factors in AMP via deep learning, this paper constructs deep-unfolded damped AMP decoding networks. An annealing method for deep learning is proposed for designing nearly optimal damping factors with high probability. In annealing, damping factors are first optimized via deep learning in the low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime. Then, the obtained damping factors are set to the initial values in stochastic gradient descent, which optimizes damping factors for slightly larger SNR. Repeating this annealing process designs damping factors in the high SNR regime. Numerical simulations show that annealing mitigates fluctuation in learned damping factors and outperforms exhaustive search based on an iteration-independent damping factor.

This paper investigated a Subsample Time delay Estimation (STE) algorithm based on the amplitude of cross-correlation function to improve the estimation accuracy. In this paper, a rough time delay estimation is applied based on traditional cross correlator, and a fine estimation is achieved by approximating the sampled cross-correlation sequence to the amplitude of the theoretical cross-correlation function for linear frequency modulation (LFM) signal. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms existing methods and can effectively improve time delay estimation accuracy with the complexity comparable to the traditional cross-correlation method. The theoretical Cramér-Rao Bound (CRB) is derived, and simulations demonstrate that the performance of STE can approach the boundary. Eventually, four important parameters discussed in the simulation to explore the impact on Mean Squared Error (MSE).

The 5th-generation mobile communication uses multi-element array antennas in not only base stations but also mobile terminals. In order to design multi-element array antennas efficiently, it is important to acquire the characteristics of the direction of arrival (DOA) and direction of departure (DOD), and a highly accurate and simple measurement method is required. This paper proposes a highly accurate and simple method to measure DOA and DOD by applying synthetic aperture (SA) processed at both Rx and Tx sides. It is also shown that the addition of beam scanning to the proposed method can reduce the measurement time while maintaining the peak detection resolution. Moreover, experiments in an anechoic chamber and a shielded room using actual wave sources confirm that DOA and DOD can be detected with high accuracy.

This paper proposes a sub-signal channel modulation scheme for hitless redundancy switching systems that offers highly confidential communications. A hitless redundancy switching system prevents frame loss by using multiple routes to forward the same frame. Although most studies on redundancy switching systems deal with frame duplication, elimination, and selection of redundant paths for the main signal, we focus on the transmission of the sub-signal channel. We introduce mathematical expressions to model the transmission rate and bit error rate of the sub-signal channel. To evaluate the validity of the models, we conduct numerical simulations to calculate the sub-signal transmission rate, main-signal transmission rate, and bit error rate of the sub-signal channel at physical transmission rates of 100Mb/s, 1Gb/s, and 10Gb/s. We discuss how to design sub-signal channel modulation on the basis of the evaluation results. We further discuss applications of sub-signal modulation in terms of network size and jitter.

This paper presents dual bands and dual polarization reflectarrays for 5G millimeter wave applications. The frequency bands of 28GHz and 39GHz are allocated for 5G to realize high speed data transmission. However, these high frequency bands create coverage holes in which no link between base station and receivers is possible. Reflectarray has gained attention for reducing the size and number of coverage holes. This paper proposes a unit cell with swastika and the patch structure to construct the dual bands reflectrray operating at 28GHz and 39GHz by supercell. This paper also presents the detailed design procedure of the dual-bands reflectarray by supercell. The reflectarray is experimentally validated by a bistatic radar cross section measurement system. The experimental results are compared with simulation and reflection angle agreement is observed.

In order to improve the frequency band utilization and avoid mutual interference between signals, the BD3 satellite signals adopt Binary Offset Carrier (BOC) modulation. On one hand, BOC modulation has a narrow main peak width and strong anti-interference ability; on the other hand, the phenomenon of false acquisition locking caused by the multi-peak characteristic of BOC modulation itself needs to be resolved. In this context, this paper proposes a new BOC(n,n) unambiguous acquisition algorithm based on segmentation reconstruction. The algorithm is based on splitting the local BOC signal into four parts in each subcarrier period. The branch signal and the received signal are correlated with the received signal to generate four branch correlation signals. After a series of combined reconstructions, the final signal detection function completely eliminates secondary peaks. A simulation shows that the algorithm can completely eliminate the sub-peak interference for the BOC signals modulated by subcarriers with different phase. The characteristics of narrow correlation peak are retained. Experiments show that the proposed algorithm has superior performance in detection probability and peak-to-average ratio.

Aiming at the problem of the deterioration of the contact performance caused by the wear debris generated during the fretting wear of the electrical connector, low-frequency fretting wear experiments were carried out on the contacts of electrical connectors, the accumulation and distribution of the wear debris were detected by the electrical capacitance tomography technology; the influence of fretting cycles, vibration direction, vibration frequency and vibration amplitude on the accumulation and distribution of wear debris were analyzed; the correlation between characteristic value of wear debris and contact resistance value was studied, and a performance degradation model based on the accumulation and distribution of wear debris was built. The results show that fretting wear and performance degradation are the most serious in axial vibration; the characteristic value of wear debris and contact resistance are positively correlated with the fretting cycles, vibration frequency and vibration amplitude; there is a strong correlation between the sum of characteristic value of wear debris and the contact resistance value; the prediction error of ABC-SVR model of fretting wear performance degradation of electrical connectors constructed by the characteristic value of wear debris is less than 6%. Therefore, the characteristic value of wear debris in contact subareas can quantitatively describe the degree of fretting wear and the process of performance degradation.

Multiple context-free grammar (MCFG) is an extension of context-free grammar (CFG), which generates tuples of words. The expressive power of MCFG is between CFG and context-sensitive grammar while MCFG inherits good properties of CFG. In this paper, we introduce weighted multiple context-free grammar (WMCFG) as a quantitative extension of MCFG. Then we investigate properties of WMCFG such as polynomial-time computability of basic problems, its closure property and expressive power.

In this article, a GUI system is proposed to support clinical cardiology examinations. The proposed system estimates “pulmonary artery wedge pressure” based on patients' chest radiographs using an explainable regression-based convolutional neural network. The GUI system was validated by performing an effectiveness survey with 23 cardiology physicians with medical licenses. The results indicated that many physicians considered the GUI system to be effective.

Intelligent reconfigurable surfaces (IRS) have attracted much attention from both industry and academia due to their performance improving capability and low complexity for 6G wireless communication systems. In this letter, we introduce an IRS-assisted space-time line code (STLC) technique. The STLC was introduced as a promising technique to acquire the optimal diversity gain in 1×2 single-input multiple-output (SIMO) channel without channel state information at receiver (CSIR). Using the cosine similarity theorem, we propose a novel phase-steering technique for the proposed IRS-assisted STLC technique. We also mathematically characterize the proposed IRS-assisted STLC technique in terms of outage probability and bit-error rate (BER). Based on computer simulations, it is shown that the results of analysis shows well match with the computer simulation results for various communication scenarios.

In this letter, we propose an energy beamforming empowered relaying scheme for a batteryless IoT network, where wireless-powered relays are deployed between the hybrid access point (HAP) and batteryless IoT devices to assist the uplink information transmission from the devices to the HAP. In particular, the HAP first exploits energy beamforming to efficiently transmit radio frequency (RF) signals to transfer energy to the relays and as the incident signals to enable the information backscattering of batteryless IoT devices. Then, each relay uses the harvested energy to forward the decoded signals from its corresponding batteryless IoT device to the HAP, where the maximum-ratio combing is used for further performance improvement. To maximize the network sum-rate, the joint optimization of energy beamforming vectors at the HAP, network time scheduling, power allocation at the relays, and relection coefficient at the users is investigated. As the formulated problem is non-convex, we propose an alternating optimization algorithm with the variable substitution and semi-definite relaxation (SDR) techniques to solve it efficiently. Specifically, we prove that the obtained energy beamforming matrices are always rank-one. Numerical results show that compared to the benchmark schemes, the proposed scheme can achieve a significant sum-rate gain.

The package manager (PM) is crucial to most technology stacks, acting as a broker to ensure that a verified dependency package is correctly installed, configured, or removed from an application. Diversity in technology stacks has led to dozens of PMs with various features. While our recent study indicates that package management features of PM are related to end-user experiences, it is unclear what those issues are and what information is required to resolve them. In this paper, we have investigated PM issues faced by end-users through an empirical study of content on Stack Overflow (SO). We carried out a qualitative analysis of 1,131 questions and their accepted answer posts for three popular PMs (i.e., Maven, npm, and NuGet) to identify issue types, underlying causes, and their resolutions. Our results confirm that end-users struggle with PM tool usage (approximately 64-72%). We observe that most issues are raised by end-users due to lack of instructions and errors messages from PM tools. In terms of issue resolution, we find that external link sharing is the most common practice to resolve PM issues. Additionally, we observe that links pointing to useful resources (i.e., official documentation websites, tutorials, etc.) are most frequently shared, indicating the potential for tool support and the ability to provide relevant information for PM end-users.

We present a mathematical formulation of a trust metric using a quality and quantity pair. Under a certain assumption, we regard trust as an additive value and define the soundness of a trust computation as not to exceed the total sum. Moreover, we point out the importance of not only soundness of each computed trust but also the stability of the trust computation procedure against changes in trust value assignment. In this setting, we define trust composition operators. We also propose a trust computation protocol and prove its soundness and stability using the operators.

Currently, NDN-based VANETs protocols have several problems with packet overhead of rebroadcasting, control packet, and the accuracy of next-hop selection due to the dynamic topology. To deal with these problems in this paper, we propose a robust and lightweight forwarding protocol in Vehicular ad-hoc Named Data Networking. The concept of our forwarding protocol is adopting a packet-free approach. A vehicle collects its neighbor's visual identification by a pair of cameras (front and rear) to assign a unique visual ID for each node. Based on these IDs, we construct a hop-by-hop FIB-based forwarding strategy effectively. Furthermore, the Face duplication [1] in the wireless environment causes an all-broadcast problem. We add the visual information to Face to distinguish the incoming and outgoing Face to prevent broadcast-storm and make FIB and PIT work more accurate and efficiently. The performance evaluation results focusing on the communication overhead show that our proposal has better results in overall network traffic costs and Interest satisfaction ratio than previous works.

This paper proposes a novel approach to low complexity soft input decoding for lattice reduction-aided MIMO receivers. The proposed approach feeds a soft input decoder with soft signals made from hard decision signals generated by using a lattice reduction-aided linear detector. The soft signal is a weighted-sum of some candidate vectors that are near by the hard decision signal coming out from the lattice reduction-aided linear detector. This paper proposes a technique to adjust the weight adapt to the channel for the higher transmission performance. Furthermore, we propose to introduce a coefficient that is used for the weights in order to enhance the transmission performance. The transmission performance is evaluated in a 4×4 MIMO channel. When a linear MMSE filter or a serial interference canceller is used as the linear detector, the proposed technique achieves about 1.0dB better transmission performance at the BER of 10-5 than the decoder fed with the hard decision signals. In addition, the low computational complexity of the proposed technique is quantitatively evaluated.

Aiming at the problem of spatial focus regions distribution dispersion and dislocation in feature pyramid networks and insufficient feature dependency acquisition in both spatial and channel dimensions, this paper proposes a spatial-temporal aggregated shuffle attention for video instance segmentation (STASA-VIS). First, an mixed subsampling (MS) module to embed activating features from the low-level target area of feature pyramid into the high-level is designed, so as to aggregate spatial information on target area. Taking advantage of the coherent information in video frames, STASA-VIS uses the first ones of every 5 video frames as the key-frames and then propagates the keyframe feature maps of the pyramid layers forward in the time domain, and fuses with the non-keyframe mixed subsampled features to achieve time-domain consistent feature aggregation. Finally, STASA-VIS embeds shuffle attention in the backbone to capture the pixel-level pairwise relationship and dimensional dependencies among the channels and reduce the computation. Experimental results show that the segmentation accuracy of STASA-VIS reaches 41.2%, and the test speed reaches 34FPS, which is better than the state-of-the-art one stage video instance segmentation (VIS) methods in accuracy and achieves real-time segmentation.