251,523 research outputs found
Thermodynamic insight into stimuli-responsive behaviour of soft porous crystals
Knowledge of the thermodynamic potential in terms of the independent variables allows to characterize the macroscopic state of the system. However, in practice, it is difficult to access this potential experimentally due to irreversible transitions that occur between equilibrium states. A showcase example of sudden transitions between (meta) stable equilibrium states is observed for soft porous crystals possessing a network with long-range structural order, which can transform between various states upon external stimuli such as pressure, temperature and guest adsorption. Such phase transformations are typically characterized by large volume changes and may be followed experimentally by monitoring the volume change in terms of certain external triggers. Herein, we present a generalized thermodynamic approach to construct the underlying Helmholtz free energy as a function of the state variables that governs the observed behaviour based on microscopic simulations. This concept allows a unique identification of the conditions under which a material becomes flexible
Artificial intelligence and UK national security: Policy considerations
RUSI was commissioned by GCHQ to conduct an independent research study into the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for national security purposes. The aim of this project is to establish an independent evidence base to inform future policy development regarding national security uses of AI. The findings are based on in-depth consultation with stakeholders from across the UK national security community, law enforcement agencies, private sector companies, academic and legal experts, and civil society representatives. This was complemented by a targeted review of existing literature on the topic of AI and national security.
The research has found that AI offers numerous opportunities for the UK national security community to improve efficiency and effectiveness of existing processes. AI methods can rapidly derive insights from large, disparate datasets and identify connections that would otherwise go unnoticed by human operators. However, in the context of national security and the powers given to UK intelligence agencies, use of AI could give rise to additional privacy and human rights considerations which would need to be assessed within the existing legal and regulatory framework. For this reason, enhanced policy and guidance is needed to ensure the privacy and human rights implications of national security uses of AI are reviewed on an ongoing basis as new analysis methods are applied to data
Private Multi-party Matrix Multiplication and Trust Computations
This paper deals with distributed matrix multiplication. Each player owns
only one row of both matrices and wishes to learn about one distinct row of the
product matrix, without revealing its input to the other players. We first
improve on a weighted average protocol, in order to securely compute a
dot-product with a quadratic volume of communications and linear number of
rounds. We also propose a protocol with five communication rounds, using a
Paillier-like underlying homomorphic public key cryptosystem, which is secure
in the semi-honest model or secure with high probability in the malicious
adversary model. Using ProVerif, a cryptographic protocol verification tool, we
are able to check the security of the protocol and provide a countermeasure for
each attack found by the tool. We also give a randomization method to avoid
collusion attacks. As an application, we show that this protocol enables a
distributed and secure evaluation of trust relationships in a network, for a
large class of trust evaluation schemes.Comment: Pierangela Samarati. SECRYPT 2016 : 13th International Conference on
Security and Cryptography, Lisbonne, Portugal, 26--28 Juillet 2016. 201
Weak Mixing and Analyticity of the Pressure in the Ising Model
We prove that the pressure (or free energy) of the finite range ferromagnetic
Ising model on is analytic as a function of both the inverse
temperature and the magnetic field whenever the model has the
exponential weak mixing property. We also prove the exponential weak mixing
property whenever . Together with known results on the regime
, this implies both analyticity and weak mixing in all the
domain of outside of the transition line . The proof of analyticity uses a graphical representation of the Glauber
dynamic due to Schonmann and cluster expansion. The proof of weak mixing uses
the random cluster representation.Comment: Updated Bibliograph
Revisiting Matrix Product on Master-Worker Platforms
This paper is aimed at designing efficient parallel matrix-product algorithms
for heterogeneous master-worker platforms. While matrix-product is
well-understood for homogeneous 2D-arrays of processors (e.g., Cannon algorithm
and ScaLAPACK outer product algorithm), there are three key hypotheses that
render our work original and innovative:
- Centralized data. We assume that all matrix files originate from, and must
be returned to, the master.
- Heterogeneous star-shaped platforms. We target fully heterogeneous
platforms, where computational resources have different computing powers.
- Limited memory. Because we investigate the parallelization of large
problems, we cannot assume that full matrix panels can be stored in the worker
memories and re-used for subsequent updates (as in ScaLAPACK).
We have devised efficient algorithms for resource selection (deciding which
workers to enroll) and communication ordering (both for input and result
messages), and we report a set of numerical experiments on various platforms at
Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon and the University of Tennessee. However, we
point out that in this first version of the report, experiments are limited to
homogeneous platforms
Communication Over MIMO Broadcast Channels Using Lattice-Basis Reduction
A simple scheme for communication over MIMO broadcast channels is introduced
which adopts the lattice reduction technique to improve the naive channel
inversion method. Lattice basis reduction helps us to reduce the average
transmitted energy by modifying the region which includes the constellation
points. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme performs well, and as
compared to the more complex methods (such as the perturbation method) has a
negligible loss. Moreover, the proposed method is extended to the case of
different rates for different users. The asymptotic behavior of the symbol
error rate of the proposed method and the perturbation technique, and also the
outage probability for the case of fixed-rate users is analyzed. It is shown
that the proposed method, based on LLL lattice reduction, achieves the optimum
asymptotic slope of symbol-error-rate (called the precoding diversity). Also,
the outage probability for the case of fixed sum-rate is analyzed.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Trans. on Info. Theory (Jan. 15, 2006), Revised
(Jun. 12, 2007
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