3,597 research outputs found
Super- and Hyperdeformed Isomeric States and Long-Lived Superheavy Elements
The recent discoveries of the long-lived high spin super- and hyperdeformed
isomeric states and their unusual radioactive decay properties are described.
Based on their existence a consistent interpretation is given to the production
of the long-lived superheavy element with Z = 112, via secondary reactions in
CERN W targets, and to the low energy and very enhanced alpha-particle groups
seen in various actinide fractions separated from the same W target. In
addition, consistent interpretations are suggested for previously unexplained
phenomena seen in nature. These are the Po halos, the low-energy enhanced 4.5
MeV alpha-particle group proposed to be due to an isotope of a superheavy
element with Z = 108, and the giant halos.Comment: 4 pages. Contribution to the 2nd Int. Conf. on the Chemistry and
Physics of the Transactinide Elements (TAN 03) Napa California, November 200
HardIDX: Practical and Secure Index with SGX
Software-based approaches for search over encrypted data are still either
challenged by lack of proper, low-leakage encryption or slow performance.
Existing hardware-based approaches do not scale well due to hardware
limitations and software designs that are not specifically tailored to the
hardware architecture, and are rarely well analyzed for their security (e.g.,
the impact of side channels). Additionally, existing hardware-based solutions
often have a large code footprint in the trusted environment susceptible to
software compromises. In this paper we present HardIDX: a hardware-based
approach, leveraging Intel's SGX, for search over encrypted data. It implements
only the security critical core, i.e., the search functionality, in the trusted
environment and resorts to untrusted software for the remainder. HardIDX is
deployable as a highly performant encrypted database index: it is logarithmic
in the size of the index and searches are performed within a few milliseconds
rather than seconds. We formally model and prove the security of our scheme
showing that its leakage is equivalent to the best known searchable encryption
schemes. Our implementation has a very small code and memory footprint yet
still scales to virtually unlimited search index sizes, i.e., size is limited
only by the general - non-secure - hardware resources
A panel model for predicting the diversity of internal temperatures from English dwellings
Using panel methods, a model for predicting daily mean internal temperature demand across a heterogeneous domestic building stock is developed. The model offers an important link that connects building stock models to human behaviour. It represents the first time a panel model has been used to estimate the dynamics of internal temperature demand from the natural daily fluctuations of external temperature combined with important behavioural, socio-demographic and building efficiency variables. The model is able to predict internal temperatures across a heterogeneous building stock to within ~0.71°C at 95% confidence and explain 45% of the variance of internal temperature between dwellings. The model confirms hypothesis from sociology and psychology that habitual behaviours are important drivers of home energy consumption. In addition, the model offers the possibility to quantify take-back (direct rebound effect) owing to increased internal temperatures from the installation of energy efficiency measures. The presence of thermostats or thermostatic radiator valves (TRV) are shown to reduce average internal temperatures, however, the use of an automatic timer is statistically insignificant. The number of occupants, household income and occupant age are all important factors that explain a proportion of internal temperature demand. Households with children or retired occupants are shown to have higher average internal temperatures than households who do not. As expected, building typology, building age, roof insulation thickness, wall U-value and the proportion of double glazing all have positive and statistically significant effects on daily mean internal temperature. In summary, the model can be used as a tool to predict internal temperatures or for making statistical inferences. However, its primary contribution offers the ability to calibrate existing building stock models to account for behaviour and socio-demographic effects making it possible to back-out more accurate predictions of domestic energy demand
Homomorphic encryption and some black box attacks
This paper is a compressed summary of some principal definitions and concepts
in the approach to the black box algebra being developed by the authors. We
suggest that black box algebra could be useful in cryptanalysis of homomorphic
encryption schemes, and that homomorphic encryption is an area of research
where cryptography and black box algebra may benefit from exchange of ideas
Boneh-Franklin Identity Based Encryption Revisited
Contains fulltext :
33216.pdf (preprint version ) (Open Access
Secret-Sharing for NP
A computational secret-sharing scheme is a method that enables a dealer, that
has a secret, to distribute this secret among a set of parties such that a
"qualified" subset of parties can efficiently reconstruct the secret while any
"unqualified" subset of parties cannot efficiently learn anything about the
secret. The collection of "qualified" subsets is defined by a Boolean function.
It has been a major open problem to understand which (monotone) functions can
be realized by a computational secret-sharing schemes. Yao suggested a method
for secret-sharing for any function that has a polynomial-size monotone circuit
(a class which is strictly smaller than the class of monotone functions in P).
Around 1990 Rudich raised the possibility of obtaining secret-sharing for all
monotone functions in NP: In order to reconstruct the secret a set of parties
must be "qualified" and provide a witness attesting to this fact.
Recently, Garg et al. (STOC 2013) put forward the concept of witness
encryption, where the goal is to encrypt a message relative to a statement "x
in L" for a language L in NP such that anyone holding a witness to the
statement can decrypt the message, however, if x is not in L, then it is
computationally hard to decrypt. Garg et al. showed how to construct several
cryptographic primitives from witness encryption and gave a candidate
construction.
One can show that computational secret-sharing implies witness encryption for
the same language. Our main result is the converse: we give a construction of a
computational secret-sharing scheme for any monotone function in NP assuming
witness encryption for NP and one-way functions. As a consequence we get a
completeness theorem for secret-sharing: computational secret-sharing scheme
for any single monotone NP-complete function implies a computational
secret-sharing scheme for every monotone function in NP
Unconditionally verifiable blind computation
Blind Quantum Computing (BQC) allows a client to have a server carry out a
quantum computation for them such that the client's input, output and
computation remain private. A desirable property for any BQC protocol is
verification, whereby the client can verify with high probability whether the
server has followed the instructions of the protocol, or if there has been some
deviation resulting in a corrupted output state. A verifiable BQC protocol can
be viewed as an interactive proof system leading to consequences for complexity
theory. The authors, together with Broadbent, previously proposed a universal
and unconditionally secure BQC scheme where the client only needs to be able to
prepare single qubits in separable states randomly chosen from a finite set and
send them to the server, who has the balance of the required quantum
computational resources. In this paper we extend that protocol with new
functionality allowing blind computational basis measurements, which we use to
construct a new verifiable BQC protocol based on a new class of resource
states. We rigorously prove that the probability of failing to detect an
incorrect output is exponentially small in a security parameter, while resource
overhead remains polynomial in this parameter. The new resource state allows
entangling gates to be performed between arbitrary pairs of logical qubits with
only constant overhead. This is a significant improvement on the original
scheme, which required that all computations to be performed must first be put
into a nearest neighbour form, incurring linear overhead in the number of
qubits. Such an improvement has important consequences for efficiency and
fault-tolerance thresholds.Comment: 46 pages, 10 figures. Additional protocol added which allows
arbitrary circuits to be verified with polynomial securit
Evidence for a long-lived superheavy nucleus with atomic mass number A=292 and atomic number Z=~122 in natural Th
Evidence for the existence of a superheavy nucleus with atomic mass number
A=292 and abundance (1-10)x10^(-12) relative to 232Th has been found in a study
of natural Th using inductively coupled plasma-sector field mass spectrometry.
The measured mass matches the predictions [1,2] for the mass of an isotope with
atomic number Z=122 or a nearby element. Its estimated half-life of t1/2 >=
10^8 y suggests that a long-lived isomeric state exists in this isotope. The
possibility that it might belong to a new class of long-lived high spin super-
and hyperdeformed isomeric states is discussed.[3-6]Comment: 14 pages, 5 figure
Existence of long-lived isotopes of a superheavy element in natural Au
Evidence for the existence of long-lived isotopes with atomic mass numbers
261 and 265 and abundance of (1-10)x10 relative to Au has been found in
a study of natural Au using an inductively coupled plasma - sector field mass
spectrometer. The measured masses fit the predictions made for the masses of
Rg and Rg (Z=111) and for some isotopes of nearby elements.
The possibility that these isotopes belong to the recently discovered class
of long-lived high spin super- and hyperdeformed isomeric states is discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, 2 table
Efficient semi-static secure broadcast encryption scheme
In this paper, we propose a semi-static secure broadcast encryption scheme with constant-sized private keys and ciphertexts. Our result improves the semi-static secure broadcast encryption scheme introduced by Gentry and Waters. Specifically, we reduce the private key and ciphertext size by half. By applying the generic transformation proposed by Gentry and Waters, our scheme also achieves adaptive security. Finally, we present an improved implementation idea which can reduce the ciphertext size in the aforementioned generic transformation
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