14,630 research outputs found
Formal security analysis of registration protocols for interactive systems: a methodology and a case of study
In this work we present and formally analyze CHAT-SRP (CHAos based
Tickets-Secure Registration Protocol), a protocol to provide interactive and
collaborative platforms with a cryptographically robust solution to classical
security issues. Namely, we focus on the secrecy and authenticity properties
while keeping a high usability. In this sense, users are forced to blindly
trust the system administrators and developers. Moreover, as far as we know,
the use of formal methodologies for the verification of security properties of
communication protocols isn't yet a common practice. We propose here a
methodology to fill this gap, i.e., to analyse both the security of the
proposed protocol and the pertinence of the underlying premises. In this
concern, we propose the definition and formal evaluation of a protocol for the
distribution of digital identities. Once distributed, these identities can be
used to verify integrity and source of information. We base our security
analysis on tools for automatic verification of security protocols widely
accepted by the scientific community, and on the principles they are based
upon. In addition, it is assumed perfect cryptographic primitives in order to
focus the analysis on the exchange of protocol messages. The main property of
our protocol is the incorporation of tickets, created using digests of chaos
based nonces (numbers used only once) and users' personal data. Combined with a
multichannel authentication scheme with some previous knowledge, these tickets
provide security during the whole protocol by univocally linking each
registering user with a single request. [..]Comment: 32 pages, 7 figures, 8 listings, 1 tabl
Absorption Time of the Moran Process
The Moran process models the spread of mutations in populations on graphs. We
investigate the absorption time of the process, which is the time taken for a
mutation introduced at a randomly chosen vertex to either spread to the whole
population, or to become extinct. It is known that the expected absorption time
for an advantageous mutation is O(n^4) on an n-vertex undirected graph, which
allows the behaviour of the process on undirected graphs to be analysed using
the Markov chain Monte Carlo method. We show that this does not extend to
directed graphs by exhibiting an infinite family of directed graphs for which
the expected absorption time is exponential in the number of vertices. However,
for regular directed graphs, we show that the expected absorption time is
Omega(n log n) and O(n^2). We exhibit families of graphs matching these bounds
and give improved bounds for other families of graphs, based on isoperimetric
number. Our results are obtained via stochastic dominations which we
demonstrate by establishing a coupling in a related continuous-time model. The
coupling also implies several natural domination results regarding the fixation
probability of the original (discrete-time) process, resolving a conjecture of
Shakarian, Roos and Johnson.Comment: minor change
A Comparative Evaluation of Heart Rate Estimation Methods using Face Videos
This paper presents a comparative evaluation of methods for remote heart rate
estimation using face videos, i.e., given a video sequence of the face as
input, methods to process it to obtain a robust estimation of the subjects
heart rate at each moment. Four alternatives from the literature are tested,
three based in hand crafted approaches and one based on deep learning. The
methods are compared using RGB videos from the COHFACE database. Experiments
show that the learning-based method achieves much better accuracy than the hand
crafted ones. The low error rate achieved by the learning based model makes
possible its application in real scenarios, e.g. in medical or sports
environments.Comment: Accepted in "IEEE International Workshop on Medical Computing
(MediComp) 2020
3D Printed Polymeric Hydrogels for Nerve Regeneration
The human nervous system lacks an inherent ability to regenerate its components upon damage or diseased conditions. During the last decade, this has motivated the development of a number of strategies for nerve regeneration. However, most of those approaches have not been used in clinical applications till today. For instance, although biomaterial-based scaffolds have been extensively used for nerve reparation, the lack of more customized structures have hampered their use in vivo. This highlight focuses mainly on how 3D bioprinting technology, using polymeric hydrogels as bio-inks, can be used for the development of new nerve guidance channels or devices for peripheral nerve cell regeneration. In this concise contribution, some of the most recent and representative examples are highlighted to discuss the challenges involved in various aspects of 3D bioprinting for nerve cell regeneration, specifically when using polymeric hydrogels
On the Measurement of Privacy as an Attacker's Estimation Error
A wide variety of privacy metrics have been proposed in the literature to
evaluate the level of protection offered by privacy enhancing-technologies.
Most of these metrics are specific to concrete systems and adversarial models,
and are difficult to generalize or translate to other contexts. Furthermore, a
better understanding of the relationships between the different privacy metrics
is needed to enable more grounded and systematic approach to measuring privacy,
as well as to assist systems designers in selecting the most appropriate metric
for a given application.
In this work we propose a theoretical framework for privacy-preserving
systems, endowed with a general definition of privacy in terms of the
estimation error incurred by an attacker who aims to disclose the private
information that the system is designed to conceal. We show that our framework
permits interpreting and comparing a number of well-known metrics under a
common perspective. The arguments behind these interpretations are based on
fundamental results related to the theories of information, probability and
Bayes decision.Comment: This paper has 18 pages and 17 figure
Collaboration within the UK Farm Industry
This paper addresses the effectiveness of the traditional models of cooperation, and analyses best practices in other commercial sectors in order to identify transferable elements. The Report of the Policy Commission on the Future of Farming and Food (2002) identified a need for farmers to cooperate and collaborate more effectively in their business activities in order to be more competitive. The Plunkett Foundation (1992) suggests that in order to play an important role in the maintenance of the rural economy the Farmer Controlled Business should adopt more imaginative approaches. Using an inductive grounded theory approach and guided interview techniques, experts in the field of business collaboration were selected using a purposive sample approach and interviewed using an iterative Delphi model. Interviewees were leading academics, government officials and managers of the most profitable and/or innovative EU based cooperatives. Having been asked to identify and evaluate the operational characteristics of traditional models of cooperation, respondents were encouraged to identify the ideal characteristics of any replacement business frameworks. A culture of "arm focus"and a lack of "global" understanding were identified as very important factors affecting cooperation. In addition to this, the intrinsic limitations of the traditional model of cooperation were recognized as an important limitation, as well as the personal characteristics and skills of the members were identified as relevant barriers. The paper concludes that addressing the problems of culture and attitude is a long-term process. Therefore the solution could come from models, where the members do not necessarily have the required vision or culture, but they are part of a bigger organization that has the needed consumer and food chain focus. The key factor is to gain recognition of the need to fundamentally address organizational structure.cooperatives, collaboration, supply food chain, organizational structure, farming, Agribusiness, Industrial Organization,
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