In this letter, a generalized extension of the linear Z4 space time (ST) code of [1] is conducted to obtain a linear Zw structure that can be flexibly used for various numbers of transmitter antennas, number of states, and modulation types. Additionally, the corresponding recursive systematic (RS) code structure is presented. The optimal code of the quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) and 8 phase shift keying (PSK) modulation with 2 transmit antenna case is obtained from a code search and analyzed in comparison to the codes of [5]. Additionally, the structure for the 8, 32, and other number of states that were not provided in are [1] presented in this paper.

Latch-based circuits have advantages for timing and are widely used for high-speed custom circuits. ASIC design flows, however, are based on circuits with flip-flops. This paper describes a new timing optimization algorithm by replacing the flip-flops in high-end ASICs by latches without changing the functionality of the circuits. Timing is optimized by using a fixed-phase retiming minimizing the impact of clock skew and jitter. A formal equivalence verification method that assures the logical correctness of the latch-replaced circuits is also proposed. Experimental results show that the optimization algorithm decreases the delay of benchmark circuits by as much as 17%.

In this paper, we present an efficient method to budget on-chip decoupling capacitors (decaps) to optimize power delivery networks in an area efficient way. Our algorithm is based on an efficient gradient-based non-linear programming method for searching the solution. Our contributions are an efficient gradient computation method (time-domain merged adjoint network method) and a novel equivalent circuit modeling technique to speed up the optimization process. Experimental results demonstrate that the algorithm is capable of efficiently optimizing very large scale P/G networks.

This paper introduces the problem of n mobile agents that repeatedly visit all n nodes of a given network, subject to the constraint that no two agents can simultaneously occupy a node. This paper first presents a self-stabilizing phase-based protocol for a tree network on a synchronous model. The protocol realizes agent traversal with O(Δn) time where n is the number of nodes and Δ is the maximum degree of any vertex in the communication network. The phase-based protocol can also be applied to an asynchronous model and a ring network. This paper also presents a self-stabilizing link-alternator-based protocol with agent traversal time of O(Δn) for a tree network on an asynchronous model. The protocols are proved to be asymptotically optimal with respect to the agent traversal time.

In this paper, a novel type of the step-up high frequency transformer linked full-bridge soft-switching phase-shift PWM DC-DC power converter with ZVS and ZCS bridge legs is proposed for small scale fuel cell power generation systems, automotive AC power supplies. A tapped inductor filter with a freewheeling diode is implemented in the proposed soft-switching DC-DC power converter to minimize the circulating current in the high-frequency step-up transformer primary side and high-frequency inverter stage. Using a tapped inductor filter with a freewheeling diode makes possible to reduce the circulating current without any active switches and theirs gate-drive circuits. The operating principle of the proposed DC-DC power converter with each operation mode during a half cycle of the steady state operation is explained. The optimum design of the tapped inductor turns ratio is described on the basis of the circuit simulation results. Developing 1 kW 100 kHz prototype with power MOSFETs and 36 V DC source verifies the practical effectiveness of the proposed soft-switching DC-DC power converter. The actual efficiency of the proposed DC-DC power converter is obtained 94% for the wide load and output voltage variation ranges.

In recent years the size of transformer in a DC-DC converter becomes smaller and thinner for power module type application. It results in the increase of the leakage inductances because the number of turns of the secondary winding becomes smaller. This paper presents the analysis of static and dynamic characteristics of the novel flyback converter proposed before, and clarifies that the transformer's leakage inductances deteriorate the static load regulation, but improve the dynamic stability by increasing the dumping factor.

In this paper, we have proposed to apply a combinatorial approach to investigate the Schottky diode based on electrochemically polymerized conjugated polymer. The concept of combinatorial approach was emerged in the biochemical field and lately used in the materials science to screen a number of experimental conditions efficiently. Some tips for designing the polymerization bath suitable for our purpose, such as the way to suppress the interference of polymerization currents, have been described. In the case of Schottky diodes based on poly (3-methylthiophene), the system chosen to test our idea, the effects of polymer thickness and the supporting salt on the device characteristics have been surveyed clearly and rapidly. The map or library of the relationship between the polymerization condition and device characteristic may be useful to tune the device characteristics as desired. Our preliminary result has shown that the combinatorial approach proposed here can be a powerful tool to investigate the conjugated polymer devices by electrochemical polymerization such as electrochromic devices.

Electron emission from PVDF (polyvinylidene-fluoride) ferroelectric substance (thickness: 40 µm) by polarization inversion was realized experimentally with using about 1nm thick C-Au-S semiconductive layer on the surface of a tooth-type electrode. After polarization of the PVDF, a negative impulse voltage (-2400 V with 1-10 ns of wave front and 10-100 ms of wave tail) with a voltage higher than a coercive voltage was applied to the flat-type electrode on the reverse side of the PVDF surface in a vacuum. Then the emitted electrons were detected with using a probe in front of the tooth-type electrode. The detected charge was 6.110-12C.

We present a new approach to the power modeling of synthesizable soft macros, which uses the characteristics of individual input signals for high accuracy. We also present the parameterized power model, developed using the proposed approach, which can relieve us from the power characterization for all possible macro sizes. Extensive experiments illustrate that the proposed approaches exhibit the overall modeling errors below 4.24% and 4.71% for benchmark macros before and after parameterization, when compared with the results of gate-level analysis.

The choice of kernel is an important issue in the support vector machine algorithm, and the performance of it largely depends on the kernel. Up to now, no general rule is available as to which kernel should be used. In this paper we investigate two kernels: Gaussian RBF kernel and polynomial kernel. So far Gaussian RBF kernel is the best choice for practical applications. This paper shows that the polynomial kernel in the normalized feature space behaves better or as good as Gaussian RBF kernel. The polynomial kernel in the normalized feature space is the best alternative to Gaussian RBF kernel.

The Transduction Method is a powerful way to design logic circuits, utilizing already existing circuits. A set of permissible functions (SPF) plays an essential role in such circuit transformation/reduction, and is computed at each point (connection or gate output). Currently, two types of SPFs have been used: the maximum SPFs (MSPFs) and compatible SPFs (CSPFs). At each point, the MSPF is literally the set of all PF's, and CSPF is a subset of the MSPF. When CSPFs are calculated, priorities are first assigned to all gates in the circuit. Based on the priorities, it is decided which subset is to be selected as the CSPF. The quality of the results depends on the priorities. In this paper, the concept of super-sets of permissible functions (SSPFs) is introduced to reduce the effect of the priorities that CSPFs depend on. In order to loosen the dependency, each SSPF is computed to contain CSPFs which are candidates to be selected. The experimental results show that the SSPF-based Transduction Method has intermediate reduction capability and takes an intermediate computation time between the MSPF-based and CSPF-based ones. The capability and the time are considered as an acceptably good trade-off. In addition, without any transformations, since SSPFs are the maximum super-set, SSPFs are applicable for analyzing the maximum performance of the CSPF-based transformation, for comparison with the MSPF-based one. Theoretically, the number of connectable gate pairs detected by the MSPFs is 100%. According to the experimental results obtained using SSPFs, on average, 99% are detectable by SSPFs and 1% are detectable only by using the MSPFs. The results show that by using CSPFs, 72% of connectable gate pairs are detectable with any priority assignment and 99% (SSPFs capability) are detectable on average even when the best priorities are assigned. According to the experimental results of CSPF calculation with five priorities, 82% to 93% are practically detectable on average. This is the first quantitative analysis realized by SSPFs which compares the CSPF-based and MSPF-based Transduction Methods with respect to the coverage of PF's.

Thin film of polyurethane having metal complex was prepared by vapor deposition polymerization of bis (5,8-dihydroxyquinoline) zinc (ZnHq2) and 4, 4'-diphenylmethane diisocyanate monomers. The film was applied for the electron-transporting emissive layer of the organic light emitting diode. The deposition-polymerized film was found to give higher quantum efficiency of luminescence than the ZnHq2 monomer film.

In order to respond to the active market's needs for software with various new functions, the system testing must be completed within a limited period. Additionally, important faults, which are closely related to essential functions for users or the target system, have to be removed, preferably in system testing. Many techniques have been proposed to date for effective software testing. Among them, selective software testing is one of the most cost effective techniques. However, most of the previous techniques cannot be applied to short-term development and initial development of software with various new functions because much cost is needed for their testing preparation. In this paper, we propose a new method for selective system testing in which priorities assigned to functions play an essential role in the execution of testing. The priorities are determined based on the evaluation results of three metrics for functions: the frequency of use, the complexity of use scenario, and the fault impact to users. Detailed testing instructions are assigned to test items with high priority, and short and ordinal instructions are assigned to those with low priority. The difference in the volume of testing instruction controls the effort of checking test items. As a result of experimental application to actual software testing in a certain company, we have confirmed that the proposed selective system testing can detect both fatal faults related to key functions and critical faults for the system.

This paper describes a new fast learning algorithm for Self-Organizing Map employing a "rough comparison winner-take-all" and its digital hardware architecture. In rough comparison winner-take-all algorithm, the winner unit is roughly and strictly assigned in early and later learning stage, respectively. It realizes both of high accuracy and fast learning. The digital hardware of the self-organizing map with proposed WTA algorithm is implemented using FPGA. Experimental results show that the designed hardware is superior to other hardware with respect to calculation speed.

In this paper, we propose an optimal bit rate control algorithm which is fully compatible with MPEG-4 or H.263+. The proposed algorithm is designed to identify the optimal quantizer set through Lagrangian optimization when used for optimal bit allocation. To find the optimal quantizer set, we make use of the Viterbi algorithm in order to solve the dependency between quantization parameters of each macroblock due to the unique characteristics of MPEG-4 or H.263+. We set the Lagrangian cost function as a cost function of the Viterbi algorithm. We implement the proposed algorithm in MPEG-4 coders and compare its performance to the VM8 and optimal bit rate control algorithm, using independent quantization parameters in the circumstance of a low bit rate.

This paper presents a multi-resolution optical flow estimation method that is robust against large variation in the estimation parameter. For each level solution of the multi-grid estimation, a nonlinear iteration is proposed differently from the existing method, where the incremental displacement from the coarser level optical flow is calculated by linear iteration. The experimental results show that the proposed scheme has better error-performance in a much wider range of regularization parameters.

Feedforward neural networks have been successfully developed and applied in many areas because of their universal approximation capability. However, there still remains the problem of determining a suitable network structure for the given task. In this paper, we propose a novel self-organizing neural network which automatically adjusts its structure according to the task. Utilizing both the constructive and the pruning procedures, the proposed algorithm finds a near-optimal network which is compact and shows good generalization performance. One of its important features is reliability, which means the randomness of neural networks is effectively reduced. The resultant networks can have suitable numbers of hidden neurons and hidden layers according to the complexity of the given task. The simulation results for the well-known function regression problems show that our method successfully organizes near-optimal networks.

The control problem of hybrid systems have received considerable attention. However, because of the existence of constraints and the combinatorial nature of continuous time and discrete event dynamics, the understanding of hybrid systems is rather limited at present. Only optimal control approaches were proposed based on heuristic rules. Few theoretical properties of system can be predicted until now. In this paper, we consider the tracking control problem of hybrid plants represented by MLD model to follow a family of reference signals produced by an external generator. Some new results are presented. The internal model principle of continuous system is extended to hybrid systems so as to solve the problem.

Direct digital frequency synthesizers (DDFS) provide fast frequency switching with high spectral purity and are widely used in modern spread spectrum wireless communication systems. ROM-based DDFS uses a ROM lookup table to store the amplitude of a sine wave. A large ROM table is required for high spectral purity. However, a larger ROM uses more area and consumes more power. Several ROM compression methods, including Sunderland technique based on simple trigonometric identities and quantization & error compensation techniques, have been reported. In this paper, we suggest several new techniques to reduce the ROM size. One new technique uses more number of hierarchical levels in ROM structures. Another technique uses simple interpolation techniques combined with hierarchical ROM structures. Experimental results show that the new proposed techniques can reduce the required ROM size up to 24%, when compared to that of a resent approach.

In this paper, we consider a blind channel estimation and equalization for single input multiple output (SIMO) channels. It is based on the one-step forward multichannel linear prediction error method. The derivation of the existing method is based on the noiseless assumption, however, we analyze the effects of additive noise at the output of the one-step forward multichannel linear prediction error filters. Moreover, we derive analytical results for the error in the blind channel estimation and equalization using linear prediction.