Adaptive Scanning for H.264/AVC Intra Coding

In this letter, an adaptive scanning that improves intra coding efficiency in the H.264/AVC standard is proposed. The proposed adaptive scanning utilizes the prediction directions (modes) that include the horizontal and vertical edge information in a block. Depending on the prediction directions, the proposed method uses three scanning methods: zigzag scanning, horizontal scanning, and vertical scanning. In the proposed method, horizontal and vertical scanning are used in vertical and horizontal prediction modes, respectively, and the normal zigzag scanning in the H.264 standard is used in all other intra prediction modes. The proposed method reduces the bit rate by approximately 2.5% compared with H.264/AVC, without the degradation of video quality.     

Presence of cork-taint responsible compounds in wines and their cork stoppers

 Chloroanisoles [2,4-dichloroanisole, 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA), 2,3,4,6-tetrachloroanisole and pentachloroanisole], chlorophenols [2,4,6-trichlorophenol, 2,3,4,6-tetrachlorophenol and pentachlorophenol (PCP)] and guaiacol were detected in red and white cork-tainted bottled wines. These compounds were also found in the cork stoppers from those bottles. A significant correlation was found between TCA in wines and TCA in cork stoppers, and between TCA in wine and intensity of cork taint. At low levels of TCA, the presence of guaiacol or PCP were also found to influence in cork taint. Received: 29 November 1999     

Widely tunable multichannel grating cavity laser

A widely tunable grating cavity laser based on the Rowland circle construction for a concave grating is proposed and demonstrated. The device is implemented by employing multichannel array structure in a Littman configuration and fabricated by integrating all elements in an InP substrate. Only one channel is turned on at a time, with coarse tuning realized by selecting the appropriate element in the channel array and fine tuning by controlling the beam deflection provided by dispersive element. An overall tuning range of 50 nm with a sidemode suppression ratio of more than 30 dB has been achieved for the six-channel device.     

Highly manufacturable advanced gate-stack technology for sub-45-nm self-aligned gate-first CMOSFETs

Issues surrounding the integration of Hf-based high-/spl kappa/ dielectrics with metal gates in a conventional CMOS flow are discussed. The careful choice of a gate-stack process as well as optimization of other CMOS process steps enable robust metal/high-/spl kappa/ CMOSFETs with wide process latitude. HfO/sub 2/ of a 2-nm physical thickness shows a very minimal transient charge trapping resulting from kinetically suppressed crystallization. Thickness of metal electrode is also a critical factor to optimize physical-stress effects and minimize dopant diffusion. A high-temperature anneal after source/drain implantation in a conventional CMOSFET process is found to reduce the interface state density and improve the electron mobility. Even though MOSFET process using single midgap metal gate addresses fundamental issues related to implementing metal/high-/spl kappa/ stack, integrating two different metals on the same wafer (i.e., dual metal gate) poses several additional challenges, such as metal gate separation between n- and pMOS and gate-stack dry etch. We demonstrate that a dual metal gate CMOSFET yields high-performance devices even with a conventional gate-first approach if an appropriate metal separation between band-edge metal for nMOS and pMOS is incorporated. Optimization of dry-etch process enables gentle and complete removal of two different metal gate stacks on ultrathin high-/spl kappa/ layer.     

Evolving Best-Response Strategies for Market-Driven Agents Using Aggregative Fitness GA

There are very few existing works that adopt genetic algorithms (GAs) for evolving the most successful strategies for different negotiation situations. Furthermore, these works did not explicitly model the influence of market dynamics. The contribution of this work is developing bargaining agents that can both: 1) react to different market situations by adjusting their amounts of concessions and 2) evolve their best-response strategies for different market situations and constraints using an aggregative fitness GA (AFGA). While many existing negotiation agents only optimize utilities, the AFGA in this work is used to evolve best-response strategies of negotiation agents that optimize their utilities, success rates, and negotiation speed in different market situations. Given different constraints and preferences of agents in optimizing utilities, success rates, and negotiation speed, different best-response strategies can be evolved using the AFGA. A testbed consisting of both: 1) market-driven agents (MDAs)-negotiation agents that make adjustable amounts of concessions taking into account market rivalry, outside options, and time preferences and 2) GA-MDAs-MDAs augmented with an AFGA, was implemented. Empirical results show that GA-MDAs achieved higher utilities, higher success rates, and faster negotiation speed than MDAs in a wide variety of market situations.     

Future mobile devices — an overview of emerging device trends,and the impact on future converged services

Converged services are attractive for both consumers and operators, as they can offer seamless access across a wide range of networks and devices. In order to support convergence, end-user devices must support a minimum set of hardware and software functionality. The growth of innovation within the hardware and software providers for mobile devices has moved us a step closer to such converged services for common, off-the-shelf devices. This paper describes the underlying trends supporting this, and highlights some key areas of focus for the industry. It also considers a case study of implementing a converged voice service on a current converged device. Finally, future developments are considered, including the contribution that different parts of the industry are making to ensure that users can consume converged services on a wide range of devices.     

Emotion recognition using EEG signals with relative power values and Bayesian network

Many researchers use electroencephalograms (EEGs) to study brain activity in the context of seizures, epilepsy, and lie detection. It is desirable to eliminate EEG artifacts to improve signal collection. In this paper, we propose an emotion recognition system for human brain signals using EEG signals. We measure EEG signals relating to emotion, divide them into five frequency ranges on the basis of power spectrum density, and eliminate low frequencies from 0 to 4 Hz to eliminate EEG artifacts. The resulting calculations of the frequency ranges are based on the percentage of the selected range relative to the total range. The calculated values are then compared to standard values from a Bayesian network, calculated from databases. Finally, we show the emotion results as a human face avatar.     

Capacitive humidity sensor design based on anodic aluminum oxide

Capacitive humidity sensors based on anodic aluminum oxide (AAO), a material used as a sensing layer for high sensitivity, were investigated. The AAO film has many nanosized pores, giving it a large surface area for absorbing water vapor. Effects of design factors and heating were investigated. A thick porous layer or big pore diameter increases sensitivity because of increase in contact surface area. An electrode of rectangular spiral-shaped type tends to have a slightly higher hysteresis than the interdigitated type, but the rectangular spiral-shaped type is efficient and sensitive if the hysteresis and nonlinearity are reduced by controlling design factors or heating. Although heating reduced the sensitivity, it improved performance parameters such as nonlinearity, hysteresis, response time and temperature dependence. Also, a porous electrode would show a higher sensitivity than a nonporous electrode because of the larger surface area.     

Resistance switching of the nonstoichiometric zirconium oxide for nonvolatile memory applications

The resistance switching behavior and switching mechanism of nonstoichiometric zirconium oxide thin films were investigated for nonvolatile memory application. The Pt/ZrO/sub x//p/sup +/-Si sandwich structure fabricated by reactive sputtering shows two stable resistance states. By applying proper bias, resistance switching from one to another state can be obtained. The composition in ZrO/sub x/ thin films were confirmed from X-ray photoelectron spectroscope (XPS) analysis, which showed three layers such as top stoichiometric ZrO/sub 2/ layer with high resistance, transition region with medium resistance, and conducting ZrO/sub x/ bulk layer. The resistance switching can be explained by electron trapping and detrapping of excess Zr/sup +/ ions in transition layer which control the distribution of electric field inside the oxide, and, hence the current flow.