The extended version of spectral domain approach (ESDA) is applied to evaluate the scattering characteristics of discontinuities in coaxial line. Discontinuities may be in inner and/or outer conductor of coaxial line. This method secures the high accuracy by considering the singularities of fields near the conductor edge properly. The computational labor of the new method is far lighter than that of FEM, so that novel method is suitable for the time consuming iterative computation such as fitting procedure in material evaluation or optimization of antenna design.

A feature for classification of shallowly buried landmine-like objects using a ground penetrating radar (GPR) measurement system is proposed and its performance is evaluated. The feature for classification employed here is a time interval between two pulses reflected from top and bottom sides of landmine-like objects. First, we estimate a time resolution required to detect object thickness from GPR data, and check the actual time resolution through laboratory experiment. Next, we evaluate the classification performance using Monte Carlo simulations from dataset generated by a two-dimensional finite difference time domain (FDTD) method. The results show that good classification performance is achieved even for landmine-like objects buried at shallow depths under rough ground surfaces. Furthermore, we also estimate the effects of ground surface roughness, soil inhomogeneity, and target inclination on the classification performance.

This paper considers the quantum query complexity of ε-biased oracles that return the correct value with probability only 1/2 + ε. In particular, we show a quantum algorithm to compute N-bit OR functions with O(/ε) queries to ε-biased oracles. This improves the known upper bound of O(/ε2) and matches the known lower bound; we answer the conjecture raised by the paper [1] affirmatively. We also show a quantum algorithm to cope with the situation in which we have no knowledge about the value of ε. This contrasts with the corresponding classical situation, where it is almost hopeless to construct a bounded error algorithm without knowing the value of ε.

This paper proposes a jitter tolerant continuous-time sigma-delta A-D converter structure as well as its design method. This method transforms a conventionally designed sigma-delta A-D converter into a jitter tolerant one. Jitter tolerance is provided by the modified feedback signal paths and a consequently inserted digital LPF. This method is applicable independently of a system order and the other specifications.

To make the best use of the resources in a shared grid environment, an application scheduler must make a prediction of available performance on each resource. In this paper, we examine the problem of predicting available CPU performance in time-shared grid system. We present and evaluate a new and innovative method to predict the one-step-ahead CPU load in a grid. Our prediction strategy forecasts the future CPU load based on the variety tendency in several past steps and in previous similar patterns, and uses a polynomial fitting method. Our experimental results on large load traces collected from four different kinds of machines demonstrate that this new prediction strategy achieves average prediction errors which are between 22% and 86% less than those incurred by four previous methods.

Recently, integration of multiple network domains, such as optical fiber domains and packet domains, has been required by network providers and users. To achieve this interdomain integration, generalized multiprotocol label switching (GMPLS) is now receiving more attention. One of the main features of a GMPLS network is its multilayered complexity, which sometimes places a large burden on source GMPLS routers to determine optimal routes to destinations in other domains and causes label switching path (LSP)-setup delays. To reduce this source-router burden, we propose hierarchically distributed path computation equipment (HDPCE) that cooperates with each other to determine interdomain routes, reduce setup delay, and conduct flexible interdomain route creation taking individual GMPLS domain routing policies into consideration. Each domain routing policy can be set independently from that of other domains, and this routing information is not revealed to other peer domains because each HDPCE is allocated to every domain, including an interdomain, which has several underlying domains under it. Each underlying domain's HDPCE flexibly chooses three types of routing policies depending on the domain's requirement, and the interdomain HDPCE conducts interdomain route creation in accordance with underlying domain policies. OSPF routing protocol is now being applied to interdomain routing on GMPLS networks. Therefore, we compare the proposed HDPCE-based interdomain route creation with OSPF-based route creation in terms of performance and applicability, and we evaluate the effects of each underlying domain policy on interdomain route creation.

Adaptation process of retina helps human visual system to see a high dynamic range scene in real world. This paper presents a simple static local adaptation method for high dynamic range image compression based on a retinal model. The proposed simple model aims at recreating the same sensations between the real scene and the range compressed image on display device when viewed after reaching steady state local adaptation respectively. Our new model takes the display adaptation into account in relation to the scene adaptation based on the retinal model. In computing local adaptation, the use of nonlinear edge preserving bilateral filter presents a better tonal rendition in preserving the local contrast and details while avoiding banding artifacts normally seen in local methods. Finally, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model by estimating the color difference between the recreated image and the target visual image obtained by trial and error method.

The cascade of two baseline networks in tandem is a rearrangeable network. The cascade of two omega networks appended with a certain interconnection pattern is also rearrangeable. These belong to the general problem: for what banyan-type network (i.e., bit-permuting unique-routing network) is the tandem cascade a rearrangeable network? We relate the problem to the trace and guide of banyan-type networks. Let τ denote the trace permutation of a 2n2n banyan-type network and γ the guide permutation of it. This paper proves that rearrangeability of the tandem cascade of the network is solely determined by the transposition τγ-1. Such a permutation is said to be tandem rearrangeable when the tandem cascade is indeed rearrangeable. We identify a few tandem rearrangeable permutations, each implying the rearrangeability of the tandem cascade of a wide class of banyan-type networks.

In this paper we propose a novel method to inpaint highlights and to remove the specularity in the image with specular objects by the color line projection. Color line projection is the method that a color with a surface reflection component is projected near the diffuse color line by following the direction of the specular color line. We use two captured images using different exposure time so that the clue of the original color in a highlight area is searched from two images since the color at the highlight region is distorted and saturated to the illumination color. In the first step of the proposed procedure, the region corresponding to the highlight is generated and the clue of the original highlight color is acquired. In the next step, the color line is generated by the restricted region growing method around the highlight region, and the color line is divided into the diffuse color line and the specular color line. In the final step, pixels near the specular color line are projected onto near the diffuse color line by the color line projection, in which the modified random function is applied to realistically inpaint the highlight. One of advantages in our method is to find the highlight region and the clue of the original color of the highlight with ease. It also efficiently estimates the surface reflection component which is utilized to remove specularity and to inpaint the highlight. The proposed method performs the highlight inpainting and the specular removal simultaneously once the color line is generated. In addition, color line projection with the modified random function can make the result more realistic. We show experimental results from the real images and make a synthesis of the real image and the image modified by the proposed method.

This paper presents the design and implementation of a hip range of motion (ROM) estimation method that is capable of fine-grained estimation during total hip replacement (THR) surgery. Our method is based on two acceleration strategies: (1) adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) for complexity reduction and (2) parallelization for further acceleration. On the assumption that the hip ROM is a single closed region, the AMR strategy reduces the complexity for N N N stance configurations from O(N3) to O(ND), where 2≤D≤3 and D is a data-dependent value that can be approximated by 2 in most cases. The parallelization strategy employs the master-worker paradigm with multiple task queues, reducing synchronization between processors with load balancing. The experimental results indicate that the implementation on a cluster of 64 PCs completes estimation of 360360180 stance configurations in 20 seconds, playing a key role in selecting and aligning the optimal combination of artificial joint components during THR surgery.

Conditional random fields (CRFs) have been successfully applied to various applications of predicting and labeling structured data, such as natural language tagging & parsing, image segmentation & object recognition, and protein secondary structure prediction. The key advantages of CRFs are the ability to encode a variety of overlapping, non-independent features from empirical data as well as the capability of reaching the global normalization and optimization. However, estimating parameters for CRFs is very time-consuming due to an intensive forward-backward computation needed to estimate the likelihood function and its gradient during training. This paper presents a high-performance training of CRFs on massively parallel processing systems that allows us to handle huge datasets with hundreds of thousand data sequences and millions of features. We performed the experiments on an important natural language processing task (text chunking) on large-scale corpora and achieved significant results in terms of both the reduction of computational time and the improvement of prediction accuracy.

This paper presents two hardware-friendly low-power oriented fast motion estimation (ME) algorithms and their VLSI implementations. The basic idea of the proposed partial distortion sorting (PDS) algorithm is to disable the search points which have larger partial distortions during the ME process, and only keep those search points with smaller ones. To further reduce the computation overhead, a simplified local PDS (LPDS) algorithm is also presented. Experiments show that the PDS and LPDS algorithms can provide almost the same image quality as full search only with 36.7% computation complexity. The proposed two algorithms can be integrated into different FSBMA architectures to save power consumption. In this paper, the 1-D inter ME architecture [12] is used as an detailed example. Under the worst working conditions (1.62 V, 125) and 166 MHz clock frequency, the PDS algorithm can reduce 33.3% power consumption with 4.05 K gates extra hardware cost, and the LPDS can reduce 37.8% power consumption with 1.73 K gates overhead.

In this paper, we describe detailed experimental demonstrations of blue/violet light generation by the injection of ultrashort optical pulses into photonic crystal fibers (PCFs). Two lightwaves appear one on each side of the injected pulses in the spectral domain. They simultaneously evolve in the PCFs, changing their center wavelengths so as to spectrally stand apart from each other. Such behaviors are explained on the basis of the theory of nonlinear optics. The final center-wavelength difference between the two lightwaves at the end of the PCFs, depending on the power density of the injected pulse, is increased up to a limit imposed by the PCFs. Owing to this increase, the shorter wavelength limit reaches approximately 400 nm, which shows that short-pulse injection in PCFs is a promising method of realizing simple blue/violet light sources.

In this paper, we propose a modified reproduction strategy of a Genetic Algorithm (GA) utilizing a Self-Organizing Map (SOM) with a novel updating rule of binary weight vectors based on a significance of elements of inputs. In this rule, an updating order of elements is decided by considering fitness values of individuals in a population. The SOM with the proposed updating rule can realize an effective reproduction.

Multilayered network interaction among various networks such as IP/MPLS packet networks and optical fiber networks are now achieved using generalized multiprotocol label switching (GMPLS) technology. One unique feature of GMPLS networks is that GMPLS packet-layer label switching paths (LSPs), such as IP/MPLS LSPs, sometimes tunnel through GMPLS lower layer LSPs such as optical fiber/lambda LSPs. One problem that occurs in this situation is protecting an important primary packet LSP by using a protection LSP that is physically separated from the primary LSP. The packet router has difficulty recognizing lower layer LSPs that are totally disjointed from the primary LSP. This is because, in a GMPLS's packet layer, a source router only differentiates one lower layer LSP from another, and does not check the disjointedness of segments through which the lower layer path passes. Sometimes, different lower LSPs pass through the same optical fiber, and a malfunction of one optical fiber sometimes causes many lower layer LSPs to malfunction at the same time. To solve this problem, a shared risk link group (SRLG) is introduced. Network links that belong to the same SRLG share a common physical resource. We apply this SRLG to the proposed hierarchically distributed path computation elements (HDPCEs) and achieve effective disjointed SRLG protection for important primary GMPLS packet paths.

A tri-template-based codes (TTBC) method is proposed to reduce test cost of intellectual property (IP) cores. In order to reduce test data volume (TDV), the approach utilizes three templates, i.e., all 0, all 1, and the previously applied test data, for generating the subsequent test data by flipping the inconsistent bits. The approach employs a small number of test channels I to supply a large number of internal scan chains 2I-3 such that it can achieve significant reduction in test application time (TAT). Furthermore, as a non-intrusive and automatic test pattern generation (ATPG) independent solution, the approach is suitable for IP core testing because it requires neither redesign of the core under test (CUT) nor running any additional ATPG for the encoding procedure. In addition, the decoder has low hardware overhead, and its design is independent of the CUT and the given test set. Theoretical analysis and experimental results for ISCAS 89 benchmark circuits have proven the efficiency of the proposed approach.

This letter develops an efficient CPM demodulator which provides soft outputs for use in coded CPM. The proposed algorithm offers reduced-complexity soft output detection in which the number of matched filters and trellis states is appreciably reduced. The complexity reduction is achieved by approximating the CPM signal using the Laurent representation. A simulation study of iterative decoding of serially concatenated CPM with an outer code was performed. The performance degradation of the proposed algorithm relative to optimal full complexity generation of soft outputs was found to be small.

Self-organized organic dye particles of micrometer and submicrometer size were prepared by utilizing a wetting/dewetting process of polar solvent on a hydrophilic glass substrate. The near-field scanning optical microscopy successfully identified near-field excited near-field fluorescence from single particles, however, the majority of the small particles with diameters around 2 µm or less did not show fluorescence under near-field observation. In contrast, far-field fluorescence, when excited by a polarized evanescent field, was observed, with the intensity depending on the excitation polarization, indicating that molecules' transition moment within dye particles was oriented parallel to the substrate surface. Single particle fluorescence spectrum consistently showed an identical sharp peak with a large redshift, indicating that the particles were composed of identical dye aggregates similar to J-aggregates. These observations suggest that the near-field at the probe tip was polarized parallel to the probe axis. Another observation, that molecules were oriented in a similar direction among adjacent particles, suggests that the dewetting process contributed to the alignment of the molecular orientation among adjacent particles, which further proves that the present specimen was formed by a self-organizing mechanism.

It has been shown that the maskless dye-diffusion technique is applicable to a conjugated polymer poly(9,9-dioctylfluorene). The introduction of Coumarin 6 and Nile red results in green and white emission, with the increased onset voltage for the both cases. It has also been confirmed that the heat treatment effect during the maskless dye diffusion technique results in not the increase but the decrease of the onset voltage, indicating that the dye plays a role of carrier trap in the polymer.

Ball Grid Array packages in which I/O pins are arranged in a grid array pattern realize a number of connections between chips and PCB, but it takes much time in manual routing. So the demand for automation of package routing is increasing. In this paper, we give the necessary and sufficient condition that all nets can be connected by monotonic routes when a net consists of a finger and a ball and fingers are on the two parallel boundaries of the Ball Grid Array package, and propose a monotonic routing method based on this condition. Moreover, we give a necessary condition and a sufficient condition when fingers are on the two orthogonal boundaries, and propose a monotonic routing method based on the necessary condition.