This paper presents an on-chip resonant supply noise canceller utilizing parasitic capacitance of sleep blocks. The test chip was fabricated in a 0.18 µm CMOS process and measurement results show 43.3% and 12.5% supply noise reduction on the abrupt supply voltage switching and the abrupt wake-up of a sleep block, respectively. The proposed method requires 1.5% area overhead for four 100 k-gate blocks, which is 7.1 X noise reduction efficient comparing with the conventional decap for the same power supply noise, while achieves 47% improvement of settling time. These results make fast switching of power mode possible for dynamic voltage scaling and power gating.

One typical phonotactic system for language recognition is parallel phone recognition followed by vector space modeling (PPRVSM). In this system, various phone recognizers are applied in parallel and fused at the score level. Each phone recognizer is trained for a known language, which is assumed to extract complementary information for effective fusion. But this method is limited by the large amount of training samples for which word or phone level transcription is required. Also, score fusion is not the optimal method as fusion at the feature or model level will retain more information than at the score level. This paper presents a new strategy to build and fuse parallel phone recognizers (PPR). This is achieved by training multiple acoustic diversified phone recognizers and fusing at the feature level. The phone recognizers are trained on the same speech data but using different acoustic features and model training techniques. For the acoustic features, Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC) and perceptual linear prediction (PLP) are both employed. In addition, a new time-frequency cepstrum (TFC) feature is proposed to extract complementary acoustic information. For the model training, we examine the use of the maximum likelihood and feature minimum phone error methods to train complementary acoustic models. In this study, we fuse phonotactic features of the acoustic diversified phone recognizers using a simple linear fusion method to build the PPRVSM system. A novel logistic regression optimized weighting (LROW) approach is introduced for fusion factor optimization. The experimental results show that fusion at the feature level is more effective than at the score level. And the proposed system is competitive with the traditional PPRVSM. Finally, the two systems are combined for further improvement. The best performing system reported in this paper achieves an equal error rate (EER) of 1.24%, 4.98% and 14.96% on the NIST 2007 LRE 30-second, 10-second and 3-second evaluation databases, respectively, for the closed-set test condition.

This letter deals with eigenspace-based (ESB) beamforming based on the decision-directed (DD) correction with robust capability. It has been shown that the output of the ESB beamformer includes the desired signal and noise under small pointing errors. In conjugation with DD and soft decision decoding scheme, the proposed approach can be used to form a robust DD-ESB beamformer without any specific training sequence. Computer simulations are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed beamformer.

This paper presents a framework of supporting system for a drug formulation. We designed ontology to represent the related knowledge for reusable and sharing purposes. The designed ontology is applied with operation rules to suggest an appropriate generic drug production based on information of original drug. The system also provides a validation module to preliminarily approve a pharmaceutical equivalence of the suggested result. Preliminary testing with four random samples shows potential to reformulate a generic product by returning a satisfactory and acceptable of the system suggestions for all samples.

Practitioners of the Jiro Kawakita (KJ) method, a method for organizing ideas, typically use paper labels and four-colored ball-point pens to record their ideas during the creative thinking process. A similar approach is used in group KJ method sessions; however, the effectiveness of capturing and sharing the diagrams and information is limited because of the large amount of paper required. Considering the merits of the conventional paper-pen approach and the demand for quick sharing of diagrams after a session, we designed and implemented a system to digitize group KJ sessions--not just the diagrams but also the details of the creative process. We used digital pens during the session to capture the position and orientation of labels as well as their content. We confirmed the efficiency of our system by applying it to several GKJ sessions.

Providing mobile services that ensure user satisfaction is one of the most crucial issues for telecommunication carriers and service providers. Traditionally, user satisfaction with the service, i.e., the Quality of Experience (QoE), has been assessed in a laboratory by using elaborate network systems and customized terminals. However, reliable QoE for a target mobile service in the context of actual use cannot be obtained by laboratory experiment, since QoE can be affected by a variety of factors such as environmental conditions and the mental state of the user. This paper proposes a novel Web script-based field evaluation method designed to ascertain user satisfaction with mobile services. The proposed method has the following practical advantages. Since experimental conditions, especially communication conditions, can be simulated with a Web script, such as FlashLite, a subjective assessment can be conducted anywhere using the mobile terminal of the participant. Thus, QoE for a target mobile service in the field can easily be obtained.

In this paper, we establish our child safety system model related to the addressing contradictory issue of wireless sensor networks caused by the mutual authentication and privacy protection of an end-user. Based on the system model, we propose the novel location-aware and privacy-preserving approach for providing child safety over wireless sensor networks. Although we illustrate our protocol over the sensor networks, the proposed protocol can be operated by various wireless networks (e.g., WiFi and UWB) which can support RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indication). Compared to a few previous works, the proposed approach can show the potential of enhancing accuracy with location information, preserve the privacy of an end-user, and provide the capability of controlling the child safety service to an end-user.

We propose a geographic forwarding protocol for wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Our proposed protocol, named Landmark-based Location-Aware Routing (LLAR), intelligently combines greedy forwarding and a hole detouring technique utilizing landmark information. Compared to existing approaches, our proposal utilizes the feedback message from the sink node for discovery of the optimal path. Simulations show that our proposed scheme can eliminate a significant number of overhead messages compared to its counterparts, thereby further achieving higher energy efficiency.

We report on the enhancement of system detection efficiency in a superconducting nanowire single-photon detector (SNSPD) by applying the optical cavity structure. The nanowire was made using 4-nm-thick NbN thin films and covered with an SiO cavity and Au mirror designed for 1300-1600 nm wavelengths. The device is mounted into fiber-coupled packages, and installed in a practical multichannel system based on GM cryocoolers. System detection efficiency depends on the absorptance of cavity structure, and reached 28% and 40% at 1550 nm and 1310 nm wavelengths, respectively. These values were considerably higher than an SNSPD without optical cavity.

A new type of modulation called continuous-phase parallel-combinatory high-compaction multicarrier modulation (CPPC/HC-MCM) is proposed. CPPC/HC-MCM employs the technique of continuous-phase modulation (CPM) and avoids the formation of amplitude gaps between two successive signals to enhance the spectral efficiency of conventional PC/HC-MCM. Results of simulations show that CPPC/HC-MCM is spectrally efficient and achieves a smaller bit error rate than conventional (unmodulated) PC/HC-MCM at a common spectral efficiency even if the peak-to-average power ratio is considered.

Despite the recent advances in personal communication devices and access network technology, users still face problems such as high device maintenance costs, complication of inter-device cooperation, illegal access to devices, and leakage of personal information. Consequently, it is difficult for users to construct a secure network with local as well as remote personal devices. We propose a User-driven Service Creation Platform (USCP), which enables users to construct a secure private network using a simple and intuitive approach that leverages the authentication mechanism in mobile phone networks. USCP separates signaling and data paths in a flat, virtual network topology. In this paper, we describe the basic design of USCP, the current implementation, and system evaluations.

The extended binary phase shift keying (EBPSK) transmission system with ultra narrow bandwidth has excellent BER performance, which raises many doubts with the researchers. Therefore, on the premise of the existence of a special filter that can transform the modulated phase information into amplitude information, the theoretical BER formula of EBPSK system in Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channel has been deduced. This paper gives the theoretical values of the parameters in the above BER formula and discusses the effects of parameters on BER firstly. Then the paper shows that the special impacting filter satisfies the above assumption, therefore, in the frame of binary detection theory, the excellent performance of high-efficiency EBPSK system can be explained and the correction of the theoretical BER formula can be validated.

In JPEG2000, the Cohen-Daubechies-Feauveau (CDF) 9/7-tap wavelet filter was implemented by using the conventional lifting scheme. However, the filter coefficients remain complex, and the conventional lifting scheme disregards image edges in the coding process. In order to solve these issues, we propose a lifting scheme in two steps. In the first step, we select the appropriate filter coefficients; in the second step, we employ a median operator to regard image edges. Experimental results show that the peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) value of the proposed lifting scheme is significantly improved, by up to 0.75 dB on average, compared to that of the conventional lifting scheme in the CDF 9/7-tap wavelet filter of JPEG2000.

This work presents a novel field emission organic light emitting diode (FEOLED), in which an inorganic phosphor thin film is replaced by an organic EL light-emitting layer in the configuration of a field emission display (FED). The field emission electrons emitted from the carbon nanotubes (CNTs) cathode of the proposed FEOLED intensify the electron density in the multi-layer organic materials of the OLED; thus, resulting a higher luminous efficiency than that of a conventional OLED. Additionally, the luminance of the proposed FEOLED can be further increased from 10,820 cd/m2 to 27,393 cd/m2 by raising the current density of OLED through an external electron source. A balanced quantity of electrons and holes in the OLED, which is achieved by the proposed FEOLED increases the number of excitons and attributes the enhancement of luminous efficiency of the OLED. Under the same operating current density, the proposed FEOLED exhibits a higher luminous efficiency than that of a conventional OLED.

Although larger scale integration enhances the practicability of superconducting Josephson circuits, several technical problems begin to emerge during its progress. One of the problems is the increase of current through a ground plane (ground current). Excess ground current produces additional magnetic field and reduces operation margins of the circuits, because superconducting Josephson devices are very sensitive to magnetic field. In this paper, we evaluate current distribution in a superconducting ground plane by means of both experiments and numerical calculation. We also verify two methods for suppressing the ground current. One is a slot structure in the ground plane, and the other is alignment of the current-extraction point. Suppression of the ground current is quantitatively evaluated.

A half-cylindrical BK-7 prism/dielectric film with a grating/Ag film/fluorescent polymer film structure was prepared, and its surface plasmon (SP) excitation property was investigated. It was confirmed experimentally that SP excitations are possible in this structure by using prism and grating couplings. The SP excitation property depended on the direction of the grating vector. Furthermore, intense photoluminescence was observed when the SPs were simultaneously excited at the Ag/polymer interface by prism coupling and at the Cytop/Ag interface by grating coupling.

In wireless sensor networks, real-time data delivery schemes typically achieve the desired delivery speed by proactively performing one-hop lookahead. Recently, to reduce the deadline miss ratio with respect to the desired delivery speed, a study has proposed a real-time data delivery scheme based on proactively performing two-hop lookahead. However, the recent proposal might cause heavy message exchange overhead and high computing complexity in order to proactively obtain two-hop neighbor speed information in all sensor nodes whether data are delivered or not. In this paper, we propose a novel real-time data delivery scheme that applies on-demand multi-hop lookahead only around data forwarding paths. Hence, the scheme can provide lower deadline miss ratio for real-time data delivery with low message exchange overhead than existing schemes.

As the VLSI manufacturing technology shrinks to 65 nm and below, reducing the yield loss induced by via failures is a critical issue in design for manufacturability (DFM). Semiconductor foundries highly recommend using the double-via insertion (DVI) method to improve yield and reliability of designs. This work applies the DVI method in the post-stage of an X-architecture clock routing for double-via insertion rate improvement. The proposed DVI-X algorithm constructs the bipartite graphs of the partitioned clock routing layout with single vias and redundant-via candidates (RVCs). Then, DVI-X applies the augmenting path approach associated with the construction of the maximal cliques to obtain the matching solution from the bipartite graphs. Experimental results on benchmarks show that DVI-X can achieve higher double-via insertion rate by 3% and less running time by 68% than existing works. Moreover, a skew tuning technique is further applied to achieve zero skew because the inserted double vias affect the clock skew.

Semiconducting polymers, poly(1,4-phenylene) (PPP) and poly(4-diphenylaminostyrene) (PDAS), which are soluble to organic solvents, were synthesized and were deposited by means of electrospray deposition (ESD). The ESD generated spherical shells of diameters ranging from a few to several tens of microns. The shells consisted of coagulation of nanometric particles of the semiconducting polymers. Formation of the shells was largely influenced by the concentration of spray solution. It was also found that the formation of shells can be achieved with various types of soluble polymers.

In bistatic radar, it is important to suppress the undesired signals such as the direct propagated signal from transmitter and its multipath components. Conventionally, some suppression methods have been proposed. They are categorized into the method using a feedback system and the method which subtracts the replicas of the undesired signals. The former method may have the problem on the convergence of the suppression performance. The latter method requires the precise delay times of the undesired signals. In this paper we propose a new method to detect the target in digital terrestrial TV-based bistatic radar which is based on orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), without any information on the undesired signals' delay times. In the proposed method, we adapt a scheme based on maximum signal to noise ratio (MSN) algorithm, which makes signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) maximum for the desired signal component. The maximum sensitivity is steered so as to match the path that exhibits the delay which relates to the target position, as if the search beam is steered along the direction in array signal processing. In the proposed method, "nulls" are also formed for other delay components to be suppressed simultaneously. In the frequency domain, the carrier components of the scattered signal divided by those of the reference signal indicate the delays caused by scattering. We call these divided carrier components "normalized received signal." The steered sensitivity and nulls are created by the weight which is applied to the normalized received signal in the frequency domain. We obtain the method to estimate the weight to achieve the maximum SINR in the delay estimation which also includes the compensation for the reduction of the weight's length caused by decorrelation among the delay components. The simulation results show that our proposed method without any information on the undesired signal's delays provides sufficient detection performance for the typical target compared to the conventional one.