Performance properties of list scheduling algorithms under various dynamic assumptions are analyzed. The focus is on bounds for scheduling directed acyclic graphs with arbitrary precedence constrains and arbitrary task processing times subject to minimizing the makespan. New performance bounds are derived and compared with known results.

In on-line signature verification, complexity of signature shape can influence the value of the optimal threshold for individual signatures. Writer-dependent threshold selection has been proposed but it requires forgery data. It is not easy to collect such forgery data in practical applications. Therefore, some threshold equalization method using only genuine data is needed. In this letter, we propose three different threshold equalization methods based on the complexity of signature. Their effectiveness is confirmed in experiments using a multi-matcher DWT on-line signature verification system.

The RSA-based Password-Authenticated Key Exchange (PAKE) protocols have been proposed to realize both mutual authentication and generation of secure session keys where a client is sharing his/her password only with a server and the latter should generate its RSA public/private key pair (e,n),(d,n) every time due to the lack of PKI (Public-Key Infrastructures). One of the ways to avoid a special kind of off-line (so called e-residue) attacks in the RSA-based PAKE protocols is to deploy a challenge/response method by which a client verifies the relative primality of e and φ(n) interactively with a server. However, this kind of RSA-based PAKE protocols did not give any proof of the underlying challenge/response method and therefore could not specify the exact complexity of their protocols since there exists another security parameter, needed in the challenge/response method. In this paper, we first present an RSA-based PAKE (RSA-PAKE) protocol that can deploy two different challenge/response methods (denoted by Challenge/Response Method1 and Challenge/Response Method2). The main contributions of this work include: (1) Based on the number theory, we prove that the Challenge/Response Method1 and the Challenge/Response Method2 are secure against e-residue attacks for any odd prime e; (2) With the security parameter for the on-line attacks, we show that the RSA-PAKE protocol is provably secure in the random oracle model where all of the off-line attacks are not more efficient than on-line dictionary attacks; and (3) By considering the Hamming weight of e and its complexity in the RSA-PAKE protocol, we search for primes to be recommended for a practical use. We also compare the RSA-PAKE protocol with the previous ones mainly in terms of computation and communication complexities.

An orthonormal basis adaptation method for function approximation was developed and applied to reinforcement learning with multi-dimensional continuous state space. First, a basis used for linear function approximation of a control function is set to an orthonormal basis. Next, basis elements with small activities are replaced with other candidate elements as learning progresses. As this replacement is repeated, the number of basis elements with large activities increases. Example chaos control problems for multiple logistic maps were solved, demonstrating that the method for adapting an orthonormal basis can modify a basis while holding the orthonormality in accordance with changes in the environment to improve the performance of reinforcement learning and to eliminate the adverse effects of redundant noisy states.

One of the disadvantages of using OFDM is the larger peak to averaged power ratio (PAPR) in its time domain signal as compared with the conventional single carrier modulation method. The larger PAPR signal would course the fatal degradation of bit error rate (BER) performance due to the inter-modulation noise occurring in the non-linear amplifier. To overcome this problem, this paper proposes a simple PAPR reduction method by using dummy sub-carriers, which can achieve the better PAPR performance with less computational complexity than the conventional method. This paper presents various computer simulation results to verify the effectiveness of proposed method as comparing with the conventional method in the non-linear channel.

This paper describes a method of producing segmentation point candidates for on-line handwritten Japanese text by a support vector machine (SVM) to improve text recognition. This method extracts multi-dimensional features from on-line strokes of handwritten text and applies the SVM to the extracted features to produces segmentation point candidates. We incorporate the method into the segmentation by recognition scheme based on a stochastic model which evaluates the likelihood composed of character pattern structure, character segmentation, character recognition and context to finally determine segmentation points and recognize handwritten Japanese text. This paper also shows the details of generating segmentation point candidates in order to achieve high discrimination rate by finding the optimal combination of the segmentation threshold and the concatenation threshold. We compare the method for segmentation by the SVM with that by a neural network (NN) using the database HANDS-Kondate_t_bf-2001-11 and show the result that the method by the SVM bring about a better segmentation rate and character recognition rate.

Contact resistance is caused by constriction resistance and film resistance through contact layers. It is well known that a surface film causes non-linear voltage and current characteristics. The origin of non-linearity is caused by tunneling electron through thin insulation barrier or jumping over the thick barrier (Shottky barrier) on the contact surface. In this paper, a new idea causing nonlinear property by only current constriction which flows through very small contact spot area, if there is no film layer, is proposed by the two dimensional contact model. The contact model, used in this paper, is a two dimensional type narrow path of contact area (short bridge) made by thin copper foil of 0.035 mm on a glass epoxy resin board. The contact part is made by scraping with an electric drill as a single bridge shape of 0.1 mm wide and 0.3 mm long on the centre of a board (100 mm100 mm). The 3rd harmonic distortion voltage was measured by using a Component Linearity Test Equipment (Type CLT1 made by Radiometer Electronics Company) which the system supplies a pure sine wave current of 10 kHz and detects a distortion voltage of 30 kHz by a narrow band pass filter circuit. The sensitivity of the Component Linearity Test Equipment (CLT1) is under a 10-9 volt. Four bridge samples were examined for the comparison of nonlinear distortion voltage. The distortion voltage of a sample (A) (0.1 mm wide, 0.3 mm long) is too larger than the one of the sample (B) (0.2 mm wide, 0.3 mm long) at the same applied voltage which resistance is not so different each other. It seems that current constriction to the spot (A) may heat up higher and cool down lower than (B). It would be also guessed that the power dissipation of 20 kHz cause temperature oscillation of 20 kHz, then it causes a component of contact resistance of 20 kHz, and therefore the product of 10 kHz current and 20 kHz resistance component cause 30 kHz component distortion voltage.

Estimating the generalization error is one of the key ingredients of supervised learning since a good generalization error estimator can be used for model selection. An unbiased generalization error estimator called the subspace information criterion (SIC) is shown to be useful for model selection, but its range of application is limited to linear learning methods. In this paper, we extend SIC to be applicable to non-linear learning.

This paper discusses the resistive termination of on-chip high-performance interconnects. Resistive termination is effective to improve the bandwidth of on-chip interconnects, on the other hands, increases the power dissipation and the area. Therefore trade-off analysis about resistive termination is necessary. This paper proposes a method to determine the termination of on-chip interconnects. The termination derived by the proposed method provides minimum sensitivity to process variation as well as maximum eye-opening in voltage.

A new method of cancellation of IM3 using current feedback has been proposed for a multi-stage RFIC amplifier. In order to cancel the IM3 present in an output signal of the amplifier, the IIP3 level and IM3 phase of the amplifier are adjusted by means of feedback circuit techniques, so that the target specification is satisfied. By estimating the IIP3 level and IM3 phase variations for two states in situations with and without feedback possessing linear factors, the parameters of a feedback circuit can be calculated. To confirm the validity of the method, we have investigated two approaches; one including an analytical approach to designing a two-stage feedback amplifier, achieving an IIP3 level improvement of 14.8 dB. The other method involves the fabrication of single-stage amplifiers with and without feedback, operating at 850 MHz, both of which were designed as an integrated circuit using a 0.18 µm SiGe BiCMOS process. The fabricated IC's were tested using a load-pull measurement system, and a good agreement between the estimated and measured IIP3 level and IM3 phase variations has been achieved. Further studies show that the error in these variations, as estimated by the method, has been found to be less than 1.5 dB and 15 degrees, respectively, when the load admittance at 1701 MHz was greater than 1/50 S.

The main disadvantage of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is the high time domain PAPR. The larger PAPR signal would fatally degrade BER performance in non-linear channels. This paper proposes an improved DSI method, which can achieve better PAPR and BER performances in the non-linear channel with less computation complexity than the conventional DSI method. The feature of proposed method is to employ the time-frequency domain swapping algorithm in the determination of frequency data for dummy sub-carriers. This paper presents various computer simulation results to verify the effectiveness of proposed DSI method.

Both mutual authentication and generation of session keys can be accomplished by an authenticated key exchange (AKE) protocol. Let us consider the following situation: (1) a client, who communicates with many different servers, remembers only one password and has insecure devices (e.g., mobile phones or PDAs) with very-restricted computing power and built-in memory capacity; (2) the counterpart servers have enormous computing power, but they are not perfectly secure against various attacks (e.g., virus or hackers); (3) neither PKI (Public Key Infrastructures) nor TRM (Tamper-Resistant Modules) is available. The main goal of this paper is to provide security against the leakage of stored secrets as well as to attain high efficiency on client's side. For those, we propose an efficient and leakage-resilient RSA-based AKE (RSA-AKE) protocol suitable for the above situation whose authenticity is based on password and another secret. In the extended model where an adversary is given access to the stored secret of client, we prove that its security of the RSA-AKE protocol is reduced tightly to the RSA one-wayness in the random oracle model. We also show that the RSA-AKE protocol guarantees several security properties (e.g., security of password, multiple sever scenario with only one password, perfect forward secrecy and anonymity). To our best knowledge, the RSA-AKE protocol is the most efficient, in terms of both computation costs of client and communication costs, over the previous AKE protocols of their kind (using password and RSA).

We investigate the enhancement of the optical nonlinearity and the limit of the improvement of the response speed in CdSxSe1-x microcrystallites by measuring the effective optical nonlinear cross section (σeff), the energy decay time (T1) and the dephasing time in two kinds of semiconductor microcrystallites of CdS0.12Se0.8 microcrystallites embedded in alkaline multi-component glasses (CdSSeMs) and CdSe microcrystallites embedded in SiO2 thin film (CdSeMs). As the average radius of CdSSeMs decreases from 10 to 1 nm, the values of σeff and T1 gradually change from 2.610-16 to 1.110-16 cm2 and from dozens picoseconds to 4 psec, respectively. The size dependence of CdSSEMs shows that the energy level structure in the microcrystallite with a radius of less than a few nanometers is a two-level system, in which σeff is proportional to T2. The carrier recombination time (τ) of CdSSeMs with the average radius of 1 nm is estimated to 2 psec. As the average radius of a CdS0.12Se0.8 microcrystallite decreases from 9 to 3 nm, the values of T2 gradually change from 640 to 230 fsec at 18 K, respectively. The size and temperature dependences of T2 for the CdSSeMs show that there is the discrepancy between the theory and the measured T2. The discrepancy showes the presence of the acoustic-phonon-assisted relaxation processes other than the pure-dephasing processes. It is indicated that T2 becomes long by reducing the excessive acoustic-phonon-assisted relaxation processes, and that the longer T2 might enhance σeff. We investigate the enhancement of σeff in CdSeMs by making T2 longer. The τ, σeff, and T2 of CdSeM an average radius of 3 nm are 40 psec, 4.510-15 cm2, and 150 fsec at room temperature. The σeff is ten times as large as that of CdSSeM sample at the same average radius and the enhancement of σeff can be considered to be caused by the longer T2.

Recently, spiral inductors have widely been used instead of resistors in the design of matching circuits to enhance the thermal noise performance of a wireless transceiver. However, such elements usually have low quality factor (Q) and may encounter the self-resonance in microwave-frequency band which permits its use in higher frequencies, and on the other hand, they occupy the large on-chip space. This paper presents a new design theory for the impedance-matching circuits for a single-chip SiGe BiCMOS receiver front-end for 2.4 GHz-band wireless LAN (IEEE 802.11b). The presented matching circuits are composed of conductor-backed coplanar waveguide (CPW) meander-line resonators and impedance (K) inverter. The prototype front-end receiver is designed, fabricated and tested. A few of the measured results to verify the design theory are presented.

This paper proposes a method to determine a single frequency for interconnect RL extraction. Resistance and inductance of interconnects depend on frequency, and hence the extraction frequency strongly affects the modeling accuracy of interconnects. The proposed method determines an extraction frequency based on the transfer characteristic of interconnects. By choosing the frequency where the transfer characteristic becomes maximum, the extracted RL values achieve the accurate modeling of the waveform. Experimental results show that the proposed method provides accurate transition waveforms over various interconnect topologies.

High-level synthesis is a novel method to generate a RT-level hardware description automatically from a high-level language such as C, and is used at recent digital circuit design. Floating-point to fixed-point conversion with bit-length optimization is one of the key issues for the area and speed optimization in high-level synthesis. However, the conversion task is a rather tedious work for designers. This paper introduces automatic bit-length optimization method on floating-point to fixed-point conversion for high-level synthesis. The method estimates computational errors statistically, and formalizes an optimization problem as a non-linear problem. The application of NLP technique improves the balancing between computational accuracy and total hardware cost. Various constraints such as unit sharing, maximum bit-length of function units can be modeled easily, too. Experimental result shows that our method is fast compared with typical one, and reduces the hardware area.

This paper discusses the on-line frequency identification problem for a measured sinusoidal signal by using the adaptive method and filter theory. The proposed method is based on an identity between the sinusoidal signal and its second order derivative. For a set of chosen parameters, the proposed method is robust to the initial phase, the amplitude, and the frequency in a wide range. The convergence rate can be adjusted by the chosen parameters. The estimation error mainly depends on the frequency of the sinusoid, the measurement noise and a key design parameter.

In this paper, a parallel combinatory spread spectrum (PC/SS) system using a constant amplitude signaling scheme is proposed. The amplitude of the transmitted signal from multicode transmission systems such as PC/SS systems have a large dynamic range which requires that amplifiers have a wide linearity in the transmitter. From a view point of power efficiency, however, it is reasonable to use non-linear amplifiers rather than linear ones. In that case, the bit error rate performance must degrade because of non-linear distortion. The proposed system can avoid influence of the non-linear amplifiers by making the transmitted signal have a constant amplitude. The bit error rate performance and the data transmission rate performance are investigated. They prove that the proposed system is an attractive candidate among the constant amplitude signaling systems.

In order to reduce the computational complexity of the DWT domain on-line signature verification, the authors propose to utilize the pen-movement vector as an input parameter. Experimental results indicate that the verification rate obtained using the pen-movement vector parameter is equivalent to that obtained by the conventional method, although the computational complexity of the proposed method is approximately half that of the conventional method.

This paper presents a multi-matcher on-line signature verification system which fuses the verification scores in pen-position parameter and pen-movement angle one at total decision. Features of pen-position and pen-movement angle are extracted by the sub-band decomposition using the Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT). In the pen-position, high frequency sub-band signals are considered as individual features to enhance the difference between a genuine signature and its forgery. On the other hand, low frequency sub-band signals are utilized as features for suppressing the intra-class variation in the pen-movement angle. Verification is achieved by the adaptive signal processing using the extracted features. Verification scores in the pen-position and the pen-movement angle are integrated by using a weighted sum rule to make total decision. Experimental results show that the fusion of pen-position and pen-movement angle can improve verification performance.