Privacy-Preserving Genetic Relatedness Test

An increasing number of individuals are turning to Direct-To-Consumer (DTC) genetic testing to learn about their predisposition to diseases, traits, and/or ancestry. DTC companies like 23andme and Ancestry.com have started to offer popular and affordable ancestry and genealogy tests, with services allowing users to find unknown relatives and long-distant cousins. Naturally, access and possible dissemination of genetic data prompts serious privacy concerns, thus motivating the need to design efficient primitives supporting private genetic tests. In this paper, we present an effective protocol for privacy-preserving genetic relatedness test (PPGRT), enabling a cloud server to run relatedness tests on input an encrypted genetic database and a test facility's encrypted genetic sample. We reduce the test to a data matching problem and perform it, privately, using searchable encryption. Finally, a performance evaluation of hamming distance based PP-GRT attests to the practicality of our proposals.Comment: A preliminary version of this paper appears in the Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Genome Privacy and Security (GenoPri'16

Aspects of Warped AdS3_3/CFT2_2 Correspondence

In this paper we apply the thermodynamics method to investigate the holographic pictures for the BTZ black hole, the spacelike and the null warped black holes in three-dimensional topologically massive gravity (TMG) and new massive gravity (NMG). Even though there are higher derivative terms in these theories, the thermodynamics method is still effective. It gives consistent results with the ones obtained by using asymptotical symmetry group (ASG) analysis. In doing the ASG analysis we develop a brute-force realization of the Barnich-Brandt-Compere formalism with Mathematica code, which also allows us to calculate the masses and the angular momenta of the black holes. In particular, we propose the warped AdS$_3$/CFT$_2$ correspondence in the new massive gravity, which states that quantum gravity in the warped spacetime could holographically dual to a two-dimensional CFT with c_R=c_L=\f{24}{Gm\b^2\sr{2(21-4\b^2)}}.Comment: 22 pages, references added, published version, link of Mathematica code changed to https://s.yunio.com/Mtus0z or http://pan.baidu.com/s/1mToF

Towards constructing one-bit binary adder in excitable chemical medium

Light-sensitive modification (ruthenium catalysed) of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky medium exhibits various regimes of excitability depending on the levels of illumination. For certain values of illumination the medium switches to a sub-excitable mode. An asymmetric perturbation of the medium leads to formation of a travelling localized excitation, a wave-fragment which moves along a predetermined trajectory, ideally preserving its shape and velocity. To implement collision-based computing with such wave-fragments we represent values of Boolean variables in presence/absence of a wave-fragment at specific sites of medium. When two wave-fragments collide they either annihilate, or form new wave-fragments. The trajectories of the wave-fragments after the collision represent a result of the computation, e.g. a simple logical gate. Wave-fragments in the sub-excitable medium are famously difficult to control. Therefore, we adopted a hybrid procedure in order to construct collision-based logical gates: we used channels, defined by lower levels illumination to subtly tune the shape of a propagating wave-fragment and allow the wave-fragments to collide at the junctions between channels. Using this methodology we were able to implement both in theoretical models (using the Oregonator) and in experiment two interaction-based logical gates and assemble the gates into a basic one-bit binary adder. We present the first ever experimental approach towards constructing arithmetical circuits in spatially-extended excitable chemical systems

Numerical Strategies of Computing the Luminosity Distance

We propose two efficient numerical methods of evaluating the luminosity distance in the spatially flat {\Lambda}CDM universe. The first method is based on the Carlson symmetric form of elliptic integrals, which is highly accurate and can replace numerical quadratures. The second method, using a modified version of Hermite interpolation, is less accurate but involves only basic numerical operations and can be easily implemented. We compare our methods with other numerical approximation schemes and explore their respective features and limitations. Possible extensions of these methods to other cosmological models are also discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. v2: A minor error in the last equation has been corrected (conclusions are not affected). v3: Accepted by MNRA

A New Classification Method for Gamma-Ray Bursts

Recent Swift observations suggest that the traditional long vs. short GRB classification scheme does not always associate GRBs to the two physically motivated model types, i.e. Type II (massive star origin) vs. Type I (compact star origin). We propose a new phenomenological classification method of GRBs by introducing a new parameter epsilon=E_{gamma, iso,52}/E^{5/3}_{p,z,2}, where E_{\gamma,iso} is the isotropic gamma-ray energy (in units of 10^{52} erg), and E_{p,z} is the cosmic rest frame spectral peak energy (in units of 100 keV). For those short GRBs with "extended emission", both quantities are defined for the short/hard spike only. With the current complete sample of GRBs with redshift and E_p measurements, the epsilon parameter shows a clear bimodal distribution with a separation at epsilon ~ 0.03. The high-epsilon region encloses the typical long GRBs with high-luminosity, some high-z "rest-frame-short" GRBs (such as GRB 090423 and GRB 080913), as well as some high-z short GRBs (such as GRB 090426). All these GRBs have been claimed to be of the Type II origin based on other observational properties in the literature. All the GRBs that are argued to be of the Type I origin are found to be clustered in the low-epsilon region. They can be separated from some nearby low-luminosity long GRBs (in 3sigma) by an additional T_{90} criterion, i.e. T_{90,z}<~ 5 s in the Swift/BAT band. We suggest that this new classification scheme can better match the physically-motivated Type II/I classification scheme.Comment: 7 pages, including 4 figures and 1 Table, minor revision, accepted for publication in Ap

Redox-mediated reactions of vinylferrocene: Toward redox auxiliaries

Chemical redox reactions have been exploited to transform unreactive vinylferrocene into a powerful dienophile for the Diels–Alder reaction and reactive substrate for thiol addition reactions upon conversion to its ferrocenium state. We have further investigated the ability of these reactions to facilitate redox-auxiliary-like reactivity by further hydrogenolyisis of the Diels–Alder adduct to the corresponding cyclopentane derivative

ARPES insights on the metallic states of YbB6(001): E(k) dispersion, temporal changes and spatial variation

We report high resolution Angle Resolved PhotoElectron Spectroscopy (ARPES) results on the (001) cleavage surface of YbB$_{6}$, a rare-earth compound which has been recently predicted to host surface electronic states with topological character. We observe two types of well-resolved metallic states, whose Fermi contours encircle the time-reversal invariant momenta of the YbB$_{6}$(001) surface Brillouin zone, and whose full (E,$k$)-dispersion relation can be measured wholly unmasked by states from the rest of the electronic structure. Although the two-dimensional character of these metallic states is confirmed by their lack of out-of-plane dispersion, two new aspects are revealed in these experiments. Firstly, these states do not resemble two branches of opposite, linear velocity that cross at a Dirac point, but rather straightforward parabolas which terminate to high binding energy with a clear band bottom. Secondly, these states are sensitive to time-dependent changes of the YbB$_{6}$ surface under ultrahigh vacuum conditions. Adding the fact that these data from cleaved YbB$_{6}$ surfaces also display spatial variations in the electronic structure, it appears there is little in common between the theoretical expectations for an idealized YbB$_{6}$(001) crystal truncation on the one hand, and these ARPES data from real cleavage surfaces on the other.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures (accepted in Physical Review B

Current Reversals in a inhomogeneous system with asymmetric unbiased fluctuations

We present a study of transport of a Brownian particle moving in periodic symmetric potential in the presence of asymmetric unbiased fluctuations. The particle is considered to move in a medium with periodic space dependent friction. By tuning the parameters of the system, the direction of current exhibit reversals, both as a function of temperature as well as the amplitude of rocking force. We found that the mutual interplay between the opposite driving factors is the necessary term for current reversals.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure