7,533 research outputs found
Measuring the confinement of probabilistic systems
AbstractIn this paper we lay the semantic basis for a quantitative security analysis of probabilistic systems by introducing notions of approximate confinement based on various process equivalences. We re-cast the operational semantics classically expressed via probabilistic transition systems (PTS) in terms of linear operators and we present a technique for defining approximate semantics as probabilistic abstract interpretations of the PTS semantics. An operator norm is then used to quantify this approximation. This provides a quantitative measure É› of the indistinguishability of two processes and therefore of their confinement. In this security setting a statistical interpretation is then given of the quantity É› which relates it to the number of tests needed to breach the security of the system
A short note on Simulation and Abstraction
This short note is written in celebration of David Schmidt's sixtieth
birthday. He has now been active in the program analysis research community for
over thirty years and we have enjoyed many interactions with him. His work on
characterising simulations between Kripke structures using Galois connections
was particularly influential in our own work on using probabilistic abstract
interpretation to study Larsen and Skou's notion of probabilistic bisimulation.
We briefly review this work and discuss some recent applications of these ideas
in a variety of different application areas.Comment: In Proceedings Festschrift for Dave Schmidt, arXiv:1309.455
Quantifying Timing Leaks and Cost Optimisation
We develop a new notion of security against timing attacks where the attacker
is able to simultaneously observe the execution time of a program and the
probability of the values of low variables. We then show how to measure the
security of a program with respect to this notion via a computable estimate of
the timing leakage and use this estimate for cost optimisation.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figures, 4 tables. A shorter version is included in the
proceedings of ICICS'08 - 10th International Conference on Information and
Communications Security, 20-22 October, 2008 Birmingham, U
A New Robust Regression Method Based on Minimization of Geodesic Distances on a Probabilistic Manifold: Application to Power Laws
In regression analysis for deriving scaling laws that occur in various
scientific disciplines, usually standard regression methods have been applied,
of which ordinary least squares (OLS) is the most popular. In many situations,
the assumptions underlying OLS are not fulfilled, and several other approaches
have been proposed. However, most techniques address only part of the
shortcomings of OLS. We here discuss a new and more general regression method,
which we call geodesic least squares regression (GLS). The method is based on
minimization of the Rao geodesic distance on a probabilistic manifold. For the
case of a power law, we demonstrate the robustness of the method on synthetic
data in the presence of significant uncertainty on both the data and the
regression model. We then show good performance of the method in an application
to a scaling law in magnetic confinement fusion.Comment: Published in Entropy. This is an extended version of our paper at the
34th International Workshop on Bayesian Inference and Maximum Entropy Methods
in Science and Engineering (MaxEnt 2014), 21-26 September 2014, Amboise,
Franc
Space, Time and Color in Hadron Production Via e+e- -> Z0 and e+e- -> W+W-
The time-evolution of jets in hadronic e+e- events at LEP is investigated in
both position- and momentum-space, with emphasis on effects due to color flow
and particle correlations. We address dynamical aspects of the four
simultanously-evolving, cross-talking parton cascades that appear in the
reaction e+e- -> gamma/Z0 -> W+W- -> q1 q~2 q3 q~4, and compare with the
familiar two-parton cascades in e+e- -> Z0 -> q1 q~2. We use a QCD statistical
transport approach, in which the multiparticle final state is treated as an
evolving mixture of partons and hadrons, whose proportions are controlled by
their local space-time geography via standard perturbative QCD parton shower
evolution and a phenomenological model for non-perturbative parton-cluster
formation followed by cluster decays into hadrons. Our numerical simulations
exhibit a characteristic `inside-outside' evolution simultanously in position
and momentum space. We compare three different model treatments of color flow,
and find large effects due to cluster formation by the combination of partons
from different W parents. In particular, we find in our preferred model a shift
of several hundred MeV in the apparent mass of the W, which is considerably
larger than in previous model calculations. This suggests that the
determination of the W mass at LEP2 may turn out to be a sensitive probe of
spatial correlations and hadronization dynamics.Comment: 52 pages, latex, 18 figures as uu-encoded postscript fil
Confinement as a tool to probe amorphous order
We study the effect of confinement on glassy liquids using Random First Order
Transition theory as framework. We show that the characteristic length-scale
above which confinement effects become negligible is related to the
point-to-set length-scale introduced to measure the spatial extent of amorphous
order in super-cooled liquids. By confining below this characteristic size, the
system becomes a glass. Eventually, for very small sizes, the effect of the
boundary is so strong that any collective glassy behavior is wiped out. We
clarify similarities and differences between the physical behaviors induced by
confinement and by pinning particles outside a spherical cavity (the protocol
introduced to measure the point-to-set length). Finally, we discuss possible
numerical and experimental tests of our predictions.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures and EPAPS (4 pages, 1 figure
Quark Matter and Nuclear Collisions: A Brief History of Strong Interaction Thermodynamics
The past fifty years have seen the emergence of a new field of research in
physics, the study of matter at extreme temperatures and densities. The theory
of strong interactions, quantum chromodynamics (QCD), predicts that in this
limit, matter will become a plasma of deconfined quarks and gluons -- the
medium which made up the early universe in the first 10 microseconds after the
big bang. High energy nuclear collisions are expected to produce short-lived
bubbles of such a medium in the laboratory. I survey the merger of statistical
QCD and nuclear collision studies for the analysis of strongly interacting
matter in theory and experiment.Comment: 24 pages, 14 figures Opening Talk at the 5th Berkeley School on
Collective Dynamics in High Energy Collisions, LBNL Berkeley/California, May
14 - 18, 201
Time scale, objectivity and irreversibility in quantum mechanics
It is argued that setting isolated systems as primary scope of field theory
and looking at particles as derived entities, the problem of an objective
anchorage of quantum mechanics can be solved and irreversibility acquires a
fundamental role. These general ideas are checked in the case of the Boltzmann
description of a dilute gas.Comment: 13 pages, latex, no figures, to appear in the Proceedings of the XXI
International Colloquium on Group Theoretical Methods in Physics, 1996
(Goslar, Germany
- …