This paper tackles the problem of detecting a random signal embedded in additive white noise. Although the likelihood ratio test (LRT) is the well-known optimum detector for this problem, it may not be easily realized in applications such as radar, sonar, seismic, digital communications, speech analysis and automatic fault detection in machinery, for which suboptimal quadratic detectors have been extensively employed. In this paper, the relationships between four suboptimal quadratic detection schemes, namely, the energy, matched subspace, maximum deflection ratio as well as spectrum matching detectors, and the LRT are studied. In particular, we show that each of those suboptimal detectors can approach the optimal LRT under certain operating conditions. These results are verified via Monte Carlo simulations.

In this paper, we propose a new Interconnect Length Distribution (ILD) model to evaluate X architecture. X architecture uses 45-wire orientations in addition to 90-wire orientations, which contributes to reduce the total wire length and the number of vias. In this paper, we evaluated interconnect length distribution of diagonal (45orientations) and all-directional wiring. The average length and the longest length of interconnect are estimated, and 18% reduction in power consumption and 17% improvement in clock frequency can be obtained by the diagonal wiring in the experimental results. The all-directional wiring does not have large advantage as compared the diagonal wiring.

In the letter we extend our previous work, which applies genetic programming to passive filter synthesis tasks. The extended method deals with the tolerance design considerations. Experimental results show that our method can effectively generate filters which outperform those generated by traditional methods. In addition, it provides filter designers with an effective CAD tool to manage the trade-off between manufacturing yield and circuit cost.

This paper presents a high performance wideband CMOS direct down-conversion mixer for UWB based on 0.18 µm CMOS technology. The proposed mixer uses the current bleeding technique and an extra resonant inductor to improve the conversion gain, noise figure (NF) and linearity. Also, with an extra inductor and the careful choosing of transistor sizes, the mixer has a very low flicker noise. The shunt resistor matching is applied to have a 528 MHz bandwidth matching at 50 Ohm. The simulation results show the voltage conversion gain of 20.5 dB, the double-side band NF of 5.6 dB. Two-tone test result indicates 11.25 dBm of IIP3 and higher than 70 dBm of IIP2. The circuit operates at the supply voltage of 1.8 V, and dissipates 11.5 mW.

It has been observed in the literature that the characteristic polynomial of a discrete system can be computed from the characteristic impulse response Gramian. In this letter it is shown that a given characteristic impulse response Gramian, in fact, contains information on two characteristic polynomials. The importance of this result is illustrated through an application to model reduction of discrete systems.

This paper investigates intermodultation distortion in ferroelectric phase shifters depending on bias voltage. Two analog phase shifters based on barium-strontium-titantate (BST) coated sapphire substrates have been fabricated with interdigital capacitors (IDCs) which have 2 and 4 µm spacing between adjacent fingers. In case of the phase shifter with 4 µm-spaced IDCs, a phase shift of more than 121was obtained with a maximum insertion loss of 1.8 dB from 2.4 to 2.5 GHz over a bias voltage range of 0-140 V. The phase shifter with 2 µm-spaced IDCs exhibited a phase shift of more than 135with a maximum insertion loss of 2.37 dB in the same frequency range. In this case, a bias voltage of 80 V was used. Using 2 and 4 µm-spaced phase shifters, a third-order intermodulation (IM3) measurement was carried out with a two-tone cancellation setup to investigate nonlinearity, resulting in an input third-order intercept point (IIP3) of about 30.5 dBm and 38.5 dBm, respectively.

In this paper a straight-forward approach to extract the equivalent loop-gain of a continuous time Delta-Sigma modulator with an arbitrary DAC waveform in z-domain is presented. In this approach the arbitrary DAC waveform is approximated by the infinite number of rectangular pulse shapes. Then simply using the transformations available in literatures for a rectangular DAC pulse shape and applying superposition on each rectangular pulse shape, the loop-gain of the system is derived in z-domain.

A multi-user space-time block coding (STBCa) system is a multi-access system where co-channel users employ space-time block codes (STBC). In this paper, we aimed at the design of efficient zero-forcing (ZF) receivers, especially ZF iterative interference cancellation (IC) receivers, for multi-user {G2, G3, G4} STBC systems with an arbitrary number of users, based on the identification of algebraic properties existing in the systems. First, we identify some algebraic properties for {G2, G3, G4} STBC systems. Then, utilizing these algebraic properties, we further expose two significative properties, called "ZF output uncorrelated property" and "ZF output equal Post-detection SNR property" respectively, for least-squares (LS) ZF receivers in multi-user {G2, G3, G4} STBC systems by detailed proofs. Based on the two properties, a novel LS ZF user-ordered successive interference cancellation (ZF UOSIC) detection algorithm is proposed subsequently. Finally, simulation results show that ZF UOSIC is superior to the conventional ZF IC and maximum-likelihood (ML) algorithms and the non-ordered ZF user-based SIC (ZF USIC) algorithm due to adopting iterative IC and optimal ordering among users, and has very close performance to the ZF symbol-ordered SIC but with lower complexity due to the fewer iterative times.

By inserting a slot and metallic strips at the widened stub in a single layer and fed by coplanar waveguide (CPW) transmission line, novel dual-band and broadband operations are presented. The proposed antennas are designed to have dual-band operation suitable for applications in DCS (1720-1880 MHz), PCS (1850-1990 MHz), IMT-2000 (1920-2170 MHz), and IEEE 802.11 WLAN standards in the 2.4 GHz (2400-2484 MHz) and 5.2 GHz (5150-5350 MHz) bands. The dual-band antennas are simple in design, and the two operating modes of the proposed antennas are associated with perimeter of slots and loading metallic strips, in which the lower operating band can be controlled by varying the perimeters of the outer square slot and the higher band depend on the inner slot of the widened stub. The experimental results of the proposed antennas show the impedance bandwidths of the two operating bands, determined from 10-dB return loss, larger than 61% and 27% of the center frequencies, respectively.

Coupling between resonators are analyzed theoretically on basis of the coupled mode theory. New and basic equations for the coupling coefficient are derived and compared with those of waveguides. They should be useful for understanding the physical background of coupling and designing a new coupling scheme.

This paper introduces τk notation to be used to assess test generation complexity of classes of sequential circuits. Using τk notation, we reconsider and restate the time complexity of test generation for existing classes of acyclic sequential circuits. We also introduce a new DFT method called feedback shift register (FSR) scan design technique, which is extended from the scan design technique. Therefore, for a given sequential circuit, the corresponding FSR scan designed circuit has always equal or lower area overhead and test application time than the corresponding scan designed circuit. Furthermore, we identify some new classes of sequential circuits that contain some cyclic sequential circuits, which are τ-equivalent and τ2-bounded. These classes are the l-length-bounded testable circuits, l-length-bounded validity-identifiable circuits, t-time-bounded testable circuits and t-time-bounded validity-identifiable circuits. In addition, we provide two examples of circuits belonging to these classes, namely counter-cycle finite state machine realizations and state-shiftable finite state machine realizations. Instead of using a DFT method, a given sequential circuit described at the finite state machine (FSM) level can be synthesized using another test methodology called synthesis for testability (SFT) into a circuit that belongs to one of the easily testable classes of cyclic sequential circuits.

Inference attacks mean that a user derives information on the execution results of unauthorized queries from the execution results of authorized queries. Most of the studies on inference attacks so far have focused on only inference of positive information (i.e., what value is the execution result of a given unauthorized query). However, negative information (i.e., what value is never the execution result of a given unauthorized query) is also sensitive in many cases. This paper presents the following results on the security against inference attacks on negative information in object-oriented databases. First, inference of negative information is formalized under a model of object-oriented databases called method schemas. Then, the following two types of security problems are defined: (1) Is a given database instance secure against inference attacks on given negative information? (2) Are all of the database instances of a given database schema secure against inference attacks on given negative information? It is shown that the first problem is decidable in polynomial time in the description size of the database instance while the second one is undecidable. A decidable sufficient condition for any database instance of a given database schema to be secure is also proposed. Finally, it is shown that for a monadic schema (i.e., every method has exactly one parameter), this sufficient condition is also a necessary one.

In recent years, considerable attention has been devoted to continuously running software systems whose performance characteristics are smoothly degrading in time. Software aging often affects the performance of a software system and eventually causes it to fail. A novel approach to handle transient software failures due to software aging is called software rejuvenation, which can be regarded as a preventive and proactive solution that is particularly useful for counteracting the aging phenomenon. In this paper, we focus on a high assurance software system with fault-tolerance and preventive rejuvenation, and analyze the stochastic behavior of such a highly critical software system. More precisely, we consider a fault-tolerant software system with two-version redundant structure and random rejuvenation schedule, and evaluate quantitatively some dependability measures like the steady-state system availability and MTTF based on the familiar Markovian analysis. In numerical examples, we examine the dependence of two fault tolerant techniques; design and environment diversity techniques, on the system dependability measures.

Automated reasoning of inductive theorems is considered important in program verification. To verify inductive theorems automatically, several implicit induction methods like the inductionless induction and the rewriting induction methods have been proposed. In studying inductive theorems on higher-order rewritings, we found that the class of the theorems shown by known implicit induction methods does not coincide with that of inductive theorems, and the gap between them is a barrier in developing mechanized methods for disproving inductive theorems. This paper fills this gap by introducing the notion of primitive inductive theorems, and clarifying the relation between inductive theorems and primitive inductive theorems. Based on this relation, we achieve mechanized methods for proving and disproving inductive theorems.

Although the multiuser detection scheme based on Kalman filtering (K-MUD) proposed by Zhang and Wei, is referred to as a "blind" algorithm, in fact it is not really blind because it is conditioned on perfect knowledge of system parameter, power of the desired user. This paper derives an algorithm to estimate the power of the user of interest, and proposes a completely blind multiuser detection. Computer simulations show that the proposed parameter estimation scheme obtains excellent effect, and that the new detection scheme has nearly the same performance as the K-MUD, there is only slight degradation at very low input signal-to-interference ratios (SIR).

There are three well-known approaches to using scan design to apply two-pattern testing: broadside testing (functional justification), skewed-load testing and enhanced scan testing. The broadside and skewed-load testing use the standard scan design, and thus the area overheads are not high. However fault coverage is low. The enhanced scan testing uses the enhanced scan design. The design uses extra latches, and allows scan-in any two-pattern testing. While this method achieves high fault coverage, it causes high area overhead because of extra latches. This paper presents a new scan design where two-pattern testing with high fault coverage can be performed with area overhead as low as the standard scan design. The proposed scan-FFs are based on master-slave FFs. The input of each scan-FF is connected to the output of the master latch and not the slave latch of the previous FF. Every scan-FF maintains the output value during scan-shift operations.

Bluetooth is reputed as a wireless networking technology capable of forming ad-hoc networks between digital devices. In particular, the Bluetooth scatternet will be an essential part of the fully distributed ad-hoc networks. However, scatternet is not fully described in the Bluetooth specification. This has been the topic of discussion among researches in relation to the formation algorithm, scheduling scheme, etc. Most of the proposed algorithms reported in past researches on scatternet formation are too large and complex to be implemented in a real commercial Bluetooth hardware. Therefore, the verifications of the proposed algorithms reported in past researches were done through only simulations. In addition, the formation process takes too long and these past researches had been conducted only in static environment where no node enters or leaves the scatternet. In this paper, therefore, we propose a new scatternet formation algorithm called Node Ring Scatternet (NRS), emphasizing on two aspects, i.e. implementation and dynamic property of the algorithm. The algorithm is very simple and compact and is verified to be easily implementable in a real commercial Bluetooth device. For the dynamic properties, the NRS entails relatively short formation delay and a reformation algorithm in a dynamic environment was designed. Therefore, the network of the NRS can be scalable and flexible. In addition, a new protocol called SFMP (Scatternet Formation & Management Protocol) was designed and is presented herein. Using this protocol, the NRS algorithm was implemented in a real Bluetooth device, and the performance was verified through hardware experiments. Based on the experimental results, it was found that the NRS composed of up to 20 nodes is formed and the proposed algorithm has shown improvement in terms of formation delay, formation probability and reformation.

We propose an adaptive plastic-landmine visualizing radar system employing a complex-valued self-organizing map (CSOM) dealing with a feature vector that focuses on variance of spatial- and frequency-domain inner products (V-CSOM) in combination with aperture synthesis. The dimension of the new feature vector is greatly reduced in comparison with that of our previous texture feature-vector CSOM (T-CSOM). In experiments, we first examine the effect of aperture synthesis on the complex-amplitude texture in space and frequency domains. We also compare the calculation cost and the visualization performance of V- and T-CSOMs. Then we discuss merits and drawbacks of the two types of CSOMs with/without the aperture synthesis in the adaptive plastic-landmine visualization task. The V-CSOM with aperture synthesis is found promising to realize a useful plastic-landmine detection system.

The partial projection filter (PTPF) for a given observation operator provides an optimal signal restoration in the presence of both the signal space and observation space noises. However, restoration error by the filter still depends on the observation operator which consists of measurement and sampling processes. In this paper, we determine a sampling operator which minimizes the restoration error by the PTPF. We see that under some assumptions about noise statistics, the restoration error by the PTPF is divided into two terms corresponding to the error arising from the signal space noise and that from the observation space noise. It has been found that although the restoration error due to the signal space noise is independent of the sampling operator, the restoration error arising from the observation space noise can arbitrarily be decreased by increasing the number of sample points in the proposed sampling operator. An illustrative example of optimal sampling in the trigonometric polynomial space is also given.

Coalition formation in multi-agent systems (MAS) is becoming increasingly important as it increases the ability of agents to execute tasks and maximize their payoffs. Dependence relations are regarded as the foundation of coalition formation. This paper proposes a novel dependence theory namely transitive dependence theory for dynamic coalition formation in multi-agent systems. Transitive dependence is an extension of direct dependence that supports an agent's reasoning about other social members during coalition formation. Based on the proposed transitive dependence theory, a dynamic coalition formation framework has been worked out which includes information gathering, transitive dependence based reasoning for coalition partners search and coalition resolution. The nested coalitions and how to deal with incomplete knowledge while forming coalitions are also discussed in the paper.