Two methods for hotspot generation using multiple sources, known as time-delay (TD) method and maximum-control-gain (MCG) method are investigated in the two typical acoustical fields, namely, the free field and a rectangular room. Based on the theoretical analysis and simulations, strategies are developed according to the sound field where the target region is defined. In the free field, the MCG method can be used if the performance in terms of control gain is the priority for an optimal control, whereas the TD method is more preferable if the simplicity of implementation is the first consideration. In a room environment, if a target region is defined in the near field where the direct sound dominates, the TD method is still effective. However, in the far field where the reverberant sound prevails, only the MCG method is applicable. The near field/far field can be roughly separated according to the critical distance from the sources in the room.

This paper proposes a new family of space-time block codes whose transmission rate is 1 symbol per channel use. The proposed space-time codes can achieve full transmit diversity with larger coding gain for the constellation carved from the scaled complex integer ring κZ[i]. It is confirmed that the performances of the proposed space-time codes are superior to the existing space-time block codes by our simulation results.

In this letter, we study a hybrid Multimedia-on-Demand (MoD) system which provides broadcast, batch and interactive services. An analytical model for such an MoD system is provided. Numerical results show that with proper design, the system can provide better performance than those systems which only provide any subset of two services.

Radio resource is the bottleneck for current multimedia wireless networks. Intelligent traffic control strategies can be enforced to optimize resource allocation so as to enhance network performance. In this study, dynamic control scheme for non-real-time traffic and autonomic control schemes for multimedia traffic are proposed to guarantee the required quality of service (QoS) in the inference-dominated high-speed wireless environment. Both handoff priority and terminal mobility are also taken into consideration. The performance of the state-dependent multidimensional birth-death process is derived by the efficient matrix-analytic methods (MAMs). Compared with the previous results, this paper shows that the proposed control methods can be used for both real-time and non-real-time multimedia traffic in order to meet the required performance without degrading the quality of multimedia services. These results are also important for the design of evolving multimedia wireless systems as well as network optimization.

In this paper, an adaptive resource allocation scheme for video stream based on video stream character and user mobility in wireless LAN is proposed. The proposed adaptive allocation scheme allocates the time slots according to the kind of the real-time or non real-time video stream, the required bit rate of video stream and user's mobility by each user. In the proposed system, when user requests the non real-time video stream and its dwell time is smaller than the service time of the video source, more time slots are allocated to the user. When user requests the non real-time video stream and its dwell time is larger than the service time of the source video, or when user requests the real-time video stream, minimum amount of the required time slots are allocated. The computer simulation results show that the proposed allocation scheme can achieve the better performance than the conventional allocation schemes which allocate the time slots only considering the required bit rate or user's dwell time.

With reference to video motion estimation in the framework of the new H.264/AVC video coding standard, this paper presents algorithmic and architectural solutions for the implementation of context-aware coprocessors in real-time, low-power embedded systems. A low-complexity context-aware controller is added to a conventional Full Search (FS) motion estimation engine. While the FS coprocessor is working, the context-aware controller extracts from the intermediate processing results information related to the input signal statistics in order to automatically configure the coprocessor itself in terms of search area size and number of reference frames; thus unnecessary computations and memory accesses can be avoided. The achieved complexity saving factor ranges from 2.2 to 25 depending on the input signal while keeping unaltered performance in terms of motion estimation accuracy. The increased efficiency is exploited both for (i) processing time reduction in case of software implementation on a programmable platform; (ii) power consumption reduction in case of dedicated hardware implementation in CMOS technology.

The technological development of wireless environment has made real-time multimedia communications possible in wireless networks. Many studies have been done on real-time communications in wireless networks in order to overcome a higher bit error rate in wireless channels. However, none of work deals with firm real-time communications which can be applied to multimedia communications. In this paper, we propose an adaptive error correcting scheme for firm real-time multimedia communications in wireless networks in order to maximize the expected net profit. The proposed scheme adaptively selects an error correcting code under the current air state and the message state of a message stream. Throughout simulation results, we show that the suggested scheme provides more profit than single error-correcting code schemes.

This paper proposes a new change type for dynamic change of workflows, named Selective Shift. Workflow technology is being introduced in many companies. Workflows are business processes that allow for computerized support. The goal of workflow technology is to process workflow instances, called cases, as efficiently as possible. Companies need to change their workflows in order to adapt them to various requirements. Dynamic change is to change workflows having running cases. The most important issue in dynamic change is how running cases should be handled. Ellis et al. and Sadiq et al. have proposed change types that prescribe how to handle running cases. Their change types handle running cases collectively. If a change type can handle running cases separately, the change type would be more flexible and efficient than the conventional change types. However, there is no any change type that can handle running cases separately. Selective Shift to be proposed can handle running cases separately. We first present the concept and definition of Selective Shift. Then we give a method to handle running cases separately. Furthermore we give methods to handle running cases so that dynamic change becomes most efficient on one evaluation measure, called change time. Finally we compare Selective Shift with the conventional change types on change time by using 270 examples of dynamic change.

This letter proposes an improved timer-based location management scheme for packet-switched (PS) mobile communication systems. Compared to the conventional timer-based scheme with a single timer threshold, a new timer-based scheme with two timer thresholds is proposed to accommodate the bursty data traffic characteristics of PS service. The location update and paging costs of the proposed scheme are analyzed and compared with those of the conventional scheme. We show that the proposed scheme outperforms the conventional scheme in terms of total cost of both location update and paging with an appropriate selection of timer thresholds.

In this paper, we propose a technique for detection and real-time tracking of moving targets. This uses a color segmentation algorithm robust to irregular illumination variation and a line-based tracker. The former is based on statistical representation of a color. And, we can obtain a real-time property for detection and tracking of moving targets from the latter.

A method to monitor the GaInP/GaAs HBT device structure including emitter ledge thickness is demonstrated in this paper. The base thickness and base doping density are obtained through base transit time and base sheet resistance measurements while the base transit time is measured through the cut-off frequency measurements at various bias points. A large size two-emitter HBT device is used to measure the ledge thickness. Emitter doping profile and collector doping profile are obtained by the large size HBT device through C-V measurements. An FATFET device formed by two emitters as drain and source terminals and the interconnect metal as the on-ledge Schottky gate between two emitters is used to measure the ledge thickness.

Call admission control of multiservice hierarchical wireless networks supporting soft handoff is studied, where users with different average call holding times are assigned to different layers, i.e., microcells in the lower layer are used to carry users with shorter call holding time, whereas macrocells in the upper layer are for users with longer call holding time. Further, to give handoff calls priority over new calls, handoff queues are provided for handoff calls that can not obtain the required channel immediately. According to whether handoff queues are provided in microcells and/or macrocells, four different call admission control schemes are proposed and studied. We derive the mathematical model of the considered system with multi- dimensional Markov process, and find the steady state probability distribution iteratively and thus the performance measures of interest: new call blocking probability, forced termination probability, and mean waiting time in handoff queue. Analytical results show that providing handoff queues in both microcells and macrocells can achieve the best blocking performance at the expense of mean waiting time in handoff queue.

In this letter, we propose a recursive space time decoding method for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems exploiting multiple transmit antenna diversity when the channels are fast fading. We first develop a computationally efficient space-time decoding method involving a matrix inversion to mitigate the channel variation effect. We then further reduce the computational complexity of the matrix inversion decoding method via a recursive formulation. Computer simulation results show that the proposed recursive decoding has much better BER performance than Alamouti decoding, requiring much less computation than the matrix inversion decoding. Moreover, the relative advantage in BER performance of the proposed scheme over Alamouti decoding stands out as the Doppler frequency increases.

There have been significant advances in computational electromagnetics (CEM) in the last decade for a variety of antennas and propagation problems. Improvements in single frequency techniques including the finite element method (FEM), the fast mulitipole moment (FMM) method, and the method of moments (MoM) have led to significant simulation capabilities on basic computing platforms. Similar advances have occurred with time domain methods including finite difference time domain (FDTD) methods, time domain integral equation (TDIE) methods, and time domain finite element (TD-FEM) methods. Very complex radiating and scattering structures in the presence of complex materials have been modeled with many of these approaches. Many commercial products have been made available through the efforts of many individuals. The CEM simulators have enabled virtual EM test ranges that have led to dramatic improvements in our understanding of antennas and propagation in complex environments and to the realization of many of their important applications.

We have launched "Highly-Reliable Embedded Software Development" Project, held as a part of e-Society Project, supported by Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan. The aim of this project is to enable the industry to produce highly reliable and advanced software by introducing latest software technologies into embedded software development. In this paper, we introduce the overview of the projects and our activities and results so far.

To overcome the mobility impact on RSVP, many schemes have been proposed based on Mobile IP regional registration and passive reservation in advance. Although the regional registration and in advance reservation reduce the QoS interruption time, the latter may demand intolerable bandwidth. This letter introduces a novel approach to reduce the QoS interruption time by maximizing the localization of QoS re-establishment in the regional registration environment. The proposed scheme identifies the exact path segment affected by mobility. The QoS interruption time of the proposed scheme is comparable to its low bound without in advance reservation.

Polling I/O mechanisms on the Unix platform such as select() and poll() cause high processing overhead when they are used in a heavily-loaded network server with many concurrent open sockets. Large waste of processing power incurs not only service degradation but also various troubles such as high electronic power consumption and worsened MTBF of server hosts. It is thus a serious issue especially in large-scale service providers such as an Internet data center (iDC) where a great number of heavily-loaded network servers are operated. As a solution of this problem, we propose a technique of fine-grained control on the invocation intervals of the polling I/O function. The uniqueness of this study is the utilization of POSIX real-time scheduling to enable the fine-grained execution control. Although earlier solutions such as an explicit event delivery mechanism also addressed the problem, they require major modification in the OS kernel and transition from the traditional polling I/O model to the new explicit event-notification model. On the other hand, our technique can be implemented with low cost because it just inserts a few small blocks of codes into the server program and does not require any modification in the OS kernel.

We describe a transmission system having a data rate of 160 Gbit/s based on the RZ-DPSK modulation format. The 160 Gbit/s single-polarization signal is generated by optical time division multiplexing technology using the base rate of 40 Gbit/s. The setup is explained and results are given with a special focus on the stability issue of the transmission system. The pulse source, the optical gate for demultiplexing, the clock recovery and the balanced photo-detector are based on semiconductor components. We present long-term bit error measurements (10 hours) over two different long-haul fiber links. The first link comprises 3106 km standard single mode fiber and uses a PMD mitigation scheme. The other link consists of 4 dispersion managed 80 km fiber spans without the need for an additional PMD compensation. Using EDFA amplification solely and also no FEC, error-free operation was achieved over several hours, only limited by slow drift effects in the laboratory system.

Caustics are patterns of light focused by reflective or refractive objects. Because of their visually fascinating patterns, several methods have been developed to render caustics. We propose a method for the quick rendering of caustics formed by refracted and converged light through transparent objects. First, in the preprocess, we calculate sampling rays incident on each vertex of the object, and trace the rays until they leave the object taking refraction into account. The position and direction of each ray that finally transmits the transparent object are obtained and stored in a lookup table. Next, in the rendering process, when the object is illuminated, the positions and directions of the rays leaving the object are calculated using the lookup table. This makes it possible to render refractive caustics due to transparent objects at interactive frame rates, allowing us to change the light position and direction, and translate and rotate the object.

This paper presents a deformable fast computation elastic model for real-time processing applications. 'Gradational element resolution model' is introduced with fewer elements for fast computation, in which small elements are laid around the object surface and large elements are laid in the center of the object. Elastic element layout is changed dynamically according to the deformation of cutting or tearing objects. The element reconstruction procedure is applied little by little for each step of the recursive motion generation process to avoid an increase in motion computation time.