We propose a self-stabilizing leader election protocol on directed rings in the model of population protocols. Given an upper bound N on the population size n, the proposed protocol elects a unique leader within O(nN) expected steps starting from any configuration and uses O(N) states. This convergence time is optimal if a given upper bound N is asymptotically tight, i.e., N=O(n).

This paper proposes a switched pinning control method with a multi-rating mechanism for vehicle platoons. The platoons are expressed as multi-agent systems consisting of mass-damper systems in which pinning agents receive target velocities from external devices (ex. intelligent traffic signals). We construct model predictive control (MPC) algorithm that switches pinning agents via mixed-integer quadratic programmings (MIQP) problems. The optimization rate is determined according to the convergence rate to the target velocities and the inter-vehicular distances. This multi-rating mechanism can reduce the computational load caused by iterative calculation. Numerical results demonstrate that our method has a reduction effect on the string instability by selecting the pinning agents to minimize errors of the inter-vehicular distances to the target distances.

This paper investigates an adaptive notch digital filter that employs normal state-space realization of a single-frequency second-order IIR notch digital filter. An adaptive algorithm is developed to minimize the mean-squared output error of the filter iteratively. This algorithm is based on a simplified form of the gradient-decent method. Stability and frequency estimation bias are analyzed for the adaptive iterative algorithm. Finally, a numerical example is presented to demonstrate the validity and effectiveness of the proposed adaptive notch digital filter and the frequency-estimation bias analyzed for the adaptive iterative algorithm.

This paper proposes a measurement-based spectrum database (MSD) with clustered fading distributions toward greater storage efficiencies. The conventional MSD can accurately model the actual characteristics of multipath fading by plotting the histogram of instantaneous measurement data for each space-separated mesh and utilizing it in communication designs. However, if the database contains all of a distribution for each location, the amount of data stored will be extremely large. Because the main purpose of the MSD is to improve spectral efficiency, it is necessary to reduce the amount of data stored while maintaining quality. The proposed method reduces the amount of stored data by estimating the distribution of the instantaneous received signal power at each point and integrating similar distributions through clustering. Numerical results show that clustering techniques can reduce the amount of data while maintaining the accuracy of the MSD. We then apply the proposed method to the outage probability prediction for the instantaneous received signal power. It is revealed that the prediction accuracy is maintained even when the amount of data is reduced.

The need for real-time use of human dynamics data is increasing. The technical requirements for this include improved databases for handling a large amount of data as well as highly accurate sensing of people's movements. A bitmap index format has been proposed for high-speed processing of data that spreads in a two-dimensional space. Using the same format is expected to provide a service that searches queries, reads out desired data, visualizes it, and analyzes it. In this study, we propose a coding format that enables human dynamics data to compress it in the target data size, in order to save data storage for successive increase of real-time human dynamics data. In the proposed method, the spatial population distribution, which is expressed by a probability distribution, is approximated and compressed using the one-pixel one-byte data format normally used for image coding. We utilize two kinds of approximation, which are accuracy of probability and precision of spatial location, in order to control the data size and the amount of information. For accuracy of probability, we propose a non-linear mapping method for the spatial distribution, and for precision of spatial location, we propose spatial scalable layered coding to refine the mesh level of the spatial distribution. Also, in order to enable additional detailed analysis, we propose another scalable layered coding that improves the accuracy of the distribution. We demonstrate through experiments that the proposed data approximation and coding format achieve sufficient approximation of spatial population distribution in the given condition of target data size.

We consider an asymptotic stabilization problem for a chain of integrators by using an event-triggered controller. The times required between event-triggered executions and controller updates are uncertain, time-varying, and not necessarily small. We show that the considered system can be asymptotically stabilized by an event-triggered gain-scaling controller. Also, we show that the interexecution times are lower bounded and their lower bounds can be manipulated by a gain-scaling factor. Some future extensions are also discussed. An example is given for illustration.

Redactable signature allows anyone to remove parts of a signed message without invalidating the signature. The need to prove the validity of digital documents issued by governments is increasing. When governments disclose documents, they must remove private information concerning individuals. Redactable signature is useful for such a situation. However, in most redactable signature schemes, to remove parts of the signed message, we need pieces of information for each part we want to remove. If a signed message consists of ℓ elements, the number of elements in an original signature is at least linear in ℓ. As far as we know, in some redactable signature schemes, the number of elements in an original signature is constant, regardless of the number of elements in a message to be signed. However, these constructions have drawbacks in that the use of the random oracle model or generic group model. In this paper, we construct an efficient redactable signature to overcome these drawbacks. Our redactable signature is obtained by combining set-commitment proposed in the recent work by Fuchsbauer et al. (JoC 2019) and digital signatures.

During the detection of maritime targets, the jitter of the shipborne camera usually causes the video instability and the false or missed detection of targets. Aimed at tackling this problem, a novel algorithm for maritime target detection based on the electronic image stabilization technology is proposed in this study. The algorithm mainly includes three models, namely the points line model (PLM), the points classification model (PCM), and the image classification model (ICM). The feature points (FPs) are firstly classified by the PLM, and stable videos as well as target contours are obtained by the PCM. Then the smallest bounding rectangles of the target contours generated as the candidate bounding boxes (bboxes) are sent to the ICM for classification. In the experiments, the ICM, which is constructed based on the convolutional neural network (CNN), is trained and its effectiveness is verified. Our experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm outperformed the benchmark models in all the common metrics including the mean square error (MSE), peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR), structural similarity index (SSIM), and mean average precision (mAP) by at least -47.87%, 8.66%, 6.94%, and 5.75%, respectively. The proposed algorithm is superior to the state-of-the-art techniques in both the image stabilization and target ship detection, which provides reliable technical support for the visual development of unmanned ships.

In this letter we analyze the economic worth of GPU on analytical processing of GPU-accelerated database management systems (DBMSes). To this end, we conducted rigorous experiments with TPC-H across three popular GPU DBMSes. Consequently, we show that co-processing with CPU and GPU in the GPU DBMSes was cost-effective despite exposed concerns.

Metabolic networks represent the relationship between chemical reactions and compounds in cells. In useful metabolite production using microorganisms, it is often required to calculate reaction deletion strategies from the original network to result in growth coupling, which means the target metabolite production and cell growth are simultaneously achieved. Although simple elementary flux mode (EFM)-based methods are useful for listing such reaction deletions strategies, the number of cases to be considered is often proportional to the exponential function of the size of the network. Therefore, it is desirable to develop methods of narrowing down the number of reaction deletion strategy candidates. In this study, the author introduces the idea of L1 norm minimal modes to consider metabolic flows whose L1 norms are minimal to satisfy certain criteria on growth and production, and developed a fast metabolic design listing algorithm based on it (minL1-FMDL), which works in polynomial time. Computational experiments were conducted for (1) a relatively small network to compare the performance of minL1-FMDL with that of the simple EFM-based method and (2) a genome-scale network to verify the scalability of minL1-FMDL. In the computational experiments, it was seen that the average value of the target metabolite production rates of minL1-FMDL was higher than that of the simple EFM-based method, and the computation time of minL1-FMDL was fast enough even for genome-scale networks. The developed software, minL1-FMDL, implemented in MATLAB, is available on https://sunflower.kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~tamura/software, and can be used for genome-scale metabolic network design for metabolite production.

We have proposed a waveguide to microstrip line transition, which perpendicularly connects one waveguide into two microstrip lines. It consists of only a waveguide and a dielectric substrate with copper foils. A backshort waveguide for typical transitions is not needed. Additionally, the transition does not require via holes on the substrate. These innovations simplify the structure and the manufacturing process. We assume that our transition and antennas are co-located on the substrate. We reduced the undesirable radiation from the transition so as not to contaminate the desirable radiation pattern. In this paper, we address output phase of our transition. Since the transition has two MSL output ports connecting to different radiation elements, the phase error between two dividing signals leads to beam shift in the radiation pattern. Unfortunately, misalignment of etching pattern between copper layers of the substrate is unavoidable. The structural asymmetry causes the phase error. In order to tolerate the misalignment, we propose to add a pair of open stubs to the transition. We show that the structure drastically stabilizes the output phase. Though the stubs create some extra radiation, we confirm that the impact is not significant. Moreover, we fabricate and measure a prototype antenna that uses the transition. In the case of with stubs, the radiation pattern is unchanged even if the misalignment is severe.

Surveillance through aerial systems is in place for years. Such systems are expensive, and a large fleet is in operation around the world without upgrades. These systems have low resolution and multiple analog cameras on-board, with Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) at the control station. Generated digital videos have multi-scenes from multi-feeds embedded in a single video stream and lack video stabilization. Replacing on-board analog cameras with the latest digital counterparts requires huge investment. These videos require stabilization and other automated video analysis prepossessing steps before passing it to the mosaicing algorithm. Available mosaicing software are not tailored to segregate feeds from different cameras and scenes, automate image enhancements, and stabilize before mosaicing (image stitching). We present "AirMatch", a new automated system that first separates camera feeds and scenes, then stabilize and enhance the video feed of each camera; generates a mosaic of each scene of every feed and produce a super quality mosaic by stitching mosaics of all feeds. In our proposed solution, state-of-the-art video analytics techniques are tailored to work on videos from vintage cameras in aerial applications. Our new framework is independent of specialized hardware requirements and generates effective mosaics. Affine motion transform with smoothing Gaussian filter is selected for the stabilization of videos. A histogram-based method is performed for scene change detection and image contrast enhancement. Oriented FAST and rotated BRIEF (ORB) is selected for feature detection and descriptors in video stitching. Several experiments on a number of video streams are performed and the analysis shows that our system can efficiently generate mosaics of videos with high distortion and artifacts, compared with other commercially available mosaicing software.

Our paper attempts to critically assess the robustness of deep learning methods in dermatological evaluation. Although deep learning is being increasingly sought as a means to improve dermatological diagnostics, the performance of models and methods have been rarely investigated beyond studies done under ideal settings. We aim to look beyond results obtained on curated and ideal data corpus, by investigating resilience and performance on user-submitted data. Assessing via few imitated conditions, we have found the overall accuracy to drop and individual predictions change significantly in many cases despite of robust training.

This paper studies a novel approach to analysis of switched dynamical systems in perspective of bifurcation and multiobjective optimization. As a first step, we analyze a simple switched dynamical system based on a boost converter with photovoltaic input. First, in a bifurcation phenomenon perspective, we consider period doubling bifurcation sets in the parameter space. Second, in a multiobjective optimization perspective, we consider a trade-off between maximum input power and stability. The trade-off is represented by a Pareto front in the objective space. Performing numerical experiments, relationship between the bifurcation sets and the Pareto front is investigated.

In array signal processing, many methods of handling cases of impulsive noise with an alpha-stable distribution have been studied. By introducing correntropy with a robust statistical property, this paper proposes a novel fractional lower order correntropy (FLOCR) method. The FLOCR-based estimator for array outputs is defined and applied with multiple signal classification (MUSIC) to estimate the direction of arrival (DOA) in alpha-stable distributed noise environments. Comprehensive Monte Carlo simulation results demonstrate that FLOCR-MUSIC outperforms existing algorithms in terms of root mean square error (RMSE) and the probability of resolution, especially in the presence of highly impulsive noise.

A multi-task convolutional neural network leading to high performance and interpretability via attribute estimation is presented in this letter. Our method can provide interpretation of the classification results of CNNs by outputting attributes that explain elements of objects as a judgement reason of CNNs in the middle layer. Furthermore, the proposed network uses the estimated attributes for the following prediction of classes. Consequently, construction of a novel multi-task CNN with improvements in both of the interpretability and classification performance is realized.

In this paper, we propose a novel single-template strategy based on a mean template set and locally/globally weighted dynamic time warping (LG-DTW) to improve the performance of online signature verification. Specifically, in the enrollment phase, we implement a time series averaging method, Euclidean barycenter-based DTW barycenter averaging, to obtain a mean template set considering intra-user variability among reference samples. Then, we acquire a local weighting estimate considering a local stability sequence that is obtained analyzing multiple matching points of an optimal match between the mean template and reference sets. Thereafter, we derive a global weighting estimate based on the variable importance estimated by gradient boosting. Finally, in the verification phase, we apply both local and global weighting methods to acquire a discriminative LG-DTW distance between the mean template set and a query sample. Experimental results obtained on the public SVC2004 Task2 and MCYT-100 signature datasets confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method for online signature verification.

In recent years, with the improvement of health awareness, people have paid more and more attention to proper meal. Existing research has shown that a proper meal can help people prevent lifestyle diseases such as diabetes. In this research, by attaching sensors to the tableware, the information during the meal can be captured, and after processing and analyzing it, the meal information, such as time and sequence of meal, can be obtained. This paper introduces how to use supervised learning and multi-instance learning to deal with meal information and a detailed comparison is made. Three supervised learning algorithms and two multi-instance learning algorithms are used in the experiment. The experimental results showed that although the supervised learning algorithms have achieved good results in F-score, the multi-instance learning algorithms have achieved better results not only in accuracy but also in F-score.

Advances in deep reinforcement learning have demonstrated its effectiveness in a wide variety of domains. Deep neural networks are capable of approximating value functions and policies in complex environments. However, deep neural networks inherit a number of drawbacks. Lack of interpretability limits their usability in many safety-critical real-world scenarios. Moreover, they rely on huge amounts of data to learn efficiently. This may be suitable in simulated tasks, but restricts their use to many real-world applications. Finally, their generalization capability is low, the ability to determine that a situation is similar to one encountered previously. We present a method to combine external knowledge and interpretable reinforcement learning. We derive a rule-based variant version of the Sarsa(λ) algorithm, which we call Sarsa-rb(λ), that augments data with prior knowledge and exploits similarities among states. We demonstrate that our approach leverages small amounts of prior knowledge to significantly accelerate the learning in multiple domains such as trading or visual navigation. The resulting agent provides substantial gains in training speed and performance over deep q-learning (DQN), deep deterministic policy gradients (DDPG), and improves stability over proximal policy optimization (PPO).

This paper proposes a technique that increases the lifetime of large scale integration (LSI) devices. As semiconductor technology improves at miniaturizing transistors, aging effects due to bias temperature instability (BTI) seriously affects their lifetime. BTI increases the threshold voltage of transistors thereby also increasing the delay of an electronics device, resulting in failures due to timing violations. To compensate for aging-induced timing violations, we exploit configurable approximate computing. Assuming that target circuits have exact and approximate modes, they are configured for the approximate mode if an aging sensor predicts violations. Experiments using an example circuit revealed an increase in its lifetime to >10 years.