In this paper, we present an effective overlay real-time video multicast system over the Internet. The proposed system effectively integrates overlay multicast technology and video compression technology. Overlay multicast tree and target bit rate are determined to satisfy the given average delay constraint, and H.263+ rate control is implemented to enhance the human visual perceptual quality over the multicast tree. Finally, experimental results are provided to show the performance of the proposed overlay video multicast system over the Internet.

The approximation expression about error accumulation of a long-term prediction is derived. By analyzing this formula, we find that the factors that can affect the long-term predictability include the model parameters, prediction errors and the derivates of the used basis functions. To enlarge the maximum attempting time, we present that more suitable basis functions should be those with smaller derivative functions and a fast attenuation where out of the time series range. We compare the long-term predictability of a non-polynomial based algorithm and a polynomial one to prove the success of our method.

A novel signal transition detector design using as few as 8 transistors is presented. The proposed design cleverly exploits the property of a specific internal state transition to mitigate the voltage degradation problem by employing only one extra transistor. It is thus capable of supporting level intact output signals and eliminating DC power consumption in the trailing buffer. The proposed design, featuring low circuit complexity and low power consumption, is considered useful for applications in self-timed circuits. Simulation results show that, when compared with other pass transistor logic based counterpart designs, as much as 46% savings in power and 28% in area can be achieved by the proposed design.

We provide an efficient transmission scheme which embeds a pilot signal in the data signal for channel state information (CSI) based on the configuration of a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system using space-time block coding (STBC) with an adaptive array (AA). A computer simulation and analysis show that the proposed scheme, which combines the advantage of an Alamouti-like STBC scheme and the pilot-based AA, can suppress the irreducible error due to random FM noise. The proposed scheme using a pilot minimizes the decoding delay, and is highly robust against fast fading. We show that the proposed scheme can significantly increase the data transmission rate by using the transmitter diversity based on STBC, and the accuracy of the proposed technique is exemplified by a computer simulation.

This paper presents an ultra-low-power single-chip sensor-node VLSI for wireless-sensor-network applications. A communication centric design approach has been introduced to reduce the power consumption of the RF circuits and the entire sensor network system, through a vertical cooperative design among circuits, architecture, and communication protocols. The sensor-node LSI features a synchronous media access control (MAC) protocol and integrates a transceiver, i8051 microcontroller, and dedicated MAC processor. The test chip occupies 33 mm2 in a 180-nm CMOS process, including 1.38 M transistors. It dissipates 58.0 µW under a network environment.

For automatic repeat request (ARQ)-aided TSTD (Time Switched Transmit Diversity) system, a receiver sends the acknowledgement signal (ACK or NACK) to a transmitter in order to predict the condition of the channel. In this paper, two antenna switching schemes, in which the NACK trigger the transmit antenna switching in the proposed antenna switching patterns, are proposed for the TSTD with the ARQ in WCDMA LCR-TDD systems. In addition, the system performances are investigated. Simulation results demonstrate that the performances of the TSTD systems can be improved by applying the ARQ scheme. Furthermore, the performances of ARQ-aided TSTD systems may be significantly improved by applying the proposed antenna switching schemes, especially when the mobile's speed is low.

A stochastic quasi-gradient algorithm is applied to design linear dispersion (LD) codes for two-way wireless relay networks under Rayleigh fading channels. The codes are designed to minimize an upper bound of the average pairwise error probability. Simulation results show that the codes obtained by the optimization technique achieve a coding gain over codes that are randomly generated based on the isotropic distribution.

Dynamic Voltage Scaling (DVS) is a well-known low-power design technique, which adjusts the clock speed and supply voltage dynamically to reduce the energy consumption of real-time systems. Previous studies considered the probabilistic distribution of tasks' workloads to assist DVS in task scheduling. These studies use probability information for intra-task frequency scheduling but do not sufficiently explore the opportunities for the system workload to save more energy. This paper presents a novel DVS algorithm for periodic real-time tasks based on the analysis of the system workload to reduce its power consumption. This algorithm takes full advantage of the probabilistic distribution characteristics of the system workload under priority-driven scheduling such as Earliest-Deadline-First (EDF). Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm reduces processor idle time and spends more busy time in lower-power speeds. The measurement indicates that compared to the relative DVS algorithms, this algorithm saves energy by at least 30% while delivering statistical performance guarantees.

This paper presents a Time Difference Amplifier (TDA) that amplifies the input time difference into the output time difference. Cross coupled chains of variable delay cells with the same number of stages are applicable for TDA, and the gain is adjusted via the closed-loop control. The TDA was fabricated using 65 nm CMOS and the measurement results show that the time difference gain is 4.78 at a nominal power supply while the designed gain is 4.0. The gain is stable enough to be less than 1.4% gain shift under 10% power supply voltage fluctuation.

Human detection has witnessed significant development in recent years. The introduction of cascade structure and integral histogram has greatly improved detection speed. But real-time detection is still only possible for sparse scan of 320 240 sized images. In this work, we propose a matrix-based structure to reorganize the computation structure of window-scanning detection algorithms, as well as a new pre-processing method called Hierarchical HOG Matrices (HHM) in place of integral histogram. Our speed-up scheme can process 320 240 sized images by dense scan (≈ 12000 windows per image) at the speed of about 30 fps, while maintaining accuracy comparable to the original HOG + cascade method.

This paper investigates the performance of ARQ-aided downlink Time Switched Transmit Diversity (TSTD) in the WCDMA Low Chip Rate (LCR)-Time Division Duplex (TDD) system, when antenna switching and power ramping are applied. With the help of the ARQ signal, where the receiver sends the acknowledgement (ACK or NACK) to the transmitter, the proposed TSTD scheme switches the transmit antenna and ramps up the transmission power for the retransmitted data, when the transmitter receives a NACK signal. Simulation results demonstrate, that when the mobile speed is 3 km/h and a frame error rate (FER) is set to 1%, the antenna switching scheme yields 2 dB to 3 dB performance gain in terms of average Eb/N0, and the power ramping gives 0.7 dB to 1.6 dB gain, compared with the conventional ARQ-aided TSTD. In addition, 6% of throughput gain is shown by amalgamating the antennas switching as well as the power ramping, when the average Eb/N0 is equal to 0 dB.

This paper considers replacement and maintenance policies for an operating unit which works at random times for jobs. The unit undergoes minimal repairs at failures and is replaced at a planned time T or at a number N of working times, whichever occurs first. The expected cost rate is obtained, and an optimal policy which minimizes it is derived analytically. The imperfect preventive maintenance (PM) model, where the unit is improved by PM after the completion of each working time, is analyzed. Furthermore, when the work of a job incurs some damage to the unit, the replacement model with number N is proposed. The expected cost rate is obtained by using theory of cumulative processes. Two modified models, where the unit is replaced at number N or at the first completion of the working time over time T, and it is replaced at T or number N, whichever occurs last, are also proposed. Finally, when the unit is replaced at time T, number N or Kth failure, whichever occurs first, the expected cost rate is also obtained.

Traditional wavelet-based speech enhancement algorithms are ineffective in the presence of highly non-stationary noise because of the difficulties in the accurate estimation of the local noise spectrum. In this paper, a simple method of noise estimation employing the use of a voice activity detector is proposed. We can improve the output of a wavelet-based speech enhancement algorithm in the presence of random noise bursts according to the results of VAD decision. The noisy speech is first preprocessed using bark-scale wavelet packet decomposition ( BSWPD ) to convert a noisy signal into wavelet coefficients (WCs). It is found that the VAD using bark-scale spectral entropy, called as BS-Entropy, parameter is superior to other energy-based approach especially in variable noise-level. The wavelet coefficient threshold (WCT) of each subband is then temporally adjusted according to the result of VAD approach. In a speech-dominated frame, the speech is categorized into either a voiced frame or an unvoiced frame. A voiced frame possesses a strong tone-like spectrum in lower subbands, so that the WCs of lower-band must be reserved. On the contrary, the WCT tends to increase in lower-band if the speech is categorized as unvoiced. In a noise-dominated frame, the background noise can be almost completely removed by increasing the WCT. The objective and subjective experimental results are then used to evaluate the proposed system. The experiments show that this algorithm is valid on various noise conditions, especially for color noise and non-stationary noise conditions.

A scalable speech codec consisting of a harmonic codec as the core layer and MDCT-based transform codec as the enhancement layer is often required to provide both very low-rate core communication and fine granular scalability. This structure, however, has a serious drawback for practical use because a time delay caused by transform in each layer is accumulated, resulting in a long overall codec delay. In this letter, a new MDCT structure is proposed to reduce the overall codec delay by eliminating the accumulation of time delay by each transform. In the proposed structure, the time delay is first reduced by forcing two transforms to share a common look-ahead. The error components of MDCT caused by the look-ahead sharing are then analyzed and compensated in the decoder, resulting in perfect reconstruction. The proposed structure reduces the codec delay by the frame size, with an equivalent coding efficiency.

Energy efficient routing is one of the key design issues to prolong the lifetime of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) since sensor nodes can not be easily re-charged once they are deployed. During routing process, the routes with only few hops or with too many hops are not energy efficient. Hop-based routing algorithms can largely improve the energy efficiency of multi-hop routing in WSNs because they can determine the optimal hop number as well as the corresponding intermediate nodes during multi-hop routing process under medium or high density network. In this paper, we not only focus on studying the relationship between energy consumption and hop number from theoretical point of view but also provide a practical selection criterion of the sub-optimal hop number under practical sensor network so as to minimize the energy consumption. We extend the theoretical deduction of optimal hop number and propose our Hop-based Energy Aware Routing (HEAR) algorithm which is totally distributed and localized. Simulation results show that our HEAR algorithm can reduce the average energy consumption about 10 times compared to the direct transmission algorithm and 2 to 10 times than other algorithms like LEACH and HEED under various network topologies.

Disturbance attenuation for a class of time-delay systems is performed by a combined simple adaptive control (SAC) with a new configuration of disturbance observer (DOB). The nominal system results from the Pade approximation, which is in the form of a non-minimum phase LTI system. For the implementation of SAC and DOB, two parallel feedforward compensators (PFC) are designed with the inverses of PD- and PID-controller, respectively. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed controller to compensate the disturbance response and uncertain delay time.

This letter investigates the space-time block codes from quasi-orthogonal design as a tradeoff between high transmission rate and low decoding complexity. By studying the role orthogonality plays in space-time block codes, upper bound of transmission rate and lower bound of decoding complexity for quasi-orthogonal design are claimed. From this point of view, novel algorithms are developed to construct specific quasi-orthogonal designs achieving these bounds.

This letter deals with the time-domain estimation of time-varying channels in orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. The general complex exponential basis expansion model (GCE-BEM) is used to capture the time variation of the channel within an OFDM block. The design criterion of optimal training for OFDM systems in time-varying channels is derived. This optimal training enables the complete elimination of the interference from data symbols and minimizes the noise effect on channel estimation. The design criterion can be used for both pilot symbol aided modulation (PASM) and superimposed training OFDM systems over time-varying channels.

This paper proposes a low complexity noise suppressor with hybrid filterbanks and adaptive time-frequency tiling. An analysis hybrid filterbank provides efficient transformation by further decomposing low-frequency bins after a coarse transformation with a short frame size. A synthesis hybrid filterbank also reduces computational complexity in a similar fashion to the analysis hybrid filterbank. Adaptive time-frequency tiling reduces the number of spectral gain calculations. It adaptively generates tiling information in the time-frequency plane based on the signal characteristics. The average number of instructions on a typical DSP chip has been reduced by 30% to 7.5 MIPS in case of mono signals sampled at 44.1 kHz. A Subjective test result shows that the sound quality of the proposed method is comparable to that of the conventional one.

Impossible differential attack (IDA) uses impossible differential characteristics extracted from enough plaintext pairs to retrieve subkeys of the first and the last several rounds of AES. In this paper, a general IDA on 7-round AES is proposed. Such attack takes the number of all-zero columns of the 7th and the 6th round as parameters (α,β). And a trade-off relation between the number of plaintexts and times of encryptions in the process of the attack is derived, which makes only some values of (α,β) allowed in the attack for different key length.