The vacuum arc root properties (temperature, current density, radius of an arc root, fraction of current density carried by electrons, evaporation rate etc.) of graphite and copper are calculated with the cathode-fall voltage as parameter and the arc root properties of graphite are compared with that of copper. Especially, there is big difference between the evaporation rate of graphite and that of copper. This reason is thought that the thermal conductivity of graphite is low and its evaporating temperature is high.

At current interruption by electric contact, a repetition phenomenon of arc extinction and re-ignition is often observed before complete extinction of arc discharge, in some cases for a long time and in other cases for a short time. Occasionally, no re-ignition is observed. From a viewpoint of arc duration, the period of this repeating arc is also an important factor, if it is very long. However, the conventional explanation about the contact arc duration excludes this repeating arc phenomenon so that it fails to explain the reason and the duration of this phenomenon. For the purpose of investigating why this phenomenon occurs and how long it lasts, the arc extinction current and the arc re-ignition voltage have been measured for tungsten electrode, palladium electrode, copper electrode, and silver electrode. The circuit is, for simplicity, resistive with a capacitor source voltage and a fixed short arc gap of 0.5 mm. Taking newly into account the idea of unstable arc region by the measured results, the conventional explanation was improved. As a result, the reason and the duration of arc extinction and re-ignition phenomenon have become understandable. For simplification, the main description is based on the results by tungsten electrode. The results by other electrodes are summarized in appendix.

The authors present a multiparty signature generation (MSG) scheme of the Digital Signature Algorithm (FIPS 186-1). The scheme is based on a simple idea, however, it is much more convenient in usability in the real world than existing MSGs. The scheme has the following properties: (1) valid signatures are generated with odd n split private keys, (2) broadcast messages between the key holders are hidden from them, so that the n key holders do not need to process signature generation simultaneously, (3) even if up to t (= ) split keys are stolen, the adversary can get no information on the private key, (4) the scheme is as secure as the original signature algorithm against chosen message attack, and (5) the scheme is efficient in the sense that an implementation on smart card has demonstrated practical performance for interactive use with human user.

This paper provides a novel signal processing for detecting defects based on the spatio-temporal gradient analysis over the Lamb-wave field. The proposed processing classifies the wave field through the rank of the covariance matrix which is defined by the four-dimensional vector with following components: a vertical displacement, its vertical velocity, and a pair of out-of-plane shearing strains. The covariance matrix provides the information about defects. Its determinant, therefore, is proposed as the inhomogeneity-index of the object surface. In this study, the physical meanings of the proposed index are shown, the computational process in the Lamb-wave field near the defects is discussed and their behaviors are investigated through FDTD-simulations and acoustic experiments.

We propose a new output arbitration method for an input buffered switch with a buffered crossbar. In the proposed method, each output selects the first nonempty buffer from the starting point. The starting points of output are determined to minimize the synchronization phenomenon that more than one input module sends cells destined for a same output. Using an approximate analysis of the synchronization phenomenon, we show the uniqueness of the starting points improves the switch performance. Finally, using computer simulations, we verify the proposed method outperforms the previous methods under the uniform and burst traffic.

Ag(40 wt%)-Pd(60 wt%) alloy has been widely applied to contact materials installed in various electromechanical devices. However, in application to the down sized relays, failure due to contact resistance is caused easily by both growth of oxide film on the contact surface and low contact force. To solve the increase in contact resistance, an overlay of thin Au or thin Au-Ag (8-10 wt%) has been used on the alloy. Despite this, cleanliness and low hardness of these overlays cause adhesion, or sticking, at contact interface. Increase in contact resistance and sticking are contrary to each other. In order to eliminate these contrary properties, the author studied improving the Ag-Pd alloy with a dopant. Low level of contact resistance for both static and dynamic contacts of Ag-Pd with Mg doping was found even if the contact surface was covered with an oxide contaminant film. This paper presents the excellent contact resistance and adhesion behaviors of Ag-Pd-Mg alloy and their mechanisms, and also presents in the later part, surface contamination behaviors for organic gases.

In 2003, Wu proposed a threshold access control scheme based on smart cards. In this letter, we show that the scheme is vulnerable to various attacks.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of the opening speed on a breaking arc. The opening speeds are 10, 20 and 30 mm/s. The breaking arc is generated in a D.C. 42 V/10.5 A circuit, and the arc voltage, the arc current, the gap length and the arc spectrum intensity are measured. Arc temperature is calculated by using a Boltzmann plot. Even if the opening speed is changed, the arc temperature starts from a high temperature, and falls gradually to 4650-4750 K with time. Namely, the opening speed has no influence on the arc temperature.

It is novel to apply magnetic field in the indoor air purification by collecting pre-charged suspended particles. Based on experiments and analysis of relative data, the effects of some influential factors (the number of discharge electrode, the polarity and magnitude of discharge voltage, the direction and magnitude of magnetic field, the initial velocity of charged particles, the distance between particle collecting plates) on the efficiency of air purification are discussed. The results indicate that the purification efficiency is improved by applying the proper magnetic field, -6 kV direct current voltage is an optimal voltage and there are optimal magnitudes of the distance between collecting plate and the initial velocity of particles in the purification process.

This paper examines the effect of segmentation mismatch on audio-video transmission by Bluetooth. We focus on the segmentation mismatch caused by the difference between the RFCOMM Maximum Frame Size and the baseband packet payload size. By experiment, we assessed the maximum throughput and media synchronization quality for various types of ACL packets. In the experiment, a media server transferred stored video and audio streams to a single terminal with point-to-point communication; we supposed no fading environment and added white noise by which interference from DSSS systems is modeled. The experiment showed that the effect of segmentation mismatch is large especially when the total bit rate of the two streams is near the channel transmission rate. We also observed that the media synchronization control is effective in compensating for the disturbance by the segmentation mismatch in noisy environments.

In this proposed method, CRC coding is only applied to data unit, not to padded zeros that are to fill up the fixed length of data unit. So improved frame error rate and protocol efficiency are possible instead of increment of receiver complexity.

Recently, Yeh, Shen, and Hwang proposed a smartcard-based one-time password authentication scheme as an improved version of S/KEY, and claimed that their scheme is superior to other similar schemes in security and efficiency. In this letter, we show that Yeh-Shen-Hwang's scheme is still vulnerable to a stolen-verifier attack that may cause serious security problems.

The advanced satellite broadcasting system in the 21 GHz band or higher frequency bands is expected to be suitable for use in high quality multimedia services in the future. To establish this system, rain attenuation mitigation is very important and the time diversity system has been proposed as an appropriate technology for this purpose. This paper shows principle of time diversity as an attenuation mitigation technology and also shows the effect of time diversity. We also propose a method for predicting time diversity gain as a function of the rain attenuation, cumulative time percentage, and time delay of two data contents or broadcasts.

A prototype modem with unequal error protection (UEP) capability was developed using multiple block coded modulation (MBCM). Benefited from its unique structure, MBCM can be used to provide UEP straightforward. We propose a new method to increase the robustness of the carrier recovery process by taking advantage of the MBCM code structure. We also use a frame format to facilitate the synchronization operation. This modem was developed in preparation for the mobile satellite communication experiments using the Engineering Test Satellite of VIII-type (ETS-VIII). In addition of MBCM, some other types of modulation schemes have been implemented in the same modem to enable a range of communication experiments to be performed. The modem can operate at variable data rates. The results of laboratory measurements agreed well with computer simulation results. Typical link budgets based on the parameters of ETS-VIII are also presented.

Fading in mobile satellite communications severely degrades the performance of data transmission. It is commonly modeled with non-frequency selective Rayleigh fading. For this type of channel, a new structure for a bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) scheme is presented and evaluated to determine its effectiveness compared to previously proposed schemes. This scheme is referred to as rate-compatible punctured BICM (RCP-BICM), in that its BICM encoder is able to yield a wide range of data rates by using a punctured convolutional code obtained by periodically perforating parity bits from the output of a low-rate-1/2 systematic convolutional code. A trellis-coded modulation (TCM) scheme and a turbo TCM (TTCM) scheme are discussed and evaluated for comparison with the RCP-BICM scheme. Simulation results demonstrate that the RCP-BICM scheme with hard-decision iterative decoding is superior to the TCM scheme by 3 dB at a bit error rate (BER) of 10-5 over an Rayleigh fading channel, and comes at a BER of 10-5 within 1 dB of the TCM scheme over an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel.

This paper presents a new automatic-frequency control (AFC) configuration capable of removing wide range frequency offsets (up to about 0.625 fs, where fs is signal symbol rate). The new configuration consists of an AFC that removes frequency offsets between 0.125 fs and another AFC that detects the frequency offset range coarsely between 0.625 fs. This paper describes the principle of the new AFC configuration. The proposed AFC configuration employs four correlators to enhance the acquisition range. It also adopts the reverse modulation scheme to decrease the acquisition time. The performance of the new AFC configuration is confirmed via computer simulations. It is shown that the proposed configuration can accommodate wide range frequency offsets as well as reduce the acquisition time.

In finding the optimal solution of virtual-path bandwidth allocation for large-scale networks, existing searching algorithms frequently call the process which calculate the bandwidth for given call blocking probability (CBP) and traffic loads. This is an inverse process of calculating CBP for given traffic loads and bandwidth. Because there is no analytic expression of calculating CBP, the process of calculating bandwidth with given CBP and traffic adopts an iteration algorithm. It leads to a tedious computation process. In this letter, a fast bandwidth evaluation algorithm is proposed and applied to the field of virtual path bandwidth allocation that aims at minimizing the worst call blocking probabilities in the network. The algorithm is proved to be accurate and fast. Finally, we provide comparison curves for the exact optimal CBPs obtained in the case of using OPBM against that of DCLPBM aided by the fast bandwidth evaluation algorithm.

In this paper, the design of a QoS scheduling scheme for the Internet traffic is proposed by considering the correlation property of the arriving traffic. The basic concept of the Weighted Fair Queuing (WFQ) is adopted in the proposed scheme, however, the correlation property of the traffic stream is applied as the heuristic to adjust the share weight factors of each traffic type dynamically. The Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model is applied in this paper to characterize the correlation property of the Internet traffic. And the share weight factors are derived from the parameters of the AR part and MA part. Experimental simulations are performed to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. In addition to comparing the performance of each service types, we also define a fair play parameter (FPP) to examine the fairness index among various traffic streams of the proposed scheme. The experimental results indicate that the proposed scheme demonstrates a quite good performance in scheduling the integrated services and the fairness among service classes can also be achieved, especially when the link capacity is limited.

This paper presents a multipath interference canceller (MPIC) configuration based on multipath interference (MPI) replica generation per transmit antenna (called PTA-MPIC). This configuration is associated with Space Time Transmit Diversity (STTD) for the common control physical channel (CCPCH), which takes advantage of tentative decision data after STTD decoding, and with closed-loop type phase control (PC) transmit diversity for the dedicated physical channel (DPCH) employing tentative decision data after diversity combining, in the W-CDMA forward link. This paper also proposes transmitter carrier phase verification, i.e., an antenna verification method used in PC transmit diversity, that utilizes the dedicated pilot symbols in a DPCH after the PTA-MPIC removes the MPI components. The one-stage PTA-MPIC removes the MPI from the common pilot channel (CPICH), the CCPCH, and the synchronization channel (SCH). The simulation results show that this canceller reduces the required average transmit Eb/N0 of the DPCH at the average BER of 10-3 by approximately 3.0 dB compared to that using a MF-based Rake receiver (the transmit power ratio of each common channel to DPCH is RCPICH/DPCH = 3 dB, RCCPCH/DPCH = 5 dB, and RSCH/DPCH = 3 dB, with TPC and without antenna diversity reception at the user equipment). Furthermore, it is shown that in the two-stage PTA-MPIC with MPI suppression for all channels associated with PC transmit diversity, the required average transmit Eb/N0 employing the proposed antenna verification is reduced by approximately 0.3 dB, 0.5 dB, and 1.2 dB compared to that using the conventional antenna verification when the transmission power ratio of the interfering DPCH to the desired DPCH is RInt/Des = 0 dB, 3 dB, and 6 dB for ten DPCHs. This is because the number of detection errors of the transmitted carrier phase in the second antenna due to feedback information bit decoding error is reduced.

Smart or adaptive antennas promise to provide significant space-time communications against fading in wireless communication systems. In this paper, we propose multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) beamforming for frequency-selective fading channels to maximize the Signal-to-Noise and Interference Ratio (SINR) based on an iterative update algorithm of transmit and receive weight vectors with prior knowledge of the channel state information (CSI) at both the transmitter and receiver. We derive the necessary conditions for an optimum weight vector solution and propose an iterative weight update algorithm for an optimal SINR reception. The Maximum Signal-to-Noise (MSN) method, where noise includes the additive gaussian noise and interference signals, is used as a criterion. The proposed MIMO with M N arrays allows the cancellation of M + N - 2 delayed channels. Computer simulations are presented to verify our analysis. The results show that significant improvements in performance are possible in wireless communication systems.