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IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Fundamentals

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Advance publication (published online immediately after acceptance)

Volume E98-A No.8  (Publication Date:2015/08/01)

    Special Section on Information and Communication Systems for Safe and Secure Life
  • FOREWORD

    Kazunori OKADA  

     
    FOREWORD

      Page(s):
    1592-1593
  • What Should Be Considered to Realize ICT Support for Effective Disaster Response and Recovery?

    Haruo HAYASHI  Munenari INOGUCHI  

     
    INVITED PAPER

      Page(s):
    1594-1601

    Recently ICT has been improved rapidly, and it is likely to make a contribution to effective disaster response. However, ICT is not utilized effectively in disaster response because the environment for ICT management is not considered enough. In this paper, we retrieve lessons learned from actual response at the past disasters in Japan, and introduce them following disaster response process model based on human psychological manner. In another point, we suggest significance of Common Operational Picture with spatial information following advanced case study in the United States of America, and identify two essential issues for effective information and technology management. One is information status, such as statics or dynamic information. The other one is five elements for ICT management in disaster response: Governance, Standard Operating Procedures, Technology, Training and Exercise and Use.

  • Maintenance of Communication Carrier Networks against Large-Scale Earthquakes

    Yoshikazu TAKAHASHI  Daisuke SATOH  

     
    INVITED PAPER

      Page(s):
    1602-1609

    The network operations center of a communication carrier play an important and critical role in the early stage of disaster response because its function is the maintenance of communication services, which includes traffic control and restoration of services. This paper describes traffic control and restoration of services affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake. This paper discusses challenges on traffic congestion and restoration for future large-scale disasters.

  • Information Centric Networking for Disaster Information Sharing Services

    Zheng WEN  Di ZHANG  Keping YU  Takuro SATO  

     
    PAPER

      Page(s):
    1610-1617

    Information Centric Networking (ICN) had merits in terms of mobility, security, power consumption and network traffic. When a large-scale disaster occurred, the current communication system might be fragile and the server based network service might be unavailable due to the damages, network congestions, and power failure, etc. In this paper, we proposed an ICN based Disaster Information Sharing Service (DISS) [1], [2] system. DISS could provide robust information sharing service. Users could publish disaster information as a content message with the help of our DISS. In addition, by utilizing DISS's message naming strategy, users could retrieve disaster information even without a server connection. The ICN based DISS could reduce the probability of network congestion when a large number of simultaneous connections occurring. It could provide server-less service in poor network condition. DISS allows users retrieve disaster information from terminals or ICN nodes. During disasters, sharing information timely and effective could protect people from disaster, ensure people's safety.

  • Securing SOS Messages in Uncommunicable Areas via Information Sharing Cluster

    Louie ZAMORA  Noriyuki SUZUKI  Hiroaki TAKEMOTO  Shigeru KASHIHARA  Suguru YAMAGUCHI  

     
    PAPER

      Page(s):
    1618-1626

    A prompt rescue is a serious operation when a catastrophic disaster occurs. In an uncommunicable area where the existing communication systems are damaged, it is, however, difficult to collect SOS messages of victims. So far, we have proposed a smartphone application named SOSCast to collect SOS messages via device-to-device transmission in such an area. However, with the limitation of coverage area and battery consumption, it decreases the possibility of finding the victim due to the risk of losing the SOS messages. In this paper, thus, we propose an information-sharing cluster to virtually extend the communication coverage area and to secure the SOS messages by reducing the battery consumption. In the performance evaluation, compared with the original SOSCast, we showed that the proposed method can reduce battery consumption to secure the message through a prototype system and simulation experiments.

  • A Performance Study to Ensure Emergency Communications during Large Scale Disasters Using Satellite/Terrestrial Integrated Mobile Communications Systems

    Kazunori OKADA  Takayuki SHIMAZU  Akira FUJIKI  Yoshiyuki FUJINO  Amane MIURA  

     
    PAPER

      Page(s):
    1627-1636

    The Satellite/Terrestrial Integrated mobile Communication System (STICS), which allows terrestrial mobile phones to communicate directly through a satellite, has been studied [1]. Satellites are unaffected by the seismic activity that causes terrestrial damage, and therefore, the STICS can be expected to be a measure that ensures emergency call connection. This paper first describes the basic characteristics of call blocking rates of terrestrial mobile phone systems in areas where non-functional base stations are geographically clustered, as investigated through computer simulations that showed an increased call blocking rate as the number of non-functional base stations increased. Further simulations showed that restricting the use of the satellite system for emergency calls only ensures the STICS's capacity to transmit emergency communications; however, these simulations also revealed a weakness in the low channel utilization rate of the satellite system [2]. Therefore, in this paper, we propose increasing the channel utilization rate with a priority channel framework that divides the satellite channels between priority channels for emergency calls and non-priority channels that can be available for emergency or general use. Simulations of this priority channel framework showed that it increased the satellite system's channel utilization rate, while continuing to ensure emergency call connection [3]. These simulations showed that the STICS with a priority channel framework can provide efficient channel utilization and still be expected to provide a valuable secondary measure to ensure emergency communications in areas with clustered non-functional base stations during large-scale disasters.

  • Effect of Load-Balancing against Disaster Congestion with Actual Subscriber Extension Telephone Numbers

    Daisuke SATOH  Hiromichi KAWANO  Yoshiyuki CHIBA  

     
    PAPER

      Page(s):
    1637-1646

    We demonstrated that load balancing using actual subscriber extension numbers was practical and effective against traffic congestion after a disaster based on actual data. We investigated the ratios of the same subscriber extension numbers in each prefecture and found that most of them were located almost evenly all over the country without being concentrated in a particular area. The ratio of every number except for the fourth-last digit in the last group of four numbers in a telephone number was used almost equally and located almost evenly all over the country. Tolerance against overload in the last, second-, and third-last single digits stays close to that in the ideal situation if we assume that each session initiation protocol server has a capacity in accordance with the ratio of each number on every single digit in the last group of four numbers in Japan. Although tolerance against overload in double-, triple-, and quadruple-digit numbers does not stay close to that in the ideal situation, it still remains sufficiently high in the case of double- and triple-digit numbers. Although tolerance against overload in the quadruple-digit numbers becomes low, disaster congestion is still not likely to occur in almost half of the area of Japan (23 out of 47 prefectures).

  • Using Pulse/Tone Signals as an Alternative to Boost Channel Reservation on Directional Communications

    Lucas DE M. GUIMARÃES  Jacir L. BORDIM  Koji NAKANO  

     
    PAPER

      Page(s):
    1647-1656

    Directional communications have been considered as a feasible alternative to improve spatial division and throughput in mobile communication environments. In general, directional MAC protocols proposed in the literature rely on channel reservation based on control frames, such as RTS/CTS. Notwithstanding, channel reservation based on control frames increases latency and has an impact on the network throughput. The main contribution of this paper is to propose a channel reservation technique based on pulse/tone signals. The proposed scheme, termed directional pulse/tone channel reservation (DPTCR), allows for efficient channel reservation without resorting to control frames such as RTS and CTS. Theoretical and empirical results show that the proposed scheme has a low probability of failure while providing significant throughput gains. The results show that DPTCR is able to provide throughput improvement up to 158% higher as compared to traditional channel reservation employing RTS/CTS frames.

  • Design of Two-Way Relay Network Using Space-Time Block Coded Network Coding with Relay Selection

    Xuan Nam TRAN  Van Bien PHAM  Duc Hiep VU  Yoshio KARASAWA  

     
    PAPER

      Page(s):
    1657-1666

    This paper presents the design of an ad hoc two-way two-hop relay network using physical-layer network coding (PNC) in which multiple antennas are used at all nodes. In the considered network, the Alamouti's space-time block code (STBC) is used for transmission while linear detection is used for signal recovery. In order to facilitate linear estimation, we develop an equivalent multiuser STBC model for the proposed network and design the sum-and-difference matrix which allows convenient combination of the transmitted symbols from the end nodes. In addition, a simple relay selection method based on minimum mean square error (MSE) is proposed for performance improvement. Simulation results show that the proposed network achieves diversity order 2 while requiring only polynomial complexity. Moreover, it is possible to achieve significant bit error rate (BER) performance improvement when the proposed relay selection algorithm is used.

  • Proposal and Realistic Evaluation of a New Routing Algorithm for a Regional Protection System

    Hikofumi SUZUKI  Shinichi KARASAWA  David ASANO  Yasushi FUWA  

     
    LETTER

      Page(s):
    1667-1670

    A regional protection system based on a wireless Ad-Hoc network has been in operation since 2008 in Shiojiri City, Japan. Wireless terminals transmit data packets to a server via transponders situated around the city. In this paper, a new routing algorithm that takes into account the level of congestion of the transponders is proposed. Using computer simulations, the proposed algorithm is shown to reduce the packet loss rate compared to the previous algorithm which is based on minimization of the number of hops to the server. Also, the proposed algorithm is shown be have almost the same packet loss rate as the best routing decisions obtained by an exhaustive search. Furthermore, the simulations used recreate the actual movement of terminals, so the results show what will happen in a realistic environment.

  • A Survey on the Audible Quality of Outdoor Public Address Speakers for the Disaster Reduction Broadcasting System in the Central Area of Ishinomaki City

    Shosuke SATO  Masaharu NAKAGAWA  Masahiro IWASAKI  Fumihiko IMAMURA  

     
    LETTER

      Page(s):
    1671-1673

    In the case of a disaster such as an earthquake or a tsunami, the city, town, and village administration usually issues an evacuation advisory and other information through the Outdoor Public Address Speakers for the disaster reduction broadcasting system covering its area of jurisdiction. However, in areas those have previous experience of a disaster, people frequently voice the lack of audibility of the disaster reduction broadcast. In this research, we conducted a questionnaire survey on the residents in the central area of Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture, who are the victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster, on the audible quality of outdoor public address (PA) speakers of the disaster reduction broadcasting system so as to understand the current state of such broadcasts and to propose ideal methods of sending and receiving information at the time of a future disaster.

  • Development of “WBS Manager” to Design Disaster Response Plan

    Munenari INOGUCHI  Keiko TAMURA  Haruo HAYASHI  

     
    LETTER

      Page(s):
    1674-1675

    Local governments usually designed disaster response plan by themselves in order to overcome disasters. In previous research, we developed the effective analysis method for disaster response which is “BFD (Business Flow Diagram)”. In this research, in order to improve effect of BFD analysis, we designed and developed WBS Manager focusing on the process of WBS development which is a part of BFD analysis, because WBS development is fundamental process of BFD method. Especially we developed WBS Manager as web-based application, and implemented it to actual studies at local governments in planning their disaster response operations. In this paper, we introduced the overview of WBS Manager.

  • Hybrid TOA/AOA Geometrical Positioning Schemes Using Linear Lines of Position for Mobile Location

    Chien-Sheng CHEN  

     
    LETTER

      Page(s):
    1676-1679

    To achieve more accurate measurements of the mobile station (MS) location, it is possible to integrate many kinds of measurements. In this paper we proposed several hybrid methods that utilized time of arrival (TOA) at seven base stations (BSs) and the angle of arrival (AOA) information at the serving BS to give location estimation of the MS in non-line-of-sight (NLOS) environments. Rather than applying the nonlinear circular lines of position (LOP), the proposed methods are easier by using linear LOP to determine the MS. In addition, the proposed methods can mitigate the NLOS effect, simply by applying the weighted sum of the intersections between different linear LOP and the AOA line, without requiring priori knowledge of NLOS error statistics. Simulation results show that the proposed methods can always yield superior performance in comparison with Taylor series algorithm (TSA) and the hybrid lines of position algorithm (HLOP) and the previous proposed methods employing circular LOP.

  • Special Section on Image Media Quality
  • FOREWORD

    Kenji SUGIYAMA  

     
    FOREWORD

      Page(s):
    1680-1680
  • Selective Attention Mechanisms for Visual Quality Assessment

    Ulrich ENGELKE  

     
    INVITED PAPER

      Page(s):
    1681-1688

    Selective visual attention is an integral mechanism of the human visual system that is often neglected when designing perceptually relevant image and video quality metrics. Disregarding attention mechanisms assumes that all distortions in the visual content impact equally on the overall quality perception, which is typically not the case. Over the past years we have performed several experiments to study the effect of visual attention on quality perception. In addition to gaining a deeper scientific understanding of this matter, we were also able to use this knowledge to further improve various quality prediction models. In this article, I review our work with the aim to increase awareness on the importance of visual attention mechanisms for the effective design of quality prediction models.

  • Objective Estimation Methods for the Quality of HDR Images and Their Evaluation with Subjective Assessment

    Hirofumi TAKANO  Naoyuki AWANO  Kenji SUGIYAMA  

     
    PAPER

      Page(s):
    1689-1695

    High dynamic range (HDR) images that include large differences in brightness levels are studied to address the lack of knowledge on the quality estimation method for real HDR images. For this, we earlier proposed a new metric, the independent signal-to-noise ratio (ISNR), using the independent pixel value as the signal instead of the peak value (PSNR). Next, we proposed the local peak signal-to-noise ratio (LPSNR), using the maximum value of neighboring pixels, as an improved version. However, these methods did not sufficiently consider human perception. To address this issue, here we proposed an objective estimation method that considers spatial frequency characteristics based on the actual brightness. In this method, the approximated function for human characteristics is calculated and used as a 2D filter on an FFT for spatial frequency weighting. In order to confirm the usefulness of this objective estimation method, we compared the results of the objective estimation with a subjective assessment. We used the organic EL display which has a perfect contrast ratio for the subjective assessment. The results of experiments showed that perceptual weighting improves the correlation between the SNR and MOS of the subjective assessment. It is recognized that the weighted LPSNR gives the best correlation.

  • 3D CG Image Quality Metrics by Regions with 8 Viewpoints Parallax Barrier Method

    Norifumi KAWABATA  Masaru MIYAO  

     
    PAPER

      Page(s):
    1696-1708

    Many previous studies on image quality assessment of 3D still images or video clips have been conducted. In particular, it is important to know the region in which assessors are interested or on which they focus in images or video clips, as represented by the ROI (Region of Interest). For multi-view 3D images, it is obvious that there are a number of viewpoints; however, it is not clear whether assessors focus on objects or background regions. It is also not clear on what assessors focus depending on whether the background region is colored or gray scale. Furthermore, while case studies on coded degradation in 2D or binocular stereoscopic videos have been conducted, no such case studies on multi-view 3D videos exist, and therefore, no results are available for coded degradation according to the object or background region in multi-view 3D images. In addition, in the case where the background region is gray scale or not, it was not revealed that there were affection for gaze point environment of assessors and subjective image quality. In this study, we conducted experiments on the subjective evaluation of the assessor in the case of coded degradation by JPEG coding of the background or object or both in 3D CG images using an eight viewpoint parallax barrier method. Then, we analyzed the results statistically and classified the evaluation scores using an SVM.

  • Perceptually Optimized Missing Texture Reconstruction via Neighboring Embedding

    Takahiro OGAWA  Miki HASEYAMA  

     
    PAPER

      Page(s):
    1709-1717

    Perceptually optimized missing texture reconstruction via neighboring embedding (NE) is presented in this paper. The proposed method adopts the structural similarity (SSIM) index as a measure for representing texture reconstruction performance of missing areas. This provides a solution to the problem of previously reported methods not being able to perform perceptually optimized reconstruction. Furthermore, in the proposed method, a new scheme for selection of the known nearest neighbor patches for reconstruction of target patches including missing areas is introduced. Specifically, by monitoring the SSIM index observed by the proposed NE-based reconstruction algorithm, selection of known patches optimal for the reconstruction becomes feasible even if target patches include missing pixels. The above novel approaches enable successful reconstruction of missing areas. Experimental results show improvement of the proposed method over previously reported methods.

  • Constrained Weighted Least Square Filter for Chrominance Recovery of High Resolution Compressed Image

    Takamichi MIYATA  Tomonobu YOSHINO  Sei NAITO  

     
    PAPER

      Page(s):
    1718-1726

    Ultra high definition (UHD) imaging systems have attracted much attention as a next generation television (TV) broadcasting service and video streaming service. However, the state of the art video coding standards including H.265/HEVC has not enough compression rate for streaming, broadcasting and storing UHD. Existing coding standard such as H.265/HEVC normaly use RGB-YCbCr color transform before compressing RGB color image since that procedure can decorrelate color components well. However, there is room for improvement on the coding efficiency for color image based on an observation that the luminance and chrominance components changes in same locations. This observation inspired us to propose a new post-processing method for compressed images by using weighted least square (WLS) filter with coded luminance component as a guide image, for refining the edges of chrominance components. Since the computational cost of WLS tends to superlinearly increase with increasing image size, it is difficult to apply it to UHD images. To overcome this problem, we propose slightly overlapped block partitioning and a new variant of WLS (constrained WLS, CWLS). Experimental results of objective quality comparison and subjective assessment test using 4K images show that our proposed method can outperform the conventional method and reduce the bit amount for chrominance component drastically with preserving the subjective quality.

  • Offline Vehicle Detection at Night Using Center Surround Extremas

    Naoya KOSAKA  Ryota OGURA  Gosuke OHASHI  

     
    PAPER

      Page(s):
    1727-1734

    Recently, Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) are being researched and developed briskly. As a part of ITS, detecting vehicles from images taken by a camera loaded on a vehicle are conducted. From such backgrounds, authors have been conducting vehicle detection in nighttime. To evaluate the accuracy of this detection, gold standards of the detection are required. At present, gold standards are created manually, but manually detecting vehicles take time. Accordingly, a system which detects vehicles accurately without human help is needed to evaluate the accuracy of the vehicle detection in real time. Therefore the purpose of this study is to automatically detect vehicles in nighttime images, taken by an in-vehicle camera, with high accuracy in offline processing. To detect vehicles we focused on the brightness of the headlights and taillights, because it is difficult to detect vehicles from their shape in nighttime driving scenes. The method we propose uses Center Surround Extremas, called CenSurE for short, to detect blobs. CenSurE is a method that uses the difference in brightness between the lights and the surroundings. However, blobs obtained by CenSurE will also include objects other than headlights and taillights. For example, streetlights and delineators would be detected. To distinguish such blobs, they are tracked in inverse time and vehicles are detected using tags based on the characteristics of each object. Although every object appears from the same point in forward time process, each object appears from different places in images in inverse time processing, allowing it to track and tag blobs easily. To evaluate the effectiveness of this proposed method, experiment of detecting vehicles was conducted using nighttime driving scenes taken by a camera loaded on a vehicle. Experimental results of the proposed method were nearly equivalent to manual detection.

  • Human Detection Method Based on Non-Redundant Gradient Semantic Local Binary Patterns

    Jiu XU  Ning JIANG  Wenxin YU  Heming SUN  Satoshi GOTO  

     
    PAPER

      Page(s):
    1735-1742

    In this paper, a feature named Non-Redundant Gradient Semantic Local Binary Patterns (NRGSLBP) is proposed for human detection as a modified version of the conventional Semantic Local Binary Patterns (SLBP). Calculations of this feature are performed for both intensity and gradient magnitude image so that texture and gradient information are combined. Moreover, and to the best of our knowledge, non-redundant patterns are adopted on SLBP for the first time, allowing better discrimination. Compared with SLBP, no additional cost of the feature dimensions of NRGSLBP is necessary, and the calculation complexity is considerably smaller than that of other features. Experimental results on several datasets show that the detection rate of our proposed feature outperforms those of other features such as Histogram of Orientated Gradient (HOG), Histogram of Templates (HOT), Bidirectional Local Template Patterns (BLTP), Gradient Local Binary Patterns (GLBP), SLBP and Covariance matrix (COV).

  • Estimation of Subjective Image Quality for Combinations of Display Physical Factors Based on the Mahalanobis-Taguchi System

    Yusuke AMANO  Gosuke OHASHI  Shogo MORI  Kazuya SAWADA  Takeshi HOSHINO  Yoshifumi SHIMODAIRA  

     
    LETTER

      Page(s):
    1743-1746

    The present study proposes a method for estimation of subjective image quality, for combinations of display physical factors, based on the Mahalanobis-Taguchi system in the field of quality engineering. The proposed method estimates subjective image quality by the estimated equation based on the Mahalanobis-Taguchi System and subjective evaluation experiments using the method of successive categories for images of which parameters are combinations of gamma, maximum luminance and minimum luminance. The estimated image quality is in good agreement with the experimental subjective image quality.

  • Blind Compressive Sensing Detection of Watermark Coded by Limited-Random Sequence

    Chao ZHANG  Jialuo XIAO  Yaxin ZHANG  

     
    LETTER

      Page(s):
    1747-1750

    Due to the fact that natural images are approximately sparse in Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) or wavelet basis, the Compressive Sensing (CS) can be employed to decode both the host image and watermark with zero error, despite not knowing the host image. In this paper, Limited-Random Sequence (LRS) matrix is utilized to implement the blind CS detection, which benefits from zero error and lower complexity. The performance in Bit Error Rate (BER) and error-free detection probability confirms the validity and efficiency of the proposed scheme.

  • Regular Section
  • Underwater Radiated Signal Analysis in the Modulation Spectrogram Domain

    Hyunjin CHO  Junseok LIM  Bonhwa KU  Myoungjun CHEONG  Iksu SEO  Hanseok KO  Wooyoung HONG  

     
    PAPER-Engineering Acoustics

      Page(s):
    1751-1759

    Passive SONAR receives a mixed form of signal that is a combination of continuous and discrete line-component spectrum signals. The conventional algorithms, DEMON and LOFAR, respectively target each type of signal, but do not consider the other type of signal also present in the practical environment. Thus when features from two types of signals are presented at the same time, analysis results may cause confusion. In this paper, we propose an integrated analysis algorithm for underwater signals using the modulation spectrogram domain. The proposed domain presents the visual difference between the different types of signal, and therefore can prevent confusion that would otherwise be feasible. Moreover, the proposed algorithm is more efficient than multiband DEMON in terms of computation complexity, while in colored ambient noise environment, it has similar performance to conventional DEMON and LOFAR. We prove the validity of the proposed algorithm through the relevant experiments with synthesized signal and actual underwater recordings.

  • Partial Encryption Method That Enhances MP3 Security

    Twe Ta OO  Takao ONOYE  Kilho SHIN  

     
    PAPER-Digital Signal Processing

      Page(s):
    1760-1768

    The MPEG-1 layer-III compressed audio format, which is widely known as MP3, is the most popular for audio distribution. However, it is not equipped with security features to protect the content from unauthorized access. Although encryption ensures content security, the naive method of encrypting the entire MP3 file would destroy compliance with the MPEG standard. In this paper, we propose a low-complexity partial encryption method that is embedded during the MP3 encoding process. Our method reduces time consumption by encrypting only the perceptually important parts of an MP3 file rather than the whole file, and the resulting encrypted file is still compatible with the MPEG standard so as to be rendered by any existing MP3 players. For full-quality rendering, decryption using the appropriate cryptographic key is necessary. Moreover, the effect of encryption on audio quality can be flexibly controlled by adjusting the percentage of encryption. On the basis of this feature, we can realize the try-before-purchase model, which is one of the important business models of Digital Rights Management (DRM): users can render encrypted MP3 files for trial and enjoy the contents in original quality by purchasing decryption keys. From our experiments, it turns out that encrypting 2-10% of MP3 data suffices to generate trial music, and furthermore file size increasing after encryption is subtle.

  • An Energy Efficient Time-Frequency Transformation of Chirp Signals in Multipath Channels for MUSIC-Based TOA Estimation

    Sangdeok KIM  Jong-Wha CHONG  

     
    PAPER-Digital Signal Processing

      Page(s):
    1769-1776

    Range estimation based on time of arrival (TOA) is becoming increasingly important with the emergence of location-based applications and next-generation location-aware wireless sensor networks. For radar and positioning systems, chirp signals have primarily been used due to their inborn signal properties for decomposition. Recently, chirp signal has been selected as the baseline standard of ISO/IEC 24730-5 and IEEE 802.15.4a in 2.4GHz, organized for the development of a real-time accurate positioning system. When estimating the TOA of the received signals in multipath channel, the super-resolution algorithms, known as estimation of signal parameters via rotational invariance techniques (ESPRIT), multiple signal classification method (MUSIC) and matrix pencil (MP), are preferred due to their superiority in decomposing the received paths. For the super-resolution algorithm-based TOA estimation of chirp signals, the received chirp signals must be transformed into a sinusoidal form for the super-resolution algorithm. The conventional transformation, the de-chirping technique, changes the received chirp signals to sinusoids so that the super-resolution algorithms can estimate the TOA of the received chirp signals through a frequency estimation of the transformed sinusoids. In practice, the initial timing synchronizer at receiver tries to find the maximum energy point at which the received paths are overlapped maximally. At this time, the conventional de-chirping yields lossy transformed sinusoids for the first arrival path from the received samples synchronized to the maximum energy point. The first arrival path is not involved in the transformed sinusoids with the conventional transformation, leading to performance degradation. However, the proposed energy efficient time-frequency transformation achieves lossless transformation by using the extended reference chirp signals. The proposed transformation is incorporated with MUSIC-based TOA estimation. The effectiveness of the proposed transformation is analyzed and verified. The root mean squared error (RMSE) of the proposed transformation is compared with Cramer-Rao lower bound and those for the conventional algorithms such as super-resolution, ESPRIT and matrix pencil algorithm in multipath channel.

  • Improvement of the Solving Performance by the Networking of Particle Swarm Optimization

    Tomoyuki SASAKI  Hidehiro NAKANO  Arata MIYAUCHI  Akira TAGUCHI  

     
    PAPER-Nonlinear Problems

      Page(s):
    1777-1786

    This paper presents a particle swarm optimization network (PSON) to improve the search capability of PSO. In PSON, multi-PSOs are connected for the purpose of communication. A variety of network topology can be realized by varying the number of connected PSOs of each PSO. The solving performance and convergence speed can be controlled by changing the network topology. Furthermore, high parallelism is can be realized by assigning PSO to single processor. The stability condition analysis and performance of PSON are shown.

  • Hardware Architecture of the Fast Mode Decision Algorithm for H.265/HEVC

    Wenjun ZHAO  Takao ONOYE  Tian SONG  

     
    PAPER-VLSI Design Technology and CAD

      Page(s):
    1787-1795

    In this paper, a specified hardware architecture of the Fast Mode Decision (FMD) algorithms presented by our previous work is proposed. This architecture is designed as an embedded mode dispatch module. On the basis of this module, some unnecessary modes can be skipped or the mode decision process can be terminated in advanced. In order to maintain a higher compatibility, the FMD algorithms are unitedly designed as an unique module that can be easily embedded into a common video codec for H.265/HEVC. The input and output interfaces between the proposed module and other parts of the codec are designed based on simple but effective protocol. Hardware synthesis results on FPGA demonstrate that the proposed architecture achieves a maximum frequency of about 193 MHz with less than 1% of the total resources consumed. Moreover, the proposed module can improve the overall throughput.

  • TherWare: Thermal-Aware Placement and Routing Framework for 3D FPGAs with Location-Based Heat Balance

    Ya-Shih HUANG  Han-Yuan CHANG  Juinn-Dar HUANG  

     
    PAPER-VLSI Design Technology and CAD

      Page(s):
    1796-1805

    The emerging three-dimensional (3D) technology is considered as a promising solution for achieving better performance and easier heterogeneous integration. However, the thermal issue becomes exacerbated primarily due to larger power density and longer heat dissipation paths. The thermal issue would also be critical once FPGAs step into the 3D arena. In this article, we first construct a fine-grained thermal resistive model for 3D FPGAs. We show that merely reducing the total power consumption and/or minimizing the power density in vertical direction is not enough for a thermal-aware 3D FPGA backend (placement and routing) flow. Then, we propose our thermal-aware backend flow named TherWare considering location-based heat balance. In the placement stage, TherWare not only considers power distribution of logic tiles in both lateral and vertical directions but also minimizes the interconnect power. In the routing stage, TherWare concentrates on overall power minimization and evenness of power distribution at the same time. Experimental results show that TherWare can significantly reduce the maximum temperature, the maximum temperature gradient, and the temperature deviation only at the cost of a minor increase in delay and runtime as compared with present arts.

  • Practical Effect of the Predictability of Android OpenSSL PRNG

    Soo Hyeon KIM  Daewan HAN  Dong Hoon LEE  

     
    PAPER-Cryptography and Information Security

      Page(s):
    1806-1813

    The built-in Pseudo Random Number Generator (PRNG) of OpenSSL on Android platform is important for producing the encryption keys and nonce needed for SSL/TLS communication. In addition, it is also widely used in generating random numbers for many applications irrelevant to SSL. We demonstrated that the initial OpenSSL PRNG state of Android apps can be restored practically, and claimed that a PreMasterSecret (PMS) can be recovered in certain apps using the RSA key agreement scheme at CCS2013. In this paper, we investigate more deeply the practical effect of the predictability of OpenSSL PRNG. First, we precisely analyze, and reduce the complexity of a PMS recovery attack on SSL with the RSA key exchange by analyzing the ASLR mechanism of Android. As a result, we show that the PMS can be recovered in O(246) computations with a probability of 25%. Next, we show that the attack is also applicable to the PMS of the ECDH key exchange by analyzing the heap memory pattern. We confirmed experimentally that the PMS can be recovered in real-time with a probability of 20%. Finally, we show the relation between the predictability of OpenSSL PRNG and the vulnerability of Android SecureRandom java class.

  • Note on Some Recent Cheater Identifiable Secret Sharing Schemes

    Rui XU  Kirill MOROZOV  Tsuyoshi TAKAGI  

     
    PAPER-Cryptography and Information Security

      Page(s):
    1814-1819

    Harn and Lin proposed an algorithm to detect and identify cheaters in Shamir's secret sharing scheme in the journal Designs, Codes and Cryptography, 2009. In particular, their algorithm for cheater identification is inefficient. We point out that some of their conditions for cheater detection and identification essentially follow from those on error detection/correction of Reed-Solomon codes, which have efficient decoding algorithms, while some other presented conditions turn out to be incorrect. The extended and improved version of the above mentioned scheme was recently presented at the conference International Computer Symposium 2012 (and the journal version appeared in the journal IET Information Security). The new scheme, which is ideal (i.e. the share size is equal to that of the secret), attempts to identify cheaters from minimal number of shares (i.e. the threshold of them). We show that the proposed cheater identification is impossible using the arguments from coding theory.

  • SURE-LET Poisson Denoising with Multiple Directional LOTs

    Zhiyu CHEN  Shogo MURAMATSU  

     
    PAPER-Image

      Page(s):
    1820-1828

    This paper proposes a Poisson denoising method with a union of directional lapped orthogonal transforms (DirLOTs). DirLOTs are 2-D non-separable lapped orthogonal transforms with directional characteristics under the fixed-critically-subsampling, overlapping, orthonormal, symmetric, real-valued and compact-support property. In this work, DirLOTs are used to generate symmetric orthogonal discrete wavelet transforms and then a redundant dictionary as a union of unitary transforms. The multiple directional property is suitable for representing natural images which contain diagonal textures and edges. Multiple DirLOTs can overcome a disadvantage of separable wavelets in representing diagonal components. In addition to this feature, multiple DirLOTs make transform-based denoising performance better through the redundant representation. Experimental results show that the combination of the variance stabilizing transformation (VST), Stein's unbiased risk estimator-linear expansion of threshold (SURE-LET) approach and multiple DirLOTs is able to significantly improve the denoising performance.

  • Analysis of the Convexity of Iterative Maximum Likelihood Methods for DOA Estimation

    Liang LIU  Ping WEI  Hong Shu LIAO  

     
    LETTER-Digital Signal Processing

      Page(s):
    1829-1833

    In this letter, a new analysis technique for finding the convexity of iterative maximum likelihood (IML) methods for direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation is presented. The proposed technique can pave the way in avoiding the local solution when the IML methods are utilized to estimate DOA, especially for the scenarios of array with large antennas. From the derivation, we can see that as long as the initial DOA belongs to the approximate convex range estimated by our proposed technique, the IML methods can estimate the DOA very well without entering into local minima, which is particularly true for the large arrays. Furthermore, numerical experiments show us the results tallied well with our theoretical derivations.

  • Output Amplification Feedback Control of an Input-Delayed Chain of Integrators under General Sensor Noise

    Ho-Lim CHOI  

     
    LETTER-Systems and Control

      Page(s):
    1834-1837

    We consider a chain of integrators system that has an uncertain delay in the input. Also, there is a measurement noise in the feedback channel that only noisy output is available. We develop a new output feedback control scheme along with amplification such that the ultimate bounds of all states and output of the controlled system can be made arbitrarily small. We note that the condition imposed on the sensor noise is quite general over the existing results such that the sensor noise is uncertain and is only required to be bounded by a known bound. The benefit of our control method is shown via an example.

  • Graph Isomorphism Completeness for Trapezoid Graphs

    Asahi TAKAOKA  

     
    LETTER-Graphs and Networks

      Page(s):
    1838-1840

    The complexity of the graph isomorphism problem for trapezoid graphs has been open over a decade. This paper shows that the problem is GI-complete. More precisely, we show that the graph isomorphism problem is GI-complete for comparability graphs of partially ordered sets with interval dimension 2 and height 3. In contrast, the problem is known to be solvable in polynomial time for comparability graphs of partially ordered sets with interval dimension at most 2 and height at most 2.

  • Simple Derivation of the Lifetime and the Distribution of Faces for a Binary Subdivision Model

    Yukio HAYASHI  

     
    LETTER-Graphs and Networks

      Page(s):
    1841-1844

    The iterative random subdivision of rectangles is used as a generation model of networks in physics, computer science, and urban planning. However, these researches were independent. We consider some relations in them, and derive fundamental properties for the average lifetime depending on birth-time and the balanced distribution of rectangle faces.

  • Skew Cyclic Codes over $mathbb{F}_{q}+vmathbb{F}_{q}+v^{2}mathbb{F}_{q}$

    Minjia SHI  Ting YAO  Adel ALAHMADI  Patrick SOLÉ  

     
    LETTER-Coding Theory

      Page(s):
    1845-1848

    In this article, we study skew cyclic codes over $R=mathbb{F}_{q}+vmathbb{F}_{q}+v^{2}mathbb{F}_{q}$, where $q=p^{m}$, $p$ is an odd prime and v3=v. We describe the generator polynomials of skew cyclic codes over this ring and investigate the structural properties of skew cyclic codes over R by a decomposition theorem. We also describe the generator polynomial of the dual of a skew cyclic code over R. Moreover, the idempotent generators of skew cyclic codes over $mathbb{F}_{q}$ and R are considered.

  • A Simple Dispersion Matrix Design Method for Generalized Space-Time Shift Keying

    Cheng CHEN  Lei WANG  ZhiGang CHEN  GuoMei ZHANG  

     
    LETTER-Coding Theory

      Page(s):
    1849-1853

    In this letter, a simple dispersion matrix design method for generalized space-time shift keying is presented, in which the dispersion matrices are systematically constructed with cyclic identity matrix, without the need of computer search. The proposed scheme is suitable for any number of transmit antennas greater than two, and can achieve the transmit diversity order of two except two special cases. Simulation results are presented to verify our theoretical analysis and the performance of the proposed scheme.

  • Service Outage Constrained Outage Probability Minimizing Joint Channel, Power and Rate Allocation for Cognitive Radio Multicast Networks

    Ding XU  Qun LI  

     
    LETTER-Communication Theory and Signals

      Page(s):
    1854-1857

    We propose a joint channel, power and rate allocation scheme to minimize the weighted group outage probability of the secondary users (SUs) in a downlink cognitive radio (CR) multicast network coexisting with a primary network, subject to the service outage constraint as well as the interference power constraint and the transmit power constraint. It is validated by simulation results that, compared to the existing schemes, the proposed scheme achieves lower group outage probability.

  • Simplified Full-Rate Quasi-Orthogonal STBC for 16x16 Massive MIMO in Rayleigh Fading Channels

    Phyu Phyu HAN  Khin Zar Chi WINN  Atul SEWAIWAR  Yeon-Ho CHUNG  

     
    LETTER-Communication Theory and Signals

      Page(s):
    1858-1859

    Although Quasi Orthogonal Space Time Block Code (QOSTBC) is capable of achieving a full rate transmission for more than two transmit antennas, its generation entails a complex algorithm to create the transmission matrix for a very large number of antennas. This paper presents a simplified generation scheme of QOSTBC, which can be generalized to 2k antennas for any positive integer k. In addition, under a realistic massive MIMO with up to 16 transmit and receive antennas, the performance evaluation is conducted. It is verified that the proposed scheme provides significant performance with BPSK and QPSK modulation formats in Rayleigh fading channels.

  • Robust Beamforming for Joint Transceiver Design in K-User Interference Channel over Energy Efficient 5G

    Shidang LI  Chunguo LI  Yongming HUANG  Dongming WANG  Luxi YANG  

     
    LETTER-Communication Theory and Signals

      Page(s):
    1860-1864

    Considering worse-case channel uncertainties, we investigate the robust energy efficient (EE) beamforming design problem in a K-user multiple-input-single-output (MISO) interference channel. Our objective is to maximize the worse-case sum EE under individual transmit power constraints. In general, this fractional programming problem is NP-hard for the optimal solution. To obtain an insight into the problem, we first transform the original problem into its lower bound problem with max-min and fractional form by exploiting the relationship between the user rate and the minimum mean square error (MMSE) and using the min-max inequality. To make it tractable, we transform the problem of fractional form into a subtractive form by using the Dinkelbach transformation, and then propose an iterative algorithm using Lagrangian duality, which leads to the locally optimal solution. Simulation results demonstrate that our proposed robust EE beamforming scheme outperforms the conventional algorithm.

  • Performance Analysis in the High SNR Region for MF in the Downlink of Massive MIMO Systems

    Wence ZHANG  Yan NI  Hong REN  Ming CHEN  Jianxin DAI  

     
    LETTER-Mobile Information Network and Personal Communications

      Page(s):
    1865-1870

    This letter presents performance analysis in the high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) region for matched filter (MF) precoding in single cell Massive MIMO systems. The outage probability function is derived in closed form, and the data rate of each user is also given. We have also presented asymptotic analysis in terms of data rate for MF when the number of users and the number of antennas grow without bounds. The expressions of these analytical results are rather simple and are thus convenient for overall performance evaluation. The simulation results show that the analysis are very accurate.

  • Collaborative Representation Graph for Semi-Supervised Image Classification

    Junjun GUO  Zhiyong LI  Jianjun MU  

     
    LETTER-Image

      Page(s):
    1871-1874

    In this letter, a novel collaborative representation graph based on the local and global consistency label propagation method, denoted as CRLGC, is proposed. The collaborative representation graph is used to reduce the cost time in obtaining the graph which evaluates the similarity of samples. Considering the lacking of labeled samples in real applications, a semi-supervised label propagation method is utilized to transmit the labels from the labeled samples to the unlabeled samples. Experimental results on three image data sets have demonstrated that the proposed method provides the best accuracies in most times when compared with other traditional graph-based semi-supervised classification methods.

  • Locally Important Pattern Clustering Code for Pedestrian Classification

    Young Chul LIM  Minsung KANG  

     
    LETTER-Vision

      Page(s):
    1875-1878

    In this letter, a local pattern coding scheme is proposed to reduce the dimensionality of feature vectors in the local ternary pattern. The proposed method encodes the ternary patterns into a binary pattern by clustering similar ternary patterns. The experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms the previous methods.