In this study we propose a manufacturing control framework based on radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology and a distributed information system to construct a mass-customization production process in a loosely coupled shop-floor control environment. On the basis of this framework, we developed RFID middleware and an integrated information system for tracking and controlling the manufacturing process flow. A bicycle manufacturer was used to demonstrate the prototype system. The findings of this study were that the proposed framework can improve the visibility and traceability of the manufacturing process as well as enhance process quality control and real-time production pedigree access. Using this framework, an enterprise can easily integrate an RFID-based system into its manufacturing environment to facilitate mass customization and a just-in-time production model.

With the advent of the deep submicron age, circuit performance is strongly impacted by process variations and the influence on the circuit delay to the power-supply voltage increases more and more due to CMOS feature size shrinkage. Power grid optimization which considers the timing error risk caused by the variations and IR drop becomes very important for stable and hi-speed operation of system-on-chip. Conventionally, a lot of power grid optimization algorithms have been proposed, and most of them use IR drop as their object functions. However, the IR drop is an indirect metric and we suspect that it is vague metric for the real goal of LSI design. In this paper, first, we propose an approach which uses the "timing error risk caused by IR drop" as a direct objective function. Second, the critical path map is introduced to express the existence of critical paths distributed in the entire chip. The timing error risk is decreased by using the critical path map and the new objective function. Some experimental results show the effectiveness.

In recent years, heterogeneous devices have been employed frequently in mobile storage systems because a combination of such devices can supply a synergistically useful storage solution by taking advantage of each device. One important design constraint in heterogeneous storage systems is to mitigate I/O performance degradation stemming from the difference between access times of different devices. To this end, there has not been much work to devise proper buffer cache management algorithms. This paper presents a novel buffer cache management algorithm which considers both I/O cost per device and workload patterns in mobile computing systems with a heterogeneous storage pair of a hard disk and a NAND flash memory. In order to minimize the total I/O cost under varying workload patterns, the proposed algorithm employs a dynamic cache partitioning technique over different devices and manages each partition according to request patterns and I/O types along with the temporal locality. Trace-based simulations show that the proposed algorithm reduces the total I/O cost and flash write count significantly over the existing buffer cache algorithms on typical mobile traces.

In this letter, we suggest a simple way of implementing a post-FFT pilot-assisted sampling frequency offset and residual frequency offset estimator with reduced complexity in an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system. In order to devise the low-complexity post-FFT frequency estimator, some modifications on the conventional estimator are highlighted with an emphasis on the selection of pilot subset.

The generalized Hamming weight played an important role in coding theory. In the study of the wiretap channel of type II, the generalized Hamming weight was extended to a two-code format. Two equivalent concepts of the generalized Hamming weight hierarchy and its two-code format, are the inverse dimension/length profile (IDLP) and the inverse relative dimension/length profile (IRDLP), respectively. In this paper, the Singleton upper bound on the IRDLP is improved by using a quotient subcode set and a subset with respect to a generator matrix, respectively. If these new upper bounds on the IRDLP are achieved, in the corresponding coordinated two-party wire-tap channel of type II, the adversary cannot learn more from the illegitimate party.

In this paper, we propose to adapt both the modulation scheme and the transmit power in the frequency domain using a heuristic evaluation of the bit error rate (BER) for each subcarrier. The proposed method consists in ordering in terms of fading impact, grouping a certain number of subcarriers and performing local power adaptation in each subcarrier group. The subcarrier grouping is performed in order to equalize the average channel condition of each subcarrier group. Grouping and local power adaptation allow us to take advantage of the channel variations and to reduce the computational complexity of the proposed power distribution scheme, while avoiding the performance degradation due to the suboptimum power adaptation as much as possible. Compared to the conventional power distribution methods, the proposed scheme does not require any iterative process and the power adaptation is directly performed using an analytical formula. Simulations show a gain in terms of BER performance compared to equal power distribution and existing algorithms for power distribution. In addition, due to the subcarrier group specificity, the trade-off between the computational complexity and the performance can be controlled by adjusting the size of the subcarrier groups. Simulation results show significant improvement of BER performance compared to equal power allocation.

We propose multitone-hopping code-division multiple access (MH-CDMA) using a feedback-controlled hopping pattern (FCHP) (FCHP/MH-CDMA). In the FCHP/MH-CDMA, part of the filter coefficients of an adaptive finite-duration impulse response (FIR) filter receiver are fed back to a transmitter, in which they are used as an updated hopping pattern. Each chip of the updated hopping pattern consists of plural tones. As a result, it is shown that the FCHP/MH-CDMA provides us with an excellent asynchronous, decentralized multiple-access performance over time-invariant multipath channels.

Zero Correlation Zone (ZCZ) sequences have been confirmed the capability in interference mitigation in multipath fading channel. On the other hand, Orthogonal Variable Spreading Factor (OVSF) codes have been successfully applied in WCDMA for separating different channels with different transmission capacity. In this paper, novel OVSF-ZCZ sequences originated from LS and GO sequences have been proposed for CDMA systems with different service requirements. The construction method is discussed and the performance of the system is evaluated.

Because of the fact that mobile communication channel changes by time, it is necessary to employ adaptive channel equalizers in order to combat the distorting effects of the channel. Least Mean Squares (LMS) algorithm is one of the most popular channel equalization algorithms and is preferred over other algorithms such as the Recursive Least Squares (RLS) and Maximum Likelihood Sequence Estimation (MLSE) when simplicity is the dominant decision factor. However, LMS algorithm suffers from poor performance and convergence speed within the training period specified by most of the standards. The aim of this study is to improve the convergence speed and performance of the LMS algorithm by adjusting the step size using fuzzy logic. The proposed method is compared with the Channel Matched Filter-Decision Feedback Equalizer (CMF-DFE) [1] which provides multi path propagation diversity by collecting the energy in the channel, Minimum Mean Square Error-Decision Feedback Equalizer (MMSE-DFE) [2] which is one of the most successful equalizers for the data packet transmission, normalized LMS-DFE (N-LMS-DFE) [3] , variable step size (VSS) LMS-DFE [4] , fuzzy LMS-DFE [5],[6] and RLS-DFE [7] . The obtained simulation results using HIPERLAN/1 standards have demonstrated that the proposed LMS-DFE algorithm based on fuzzy logic has considerably better performance than others.

In this paper, based on interleaved technique, we present a new method of constructing zero correlation zone (ZCZ) sequence sets. For any perfect sequence of length m(2k+1) with m > 2, k ≥ 0 and an arbitrary Hadamard matrix of order T > 2, the proposed construction can generate new optimal ZCZ sequence sets in which all the sequences are cyclically distinct.

In this paper, we propose a computationally efficient method to solve the large dimension Adaptive Subcarrier Assignment and Bit Allocation (ASABA) problem of multiuser orthogonal frequency division multiplexing system. Our algorithm consists of three Ordinal Optimization (OO) stages to find a good enough solution to the considered problem. First of all, we reformulate the considered problem to separate it into subcarrier assignment and bit allocation problem such that the objective function of a feasible subcarrier assignment pattern is the corresponding optimal bit allocation for minimizing the total consumed power. Then in the first stage, we develop an approximate objective function to evaluate the performance of a subcarrier assignment pattern and use a genetic algorithm to search through the huge solution space and select s best subcarrier assignment patterns based on the approximate objective values. In the second stage, we employ an off-line trained artificial neural network to estimate the objective values of the s subcarrier assignment patterns obtained in stage 1 and select the l best patterns. In the third stage, we use the exact objective function to evaluate the l subcarrier assignment patterns obtained in stage 2, and the best one associated with the corresponding optimal bit allocation is the good enough solution that we seek. We apply our algorithm to numerous cases of large-dimension ASABA problems and compare the results with those obtained by four existing algorithms. The test results show that our algorithm is the best in both aspects of solution quality and computational efficiency.

We fabricated both thin film transistors (TFTs) and diodes using zinc oxide (ZnO) and pentacene, and investigated their basic characteristics. We found that field-effect mobility is influenced by the interface state between the semiconductor and dielectric layers. Furthermore, the complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) inverter using a p-channel pentacene field-effect transistor (FET) and an n-channel ZnO FET showed a relatively high voltage gain (8-12) by optimizing the device structure. The hybrid complementary inverters described here are expected for application in flexible displays, radio frequency identification cards (RFID) tags, and others.

In this paper, an alternative approach is presented, to design equalizers (or matching networks) with commensurate (or equal length) transmission lines. The new method automatically yields the matching network topology with characteristic impedances of the commensurate lines. In the implementation process of the new technique first, the driving point impedance data of the matching network is generated by tracing a pre-selected transducer power gain shape, without optimization. Then, it is modelled as a realizable bounded-real input reflection coefficient in Richard domain, which in turn yields the desired equalizer topology with line characteristic impedances. This process results in an excellent initial design for the commercially available computer aided design (CAD) packages to generate final circuit layout for fabrication. An example is given to illustrate the utilization of the new method. It is expected that the proposed design technique is employed as a front-end, to commercially available computer aided design (CAD) packages which generate the actual equalizer circuit layout with physical dimensions for mass production.

The insoluble Prussian-blue (PB) pigment becomes possible to disperse in aqueous solution by covering their surfaces with ferrocyanide anions. The thin film fabricated with these water-dispersible PB nanoparticles shows evident electrochromic color changes between +0.8 V to -0.4 V on an ITO substrate. The mass change of the thin film during an electrochemical reaction is measured by means of electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance (EQCM). According to the EQCM analysis, the filling rate of water-dispersible PB nanoparticles in the film is 37.7% as compared with an assumed perfect crystal PB film.

A modified successive interference cancellation (SIC) algorithm for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system is presented. The presented modified SIC algorithm makes use of an index sequence to avoid the subcarriers re-ordering calculation. Furthermore, by combining the SIC with the conventional zero-forcing (ZF) detection, computation complexity of the presented algorithm can be significantly reduced and meanwhile excellent performance can be maintained.

Block-based SSTA analyzes the timing variation of a chip caused by process variations effectively. However, block-based SSTA cannot identify critical nodes, nodes that highly influence the timing yield of a chip, used as the effective guidance of timing yield optimization. In this paper, we propose a new timing criticality to identify those nodes, referred to as the timing yield criticality (TYC). The proposed TYC is defined as the change in the timing yield, which is induced by the change in the mean arrival time at a node. For efficiency, we estimate the TYC through linear approximation instead of propagating the changed arrival time at a node to its fanouts. In experiments using the ISCAS 85 benchmark circuits, the proposed method estimated TYCs with the expense of 9.8% of the runtime for the exact computation. The proposed method identified the node that gives the greatest effect on the timing yield in all benchmark circuits, except C6288, while existing methods did not identify that for any circuit. In addition, the proposed method identified 98.4% of the critical nodes in the top 1% in the effect on the timing yield, while existing methods identified only about 10%.

We have developed novel humidity and gas detector system using quartz crystal oscillators (QCO) deposited with cellulose Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) films. We have realized stable humidity detection by the LB-based QCO sensor for extremely high humidity subsequent to the water dipping condition. Also, specific gaseous molecules such as alcohol could have been sensitively detected.

The thresholding results for gray level images depend greatly on the thresholding method applied. However, this letter proposes a histogram equalization-based thresholding algorithm that makes the thresholding results insensitive to the thresholding method applied. Experimental results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed thresholding algorithm.

In this letter, new families of binary low correlation zone (LCZ) sequences based on the interleaving technique and quadratic form sequences are constructed, which include the binary LCZ sequence set derived from Gordon-Mills-Welch (GMW) sequences. The constructed sequences have the property that, in a specified zone, the out-of-phase autocorrelation and cross-correlation values are all equal to -1. Due to this property, such sequences are suitable for quasi-synchronous code-division multiple access (QS-CDMA) systems.

This paper presents a fully self-organized key management scheme for mobile ad hoc networks. Unlike most previous schemes, there is no priori shared secret or no priori trust relationship in the proposed scheme; every node plays the same role and carries out the same function of key management. The proposed scheme consists of (1) Handshaking (HS) and (2) Certificate request/reply (CRR) procedures. In HS, a node acquires the public key of the approaching node via a secure side channel. In CRR, a node requests certificates of a remote node via a radio channel to the nodes that it has HSed. If the number of received valid certificates that contain the same public key exceeds a given threshold, the node accepts the remote node's public key as valid. Security is rigorously analyzed against various known attacks and network costs are intensively analyzed mathematically. Using this analysis, we provide parameter selection guideline to optimize performance and to maintain security for diverse cases. Simulation results show that every node acquires the public keys of all other nodes at least 5 times faster than in a previous scheme.