The (cinema) caption processing that adds descriptive text on a sequence of frames is an important video manipulation function that a video editor should support. This paper proposes an efficient MC-DCT compressed domain approach to insert the caption into the MPEG compressed video stream. It basically adds the DCT blocks of the caption image to the corresponding DCT blocks of the input frames one by one in the MC-DCT domain as in [6]. However, the strength of the caption image is adjusted in the DCT domain to prevent the resulting DCT coefficients from exceeding the maximum value allowed in MPEG. In order to adjust the strength of the caption image adaptively we need to know the exact pixel value of the input image. This is a difficult task in DCT domain. We propose an approximation scheme for the pixel values in which the DC value of a block is used as the expected pixel value for all pixels in that block. Although this approximation may lead to some errors in the caption area, it still provides a relatively high image quality in the non-caption area, whereas the processing time is about 4.9 times faster than the decode-captioning-reencode method.

A new approach to design variable IIR digital filters by using a cascade of N identical individual filters of any order n is proposed in this paper. First, the approximation method for lowpass filter specifications is outlined, then the general limitations of the new method are investigated and a compact formula is derived. Next, the limitations for the main canonic approximations (Butterworth, Chebyshev and Elliptic) are investigated and compared and convenient expressions for design and evaluation are obtained. New first- and second-order filter sections, permitting very easy tuning of the cutoff frequency by recalculating and reprogramming of a single multiplier coefficient value, are developed and the design and tuning strategies for highpass, bandpass and bandstop filters are proposed. Finally design examples are given and the sound superiority of the new method compared to other known is demonstrated experimentally.

As a method of analyzing the wave scattering from a finite periodic surface, this paper introduces a periodic approach. The approach first considers the wave diffraction by a periodic surface that is a superposition of surface profiles generated by displacing the finite periodic surface by every integer multiple of the period . It is pointed out that the Floquet solution for such a periodic case becomes an integral representation of the scattered field from the finite periodic surface when the period goes to infinity. A mathematical relation estimating the scattering amplitude for the finite periodic surface from the diffraction amplitude for the periodic surface is proposed. From some numerical examples, it is concluded that the scattering cross section for the finite periodic surface can be well estimated from the diffraction amplitude for a sufficiently large .

As Information Technology progresses, our daily lives are getting "connected" more and more. At the same time, however, problems are appearing. The center of these problems can be captured as the "Communication Overflow. " To cope with such problems, we propose an approach that tries to provide a communication environment that assists users in managing their communication activities. The key notion of this approach is to enhance the "Awareness of Connectedness. " Here, agents which are suggestive of awareness of connectedness play an important role. In this paper, we describe the key notion and introduce a brief road-map towards the environment for the awareness of connectedness. Two candidate tools for the environment are described. The first one is a visualization tool for communication media that provides feedback of users' communication activities. Its purpose is to enhance the awareness for communication. The second tool is a simple, intuitive interactive media that exchanges the statuses of users. It is an alternative network communication media that might be suitable for very light-weight, almost-acknowledge-only communication mode. Some results on an experiment of these two tools are also reported.

In this paper, a novel adaptive digital watermarking approach based upon human visual system model and fuzzy clustering technique is proposed. The human visual system model is utilized to guarantee that the watermarked image is imperceptible. The fuzzy clustering approach has been employed to obtain the different strength of watermark by the local characters of image. In our experiments, this scheme allows us to provide a more robust and transparent watermark.

This paper presents a new network architecture called LINA that provides node mobility. The basic concept of LINA is separation of the node identifier and the interface locator. Although there are several protocols based on such a concept, they do not address issues that arise when dealing with an entire network architecture. LINA is a holistic architecture covering the network layer to the application layer in order to support node mobility. Overhead incurred by separation of the node identifier and the interface locator is minimized in LINA by introducing the embedded addressing model. This paper also presents a new protocol called LIN6 that supports IPv6 mobility. LIN6 is an application of LINA to IPv6 and is fully compatible with IPv6. It has several advantages in comparison to Mobile IPv6, e.g. less protocol overhead. Our prototype implementation of LIN6 shows minimal overhead compared to a conventional IPv6 implementation.

In this paper, we deal with the problem of compatibility class encoding, and propose a novel algorithm for finding a good functional decomposition with application to LUT-based FPGA synthesis. Based on exploration of the design space, we concentrate on extracting a set of components, which can be merged into the minimum number of multiple-output CLBs or LUTs, such that the decomposition constructed from these components is also minimal. In particular, to explore more degrees of freedom, we introduce pliable encoding to take over the conventional rigid encoding when it fails to find a satisfactory decomposition by rigid encoding. Experimental results on a large set of MCNC91 logic synthesis benchmarks show that our method is quite promising.

This paper explores how to extend the dependency pair technique for proving termination of higher-order rewrite systems. We show that the termination property of higher-order rewrite systems can be checked by the non-existence of an infinite R-chain, which is an extension of Arts' and Giesl's result for the first-order case. It is clarified that the subterm property of the quasi-ordering, used for proving termination automatically, is indispensable.

We have proposed area-reduction techniques for superscalar datapath architectures with 34 SIMD instructions and have developed an integer-media unit based on these techniques. The unit's design is both functionally asymmetrical and integer-SIMD unified, and the resulting savings in area are 27%-48% as compared to other, functionally equivalent mid-level microprocessor designs, with performance that is, at most, only 7.2% lower. Further, in 2-D IDCT processing, the unit outperforms embedded microprocessor designs without SIMD functions by 49%-118%. Specifically, effective area reduction of adders, shifters, and multiply-and-adders has been achieved by using the unified design. These area-effective techniques are useful for embedded microprocessors and scalable systems that employ highly parallel superscalar and on-chip parallel architectures. The integer-media unit has been implemented in an evaluation chip fabricated with 0.15-µm 5-metal CMOS technology.

This paper presents a DFT controller called as a TCU (Test Control Unit), which considerably improves the efficiency of the instruction-based functional test. Internal program/data buses are completely controllable and observable by the TCU during the test cycle. Diverse test modes of the TCU can increase the test efficiency and also provide complete access to program/data memories for functional test.

This paper proposes a measure of coefficient quantization errors for linear discrete-time state-space systems. The proposed measure of state-space systems agrees with the actual output error variance since it is derived from the exact evaluation of the output error variance due to coefficient deviation. The measure in this paper is represented by the controllability and the observability gramians and the state covariance matrix of the system. When the variance of coefficient variations is very small, the proposed measure is identical to the conventional statistical sensitivity of state-space systems. This paper also proposes a method of synthesizing minimum measure structures. Numerical examples show that the proposed measure is in very good agreement with the actual output error variance, and that minimum measure structures have a very small degradation of the frequency characteristic due to coefficient quantization.

In the past few years, we have seen the emergence of a large number of proposals for electronic payments over open networks. Among these proposals is the Secure Electronic Transaction (SET) protocol promoted by MasterCard and VISA which is currently being deployed world-widely. While SET has a number of advantages over other proposals in terms of simplicity and openness, there seems to be a consensus regarding the relative inefficiency of the protocol. This paper proposes a light-weight version of the SET protocol, called "LITESET. " For the same level of security as recommended in the latest version of SET specifications, LITESET yields a 56.2/51.4% reduction in the computational time in message generation/verification and a 79.9% reduction in communication overhead. This has been achieved by the use of a new cryptographic primitive called signcryption. We hope that our proposal can contribute to the practical and engineering side of real-world electronic payments.

In this paper agents' interactions are defined in terms of cooperation, coordination and competition. As for cooperation and coordination problems, we focus on knowledge sharing of agents, define agencies as organizations of agents, propose a method to extract organizational knowledge for interacting agents. In case of competition, knowledge sharing is impossible. Therefore, modeling and formalization of strategic decision making and uncertainty management is required. We present an incomplete game theoretical based decision making method for competitive agents.

A new method for object search is proposed. Conventional template matching schemes tend to fail in presence of irregularities and ill-conditions like background variations, illumination fluctuations resulting from shadowing or highlighting etc. The proposed scheme is robust against such irregularities in the real world scenes since it is based on matching gradient information around each pixel, computed in the form of orientation codes, rather than the gray levels directly. A probabilistic model for robust matching is given and verified by real image data. Experimental results for real world scenes demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method for object search in the presence of different potential causes of mismatches.

Recognition of specified wave patterns in one-dimensional signals is an important task in many application areas such as computer science, medical science, and geophysics. Many researchers have tried to automate this task with various techniques, recently the soft computing algorithms. This paper proposes a new neuro-fuzzy recognition system for detecting one-dimensional wave patterns using wavelet coefficients as features of the signals and evolution strategy as the training algorithm of the system. The neuro-fuzzy recognition system first trains the wavelet coefficients of the training wave patterns and then evaluates the degree of matching between test wave patterns and the training wave patterns. This system was applied to picking first arrival events in seismic data. Experimental results with three seismic data showed that the system was very successful in terms of learning speed and performances.

Large amounts of color-printed documents are published now everyday. Some OCR approaches of color-printed document images are provided, but they cannot normally work if the input images skew. In the past years, many algorithms are provided to detect the skew of monochrome document images but none of them process color-printed document images. All of these methods assume that text is printed in black on a white background and cannot be applied to detect skew in color-printed document images. In this paper, we propose an algorithm to detect the skew angle of a color-printed document image and reconstruct it. Our approach first determines variation of color-transition count at each angle (from -45 to +45) and the angle of maximal variation is regarded as the skew angle. Then, a scanning-line model reconstructs the image. We test 100 color-printed document images of various kinds and get good results (93 succeed and 7 fail). The average processing time of A4 size image is 2.76 seconds and the reconstruction time is 3.97 seconds on a Pentium III 733 PC.

This paper proposes resolution enhancement techniques for high-speed multi-stage pipelined analog-to-digital converters (ADC's) based on a multi-bit/stage multiplying digital-to-analog converter. The proposed techniques increase ADC resolution and simultaneously minimize chip area, power dissipation, and circuit complexity by removing the gain-proration procedure, which is required in conventional digitally calibrated multi-stage ADC's to reduce unavoidable gain errors between stages with more than two stages calibrated. The resolution of the proposed ADC can be extended furthermore by combining a conventional commutated feedback-capacitor switching scheme with the digital-domain self calibration.

Negative differential conductance based on lateral interband tunnel effect is demonstrated in a planar degenerate p+-n+ diode (Esaki tunnel diode). The device is fabricated with the current silicon ultralarge scale integration (Si ULSI) process, paying attention to the processing damage so as to reduce an excess tunnel current that flows over some intermediate states in the tunnel junction. I-V characteristics at a low temperature clearly show an intrinsic electron transport, indicating phonon-assisted tunneling in Si as in the case of the previous Esaki diodes fabricated by the alloying method. In addition, a simple circuit function of bistable operation is demonstrated by connecting the planar Esaki diode with conventional Si metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs). The planar Esaki diode will be a promising device element in the functional library for enhancing the total system performance for the coming system-on-a-chip (SoC) era.

This paper considers a high-rate turbo code which employs high-rate convolutional codes as component codes, and presents a novel method of reducing the decoding complexity of the codes. By eliminating some of branches that have the lowest reliabilities among all the branches entering each node, the proposed algorithm reduces the complexity in the process of the add-compare-select (ACS) between the consecutive stages of iterative decoding. That is, the complexity gradually decreases as the number of iterations increases. We compare the unpunctured high-rate turbo code with a classical punctured high-rate turbo code in terms of performance/complexity trade-off under the same code rate. Simulation results show that the proposed approach with a good trade-off provides an alternative coding scheme to the classical punctured high-rate turbo coding for the application to high-data-rate wireless communication systems.

This paper investigates the stochastic property of the packet destinations and proposes an address generation algorithm which is applicable for describing various Internet access patterns. We assume that a stochastic process of Internet access satisfies the stationary condition and derive the fundamental structure of the address generation algorithm. Pseudo IP-address sequence generated from our algorithm gives dependable cache performance and reproduces the results obtained from trace-driven simulation. The proposed algorithm is applicable not only to the destination IP address but also to the destination URLs of packets, and is useful for simulation studies of Internet performance, Web caching, DNS, and so on.