Privacy-Aware Processing of Biometric Templates by Means of Secure Two-Party Computation

The use of biometric data for person identification and access control is gaining more and more popularity. Handling biometric data, however, requires particular care, since biometric data is indissolubly tied to the identity of the owner hence raising important security and privacy issues. This chapter focuses on the latter, presenting an innovative approach that, by relying on tools borrowed from Secure Two Party Computation (STPC) theory, permits to process the biometric data in encrypted form, thus eliminating any risk that private biometric information is leaked during an identification process. The basic concepts behind STPC are reviewed together with the basic cryptographic primitives needed to achieve privacy-aware processing of biometric data in a STPC context. The two main approaches proposed so far, namely homomorphic encryption and garbled circuits, are discussed and the way such techniques can be used to develop a full biometric matching protocol described. Some general guidelines to be used in the design of a privacy-aware biometric system are given, so as to allow the reader to choose the most appropriate tools depending on the application at hand

The random growth of interfaces as a subordinated process

We study the random growth of surfaces from within the perspective of a single column, namely, the fluctuation of the column height around the mean value, y(t)= h(t)-, which is depicted as being subordinated to a standard fluctuation-dissipation process with friction gamma. We argue that the main properties of Kardar-Parisi-Zhang theory, in one dimension, are derived by identifying the distribution of return times to y(0) = 0, which is a truncated inverse power law, with the distribution of subordination times. The agreement of the theoretical prediction with the numerical treatment of the 1 + 1 dimensional model of ballistic deposition is remarkably good, in spite of the finite size effects affecting this model.Comment: LaTeX, 4 pages, 3 figure

Proposal for the wild grapevine (Vitis vinifera L. subsp. sylvestris (Gmelin) Hegi) conservation in the European countries

Annex

Phytosanitary rules for grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) propagation material introduction into EU for germplasm conservation and scientific purposes

Annex

Vitis vinifera - a chemotaxonomic approach: Anthocyanins in the skin

The gaining of new knowledge about varietal differences in grapevines can be useful for the designing of genetic improvement programs. More and more, chemical methods complement ampelographic ones in the study of variability in grapevines. This work is aimed at the anthocyanin profiling of red-coloured grapes, of which ca. 120 cultivars were sampled; among these there were a high number of old Italian vines and 30 Vitis vinifera ssp. silvestris originating from different areas of Italy. Anthocyanins were HPLC separated and quantified with the aid of an inverse phase microbore column and a photodiode detector. Grapevines were numerically separated in groups using as indexes the percentage of the 5 monoglucosides present, the summations of: acetic esters; malvidin-3-monoglucoside-caffeoate plus all 5 p-coumaric esters; as well as a series of relations correlated to certain enzymatic activities necessary for the esterification of glucosides, hydroxylation and methylation in the biosynthesis of several anthocyanins. Data derived from the study of indexes of varietal enzymatic activity enable us to qualify differences between grapevines linked to the synthesis of anthocyanins. The stability of anthocyanic profiles within the same grape variety enables the use of this technique for taxonomic purposes. This research study discusses the use of this technique for classification and analysis of grape phylogenesis. An in-depth look into the relations between cultivated and wild varieties is given

Toughening effect of non-periodic fiber distribution on crack propagation energy of UHTC composites

Different configurations of continuous carbon fiber-reinforced ultrahigh temperature ceramics (UHTCs), by combining coatings and matrix, were produced via electrophoretic deposition (EPD) and slurry infiltration. The toughening of non-periodic fiber distribution induced by the EPD process was investigated through work of fracture analysis. The results show that a non-periodic fiber distribution results in toughness increase from 8 MPa√m to 11 MPa√m with respect to a periodic fiber distribution. This toughness improvement does not strongly affect the flexural strength, which is mainly related to the fiber volumetric amount. It is shown that the assembling of carbon fibers into bundles (i.e. by dispersing the fibers with a non-periodic distribution) increases the crack propagation energy dissipated on the crack-wake from 0.5 kJ/m2 to 1 kJ/m2, which can be mainly ascribed to the fiber/bundle pull-out. On the other hand, the energy dissipated on the crack-tip (as fiber/matrix debonding) is fiber distribution-independent and increases from 0.3 kJ/m2 to 0.4 kJ/m2 with increasing the fiber amount from 33 vol% to 40 vol%. Finally, WoF analysis is proposed as test to evaluate pull-out toughening instead of push-in and push-out tests

Formation of high entropy metal diborides using arc-melting and combinatorial approach to study quinary and quaternary solid solutions

High entropy metal diborides (HEBs) represent a radically new approach to extend the chemical composition window of ultra-high temperature ceramics (UHTCs). In this work, arc-melting was used to produce dense HEBs starting from UHTC powders. In order to understand the influence of each individual diboride within the quinary system (HfB2, ZrB2, TiB2, TaB2 and CrB2), we investigated five quaternary equimolar solid solutions e.g. Hf-Zr-Ti-Ta, Hf-Zr-Ti-Cr, Hf-Zr-Ta-Cr, Hf-Ti-Ta-Cr, Zr-Ti-Ta-Cr and the overall quinary equimolar combination. Arc-melting allowed a rapid screening of favorable and unfavorable combinations. The produced HEBs were free from undesired oxides and characterized by linear variation of lattice parameters typical of diborides and binary solid solutions. Because of evaporation during arc melting, CrB2 was hardly found in the solid solution, suggesting that vapor pressure should be taken into account when designing HEB compositions especially for operating temperatures exceeding 2000 °C. Finally, Vickers microhardness ranged between the typical values of starting diborides

Advances in grape phenotyping: pigment characterization by reflectance and theoretical chemistry

Research Not