Tropical cryptography III: digital signatures

We use tropical algebras as platforms for a very efficient digital signature protocol. Security relies on computational hardness of factoring one-variable tropical polynomials; this problem is known to be NP-hard.Comment: 7 page

Secure and private management of healthcare databases for data mining

© 2015 IEEE. There has been a tremendous growth in health data collection since the development of Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems. Such collected data is further shared and analyzed for diverse purposes. Despite many benefits, data collection and sharing have become a big concern as it threatens individual privacy. In this paper, we propose a secure and private data management framework that addresses both the security and privacy issues in the management of medical data in outsourced databases. The proposed framework ensures the security of data by using semantically-secure encryption schemes to keep data encrypted in outsourced databases. The framework also provides a differentially-private query interface that can support a number of SQL queries and complex data mining tasks. We experimentally evaluate the performance of the proposed framework, and the results show that the proposed framework is practical and has low overhead

Integration of Experts' and Beginners' Machine Operation Experiences to Obtain a Detailed Task Model

We propose a novel framework for integrating beginners' machine operational experiences with those of experts' to obtain a detailed task model. Beginners can provide valuable information for operation guidance and task design; for example, from the operations that are easy or difficult for them, the mistakes they make, and the strategy they tend to choose. However, beginners' experiences often vary widely and are difficult to integrate directly. Thus, we consider an operational experience as a sequence of hand-machine interactions at hotspots. Then, a few experts' experiences and a sufficient number of beginners' experiences are unified using two aggregation steps that align and integrate sequences of interactions. We applied our method to more than 40 experiences of a sewing task. The results demonstrate good potential for modeling and obtaining important properties of the task

Ground state properties of sub-Ohmic spin-boson model with simultaneous diagonal and off-diagonal coupling

By employing the variational approach, density matrix renormalization group (DMRG), exact diagonalization as well as symmetry and mean-field analyses, the ground state properties of the two-bath spin boson model with simultaneous diagonal and off-diagonal coupling are systematically studied in the sub-Ohmic regime. A novel quantum phase transition from a doubly degenerate "localized phase" to the other doubly degenerate "delocalized phase" is uncovered. Via the multi-D1 ansatz as the variational wave function, transition points are determined accurately, consistent with the results from DMRG and exact diagonalization. An effective spatial dimension $d_{eff} = 2.37(6)$ is then estimated, which is found to be compatible with the mean-field prediction. Furthermore, the quantum phase transition is inferred to be of first order for the baths described by a continuous spectral density function. In the case of single mode, however, the transition is softened.Comment: revised version after the paper is publishe

Digital signature schemes using non-square matrices or scrap automorphisms

We offer two very transparent digital signature schemes: one using non-square matrices and the other using scrap automorphisms. The former can be easily converted to a public key encryption scheme

Tropical cryptography III: digital signatures

We use tropical algebras as platforms for a very efficient digital signature protocol. Security relies on computational hardness of factoring one-variable tropical polynomials; this problem is known to be NP-hard

Effect of the combination of 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 and higher level of calcium and phosphorus in the diets on bone 3D structural development in pullets

Bone issues such as osteoporosis are major concerns for the laying hen industry. A study was conducted to improve bone-health in pullets. A total of 448 one-day-old Hyline W36 pullets were randomly assigned to four treatments (8 rep; 14 birds/rep) until 17 weeks (wks). Dietary treatments were: 1) vitamin D3 at (2,760 IU/kg) (D), 2) vitamin D3 (2,760 IU/kg)+62.5 mg 25-(OH)D3/ton (H25D), 3) vitamin D3 (2,760 IU/kg) + 62.5 mg 25-(OH)D3/ton + high Ca&P (H25D + Ca/P), and 4) vitamin D3 (2,760 IU/kg) + high Ca&P (D + Ca/P). The high calcium (Ca) and phosphorus (P) diet was modified by increasing both high calcium and phosphorus by 30% (2:1) for the first 12 wks and then only increasing P for 12–17 wks to reduce the Ca to P ratio. At 17 wk, growth performance was measured, whole body composition was measured by dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DEXA), and femur bones were scanned using Micro-computed tomography (Micro-CT) for bone 3D structure analyses. The data were subjected to a one-way ANOVA using the GLM procedure, with means deemed significant at p < 0.05. There was no significant outcome for growth performance or dual energy x-ray absorptiometry parameters. Micro-computed tomography results indicated that the H25D + Ca/P treatment had lower open pore volume space, open porosity, total volume of pore space, and total porosity in the cortical bone compared to the D + Ca/P. It also showed that a higher cortical bone volume/tissue volume (BV/TV) in the H25D + Ca/P than in the D + Ca/P. Furthermore, the H25D + Ca/P treatment had the lowest trabecular pattern factor and structure model index compared to the other treatments, which indicates its beneficial effects on trabecular structural development. Moreover, the H25D + Ca/P had a higher trabecular percentage compared to the D and 25D, which suggests the additional high calcium and phosphorus supplementation on top of 25D increased trabecular content in the cavity. In conclusion, the combination of 25D with higher levels of high calcium and phosphorus could improve cortical bone quality in pullets and showed a beneficial effect on trabecular bone 3D structural development. Thus, combination of a higher bio-active form of vitamin D3 and higher levels of high calcium and phosphorus could become a potential feeding strategy to improve bone structural integrity and health in pullets

Importance of chirality and reduced flexibility of protein side chains: A study with square and tetrahedral lattice models

In simple models side chains are often represented implicitly (e.g., by spin-states) or simplified as one atom. We study side chain effects using square lattice and tetrahedral lattice models, with explicitly side chains of two atoms. We distinguish effects due to chirality and effects due to side chain flexibilities, since residues in proteins are L-residues, and their side chains adopt different rotameric states. Short chains are enumerated exhaustively. For long chains, we sample effectively rare events (eg, compact conformations) and obtain complete pictures of ensemble properties of these models at all compactness region. We find that both chirality and reduced side chain flexibility lower the folding entropy significantly for globally compact conformations, suggesting that they are important properties of residues to ensure fast folding and stable native structure. This corresponds well with our finding that natural amino acid residues have reduced effective flexibility, as evidenced by analysis of rotamer libraries and side chain rotatable bonds. We further develop a method calculating the exact side-chain entropy for a given back bone structure. We show that simple rotamer counting often underestimates side chain entropy significantly, and side chain entropy does not always correlate well with main chain packing. Among compact backbones with maximum side chain entropy, helical structures emerges as the dominating configurations. Our results suggest that side chain entropy may be an important factor contributing to the formation of alpha helices for compact conformations.Comment: 16 pages, 15 figures, 2 tables. Accepted by J. Chem. Phy

The polygenic risk for bipolar disorder influences brain regional function relating to visual and default state processing of emotional information

Genome-wise association studies have identified a number of common single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), each of small effect, associated with risk to bipolar disorder (BD). Several risk-conferring SNPs have been individually shown to influence regional brain activation thus linking genetic risk for BD to altered brain function. The current study examined whether the polygenic risk score method, which models the cumulative load of all known risk-conferring SNPs, may be useful in the identification of brain regions whose function may be related to the polygenic architecture of BD. We calculated the individual polygenic risk score for BD (PGR-BD) in forty-one patients with the disorder, twenty-five unaffected first-degree relatives and forty-six unrelated healthy controls using the most recent Psychiatric Genomics Consortium data. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to define task-related brain activation patterns in response to facial affect and working memory processing. We found significant effects of the PGR-BD score on task-related activation irrespective of diagnostic group. There was a negative association between the PGR-BD score and activation in the visual association cortex during facial affect processing. In contrast, the PGR-BD score was associated with failure to deactivate the ventromedial prefrontal region of the default mode network during working memory processing. These results are consistent with the threshold-liability model of BD, and demonstrate the usefulness of the PGR-BD score in identifying brain functional alternations associated with vulnerability to BD. Additionally, our findings suggest that the polygenic architecture of BD is not regionally confined but impacts on the task-dependent recruitment of multiple brain regions