62,725 research outputs found
Towards Inferring Mechanical Lock Combinations using Wrist-Wearables as a Side-Channel
Wrist-wearables such as smartwatches and fitness bands are equipped with a
variety of high-precision sensors that support novel contextual and
activity-based applications. The presence of a diverse set of on-board sensors,
however, also expose an additional attack surface which, if not adequately
protected, could be potentially exploited to leak private user information. In
this paper, we investigate the feasibility of a new attack that takes advantage
of a wrist-wearable's motion sensors to infer input on mechanical devices
typically used to secure physical access, for example, combination locks. We
outline an inference framework that attempts to infer a lock's unlock
combination from the wrist motion captured by a smartwatch's gyroscope sensor,
and uses a probabilistic model to produce a ranked list of likely unlock
combinations. We conduct a thorough empirical evaluation of the proposed
framework by employing unlocking-related motion data collected from human
subject participants in a variety of controlled and realistic settings.
Evaluation results from these experiments demonstrate that motion data from
wrist-wearables can be effectively employed as a side-channel to significantly
reduce the unlock combination search-space of commonly found combination locks,
thus compromising the physical security provided by these locks
Inferring Network Topology from Complex Dynamics
Inferring network topology from dynamical observations is a fundamental
problem pervading research on complex systems. Here, we present a simple,
direct method to infer the structural connection topology of a network, given
an observation of one collective dynamical trajectory. The general theoretical
framework is applicable to arbitrary network dynamical systems described by
ordinary differential equations. No interference (external driving) is required
and the type of dynamics is not restricted in any way. In particular, the
observed dynamics may be arbitrarily complex; stationary, invariant or
transient; synchronous or asynchronous and chaotic or periodic. Presupposing a
knowledge of the functional form of the dynamical units and of the coupling
functions between them, we present an analytical solution to the inverse
problem of finding the network topology. Robust reconstruction is achieved in
any sufficiently long generic observation of the system. We extend our method
to simultaneously reconstruct both the entire network topology and all
parameters appearing linear in the system's equations of motion. Reconstruction
of network topology and system parameters is viable even in the presence of
substantial external noise.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure
Inferring the effective thickness of polyelectrolytes from stretching measurements at various ionic strengths: applications to DNA and RNA
By resorting to the thick-chain model we discuss how the stretching response
of a polymer is influenced by the self-avoidance entailed by its finite
thickness. The characterization of the force versus extension curve for a thick
chain is carried out through extensive stochastic simulations. The
computational results are captured by an analytic expression that is used to
fit experimental stretching measurements carried out on DNA and single-stranded
RNA (poly-U) in various solutions. This strategy allows us to infer the
apparent diameter of two biologically-relevant polyelectrolytes, namely DNA and
poly-U, for different ionic strengths. Due to the very different degree of
flexibility of the two molecules, the results provide insight into how the
apparent diameter is influenced by the interplay between the
(solution-dependent) Debye screening length and the polymers' ``bare''
thickness. For DNA, the electrostatic contribution to the effective radius,
, is found to be about 5 times larger than the Debye screening length,
consistently with previous theoretical predictions for highly-charged stiff
rods. For the more flexible poly-U chains the electrostatic contribution to
is found to be significantly smaller than the Debye screening length.Comment: iopart, 14 pages, 13 figures, to appear in J. Phys.: Condens. Matte
Approximate parameter inference in systems biology using gradient matching: a comparative evaluation
Background: A challenging problem in current systems biology is that of
parameter inference in biological pathways expressed as coupled ordinary
differential equations (ODEs). Conventional methods that repeatedly numerically
solve the ODEs have large associated computational costs. Aimed at reducing this
cost, new concepts using gradient matching have been proposed, which bypass
the need for numerical integration. This paper presents a recently established
adaptive gradient matching approach, using Gaussian processes, combined with a
parallel tempering scheme, and conducts a comparative evaluation with current
state of the art methods used for parameter inference in ODEs. Among these
contemporary methods is a technique based on reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces
(RKHS). This has previously shown promising results for parameter estimation,
but under lax experimental settings. We look at a range of scenarios to test the
robustness of this method. We also change the approach of inferring the penalty
parameter from AIC to cross validation to improve the stability of the method.
Methodology: Methodology for the recently proposed adaptive gradient
matching method using Gaussian processes, upon which we build our new
method, is provided. Details of a competing method using reproducing kernel
Hilbert spaces are also described here.
Results: We conduct a comparative analysis for the methods described in this
paper, using two benchmark ODE systems. The analyses are repeated under
different experimental settings, to observe the sensitivity of the techniques.
Conclusions: Our study reveals that for known noise variance, our proposed
method based on Gaussian processes and parallel tempering achieves overall the
best performance. When the noise variance is unknown, the RKHS method
proves to be more robust
Revealing networks from dynamics: an introduction
What can we learn from the collective dynamics of a complex network about its
interaction topology? Taking the perspective from nonlinear dynamics, we
briefly review recent progress on how to infer structural connectivity (direct
interactions) from accessing the dynamics of the units. Potential applications
range from interaction networks in physics, to chemical and metabolic
reactions, protein and gene regulatory networks as well as neural circuits in
biology and electric power grids or wireless sensor networks in engineering.
Moreover, we briefly mention some standard ways of inferring effective or
functional connectivity.Comment: Topical review, 48 pages, 7 figure
Improved description and monitoring of near surface hazardous infiltrate complexes by shear waves for effective containment reponse
Among numerous causes of fluid releases and infiltration in near surface, resurgence in such anthropic activities associated with unconventional resource developments have brought about a resounding concern. Apart from the risk of an immediate chemical hazard, a long term possible recurrent geo-environmental risk since can also be envisaged as for various prevalent stake holders and broader initiatives. Urgency and exactness for spatiotemporal containment and remediation promotes the devising of efficient methods for monitoring near subsurface flow complexes caused by such spills. Swave (Shear waves) spectral imaging results, in relevant context, of a controlled immiscible fluid displacement monitoring experimental study are analysed and inferred. Against the prospective method as well evaluated, Swave diffraction associated spectral peculiarities are examined, importantly, given background medium characteristics definitions invoking fresh insights of microscale significance alongside macroscale potential
Inferring the magnetic field vector in the quiet Sun. III. Disk variation of the Stokes profiles and isotropism of the magnetic field
We have studied the angular distribution of the magnetic field vector in the
solar internetwork employing high-quality data (noise level in units of the quiet-Sun intensity) at different latitudes
recorded with the Hinode/SP instrument. Instead of applying traditional
inversion codes of the radiative transfer equation to retrieve the magnetic
field vector at each spatial point on the solar surface and studying the
resulting distribution of the magnetic field vector, we surmised a theoretical
distribution function of the magnetic field vector and used it to obtain the
theoretical histograms of the Stokes profiles. These histograms were then
compared to the observed ones. Any mismatch between them was ascribed to the
theoretical distribution of the magnetic field vector, which was subsequently
modified to produce a better fit to the observed histograms. With this method
we find that Stokes profiles with signals above (in units of
the continuum intensity) cannot be explained by an isotropic distribution of
the magnetic field vector. We also find that the differences between the
histograms of the Stokes profiles observed at different latitudes cannot be
explained in terms of line-of-sight effects. However, they can be explained by
a distribution of the magnetic field vector that inherently varies with
latitude. We note that these results are based on a series of assumptions that,
although briefly discussed in this paper, need to be considered in more detail
in the future.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics. 14 pages, 8
color figure
Sim-to-Real Transfer of Robotic Control with Dynamics Randomization
Simulations are attractive environments for training agents as they provide
an abundant source of data and alleviate certain safety concerns during the
training process. But the behaviours developed by agents in simulation are
often specific to the characteristics of the simulator. Due to modeling error,
strategies that are successful in simulation may not transfer to their real
world counterparts. In this paper, we demonstrate a simple method to bridge
this "reality gap". By randomizing the dynamics of the simulator during
training, we are able to develop policies that are capable of adapting to very
different dynamics, including ones that differ significantly from the dynamics
on which the policies were trained. This adaptivity enables the policies to
generalize to the dynamics of the real world without any training on the
physical system. Our approach is demonstrated on an object pushing task using a
robotic arm. Despite being trained exclusively in simulation, our policies are
able to maintain a similar level of performance when deployed on a real robot,
reliably moving an object to a desired location from random initial
configurations. We explore the impact of various design decisions and show that
the resulting policies are robust to significant calibration error
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