The new SHA-3 software shootout

§ 1. Introduction This paper introduces a new graphing mechanism to allow easy comparison of software performance of the SHA-3 candidates. The new mechanism concisely captures a large amount of performance data without oversimplifying the data. We have integrated this graphing mechanism into our eBASH (ECRYPT Benchmark- ing of All Submitted Hashes) project. New graphs are automatically posted at the top of http://bench.cr.yp.to/results-sha3.html whenever the eBASH performance results are updated. This paper includes snapshots of these graphs, but readers are advised to check the web page for the latest updates. See http://bench.cr.yp.to for more information regarding eBASH. For each function there is also a similar graph online comparing implementations of that function, showing in a concise way which implementations are slow or non-functional. Im- plementors can follow links from http://bench.cr.yp.to/primitives-sha3.html to find these graphs. Of course, users concerned about performance will reject slower implementa- tions in favor of faster implementations, so the main shootout graphs re ect only the fastest implementations

Automated identification of Fos expression

The concentration of Fos, a protein encoded by the immediate-early gene c-fos, provides a measure of synaptic activity that may not parallel the electrical activity of neurons. Such a measure is important for the difficult problem of identifying dynamic properties of neuronal circuitries activated by a variety of stimuli and behaviours. We employ two-stage statistical pattern recognition to identify cellular nuclei that express Fos in two-dimensional sections of rat forebrain after administration of antipsychotic drugs. In stage one, we distinguish dark-stained candidate nuclei from image background by a thresholding algorithm and record size and shape measurements of these objects. In stage two, we compare performance of linear and quadratic discriminants, nearest-neighbour and artificial neural network classifiers that employ functions of these measurements to label candidate objects as either Fos nuclei, two touching Fos nuclei or irrelevant background material. New images of neighbouring brain tissue serve as test sets to assess generalizability of the best derived classification rule, as determined by lowest cross-validation misclassification rate. Three experts, two internal and one external, compare manual and automated results for accuracy assessment. Analyses of a subset of images on two separate occasions provide quantitative measures of inter- and intra-expert consistency. We conclude that our automated procedure yields results that compare favourably with those of the experts and thus has potential to remove much of the tedium, subjectivity and irreproducibility of current Fos identification methods in digital microscopy

Biochemical evaluation of the nutrition status of Urban Primary school children: riboflavin status

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Digital sculpture : technical and aesthetic considerations applicable to current input and output modes of additive fabricated sculpture

Published ArticleThis article examines the synergy between aesthetic and technical issues surrounding current input and output modes applicable to digital sculpture built by means of additive fabrication technologies. The scope is limited to select sculptural aspects that either transcend, question or fall short when measured against traditional manufacturing and aesthetic modes. Presented are a range of technical as well as aesthetic aspects that have impacted on this ''new form'' of sculpture delivery. It is indicated that irrespective of current strengths and weaknesses, for the evolving sculptor, an interactive creative partnership between technologies equally positions this ''new form'' of sculpture delivery as a leading role player towards defining a new digital aesthetic

Kummer strikes back : new DH speed records

This paper introduces high-security constant-time variable-base-point Diffie--Hellman software using just 274593 Cortex-A8 cycles, 91460 Sandy Bridge cycles, 90896 Ivy Bridge cycles, or 72220 Haswell cycles. The only higher speed appearing in the literature for any of these platforms is a claim of 60000 Haswell cycles for unpublished software performing arithmetic on a binary elliptic curve. The new speeds rely on a synergy between (1) state-of-the-art formulas for genus-2 hyperelliptic curves and (2) a modern trend towards vectorization in CPUs. The paper introduces several new techniques for efficient vectorization of Kummer-surface computations. Keywords: implementation / performance, Diffie--Hellman, hyperelliptic curves, Kummer surfaces, vectorizatio

Biochemical investigation of the nutrition status of urban school children aged 12 -15 years: Protein status

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Elligator : elliptic-curve points indistinguishable from uniform random strings

Censorship-circumvention tools are in an arms race against censors. The censors study all traffic passing into and out of their controlled sphere, and try to disable censorship-circumvention tools without completely shutting down the Internet. Tools aim to shape their traffic patterns to match unblocked programs, so that simple traffic profiling cannot identify the tools within a reasonable number of traces; the censors respond by deploying rewalls with increasingly sophisticated deep-packet inspection. Cryptography hides patterns in user data but does not evade censorship if the censor can recognize patterns in the cryptography itself. In particular, elliptic-curve cryptography often transmits points on known elliptic curves, and those points are easily distinguishable from uniform random strings of bits. This paper introduces high-security high-speed elliptic-curve systems in which elliptic-curve points are encoded so as to be indistinguishable from uniform random strings. At a lower level, this paper introduces a new bijection between strings and about half of all curve points; this bijection is applicable to every odd-characteristic elliptic curve with a point of order 2, except for curves of j-invariant 1728. This paper also presents guidelines to construct, and two examples of, secure curves suitable for these encodings

Optimizing double-base elliptic-curve single-scalar multiplication

This paper analyzes the best speeds that can be obtained for single-scalar multiplication with variable base point by combining a huge range of options: • many choices of coordinate systems and formulas for individual group operations, including new formulas for tripling on Edwards curves; • double-base chains with many different doubling/tripling ratios, including standard base-2 chains as an extreme case; • many precomputation strategies, going beyond Dimitrov, Imbert, Mishra (Asiacrypt 2005) and Doche and Imbert (Indocrypt 2006). The analysis takes account of speedups such as S – M tradeoffs and includes recent advances such as inverted Edwards coordinates. The main conclusions are as follows. Optimized precomputations and triplings save time for single-scalar multiplication in Jacobian coordinates, Hessian curves, and tripling-oriented Doche/Icart/Kohel curves. However, even faster single-scalar multiplication is possible in Jacobi intersections, Edwards curves, extended Jacobi-quartic coordinates, and inverted Edwards coordinates, thanks to extremely fast doublings and additions; there is no evidence that double-base chains are worthwhile for the fastest curves. Inverted Edwards coordinates are the speed leader

Biochemical evaluation of the nutrition status of urban primary school children: Vitamin-A status

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Biochemical evaluation of the nutrition status of urban school children of 12-15 years - riboflavin status

No Abstract