The traditional methods of HMM, although highly successful in 1-D time series analysis, have not yet been successfully extended to 2-D image analysis while fully exploiting the hierarchical design and extension of HMM networks for complex structured signals. Apart from the traditional method off-line training of the Baum-Welch algorithm, we propose a new method of real time creation of word or composite character HMMs for 2-D word/character patterns. Unlike the Latin words in which letters run left-to-right, the composition of word/character components need not be linear, as in Korean Hangul and Chinese characters. The key idea lies in the character composition at the image level and the image-to-model conversion followed by redundancy reduction. Although the resulting model is not optimal, the proposed method has much greater advantage in regard to memory usage and training difficulty. In a series of experiments in character/word spotting in document images, the system recorded the hit ratios of 80% and 67% in Hangul character and word spotting respectively without language models.

A bandpass filter (BPF) with shielded inverted microstrip lines (SIMSL), previously demonstrated by the author, has shown the nontrivial asymmetry of filter responses in spite of adopting a conventional filter synthesis procedure. This paper will reveal the mechanism of the asymmetry and propose prescriptions for recovering the defect, in addition to observing the wave propagation property of SIMSL. Firstly, the behavior of phase constants or effective dielectric constants for various modes propagating on single SIMSL are indicated in terms of the line configuration, and the dispersion characteristics of the quasi-TEM mode are interpreted from the point of mode coupling between the pure TEM mode and dielectric slab modes. Then it is shown that the asymmetry is dependent only on the transmission characteristics of SIMSL parallel-coupled lines involved in the filter circuits. Theoretical considerations reveal that the asymmetry is due to the fact that SIMSL has quite different phase constants for the even- and odd-mode. On the basis of these results, the optimized BPF is designed and it is experimentally demonstrated that the symmetry of its responses is notably recovered. Furthermore, this optimization is still quite efficient for achieving high attenuation properties at its harmonics.

This investigation proposes a novel dual-mode patch bandpass filter (BPF) that uses defect ground structure (DGS) to suppress spurious response. The proposed dual-mode patch BPF has exhibits a wide stopband characteristic owing to that uses the bandgap resonant characteristic of DGS in the harmonic frequency of the dual-mode patch BPF. The novel proposed filter demonstrates the frequency characteristics with center frequency f0 = 2.2 GHz, 3-dB bandwidth (FBW) of 8% and wider stopband from 2.6 to 6 GHz at the level of -35 dB. The experimental and simulated results agree.

When we try to solve Multiobjective Optimization Problems (MOPs) using an evolutionary algorithm, the Pareto Genetic Algorithm (Pareto GA) introduced by Goldberg in 1989 has now become a sort of standard. After the first introduction, this approach was further developed and lead to many applications. All of these approaches are based on Pareto ranking and use the fitness sharing function to maintain diversity. On the other hand in the early 50's another scheme was presented by Nash. This approach introduced the notion of Nash Equilibrium and aimed at solving optimization problems having multiobjective functions that are originated from Game Theory and Economics. Since the concept of Nash Equilibrium as a solution of these problems was introduced, game theorists have attempted to formalize aspects of the equilibrium solution. The Nash Genetic Algorithm (Nash GA), which is introduced by Sefrioui, is the idea to bring together genetic algorithms and Nash strategy. The aim of this algorithm is to find the Nash Equilibrium of MOPs through the genetic process. Another central achievement of evolutionary game theory is the introduction of a method by which agents can play optimal strategies in the absence of rationality. Not the rationality but through the process of Darwinian selection, a population of agents can evolve to an Evolutionary Stable Strategy (ESS) introduced by Maynard Smith in 1982. In this paper, we propose Game theory based Co-Evolutionary Algorithm (GCEA) and try to find the ESS as a solution of MOPs. By applying newly designed co-evolutionary algorithm to several MOPs, the first we will confirm that evolutionary game can be embodied by co-evolutionary algorithm and this co-evolutionary algorithm can find ESSs as a solutions of MOPs. The second, we show optimization performance of GCEA by applying this model to several test MOPs and comparing with the solutions of previously introduced evolutionary optimization algorithms.

A workflow definition containing errors might cause serious problems for an enterprise especially when it involves mission critical business processes or inter-organizational interaction. So workflow definitions should be defined in a strict and rigorous way. In this paper, we develop a workflow definition language and analysis methods for the language to support strict and rigorous workflow definitions. Faults or mistakes causing communication deadlock, access conflicts, and improper exception specification in workflow definitions can be detected and notified automatically using the methods. The proposed workflow definition language borrows structured constructs of conventional programming languages because many good features of conventional programming languages also can be used effectively in expressing workflow processes. With slight modifications and scope restrictions, the developed analysis techniques in this paper can be used in any workflow definition languages and they can help workflow designers define workflow processes in much more safe and reliable manner.

The bandwidth occupied by individual telecommunication devices in the field of mobile radio communication must be narrow in order to effectively exploit the limited frequency band. Therefore, it is necessary to implement low-bit-rate speech coding that is robust against background noise. We examine vector quantization using a neural network (NNVQ) as a robust LSP encoder. In this paper, we compare four types of binary patterns of a hidden layer, and clarify the dependency of quantization distortion on the bit pattern. By delayed decision (selection of low-distortion codes in decoding, i.e., EbD method) the spectral distortion (SD) can be decreased by 0.8 dB (20%). For noisy speech, the performance of the EbD method is better than that of the conventional VQ codebook mapping method. In addition, the SD can be decreased by 2.3 dB (40%) by using a method in which the neural networks for encoding and decoding are combined and re-trained. Finally, we examine the SD for speech having different signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) from that used in training. The experimental results show that training using SNR between 30 and 40 dB is appropriate.

An antenna with a wide bandwidth is required for ultra-wideband (UWB) system of the future. Several types of wideband antenna that cover the whole frequency range have been proposed. Since the UWB system would cover from 3.1 to 10.6 GHz, it is necessary to suppress the interference from other systems using some of this frequency band. This paper presents two types of novel planar monopole antenna: one consists of two connected rectangular plates and another one is an orthogonal type. The return loss characteristics, radiation pattern, and current distribution of these antennas were simulated by using the FDTD method. The proposed antennas had dual frequency and broad bandwidth characteristics at both resonant frequencies. The return loss level at the eliminated frequency between the resonant frequencies was almost 0 dB. The radiation patterns for the whole frequency range were almost omni-directional in the horizontal plane. The current distributions at each frequency were similar to that of a planar rectangular monopole. The radiation patterns thus were omni-directional in the horizontal plane at each resonant frequency. Therefore, the results showed that wide bandwidth characteristics could be achieved with such antennas.

In this paper, we consider a direct sequence spread spectrum (DS-SS) microphone system in 2.4 GHz ISM band under indoor environments. It can be modeled as the asynchronous DS-CDMA system in which multiple transmitters share a common channel to transmit information to a single receiver. However, this system has the two critical defects, one is that many burst errors are occurred because of the long-term deep fade in an indoor channel, and the other is that power control is impossible due to the unidirectional structure. Since the reliable performance of DS-CDMA systems can be guaranteed under a reliable bit error rate performance and perfect power control, the solution to these problems is imperative. Hence, in order to overcome these problems, we propose a zero forcing equalizer (ZFE) based multi-user detection (MUD) receiver for this system, since an MUD receiver doesn't require rigorous power control and is able to remove multiple access interference using linear equalization. We derive the modeling and the tap coefficients of the proposed ZFE, and also analyze the performance of the proposed receiver. Based on the performance comparison with the conventional receivers, such as single user detection and post-detection combining diversity receivers, it is shown that the proposed receiver can achieve a lower bit error rate performance.

This paper describes a 0.13 µm CMOS Logic process compatible single poly gate type non-volatile (NV) memory with a differential cell architecture, which is tailored for a rewritable FUSE (CMOS-FUSE) for System-on-a Chip (SoC). This paper features the following points; 1) firstly quantified how much important is avoiding any additional process cost and area penalty rather than reducing the area of memory cell itself from the chip cost point of view for the new SoC applications. CMOS FUSE can provide cost-competitive than the high-density NV memories (50-fold higher density with 20% additional cost relative to CMOS FUSE) in the capacity range of 200 kbit for the SoC occupied the logic area of 40 mm2. 2) firstly discussed in detail how much the differential cell architecture can change a data retention characteristics including an activation energy (Ea), failure-rate, and tail-bits issues relative to the conventional one based on the measured data of 0.13 µm devices. Based on the measured data retention characteristics at 300, 250, and 200, it is found that the proposed differential approach makes it possible to increase Ea by 1.5 times (from 1.52 eV to 2.23 eV), which means it can be expected to realize a 20000-fold longer data retention characteristics at 105. Even if considering the tail-bit issues for mass-production, an over 700-fold longer data retention characteristics at 105 can be expected while keeping the same failure rate (0.01 ppm) relative to the conventional OR-logical architecture. No significant Vt shifts ( 140 mV and 200 mV) were observed even after applying surge stress of +2200 V from I/O pad and 1000-times cycling of write and erase operations, respectively. In addition, 1024-bit CMOS-FUSE module has been embedded in the SoC without any additional area penalty by being laid out just beneath the power ring for SRAM macro and the stable memory read operation was verified at VDD=1.0 V under a severe I/O switching noise and an unstable VDD/GND condition in the power up sequence.

This paper proposes and theoretically evaluates two different schemes of code acquisition for pulse-position modulation (PPM) and overlapping PPM (OPPM) fiber-optic code-division multiple-access (CDMA) systems, namely threshold-based and demodulator-based code acquisition. Single-dwell detector and serial-search algorithm are employed for both schemes. Theoretical analysis is carried out for shot-noise-limited photon-counting receiver. Discussions upon effects of various parameter settings on the performance of code acquisition for PPM/OPPM fiber-optic CDMA systems, such as index of overlap, PPM/OPPM multiplicity, average photon counts per information nat, and darkcurrents, are presented. It is shown that when the threshold is properly selected, the threshold-based code acquisition system offers better performance, in terms of mean number of training frames, than the demodulator-based one.

One of the categories of decoding techniques for DFT codes in erasure channels is the class of iterative algorithms. Iterative algorithms can be considered as kind of alternating mapping methods using the given information in a repetitive way. In this paper, we propose a new iterative method for decoding DFT codes. It will be shown that the proposed method outperforms the well-known methods such as Wiley/Marvasti, and ADPW methods in the decoding of DFT codes in erasure channels.

Estimating the parameters of a statistical distribution from measured sample values forms an essential part of many signal processing tasks. K-distribution has been proven to be an appropriate model for characterising the amplitude of sea clutter. In this paper, a new method for estimating the parameters of K-Distribution is proposed. The method greatly lowers the computational requirement and variance of parameter estimates when compared with the existing non-maximum likelihood methods.

Efficient schemes to enhance the performance of the optimum beamforming for DS/CDMA systems are proposed. The main focus of the proposed schemes is to enhance the practical estimation of an array response vector used at the weight vector for the optimum beamforming. The proposed schemes for the performance enhancement of the optimum beamforming are the Complex Toeplitz Approximation (CTA) and the real Toeplitz-plus-Hankel Approximation (RTHA) which have the theoretical property of an overall noise-free signal. It is shown through several simulation results that the performance of the optimum beamforming using the proposed schemes is much superior to that of a system using the conventional method under several simulation environments, i.e., the number of users, the SNR value, the number of antenna elements, the angular spread, and Nakagami fading parameter.

Density evolution has recently been used to analyze the iterative decoding of Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) codes, Turbo codes, and Serially Concatenated Convolutional Codes (SCCC). The density evolution technique makes it possible to explain many characteristics of iterative decoding including convergence of performance and preferred structures for the constituent codes. While the analytic density evolution methods were applied to LDPC codes, the simulation based density evolution methods were used for Turbo codes and SCCC due to analytic difficulties. In this paper, several density evolution ideas in the literature are used to analyze common code structures and it is shown that those ideas yield consistent results. In order to do that, we derive expressions for density evolution of SCCC with a simple 2-state constituent code. The analytic expressions are based on the sum-product and min-sum algorithms, and the thresholds are evaluated for both message passing algorithms. Particularly, for the min-sum algorithm, the density evolution with Gaussian approximation is derived and used to analyze the effect of scaling soft information. The scaling of extrinsic information slows down the convergence of soft information or avoids an overestimation effect of it and results in better performance, and its gain is maximized in particular constituent codes. Similar approaches are made for LDPC code. We show that the scaling gain is noticeable in the LDPC code as well. This scaling gain is analyzed with both density evolution and simulation performance. The expected scaling gain by density evolution matches well with the achievable scaling gain from simulation results. These results can be extended to the irregular LDPC codes based on the degree distribution for the min-sum algorithm. All density evolution algorithms used in this paper are based on the Gaussian approximation for the exchanged messages.

This paper presents an application-level QoS comparison of three inter-destination synchronization schemes: the master-slave destination scheme, the synchronization maestro scheme, and the distributed control scheme. The inter-destination synchronization adjusts the output timing among destinations in a multicast group for live audio and video streaming over the Internet/intranets. We compare the application-level QoS of these schemes by simulation with the Tiers model, which is a sophisticated network topology model and reflects hierarchical structure of the Internet. The comparison clarifies their features and finds the best scheme in the environment. The simulation result shows that the distributed control scheme provides the highest quality of inter-destination synchronization among the three schemes in heavily loaded networks, while in lightly loaded networks the other schemes can have almost the same quality as that of the distributed control scheme.

In this paper, we presented a new interference suppression method based on groupwise decorrelation for the multirate wideband-code division multiple access (W-CDMA) downlink. Code grouping in the proposed method is performed according to the correlation property between the mother code and the child code in the orthogonal variable spreading factor (OVSF) code tree. The decorrelation process based on the grouped codes, so called groupwise decorrelation, is then performed to suppress the interference induced in the downlink propagation. We demonstrate that the proposed method can enhance the performance significantly, with lower computational complexity and higher operational efficiency in which any information about interference users (code, data, amplitude) is not required to know in prior at the detection stage.

We analyze the performance of code division multiple access (CDMA) systems with orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). We obtain the probability density function (pdf) of the multiple access interference (MAI) of CDMA systems and extend the results to OFDM-CDMA systems to determine the pdf of the MAI and inter-carrier interference (ICI) in terms of the number of users, the spreading length, the crosscorrelation of spreading sequences, the number of sub-carriers and the frequency offset. We consider the synchronous downlink of cellular multi-carrier CDMA systems and derive a Gaussian approximation of the MAI and ICI. The results show that the overall effect of frequency offset varies with system loading for a given crosscorrelation. The performance of OFDM-CDMA in frequency selective fading channels is analyzed in terms of the joint probability of the fading parameter in each sub-carrier.

In this paper, we provide explicit representations of average weight and stopping set distributions and asymptotic expressions of their exponent for detailedly represented irregular LDPC code ensembles. Further we present numerical examples which compare a detailedly represented irregular LDPC code ensemble with a conventional one with respect to both of weight and stopping set distributions.

We have proposed and theoretically verified a 2R (reshaping and regeneration) limiter circuit using continuous wave (CW) holding beam for cross-gain modulation (XGM) wavelength converter, through simulation. The gain clamping effect of semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA), which is caused by CW holding beam injected into SOA, was used to obtain the accurate optical gain and phase conditions for SOA's in 2R limiter circuit. XGM wavelength converter with the proposed 2R limiter circuit provides higher extinction ratio (ER) as well as more enhanced operation speed than any other wavelength converter. Our numerical results show that after the wavelength-converted signal from XGM wavelength converter passed the 2R limiter circuit, it was re-inverted with the improved ER of 30 dB at 5 Gb/s. In case of high-speed operation, great enhancement to decrease power penalty of about 12 dB was shown at 10 Gb/s.

This paper outlines and analyses major P2P technologies currently being actively studied at various research organisations or already in use in both business and personal environments. Various technical features of P2P as well as its history and market trends are shown. P2P principles focussing on discovery and network-organisational mechanisms of major P2P systems such as JXTA, SIONet, Freenet, and Chord are first summarised. Also, other technical issues related to delivery, network control, security, digital rights management, and distributed computing are described. Then, P2P technologies to promote next-generation community networks with autonomous and intelligent characteristics are addressed. Based on these, P2P applications are analysed and some examples are shown. Studies of P2P traffic measurement, which is difficult by using traditional evaluation methods, are taken up to consider total network design in the P2P era.