In this paper, we propose a novel method for the design of CSD (Canonic Signed Digit) coefficient FIR (Finite Impulse Response) filters based on ACO (Ant Colony Optimization). This design problem is formulated as a combinatorial optimization problem and requires high computation time to obtain the optimal solution. Therefore, we propose an ACO approach for the design of CSD coefficient FIR filters. ACO is one of the promising approaches and appropriate for solving a combinatorial optimization problem in reasonable computation time. Several design examples showed the effectiveness of our method.

Discrete structure manipulation is a fundamental technique for many problems solved by computers. BDDs/ZDDs have attracted a great deal of attention for twenty years, because those data structures are useful to efficiently manipulate basic discrete structures such as logic functions and sets of combinations. Recently, one of the most interesting research topics related to BDDs/ZDDs is Frontier-based search method, a very efficient algorithm for enumerating and indexing the subsets of a graph to satisfy a given constraint. This work is important because many kinds of practical problems can be efficiently solved by some variations of this algorithm. In this article, we present recent research activity related to BDD and ZDD. We first briefly explain the basic techniques for BDD/ZDD manipulation, and then we present several examples of the state-of-the-art algorithms to show the power of enumeration.

In this paper, we present a method of analyzing relationships between items in specific health examination data, as one of the basic researches to address increases of lifestyle-related diseases. We use self-organizing maps, and pick up the data from the examination dataset according to the condition specified by some item values. We then focus on twelve items such as hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), aspartate transaminase (AST), alanine transaminase (ALT), gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase (γ-GTP), and triglyceride (TG). We generate training data presented to a map by calculating the difference between item values associated with successive two years and normalizing the values of this calculation. We label neurons in the map on condition that one of the item values of training data is employed as a parameter. We finally examine the relationships between items by comparing results of labeling (clusters formed in the map) to each other. From experimental results, we separately reveal the relationships among HbA1c, AST, ALT, γ-GTP and TG in the unfavorable case of HbA1c value increasing and those in the favorable case of HbA1c value decreasing.

Process and temperature variations have become a serious concern for ultra-low voltage (ULV) technology. The clock generator is the essential component for the ULV very-large-scale integration (VLSI). MOSFETs that are operated in the sub-threshold region are widely applied for ULV technology. However, MOSFETs at subthreshold region have relatively high variations with process and temperature. In this paper, process and temperature variations on the clock generators have been studied. This paper presents an ultra-low voltage 2.4GHz CMOS voltage controlled oscillator with temperature and process compensation. A new all-digital auto compensated mechanism to reduce process and temperature variation without any laser trimming is proposed. With the compensated circuit, the VCO frequency-drift is 16.6 times the improvements of the uncompensated one as temperature changes. Furthermore, it also provides low jitter performance.

Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technology is one of the key enablers in the fifth generation mobile communications (5G), in order to accommodate growing traffic demands and to utilize higher super high frequency (SHF) and extremely high frequency (EHF) bands. In the paper, we propose a novel transmit precoding named “nonlinear block multi-diagonalization (NL-BMD) precoding” for multiuser MIMO (MU-MIMO) downlink toward 5G. Our NL-BMD precoding strategy is composed of two essential techniques: block multi-diagonalization (BMD) and adjacent inter-user interference pre-cancellation (IUI-PC). First, as an extension of the conventional block diagonalization (BD) method, the linear BMD precoder for the desired user is computed to incorporate a predetermined number of interfering users, in order to ensure extra degrees of freedom at the transmit array even after null steering. Additionally, adjacent IUI-PC, as a nonlinear operation, is introduced to manage the residual interference partially allowed in BMD computation, with effectively-reduced numerical complexity. It is revealed through computer simulations that the proposed NL-BMD precoding yields up to 67% performance improvement in average sum-rate spectral efficiency and enables large-capacity transmission regardless of the user distribution, compared with the conventional BD precoding.

Many-core architecture is becoming an attractive design choice in high-end embedded systems design. There are, however, many important design issues, and load balancing is one of them. In this work, we take the approach of diffusive load balancing which enables autonomic load distribution in many-core systems. We improve the existing schemes by adding the concept of simulated annealing for more effective load distribution. The modified scheme is also capable of managing a situation of non-uniform granularity of task loading, which the existing ones cannot. In addition, the suggested scheme is extended to be able to handle dependencies existing in task graphs where tasks have communications between each other. As experiments, we tried various existing schemes as well as the proposed one to map synthetic applications and real world applications on a many-core architecture with 21 cores and 4 memory tiles. For the applications without communications, the experiments show that the proposed scheme gives the best results in terms of peak load and standard deviation. For real applications such as mp3 decoder and h.263 encoder which have communications between tasks, we show the effectiveness of our communication-aware scheme for load balancing in terms of throughput.

The increasing demand on scalability and reusability of system-on-chip design as well as the decoupling between computation and communication has motivated the growth of the Network-on-Chip (NoC) paradigm in the last decade. In NoC-based systems, the computational resources (i.e. IPs) communicate with each other using a network infrastructure. Many works have focused on the development of NoC architectures and routing mechanisms, while the interfacing between network and associated IPs also needs to be considered. In this paper, we present a novel efficient AXI (AMBA eXtensible Interface) compliant network adapter for NoC architectures, which is named an AXI-NoC adapter. The proposed network adapter achieves high communication throughput of 20.8Gbits/s and consumes 4.14mW at the operating frequency of 650MHz. It has a low area footprint (952 gates, approximate to 2,793µm2 with CMOS 45nm technology) thanks to its effective hybrid micro-architectures and with zero latency thanks to the proposed mux-selection method.

This letter considers a backscatter assisted wireless powered communication network (BAWPCN) with non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA). This model consists of a hybrid access point (HAP) and multiple users which can work in either backscatter or harvest-then-transmit (HTT) protocol. To fully exploit time for information transmission, the users working in the backscatter protocol are scheduled to reflect modulated signals during the first phase of the HTT protocol which is dedicated for energy transfer. During the second phase, all users working in the HTT protocol transmit information to the HAP simultaneously since NOMA is adopted. Considering both short-term and long-term optimization problems to maximize the system throughput, the optimal resource allocation policies are obtained. Simulation results show that the proposed model can significantly improve the system performance.

Recently, much progress has been made in the study of belief propagation (BP) based signal detection with large-scale factor graphs. When we apply the BP algorithm to equalization in a SISO multipath channel, the corresponding factor graph has many short loops and patterns in an edge connection/strength. Thus, proper convergence may not be achieved. In general, the log-likelihood ratio (LLR) oscillates in ill-converged cases. Therefore, LLR oscillation avoidance is important for BP-based equalization. In this paper, we propose applying node selection (NS) to prevent the LLR from oscillating. The NS extends the loop length virtually by a serial LLR update. Thus, some performance improvement is expected. Simulation results show that the error floor is significantly reduced by NS in the uncoded case and that the NS works very well in the coded case.

This paper proposes a new user association method to maximize the downlink system throughput in a cellular network, where the system throughput is defined based on (p,α)-proportional fairness. The proposed method assumes a fully decentralized approach, which is practical in a real system as complicated inter-base station (BS) cooperation is not required. In the proposed method, each BS periodically and individually broadcasts supplemental information regarding its bandwidth allocation to newly connected users. Assisted by this information, each user calculates the expected throughput that will be obtained by connecting to the respective BSs. Each user terminal feeds back the metric for user association to the temporally best BS, which represents a relative increase in throughput through re-association to that BS. Based on the reported metrics from multiple users, each BS individually updates the user association. The proposed method gives a general framework for optimal user association for (p,α)-proportional fairness-based system throughput maximization and is especially effective in heterogeneous cellular networks where low transmission-power pico BSs overlay a high transmission-power macro BS. Computer simulation results show that the proposed method maximizes the system throughput from the viewpoint of the given (p,α)-proportional fairness.

Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is a promising multiple access scheme for further improving the spectrum efficiency compared to orthogonal multiple access (OMA) in the 5th Generation (5G) mobile communication systems. As inter-user interference cancellers for NOMA, two kinds of receiver structures are considered. One is the reduced complexity-maximum likelihood receiver (R-ML) and the other is the codeword level interference canceller (CWIC). In this paper, we show that the R-ML is superior to the CWIC in terms of scheduling flexibility. In addition, we propose a link to system (L2S) mapping scheme for the R-ML to conduct a system level evaluation, and show that the proposed scheme accurately predicts the block error rate (BLER) performance of the R-ML. The proposed L2S mapping scheme also demonstrates that the system level throughput performance of the R-ML is higher than that for the CWIC thanks to the scheduling flexibility.

Non-contiguous orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) is a promising technique for cognitive radio systems. The secondary users transmit on the selected subcarriers to avoid the frequencies being used by the primary users. However, the out-of-band power (OBP) of the OFDM-modulated tones induces interference to the primary users. Another major drawback of OFDM-based system is their high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR). In this paper, algorithms are proposed to jointly reduce the OBP and the PAPR for non-contiguous OFDM based on the method of alternating projections onto convex sets. Several OFDM subcarriers are selected to accommodate the adjusting weights for OBP and PAPR reduction. The frequency-domain OFDM symbol is projected onto two convex sets that are defined according to the OBP requirements and the PAPR limits. Each projection iteration solves a convex optimization problem. The projection onto the set constrained by the OBP requirement can be calculated using an iterative algorithm which has low computational complexity. Simulation results show good performance of joint reduction of the OBP and the PAPR. The proposed algorithms converge quickly in a few iterations.

This paper experimentally verifies the potential of higher order space division multiplexing in line-of-sight (LOS) channels for multiuser massive MIMO. We previously proposed an inter-user interference (IUI) cancellation scheme and a simplified user scheduling method for Massive Antenna Systems for Wireless Entrance (MAS-WE). In order to verify the effectiveness of the proposed techniques, channel state information (CSI) for a 1×32 SIMO channel is measured in a real propagation environment with simplified test equipment. Evaluations of the measured CSI data confirm the effectiveness of our proposals; they offer good equal gain transmission (EGT) performance, reduced spatial correlation with enlarged angular gap between users, and quite small channel state fluctuation. Link level simulations elucidate that the simple IUI cancellation method is stable in practical conditions. The degradation in symbol error rate with the measured CSI, relative to that yielded by the output of the theoretical LOS channel model, is insignificant.

In OFDM systems, link performance depends heavily on the estimation of symbol-timing and frequency offsets. Performance sensitivity to these estimates is a major drawback of OFDM systems. Timing errors destroy the orthogonality of OFDM signals and lead to inter-symbol interference (ISI) and inter-carrier interference (ICI). The interference due to timing errors can be exploited as a metric for symbol-timing synchronization. In this paper, we propose a novel method to extract interference components using a DFT of the upsampled OFDM signals. Mathematical analysis and formulation are given for the dependence of interference on timing errors. From a numerical analysis, the proposed interference estimation shows robustness against channel dispersion.

To promote effective guidance by health checkup results, this paper predict a likelihood of developing lifestyle-related diseases from health check data. In this paper, we focus on the fluctuation of hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) value, which deeply connected with diabetes onset. Here we predict incensement of HbA1c value and examine which kind of health checkup item has important role for HbA1c fluctuation. Our experimental results show that, when we classify the subjects according to their gender and triglyceride (TG) fluctuation value, we will effectively evaluate the risk of diabetes onset for each class.

An incident response organization such as a CSIRT contributes to preventing the spread of malware infection by analyzing compromised websites and sending abuse reports with detected URLs to webmasters. However, these abuse reports with only URLs are not sufficient to clean up the websites. In addition, it is difficult to analyze malicious websites across different client environments because these websites change behavior depending on a client environment. To expedite compromised website clean-up, it is important to provide fine-grained information such as malicious URL relations, the precise position of compromised web content, and the target range of client environments. In this paper, we propose a new method of constructing a redirection graph with context, such as which web content redirects to malicious websites. The proposed method analyzes a website in a multi-client environment to identify which client environment is exposed to threats. We evaluated our system using crawling datasets of approximately 2,000 compromised websites. The result shows that our system successfully identified malicious URL relations and compromised web content, and the number of URLs and the amount of web content to be analyzed were sufficient for incident responders by 15.0% and 0.8%, respectively. Furthermore, it can also identify the target range of client environments in 30.4% of websites and a vulnerability that has been used in malicious websites by leveraging target information. This fine-grained analysis by our system would contribute to improving the daily work of incident responders.

The Möbius cube is a variant of the hypercube. Its advantage is that it can connect the same number of nodes as a hypercube but with almost half the diameter of the hypercube. We propose an algorithm to solve the node-to-node disjoint paths problem in n-Möbius cubes in polynomial-order time of n. We provide a proof of correctness of the algorithm and estimate that the time complexity is O(n2) and the maximum path length is 3n-5.

Side match vector quantization (SMVQ) has been originally developed for image compression and is also useful for steganography. SMVQ requires to create its own state codebook for each block in both encoding and decoding phases. Since the conventional method for the state codebook generation is extremely time-consuming, this letter proposes a fast generation method. The proposed method is tens times faster than the conventional one without loss of perceptual visual quality.

Anomaly detection is one approach in intrusion detection systems (IDSs) which aims at capturing any deviation from the profiles of normal network activities. However, it suffers from high false alarm rate since it has impediment to distinguish the boundaries between normal and attack profiles. In this paper, we propose an effective anomaly detection approach by hybridizing three techniques, i.e. particle swarm optimization (PSO), ant colony optimization (ACO), and genetic algorithm (GA) for feature selection and ensemble of four tree-based classifiers, i.e. random forest (RF), naive bayes tree (NBT), logistic model trees (LMT), and reduces error pruning tree (REPT) for classification. Proposed approach is implemented on NSL-KDD dataset and from the experimental result, it significantly outperforms the existing methods in terms of accuracy and false alarm rate.

We present the first demonstration of an electro-optic modulator based on a photolithographically fabricated photonic crystal (PhC) nanocavity with a p-i-n junction with SiO2 cladding. We show that the device exhibits an ultrahigh quality factor (Q∼105) and allow us to demonstrate electro-optic modulation through the integrated p-i-n diode structure. We demonstrate an electro-optic modulation based on the carrier injection.