Flexible Resource Allocation (FRA) strategies selectively control the transmission rates of users allowing them to specify maximum and minimum bandwidth requirements for the service type requested ensuring a minimum quality of service (QoS) is met. Complete, Partial, and Non Resource Sharing are the three types of resource sharing policies that can be used in systems with integrated services (voice, video and data) with different QoS and elasticities requirements. In this paper, an FRA strategy with Partial Resource Sharing, called Primary Unavailable Secondary Minimum (PUSMin), is presented. An analytical method is developed to assess its performance in an environment where several service types (with different bandwidth and elasticities requirements) exist. Results show that PUSMin decreases the resource reassignment rate as the offered traffic increases. This decreases the signalling overhead and computational complexity in the Base Station Controller (BSC) or Base Transceiver Station (BTS).

We developed a compact, 16-channel integrated optical subscriber module for one-fiber bi-directional optical access systems. They can support more subscribers in a limited mounting space. For ultimate compactness, we created 8-channel integrated super-compact optical modules, 4-channel integrated limiting amplifiers, and 4-channel integrated LD drivers for Fast Ethernet. We introduce a new simulation method to analyze the electrical crosstalk that degrades sensitivity of the optical module. A new IC architecture is applied to reduce electrical crosstalk. We manufactured the optical subscriber module with these optical modules and ICs. Experiments confirm that the module offers a sensitivity of -27.3 dBm under 16-channel 125 Mbit/s simultaneous operation.

A major challenge in the design of multimedia networks is to meet the quality of service (QoS) requirements of all admitted users. Regulation and scheduling are key factors for fulfilling such requirements. We propose a rate-based regulation-scheduling scheme in which the regulation function is modulated by both the tagged stream's characteristics and the state information fed-back from the scheduler. The rate-jitter and bandwidth share of each tagged connection are controlled appropriately by considering the system time and the queue length of the scheduler. Simulation results have shown that the proposed scheme works better than other rate-based disciplines.

This paper proposes an inter-symbol interference (ISI) suppression scheme using only the even-numbered sub-carriers for the fixed-rate OFDM systems with the 2-dimensional modulation. The proposed scheme is based on the principle that the first half of the waveform in the time domain is the same as the second half when an OFDM symbol is composed of only the even-numbered sub-carriers. The feature of the proposed scheme is that, in the case of the maximum multipath delay beyond the duration of the guard interval, the OFDM symbol with only the even-numbered sub-carriers is transmitted in order to generate the extended virtual guard interval and that the high-level modulation with the sub-carrier power enhancement is applied to achieve the constant data rate. In addition, at the receiver, only the second half of the OFDM symbol is used for the FFT processing to avoid the ISI. Moreover, the condition of the maximum multipath delay is notified to the transmitter by using the feedback channel. Numerical results given by computer simulation showed that the proposed scheme provides far better bit error rate (BER) performance than the traditional OFDM transmission using all sub-carriers under the multipath delay beyond the duration of the guard interval.

We investigated the accuracy of nickel-cadmium (Ni/Cd) battery degradation estimation by measuring the capacity of over 400 used cordless-telephone batteries using a discharge-current-pulse technique. The capacity is calculated from the change in battery voltage after the current pulse is applied, using an equation that we developed. Battery degradation is represented by a percentage of the capacity based on the nominal one. To estimate the accuracy of the degradation estimation, we compare capacity Qe estimated from the current pulse with the capacity Qa measured by discharging the batteries. The Qe estimated from the current pulse was within a range of 20% of error indicated by (Qe-Qa) for 47% of the tested batteries. The Qe of 51% of the batteries, however, was underestimated and exceeded lower limit (-20%) of the error. One reason for the discrepancy could be that the equation is inadequate for estimating the capacity from the current pulse. On the other hand, the capacity Qe of 1% of the batteries was overestimated and exceeded upper limit (+20%) of the error. An internal short is probably the main reason for this.

In order to benefit from the advantages of soft handoff (SHO), it is important that the SHO parameters (the SHO thresholds; T_ADD and T_DROP are well assigned. T_ADD is the threshold used for triggering a pilot with high strength to be added to the Active Set (AS) list. The AS means the pilots associated with the forward traffic channels assigned to mobile station. In contrast, T_DROP is the threshold used for triggering a pilot with low strength to be dropped from the AS list. This paper analyzes the effects of varying SHO thresholds in a cellular code division multiple access (CDMA) system on the blocking probability based on traffic load and geometrical distances in hexagonal layout of base stations (BSs). In addition, the previously proposed traffic load equation is applied to the proposed SHO model for balancing the numbers of new and handoff calls on the forward link capacity in case of uniform traffic load. The results show that the blocking probability is more sensitive to T_DROP than to T_ADD variations.

In texture mapping, anisotropic filtering methods, which require more texels, have been proposed for high-quality images. Memory bandwidth, however, is still limited by a bottleneck in the texture-filtering hardware. In this paper, we propose anisotropic texture filtering based on edge function. In generating the weight that plays a key role in filtering texels loaded from memory, the edge function gives accurate contribution of texels to the pixel intensity. The quality of images is superior to other methods. For images of the same quality, our method requires less than half the texels of other methods. In other words, the improvement in performance is more than twice that of other methods.

Although watermarking techniques have been extensively developed for natural videos, little progress is made in the area of graphics animation. Following the former successful MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 coding standards that provide efficient representations of natural videos, the emerging MPEG-4 standard incorporates new coding tools for 2D mesh animation. Graphics animation information is crucial for many applications and may need proper protection. In this paper, we develop a watermarking technique suitable for MPEG-4 2D mesh animation. The proposed method is based on the multiresolution analysis of 2D dynamic mesh. We perform wavelet transform on the temporal sequence of the node points to extract the significant spectral components of mesh movement, which we term the "feature motions. " A binary watermark invisibly resides in the feature motions based on the spread-spectrum principle. Before watermark detection, a spatial-domain least-squares registration technique is used to restore the possibly geometrically distorted mesh data. Each watermark bit is then detected by hard decision with cryptographically secure keys. We have tested the proposed method with a variety of attacks, including affine transformations, temporal smoothing, spectral enhancement and attenuation, additive random noise, and a combination of the above. Experimental results show that the proposed watermarks can withstand the aforementioned attacks.

In this paper, we introduce the following m-layered hard constrained convex feasibility problem HCF(m): Find a point u m, where 0:=H (a real Hilbert space), i: = arg min gi(i-1) and gi(u):=wi,jd 2(u,Ci,j) are defined for (i) nonempty closed convex sets Ci,jH and (ii) weights wi,j > 0 satisfying wi,j=1 (i {1,,m}, j {1,,Mi}. This problem is regarded as a natural extension of the standard convex feasibility problem: find a point u Ci, where Ci H (i {1,, M}) are closed convex sets. Unlike the standard problem, HCF(m) can handle the inconsistent case; i.e., i,j Ci,j = , which unfortunately arises in many signal processing, estimation and design problems. As an application of the hybrid steepest descent method for the asymptotically shrinking nonexpansive mapping, we present an algorithm, based on the use of the metric projections onto Ci,j, which generates a sequence (un) satisfying limn d(un,3) = 0 (for M1 = 1) when at least one of C1,1 or C2,j's is bounded and H is finite dimensional. An application of the proposed algorithm to the pulse shaping problem is given to demonstrate the great flexibility of the method.

A VLSI-specific wavelet processing technique has been developed and implemented as a processor in accordance with the JPEG2000 specification. This proposed procedure of discrete wavelet transforms uses an altered calculation equations and makes use of intermediate results through wavelet calculation. The implementation of the proposed procedure is capable of realizing a highly efficient DWT for large size images in spite of using low hardware costs and a small size buffering memory. In order to obtain fast EBCOT processing, three types of parallel processing are introduced in the EBCOT architecture. The processor performs compression of 720480 pixels images with the speed of 30 frames per second (fps) at a required operating frequency as low as 32 MHz or lower. Furthermore, it need not divide an image into tiles so that the problem of deterioration of image quality due to tile division does not occur. A prototype of this processor has been fabricated in a 0.25-µm 5-layer CMOS process. The chip is 10.210.4 mm2 in size and consumes 2.0 W when supplied with 2.5 V and 32 MHz.

This paper proposes a framework for distributed network management by incorporating fault and performance management metrics in a hierarchical decision making model. The goal of this research is to automate the fault management process. The fault management system is organized as a three level information processing model. Correlation results from each level are provided as evidence to the next level. Causal and temporal relationships between monitored variables are captured using Dynamic Bayesian Networks. As evidence is gathered, the probability of the presence of a fault is either strengthened or weakened. The proposed model is used for proactive fault detection as well as fault isolation purposes. A prototype implementing the ideas is presented.

Energy dissipation in cache memories is becoming a major design issue for embedded microprocessors. Predictive filter cache based instruction cache hierarchy has been shown to effectively reduce the energy-delay product. In this paper, a simplified pattern prediction algorithm is proposed for the filter cache hierarchy. The prediction scheme relies on the static nature of the hit or miss pattern of the instruction access streams. The static patterns are maintained in a small 32x1-bit wide Static Pattern Table (SPT). Our investigations show that the proposed prediction algorithm is superior to that based on Next Fetch Prediction Table (NFPT) for all the benchmarks simulated. With the proposed approach, energy delay product reduction of up to 6.79% was evident when compared with that using NFPT. Moreover, since the prediction scheme is based on the static assignment of patterns, it lends well for area and power efficient implementation than that employs dynamic pattern prediction although it is marginally inferior (i.e. 0.69%) in term of energy delay product.

Online shopping is becoming more and more popular in recent years. However, users are still unable to find what they want on the online market very efficiently. In our previous paper we suggested a system that helps to find short-sleeved T-shirts for young women on the online market. Then we conducted several verification experiments and proved that the system was effective. In this paper, we modified the system by adopting the following schemes in order to make it more versatile; First, all information is presented in a unified format. Second, users are provided with multiple-choice key words. Third, users search results are used to select information that is truly useful for the user. Lastly, we conducted several verification experiments and proved that these schemes were effective.

A novel fast KNN classification algorithm is proposed for pattern recognition. The technique uses one important feature, mean of the vector, to reduce the search space in the wavelet domain. Since the proposed algorithm rejects those vectors that are impossible to be the k closest vectors in the design set, it largely reduces the classification time and holds the classification performance as that of the original classification algorithm. The simulation on texture image classification confirms the efficiency of the proposed algorithm.

A single chip processor suitable for various multimedia communication products has been developed. This chip achieves real-time bi-directional encoding/decoding for CIF resolution video at a frame rate of 30 fr/s, and meets such standards, as H.320 and H.324. The chip is composed of a video-processing unit for MPEG-4 and H.26X standards, a DSP unit for speech codec and multiplex processes, and a RISC unit for managing the whole chip. By heterogeneous multiple processor architecture, careful study of task sharing for each processing unit and bus configuration, a single chip solution can be achieved with reasonable operation speed and low-power consumption suitable for consumer products. Moreover, by applying an original video processing unit architecture, this chip achieves real-time bi-directional encoding/decoding for CIF-resolution video at a frame rate of 30 fr/s. An original video bus was developed to provide high performance and low-power consumption while sharing one external memory which is necessary for various video processes and graphics functions. This shared memory also has the effect of minimizing die size and I/O ports. This chip has been fabricated with 4-metal 0.18 µm CMOS technology to produce a chip area of 10.510.5 mm2 with 1.2 W power dissipation including I/O power, at 1.8 V for internal supply and 3.3 V for I/O power supply.

This paper presents a new mobility protocol that supports multiple namespaces on IPv6 networks. Our proposed protocol framework allows a mobile node to specify a correspondent node by a name that is defined in any namespace as a node identifier. This technique removes certain restrictions on the space of node identifiers and allows mobile nodes to communicate with each other regardless of their location. Mobile nodes negotiate a pseudo node identifier, which is unique between the two nodes, with a correspondent node that is identified by the name. We make this pseudo node identifier compatible with the IPv6 address format; we can thus use existing IPv6 applications with our proposed mobility framework. This framework is based on Location Independent Network Architecture (LINA), and provides mobility support in a simple fashion and with low protocol overhead. We also demonstrate how to provide anonymity to our mobility protocol by using a dynamic pseudo node identifier. Our prototype implementation shows minimal overhead compared to a conventional IPv6 implementation.

There is an increasing demand for the technology of content distribution, by which each user can request desired content through a network. Because of the low efficiency of existing systems, we proposed a new block transfer type video distribution system called Burst VoD. The Burst VoD system aggressively utilizes multicasting, and divides the content data into a mass of block files, which it periodically transmits to a terminal through a high-speed network, using a higher rate than the playback speed. However, by using the scheduling algorithm of the Burst VoD system, when users request the same content from different periods, the VoD server repeatedly transmits the same block files in different periods. In this paper, we propose an advanced scheduling algorithm based on the Burst VoD system to improve its multicasting efficiency. In addition, we propose a multi-channel BurstVoD in order to reduce the interface bandwidth of client.

This paper proposes a new correction technique for a linear amplification with nonlinear components (LINC) transmitter. The technique, which is based on the minimum mean squared error (MMSE) criterion, estimates the gain and phase imbalance between the two amplifier branches. With information on the estimation, the imbalance is offset by controlling the amplitude and phase of the input signal that is fed into one of the two amplifiers. Computer simulations with a DS-CDMA system demonstrate that this method can compensate for the imbalance and sufficiently suppress the out-of-band distortion spectrum.

We propose a new protocol to achieve fault recovery of multicast applications in IP internetwork with mobile participators. Our protocol uses the basic unicast routing capability of IETF Mobile IP as the foundation, and leverages existing IP multicast models to provide reliable multicast services for mobile hosts as well. We believe that the resulting scheme is simple, scalable, transparent, and independent of the underlying multicast routing facility. A key feature of our protocol is the use of multicast forwarding agent (MFA) to address the scalability and reliability issues in the reliable mobile multicast applications. Our simulation results show the distinct performance advantages of our protocol using MFAs over two other approaches proposed for the mobile multicast service, namely Mobile Multicast Protocol (MoM) and bi-directional tunneling, particularly as the number of mobile group members and home agents (HAs) increases.

The 6to4 method enables separate IPv6 sites to connect to the IPv6 Internet via a 6to4 relay router without an explicit IPv6-over-IPv4 tunnel setup. There are about a dozen open 6to4 relay routers worldwide but none of these have been installed in Japan. We therefore decided to evaluate the 6to4 mechanism and set ourselves the goal of improving the 6to4 operation within Japan. To accomplish this, in March 2002, we installed an open 6to4 relay router in Japan with the cooperation of the WIDE project and started this experiment. This paper describes our experiment and analysis of IPv6 traffic through our 6to4 relay router, as well as considerations derived from our experiment.