Threshold selection in gene co-expression networks using spectral graph theory techniques

Abstract Background Gene co-expression networks are often constructed by computing some measure of similarity between expression levels of gene transcripts and subsequently applying a high-pass filter to remove all but the most likely biologically-significant relationships. The selection of this expression threshold necessarily has a significant effect on any conclusions derived from the resulting network. Many approaches have been taken to choose an appropriate threshold, among them computing levels of statistical significance, accepting only the top one percent of relationships, and selecting an arbitrary expression cutoff. Results We apply spectral graph theory methods to develop a systematic method for threshold selection. Eigenvalues and eigenvectors are computed for a transformation of the adjacency matrix of the network constructed at various threshold values. From these, we use a basic spectral clustering method to examine the set of gene-gene relationships and select a threshold dependent upon the community structure of the data. This approach is applied to two well-studied microarray data sets from Homo sapiens and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Conclusion This method presents a systematic, data-based alternative to using more artificial cutoff values and results in a more conservative approach to threshold selection than some other popular techniques such as retaining only statistically-significant relationships or setting a cutoff to include a percentage of the highest correlations

Scheduling sensor activity for information coverage of discrete targets in sensor networks

10.1002/wcm.626Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing96745-75

Mixed-radix Naccache–Stern encryption

In this work, we explore a combinatorial optimization problem stemming from the Naccache–Stern cryptosystem. We show that solving this problem results in bandwidth improvements, and suggest a polynomial-time approximation algorithm to find an optimal solution. Our work suggests that using optimal radix encoding results in an asymptotic 50% increase in bandwidth

A Practical Multivariate Blind Signature Scheme

Multivariate Cryptography is one of the main candidates for creating post-quantum cryptosystems. Especially in the area of digital signatures, there exist many practical and secure multivariate schemes. However, there is a lack of multivariate signature schemes with special properties such as blind, ring and group signatures. In this paper, we propose a generic technique to transform multivariate signature schemes into blind signature schemes and show the practicality of the construction on the example of Rainbow. The resulting scheme satisfies the usual blindness criterion and a one-more-unforgeability criterion adapted to MQ signatures, produces short blind signatures and is very efficient

Efficient decryption algorithms for extension field cancellation type encryption schemes

Extension Field Cancellation (EFC) was proposed by Alan et al. at PQCrypto 2016 as a new trapdoor for constructing secure multivariate encryption cryptographic schemes. Along with this trapdoor, two schemes EFC−p and EFC−pt2 that apply this trapdoor and some modifiers were proposed. Though their security seems to be high enough, their decryption efficiency has room for improvement. In this paper, we introduce a new and more efficient decryption approach for EFC−p and EFC−pt2, which manages to avoid all redundant computation involved in the original decryption algorithms, and theoretically speed up the decryption process of EFC−p and EFC−pt2 by around 3.4 and 8.5 times, respectively, under 128-bit security parameters with our new designed private keys for them. Meanwhile, our approach does not interfere with the public key, so the security remains the same. The implementation results of both decryption algorithms for EFC−p and EFC−pt2 are also provided