145 research outputs found
What if I Use Help for This? Exploring Normative Evaluations of Relationship Maintenance Behaviors Augmented by External Agency
Relationship maintenance needs sincere efforts made by both self and relational partners. Yet, technological development provides people with convenient access to help from external sources—other people online, or even tools powered by artificial intelligence (AI)—when performing certain relational activities. By reducing personal effort, receiving external augmentation might compromise the desired effort level in a close relationship. To explore people’s normative evaluations of such behaviors, we conducted a survey experiment (N = 114) wherein participants provided their evaluations of 25 common relational activities in friendship maintenance. Most activities were considered as requiring sincere efforts and subjective in nature. We found that the more sincere efforts and the more subjectivity a relational activity required, the more inappropriate people considered it being augmented by another human or AI system. These results together advance our knowledge of how technology-mediated interactions are judged in interpersonal relationships
Unintended effects of open data policy in online behavioral research : An experimental investigation of participants’ privacy concerns and research validity
Research outlets are increasingly adopting the Open Data policy—requiring or encouraging researchers to release data publicly. However, public data sharing in the digital age may threaten participants' privacy and thereby discourage participants to disclose. We tested this possibility and explored solutions with a between-subjects online experiment. Participants from Amazon's Mechanical Turk (N = 294) were randomly assigned to one of five conditions with data sharing policies varying on the level of publicness or not mentioned. Participants in the public-access condition reported greater privacy concerns and fewer unethical conducts than those in the private condition. Public data sharing also indirectly decreased participants' amount of open-ended disclosure via privacy concerns. When asked, participants reported privacy violation as their primary concern regarding data sharing. Findings suggest sharing data with researchers' gatekeeping, rather than indiscriminately public, may be a solution that better serves the goals of Open Science—ethical and valid science.publishedVersionPeer reviewe
Randomness Quantification for Quantum Random Number Generation Based on Detection of Amplified Spontaneous Emission Noise
The amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise has been extensively studied
and employed to build quantum random number generators (QRNGs). While the
previous relative works mainly focus on the realization and verification of the
QRNG system, the comprehensive physical model and randomness quantification for
the general detection of the ASE noise are still incomplete, which is essential
for the quantitative security analysis. In this paper, a systematical physical
model for the emission, detection and acquisition of the ASE noise with added
electronic noise is developed and verified, based on which the numerical
simulations are performed under various setups and the simulation results all
significantly fit well with the corresponding experimental data. Then, a
randomness quantification method and the corresponding experimentally
verifiable approach are proposed and validated, which quantifies the randomness
purely resulted from the quantum process and improves the security analysis for
the QRNG based on the detection of the ASE noise. The physical model and the
randomness quantification method proposed in this paper are of significant
feasibility and applicable for the QRNG system with randomness originating from
the detection of the photon number with arbitrary distributions
Experimental Demonstration of High-Rate Discrete-Modulated Continuous-Variable Quantum Key Distribution System
A high-rate continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CV-QKD) system
based on high-order discrete modulation is experimentally investigated. With
the help of the novel system scheme, effective digital signal processing
algorithms and advanced analytical security proof method, the transmission
results of 5 km, 10 km, 25 km, and 50 km are achieved for the 1 GBaud optimized
quantum signals. Correspondingly, the asymptotic secret key rate (SKR) is
288.421 Mbps, 159.395 Mbps, 50.004 Mbps and 7.579 Mbps for discrete Gaussian
(DG) 64QAM, and 326.708 Mbps, 179.348 Mbps, 50.623 Mbps and 9.212 Mbps for DG
256QAM. Under the same parameters, the achieved SKRs of DG 256QAM is almost
same to ideal Gaussian modulation. In this case, the demonstrated high-rate
discrete modulated CV-QKD system has the application potential for high speed
security communication under tens of kilometers.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure
Effects of a dietary supplement on inflammatory marker expression in middle-aged and elderly hypertensive patients
OBJECTIVES: We aimed to explore the effects of diet on the inflammatory response in middle-aged and elderly people with hypertension. METHODS: Thirty overweight or obese patients with stage one hypertension (age range, 45-75 years) were allocated to either the intervention or control group (n=15 per group; age- and sex-matched). Patients in the intervention group consumed a food powder supplement (100 g) instead of a regular meal. The control group maintained their normal dietary habits. This study lasted for six weeks. Blood pressure, inflammatory marker levels, and energy intake were measured before and after the study. RESULTS: After 6 weeks, the diet composition of the intervention group changed significantly (po0.05). The intake of proteins, dietary fibre, monounsaturated fat, and polyunsaturated fat increased significantly (po0.05), while the total energy intake trended towards an increase (p40.05). In the control group, the total energy intake decreased significantly (po0.05). The levels of nuclear factor-kB (NF-kB), soluble intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (sICAM-1) and high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) decreased, and adiponectin increased significantly in the intervention group (po0.05); however, no significant changes were observed in the inflammatory marker levels of the control group. In the intervention group, systolic blood pressure decreased significantly (po0.05), and diastolic blood pressure also exhibited a decreasing trend. No significant change in blood pressure was observed in the control group. CONCLUSION: The consumption of a food powder supplement can improve diet composition, decrease blood pressure and reduce inflammation in middle-aged and elderly overweight or obese hypertensive patients. The food powder supplement may also have an anti-atherosclerotic effect in hypertensive patients
Sub-Mbps key-rate continuous-variable quantum key distribution with local-local-oscillator over 100 km fiber
We experimentally demonstrated a sub-Mbps key rate Gaussian-modulated
coherent-state continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CV-QKD) over 100
km transmission distance. To efficiently control the excess noise, the quantum
signal and the pilot tone are co-transmitted in fiber channel based on
wide-band frequency and polarization multiplexing methods. Furthermore, a
high-accuracy data-assisted time domain equalization algorithm is carefully
designed to compensate the phase noise and polarization variation in low
signal-to-noise ratio. The asymptotic secure key rate (SKR) of the demonstrated
CV-QKD is experimentally evaluated to be 10.36 Mbps, 2.59 Mbps, and 0.69 Mbps
over transmission distance of 50 km, 75 km, and 100 km, respectively. The
experimental demonstrated CV-QKD system significantly improves transmission
distance and SKR compared to the state-of-art GMCS CV-QKD experimental results,
and shows the potential for long-distance and high-speed secure quantum key
distribution.Comment: 4 pages, 7 figure
3D printing high interfacial bonding polyether ether ketone components via pyrolysis reactions
Recently, 3D-printed polyether-ether-ketone (PEEK) components have been shown to offer many applications in state-of-the-art electronics, 5G wireless communications, medical implantations, and aerospace components. Nevertheless, a critical barrier that limits the application of 3D printed PEEK components is their weak interfacial bonding strength. Herein, we propose a novel method to improve this unsatisfied situation via the interface plasticizing effect of benzene derivatives obtained from the thermal pyrolysis of trisilanolphenyl polyhedral oligomeric silsequioxane (POSS). Based on this method, the bonding strength of the filaments and interlayers of 3D-printed POSS/PEEK components can reach 82.9 MPa and 59.8 MPa, respectively. Moreover, the enhancing mechanism of the pyrolysis products derived from the POSS is characterized using pyrolysis-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (Py-GC/MS), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and X-ray computed tomography (X-CT). Our proposed strategy broadens the novel design space for developing additional 3D-printed materials with satisfactory interfacial bonding strength
Highly stable power control for chip-based continuous-variable quantum key distribution system
Quantum key distribution allows secret key generation with information
theoretical security. It can be realized with photonic integrated circuits to
benefit the tiny footprints and the large-scale manufacturing capacity.
Continuous-variable quantum key distribution is suitable for chip-based
integration due to its compatibility with mature optical communication devices.
However, the quantum signal power control compatible with the mature photonic
integration process faces difficulties on stability, which limits the system
performance and causes the overestimation of secret key rate that opens
practical security loopholes. Here, a highly stable chip-based quantum signal
power control scheme based on a biased Mach-Zehnder interferometer structure is
proposed, theoretically analyzed and experimentally implemented with standard
silicon photonic techniques. Simulations and experimental results show that the
proposed scheme significantly improves the system stability, where the standard
deviation of the secret key rate is suppressed by an order of magnitude
compared with the system using traditional designs, showing a promising and
practicable way to realize highly stable continuous-variable quantum key
distribution system on chip.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure
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