Enhancing impedance imaging through multimodal tomography

Several noninvasive modalities including electrical impedance tomography (EIT), magnetic induction tomography (MIT), and induced-current EIT (ICEIT) have been developed for imaging the electrical conductivity distribution within a human body. Although these modalities differ in how the excitation and detection circuitry (electrodes or coils) are implemented, they share a number of common principles not only within the image reconstruction approaches but also with respect to the basic principle of generating a current density distribution inside a body and recording the resultant electric fields. In this paper, we are interested in comparing differences between these modalities and in theoretically understanding the compromises involved, despite the increased hardware cost and complexity that such a multimodal system brings along. To systematically assess the merits of combining data, we performed 3-D simulations for each modality and for the multimodal system by combining all available data. The normalized sensitivity matrices were computed for each modality based on the finite element method, and singular value decomposition was performed on the resultant matrices. We used both global and regional quality measures to evaluate and compare different modalities. This study has shown that the condition number of the sensitivity matrix obtained from the multimodal tomography with 16-electrode and 16-coil is much lower than the condition number produced in the conventional 16-channel EIT and MIT systems, and thus, produced promising results in terms of image stability. An improvement of about 20% in image resolution can be achieved considering feasible signal-to-noise ratio levels.     

Modeling of power supply noise in large chips using the circuit-based finite-difference time-domain method

In this paper, a multilayered on-chip power distribution network consisting of two million passive elements has been modeled using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. In this method, a branch capacitor has been used. The use of the branch capacitor is important for simulating multilayered power grids. In addition, a method for including the CMOS inverter characteristics into the FDTD simulation has been presented. As an example of the application of this method, an H-tree clock network was simulated to compute the power supply noise distribution across an entire chip. Various scenarios with varying decoupling capacitances, load capacitances, number of clock buffers, and rise times have been analyzed to demonstrate the importance of circuit nonlinearity on power supply noise. Also, a method has been presented for analyzing package and board planes. Based on the methods presented, the interaction between chip and package has been discussed for capturing the resonant behavior that is otherwise absent when each section of the system is analyzed separately.     

IPTV的关键广播构建模块

电信运营商和电视运营商在为消费者提供视频内容服务上不断展开竞争。然而，与电视运营商相比，大部分电信运营商的基础设施还不具备传输高质量视频所需的带宽。因此，在内容分配上，电信运营商没有使用正交振幅调制（QAM）和MPEG2视频编码等数字调制技术，而是采用了互联网协议（IP）网络，利用MPEG4-Part10（也称为H．264-AVC）等新的编码方案来为消费者提供视频内容。     

Accelerometers and force sensing resistors for optimal control of walking of a hemiplegic

We developed a method for use of accelerometers and force sensing resistors (FSRs) within an optimal controller of walking for hemiplegic individuals. The data from four dual-axis accelerometers and four FSRs were inputs, while six muscle activation profiles were outputs. The controller includes two stages: 1) estimating the target gait pattern using artificial neural networks; and 2) optimal control minimizing tracking errors (from the estimated gait pattern) and muscle efforts. The controller was tested using data collected from six healthy subjects walking at five speeds (0.6–1.4 m/s). The average root mean square errors (RMSEs) normalized by the peak-to-peak value of the target signals [normalized RMSE (NRMSE)] were below 6%, 7%, 8%, and 3% for estimation of joint angles, hip acceleration, ground reaction force, and movement of the center of pressure, respectively. Using the estimated data as inputs, the simulation generated the target healthy-like gait patterns and reproducible muscle activation profiles in 90% of 300 tested gait trials. Overall tracking NRMSE was between 2% and 9%. The optimal controller was developed for testing the feasibility of healthy-like gait patterns in hemiplegic individuals, and generating a knowledge base that is required for the synthesis of a sensory-driven control of walking assisted by functional electrical stimulation.      

Performance analysis of bandwidth allocation strategy with state-dependent Bernoulli access and preemptive priority in wideband integrated networks

In this paper, we study a bandwidth allocation strategy with state-dependent Bernoulli access (SDBA) and preemptive priority (PP) to serve wideband (WB) and narrowband (NB) traffics in wideband integrated networks. In this strategy, total bandwidth is divided into three regions, bandwidth for WB traffic, bandwidth for NB traffic and shared bandwidth. Under this environment, the minimum usable bandwidths for queueable NB traffic are controlled adaptively according to the system states. And the bandwidths used by the NB traffic are probabilistically preempted by a blockable WB traffic, when the number of NB messages waiting in the buffer is varying. The strategy is analyzed using the Neuts' matrix analytic approach. It shows better performance than other schemes which do not use SDBA and PP. In addition, the strategy with multiple buffer thresholds controls bandwidth allocation more dynamically and shows more performance build-up than the strategy with single buffer threshold.     

New look on relay selection strategies for full-duplex multiple-relay NOMA over Nakagami-m fading channels

Wireless Networks - By removing the orthogonal use of radio-resources, non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) has been introduced to improve the spectral efficiency of fifth generation (5G) and...     

Scalable Model of On-Wafer Interconnects for High-Speed CMOS ICs

This paper describes the development of an equivalent circuit model of on-wafer interconnects for high-speed CMOS integrated circuits. By strategically cascading two-pi blocks together, the lumped model can characterize the distributed effects. Besides, the elaborately proposed model characterizes the frequency-variant characteristics with frequency-independent components. Thus, the model can be easily plugged into commercial computer-aided design tools. By adopting a newly invented optimization algorithm, namely, particle swarm optimization (PSO), the model parameters are extracted and formulated as empirical expressions. Therein, with each set of the geometrical parameters, the interconnect behaviors can be accurately predicted. The accuracy of the model is validated by comparisons with the on-wafer measurements up to 30 GHz. Moreover, the scalability of the proposed model is also discussed     

Channel assignment with QoS guarantees for a multiclass multicode CDMA system

In a wireless system that supports multimedia services, each traffic requires different quality of service (QoS) at both communication on radio links and connection admission. We initially derive the uplink capacity satisfying the QoS constraint on radio links in a multiclass multicode code-division multiple-access (CDMA) system. Based on the derived capacity, the number of channel elements, which is one of the system resources, is determined. Then, we define the QoS parameters associated with connection processes. To guarantee the defined QoS at the connection level, under given channel elements, we propose a channel-assignment scheme with dynamic priority adjustment (DPA). The proposed scheme gives multipriority to different traffic classes. Real-time classes can preempt non-real-time classes with restricted preemptive priority. Such restriction is regulated by preemption-free code channels and a buffer threshold for non-real-time classes. Among real-time classes, different priorities are assigned to each traffic class by code reservation parameters. These multipriority parameters are dynamically adjusted in order to guarantee different QoS requirements. We analyze the DPA scheme by the matrix-geometric method, and evaluate the performance of each traffic class. The results show that the proposed scheme flexibly guarantees QoS depending on traffic loading condition and achieves high channel utilization.     

Self‐Healing Reduced Graphene Oxide Films by Supersonic Kinetic Spraying

The industrial scale application of graphene and other functional materials in the field of electronics has been limited by inherent defects, and the lack of simple deposition methods. A simple spray deposition method is developed that uses a supersonic air jet for a commercially available reduced graphene oxide (r‐GO) suspension. The r‐GO flakes are used as received, which are pre‐annealed and pre‐hydrazine‐treated, and do not undergo any post‐treatment. A part of the considerable kinetic energy of the r‐GO flakes entrained by the supersonic jet is used in stretching the flakes upon impact with the substrate. The resulting “frozen elastic strains” heal the defects (topological defects, namely Stone‐Wales defect and C₂ vacancies) in the r‐GO flakes, which is reflected in the reduced ratio of the intensities of the D and G bands in the deposited film. The defects can also be regenerated by annealing.     

Rate-distortion optimized tree-structured compression algorithms for piecewise polynomial images.

This paper presents novel coding algorithms based on tree-structured segmentation, which achieve the correct asymptotic rate-distortion (R-D) behavior for a simple class of signals, known as piecewise polynomials, by using an R-D based prune and join scheme. For the one-dimensional case, our scheme is based on binary-tree segmentation of the signal. This scheme approximates the signal segments using polynomial models and utilizes an R-D optimal bit allocation strategy among the different signal segments. The scheme further encodes similar neighbors jointly to achieve the correct exponentially decaying R-D behavior (D(R) - c(o)2(-c1R)), thus improving over classic wavelet schemes. We also prove that the computational complexity of the scheme is of O(N log N). We then show the extension of this scheme to the two-dimensional case using a quadtree. This quadtree-coding scheme also achieves an exponentially decaying R-D behavior, for the polygonal image model composed of a white polygon-shaped object against a uniform black background, with low computational cost of O(N log N). Again, the key is an R-D optimized prune and join strategy. Finally, we conclude with numerical results, which show that the proposed quadtree-coding scheme outperforms JPEG2000 by about 1 dB for real images, like cameraman, at low rates of around 0.15 bpp.