Physical-layer secrecy in AWGN via a class of chaotic DS/SS systems: analysis and design

We study a class of pseudo-chaotic spread spectrum systems for secure communication over additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channels, whereby a symbol stream is linearly modulated on a spreading sequence generated by iterating an initial condition through a suitably chosen chaotic map. We compare the uncoded probability of error (Pr(/spl epsiv/)) attainable by intended receivers that know the initial condition to the associated Pr(/spl epsiv/) of unintended receivers that know the modulation scheme but not the initial condition. The sensitive dependence of chaotic sequences on initial conditions, together with the presence of channel noise, can be exploited to provide substantially lower Pr(/spl epsiv/) to intended than to unintended receivers. We develop computationally efficient methods for obtaining tight bounds on the best P r(/spl epsiv/) performance of intended and unintended receivers. In the process, we identify chaotic map attributes that affect the relative Pr(/spl epsiv/) advantages provided to intended receivers and develop methods for designing maps that achieve a target gap between the intended and unintended receiver Pr(/spl epsiv/).     

A new privacy and authentication protocol for end‐to‐end mobile users

In this papecr, we propose a new privacy and authentication scheme for end‐to‐end mobile users. There are three goals in our scheme. The first allows two end‐to‐end mobile users to communicate privately each other. The second allows two end‐to‐end mobile users to distribute a session key simply. The third allows two end‐to‐end mobile users to mutually authenticate. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Wear performance and activity reduction effect of Co-free valves in PWR environment

Co-based hardfacing alloys exposed to PWR primary coolant may be replaced with Co-free alloys to lower occupational radiation exposure. To evaluate the viability of Co-free hardfacing alloys, we conducted hot-water tests for gate valves hardfaced with NOREM™ 02 (Fe-base), Deloro™ 50 (Ni-base), and Stellite™ 6 (Co-base). Using a high flow test loop, on–off cycling tests were conducted in 280 °C water. It was observed that NOREM 02 exhibited galling and excessive leak after 1000 cycle test whereas no leakage was developed with Deloro 50 after 2000 cycles. To estimate the activity reduction effect of Co-free hardfacing alloys, an existing activity transport model was modified. It is found that the main contributor of Co activity buildup is the corrosion of steam generator (SG) tubing. The Korean Next Generation Reactor (APR-1400) tubed with alloy 690 having a reduced cobalt impurity allowance is expected to have 73% lower Co activity on SG surface compared with the case of alloy 600 tubing. The complete replacement of Stellite 6 with Co-free hardfacing alloys is expected to cut additional 5% of activity which may be too small to justify the risk of galling and leakage development as revealed by the hot-water test.     

Dynamic spectrum management for next-generation DSL systems

The performance of DSL systems is severely constrained by crosstalk due to the electromagnetic coupling among the multiple twisted pairs making up a phone cable. In order to reduce performance loss arising from crosstalk, DSL systems are currently designed under the assumption of worst-case crosstalk scenarios leading to overly conservative DSL deployments. This article presents a new paradigm for DSL system design, which takes into account the multi-user aspects of the DSL transmission environment. Dynamic spectrum management (DSM) departs from the current design philosophy by enabling transceivers to autonomously and dynamically optimize their communication settings with respect to both the channel and the transmissions of neighboring systems. Along with this distributed optimization, when an additional degree of coordination becomes available for future DSL deployment, DSM will allow even greater improvement in DSL performance. Implementations are readily applicable without causing any performance degradation to the existing DSLs under static spectrum management. After providing an overview of the DSM concept, this article reviews two practical DSM methods: iterative water-filling, an autonomous distributed power control method enabling great improvement in performance, which can be implemented through software options in some existing ADSL and VDSL systems; and vectored-DMT, a coordinated transmission/reception technique achieving crosstalk-free communication for DSL systems, which brings within reach the dream of providing universal Internet access at speeds close to 100 Mb/s to 500 m on 1-2 lines and beyond 1 km on 2-4 lines. DSM-capable DSL thus enables the broadband age.     

Efficient dc-free RLL codes for optical recording

We report on new dc-free runlength-limited codes (DCRLL) intended for the next generation of DVD. The efficiency of the newly developed DCRLL schemes is extremely close to the theoretical maximum, and as a result, significant density gains can be obtained with respect to prior art coding schemes. With a newly developed DCRLL (d=2) code we can achieve a 9% higher overall rate than that of DVD's EFMPlus.     

Interference of mitral valve stenosis with left ventricular diastole and left atrial appendage flow

Atrial fibrillation (AF) has been reported as an independent risk factor of systemic thromboembolism. Almost half of the left atrial thrombi are located in the left atrial appendage (LAA). LAA function, reflected by LAA flow, thus has an influence on the potential of distal embolic complications. To identify factors other than atrial contraction that influence LAA flow during AF, transthoracic and transesophageal echocardiographic studies were performed on 130 patients. Seventy patients with nonrheumatic AF were divided into two groups with higher peak LAA outflow velocity (group 1) and lower peak LAA outflow velocity (group 2) at the ventricular systolic phase. Sixty patients with rheumatic AF were classified as group 3. Group 1 had a higher peak LAA outflow velocity than group 2 at both the ventricular systolic and diastolic phases. Group 2 had a higher peak LAA outflow at the ventricular diastolic phase than group 3 (18.9 +/- 8.0 vs. 11.8 +/- 7.5 cm/s, p < 0.001), whereas there was no significant difference in the peak LAA outflow at the ventricular systolic phase between the two groups (9.6 +/- 4.0 vs. 10.8 +/- 6.8 cm/s, p = NS). Group 3 was subdivided according to mitral valve area. Patients with severe mitral stenosis (mitral valve area < 1 cm2) had a significantly lower diastolic augmentation of LAA outflow velocity (difference of LAA outflow velocity between ventricle systole and diastole) than patients with mild to moderate stenosis (0.5 +/- 3.2 vs. 2.6 +/- 4.9 cm/s, p < 0.05). In conclusion, patients with rheumatic AF, especially those with severe mitral stenosis, have a lower diastolic augmentation of LAA outflow velocity. The lower diastolic augmentation of the LAA outflow velocity at the ventricular diastolic phase might result from interference with the suction effect of the left ventricular diastole by the stenotic mitral valve.     

Three-dimensional object representation and invariant recognitionusing continuous distance transform neural networks

3D object recognition under partial object viewing is a difficult pattern recognition task. In this paper, we introduce a neural-network solution that is robust to partial viewing of objects and noise corruption. This method directly utilizes the acquired 3D data and requires no feature extraction. The object is first parametrically represented by a continuous distance transform neural network (CDTNN) trained by the surface points of the exemplar object. The CDTNN maps any 3D coordinate into a value that corresponds to the distance between the point and the nearest surface point of the object. Therefore, a mismatch between the exemplar object and an unknown object can be easily computed. When encountered with deformed objects, this mismatch information can be backpropagated through the CDTNN to iteratively determine the deformation in terms of affine transform. Application to 3D heart contour delineation and invariant recognition of 3D rigid-body objects is presented.     

Evaluation of Geometric Modeling for KOMPSAT‐1 EOC Imagery Using Ephemeris Data

Using stereo images with ephemeris data from the Korea Multi‐Purpose Satellite‐1 electro‐optical camera (KOMPSAT‐1 EOC), we performed geometric modeling for three‐dimensional (3‐D) positioning and evaluated its accuracy. In the geometric modeling procedures, we used ephemeris data included in the image header file to calculate the orbital parameters, sensor attitudes, and satellite position. An inconsistency between the time information of the ephemeris data and that of the center of the image frame was found, which caused a significant offset in satellite position. This time inconsistency was successfully adjusted. We modeled the actual satellite positions of the left and right images using only two ground control points and then achieved 3‐D positioning using the KOMPSAT‐1 EOC stereo images. The results show that the positioning accuracy was about 12‐17 m root mean square error (RMSE) when 6.6 m resolution EOC stereo images were used along with the ephemeris data and only two ground control points (GCPs). If more accurate ephemeris data are provided in the near future, then a more accurate 3‐D positioning will also be realized using only the EOC stereo images with ephemeris data and without the need for any GCPs.