When we use a Programmable Microfluidic Device (PMD), we need to wash some contaminated area to use the chip for further experiments. Recently, a novel washing technique called Block-Flushing has been proposed. Block-Flushing washes contaminated area in PMDs by using buffer flows. In Block-Flushing, we need to keep a buffer flow from an input port to an output port of a PMD for a long period to dissolve residual contaminants. Thus, we may need a lot of buffer fluids and washing time even if the contaminated area is small. Another disadvantage of the washing method by Block-Flushing is such that we may not able to clean residual contaminants at valves completely by only buffer flows. To address the above-mentioned issues, this paper proposes a totally new idea to wash PMDs; our method does not use buffer flows, but washes contaminated area by using mixers. By using a mixer, we can dissolve residual contaminants at valves in the area of the mixer very efficiently. In this paper, we propose two methods to wash PMDs by using mixers. The first method can wash the whole chip area by using only four times of a single 2x2-mixer time. We also propose the second method which is a heuristic to reduce the number of moving valves because valves may wear down if they are used many times. We also show some experimental results to confirm that the second method can indeed decrease the number of used valves.

An asymmetric zero correlation zone (A-ZCZ) sequence set can be regarded as a special type of ZCZ sequence set, which consists of multiple sequence subsets. Each subset is a ZCZ sequence set, and have a common zero cross-correlation zone (ZCCZ) between sequences from different subsets. This paper supplements an existing construction of A-ZCZ sequence sets and further improves the research results. Besides, a new construction of A-ZCZ sequence sets is proposed by matrices transformation. The obtained sequence sets are optimal with respect to theoretical bound, and the parameters can be chosen more flexibly, such as the number of subsets and the lengths of ZCCZ between sequences from different subsets. Moreover, as the diversity of the orthogonal matrices and the flexibility of initial matrix, more A-ZCZ sequence sets can be obtained. The resultant sequence sets presented in this paper can be applied to multi-cell quasi-synchronous code-division multiple-access (QS-CDMA) systems, to eliminate the interference not only from the same cell but also from adjacent cells.

Logical matrices are binary matrices often used to represent relations. In the map folding problem, each folded state corresponds to a unique partial order on the set of squares and thus could be described with a logical matrix. The logical matrix representation is powerful than graphs or other common representations considering its association with category theory and homology theory and its generalizability to solve other computational problems. On the application level, such representations allow us to recognize map folding intuitively. For example, we can give a precise mathematical description of a folding process using logical matrices so as to solve problems like how to represent the up-and-down relations between all the layers according to their adjacency in a flat-folded state, how to check self-penetration, and how to deduce a folding process from a given order of squares that is supposed to represent a folded state of the map in a mathematical and natural manner. In this paper, we give solutions to these problems and analyze their computational complexity.

In 2015, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation started to provide information on aircraft flying over Japan, called CARATS Open Data, and to promote research on aviation systems actively. The airspace is divided into sectors, which are used for limiting air traffic to control safely and efficiently. Since the demand for air transportation is increasing, new optimization techniques and efficient control have been required to predict and resolve demand-capacity imbalances in the airspace. In this paper, we aim to construct mathematical models of the inter-sector air traffic flow from CARATS Open Data. In addition, we develop methods to predict future sector demand. Accuracy of the prediction is evaluated by comparison between predicted sector demand and the actual data.

The characteristics of antenna array, like sensor location, gain and phase response are rarely perfectly known in realistic situations. Location errors usually have a serious impact on the DOA (direction of arrival) estimation. In this paper, a novel array location calibration method of MUSIC (multiple signal classification) algorithm based on the virtual interpolated array is proposed. First, the paper introduces the antenna array positioning scheme. Then, the self-calibration algorithm of FIR-Winner filter based on virtual interpolation array is derived, and its application restriction are also analyzed. Finally, by simulating the different location errors of antenna array, the effectiveness of the proposed method is validated.

In this letter, we give a new construction of a family of sequences of period p^k-1 with low correlation value by using additive and multiplicative characters over Galois rings. The new constructed sequence family has family size (M-1)(p^k-1)^rp^kr(e-1) and alphabet size Mp^e. Based on the characters sum over Galois rings, an upper bound on the correlation of this sequence family is presented.

We propose a sampling method that incorporates a normally distributed sampling series for EEG measurements using compressed sensing. We confirmed that the ADC sampling count and amount of wirelessly transmitted data can be reduced by 11% while maintaining a reconstruction accuracy similar to that of the conventional method.