Validation of an improved location-based handover algorithm using GSM measurement data

When a mobile station moves, the path loss and shadow fading contribute to the large-scale variation in the received signal strength. The variation of signal strength caused by shadow fadings is a random process, and handover decision mechanisms based on measurements of signal strength induce the "ping-pong effect." This paper proposes an improved handover algorithm, based on the estimates of location and velocity of the mobile station, to suppress the ping-pong effect in cellular systems. A practical approach based on GSM measurement data is used to estimate the location and velocity of mobile station to identify the correlation among shadowing components. The impact of location errors on handover performance was examined, and the proposed handover algorithm was applied to a real GSM system in urban Taipei city. The results indicate that the number of unnecessary handover can be reduced 18-26 percent by the proposed approach compared to the conventional method, while the signal outage probability remains similar. Besides, the computational complexity of the proposed algorithm is low, and the algorithm does not use a database or lookup table.     

Hidden Markov models with first-order equalization for noisy speechrecognition

A particularly effective distortion measure that takes into account the norm shrinkage bias in the noisy cepstrum is considered. A first-order equalization mechanism, specifically aiming at avoiding the norm shrinkage problem, is incorporated in a hidden Markov model (HMM) framework to model the speech cepstral sequence. Such a modeling technique requires special care, as the formulation inevitably involves parameter estimation from a set of data with singular dispersion. Solutions to this HMM stochastic modeling problem are provided, and algorithms for estimating the necessary model parameters are given. It is experimentally shown that incorporation of the first-order mean equalization model makes the HMM-based speech recognizer robust to noise. With respect to a conventional HMM recognizer, this leads to an improvement in recognition performance which is equivalent to a gain of about 15-20 dB in signal-to-noise ratio     

A novel process to form cobalt silicided p+ poly-Sigates by BF2+ implantation into bilayeredCoSi/a-Si films and subsequent anneal

A novel process that implants BF₂⁺ ions into thin bilayered CoSi/a-Si films has been shown to form cobalt silicided p ⁺ poly-Si gates with excellent gate oxide integrity and very small flatband shift. The effects of not only using the CoSi layer as an implantation barrier but also keeping the a-Si underlayer during the initial silicide formation both significantly suppress the boron penetration through thin gate oxide     

On the kinetics of carbon nanotube growth by thermal CVD method

The role of ammonia (NH₃) on obtaining good quality vertically aligned multi-walled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in thermal chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method has been widely studied. It was generally agreed that NH₃ helps to maintain catalyst metal surface active by reacting with amorphous carbon. In this article, a systematic study in varying the temperature and mixing ratio of gases was conducted in order to clarify the role of NH₃ and revealed a criterion for optimized condition window in the growth processes. In addition, this study has also carried out a statistical analysis through intensive TEM observations on the tube diameters, bamboo spacing, and the formation rate of each diaphragm under various temperatures and carbon source/NH₃ ratios. While the formation of the separation diaphragms were indeed a result of bulk diffusion of carbon atoms from bottom of the Ni nanoparticle following thermal dehydrogenization to the top of the Ni nanoparticle, there were other carbon atoms diffusing presumably via surface diffusion to the CNT-metal interface and contributed to the growth of tube wall; in other words, the CNTs growth is simultaneous renucleation and growth processes, instead of a continuous renucleation and growth process. This kinetics-based mechanism in combination with the proposed role of NH₃ could not only successfully explain the effects of the process parameters including temperature and the mixing gas ratio, but also could be used for pursuing the goal of lower growth temperature for thermal CVD method which is very important for many applications of CNTs.     

Curcumin provides potential protection against the activation of hypoxia and prolyl 4-hydroxylase inhibitors on prostate-specific antigen expression in human prostate carcinoma cells

Scope: Prostate‐specific antigen (PSA) is a well‐known marker for diagnosing and monitoring prostate cancer. Curcumin, a yellow curry pigment, has been reported to enhance androgen receptor (AR) degradation. We examined the effects of curcumin on increasing PSA expression by hypoxia and prolyl hydroxylase inhibitors, L ‐mimosine and dimethyloxalylglycine (DMOG), in human prostate carcinoma LNCaP cells. Methods and results: The ³H‐thymidine incorporation assay revealed that either L ‐mimosine or DMOG treatments attenuated cell proliferation. Immunoblot and enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) indicated that both L ‐mimosine and DMOG have an effect similar to hypoxia, which stabilized hypoxia‐inducible factor‐1α (HIF‐1α) and induced PSA gene expression. The results of the immunoblot and transient gene expression assays indicated that induction of the PSA expression by hypoxia is both HIF‐1α‐ and AR‐dependent. Immunoblot assays revealed that a curcumin treatment (10 μM) decreased the protein abundance of AR but did not significantly affect the protein levels of HIF‐1α and vascular endothelial growth factor, which were induced by hypoxia. ELISA and transient gene expression assays indicated that curcumin blocked the activation of L ‐mimosine or DMOG treatment on PSA expression. Conclusions: These results indicate that curcumin blocked the enhanced effect of PSA expression by L ‐mimosine and DMOG that induce hypoxia condition.     

Submicron-meter tunneling field-effect poly-Si thin-film transistors with a thinned channel layer

Submicron-meter poly-Si tunneling-effect thin-film transistor (TFT) devices with a thinned channel layer have been investigated. With reducing the gate length to be shorter than 1 μm, the poly-Si TFT device with conventional MOSFET structure is considerably degraded. The tunneling field-effect transistor (TFET) structure can be employed to alleviate the short channel effect, thus largely suppressing the off-state leakage. However, for a poly-Si channel layer of 100 nm thickness, the TFET structure causes a small on-state current, which may not provide well sufficient driving current. By reducing the channel layer thickness to be 20 nm, the on-state current for the TFET structure can be largely increased, due to the enhanced bending of energy band for a thinned channel layer. As a result, for the TFET poly-Si TFTs at a gate bias of 5 V and a drain bias of 3 V, a 20-nm channel layer leads to an on-state current of about 1 order larger than that by a 100-nm channel layer, while still keeping an off-state leakage smaller than 0.1 pA/μm. Accordingly, the submicron-meter TFET poly-Si TFT devices with a thinned channel layer would show good feasibility for implementing high packing density of poly-Si TFT devices.     

Fast computation of achievable feedback performance in mixed sensitivityH^{∞}design

The computational bottleneck of theH^{infty}design has been recognized to be the "ε-iteration," a computationally demanding direct search of the minimum achievableH^{infty}performance. Verma and Jonckheere showed that the optimalH^{infty}performance can be characterized as the spectral radius of the so-called "Toeplitz plus Hankel" operator. Even before the appearance of the "Toeplitz plus Hankel" operator in theH^{infty}setting, the same operator had already been shown to play a crucial role in the spectral theory of the linear-quadratic problem developed by Jonckheere and Silverman. In this paper, we exploit this common "Toeplitz plus Hankel" operator structure shared by the seemingly unrelated linear-quadratic andH^{infty}problems, and we construct fast state-space algorithms for evaluating the spectral radius of the "Toeplitz plus Hankel" operator. The salient feature of the algorithm is that the spectral radius can be evaluated, with an accuracy predicted by an identifiable error bound, from the antistabilizing solution of the algebraic Riccati equation of the linear-quadratic problem associated with theHinftydesign.     

Endocrinological aspects of Langerhans cell histiocytosis complicated with diabetes insipidus

Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH) is a rare disorder and may be complicated with hypopituitarism and diabetes insipidus (DI) due to invasion of the hypothalamic-pituitary area. In this study, 10 patients with complete (4) and partial (6) type central DI were found among 125 LCH patients in our hospital records. The water deprivation test, followed by the pitressin test, was performed to confirm DI. Hypothalamic-pituitary endocrine function tests were carried out on these 10 patients at the initial diagnosis and during follow-up. All patients revealed growth hormone insufficiency in the insulin hypoglycemic tolerance test. Four patients had impairment of cortisol secretion, demonstrated by insulin hypoglycemic stimulating test results. Two patients had poor response in the thyrotropin releasing hormone stimulating test. Two patients had only partial responses in the luteinizing hormone releasing hormone test. Four patients had hyperprolactinemia. All patients underwent surgical treatment followed by chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy. One patient completely recovered from the endocrine disorder, 3 patients required smaller doses of desmopressin, and one patient had normal adrenal, thyroid, and gonadal function. Hypothalamic-pituitary disorders in LCH should not be neglected. Treatment of LCH can partially or completely reverse associated endocrine disorders. Therefore, endocrine studies and hormone replacement should be mandatory for patients with LCH.     

Formal control techniques for power-performance management

These techniques determine when to speed up a processor to reach performance targets and when to slow it down to save energy. They use dynamic voltage and frequency scaling to balance speed and avoid worst case frequency limitations for both multiple-clock-domain and chip multiprocessors.