13,941 research outputs found
Recommended from our members
Anonymity in Bitcoin and Bitmessage
This report describes two projects created by the author which are based on ideas which originate from the Bitcoin community. The first, bmd, is a re-implementation of the Bitmessage protocol in go. Bitmessage is an anonymous and secure messaging system invented by Jonathan Warren, who was inspired by the design of Bitcoin's p2p network. [WARR1] The second is Shufflepuff, an implementation of a protocol called CoinShuffle[RUFF1] which allows several people to construct a Bitcoin transaction with an input and an output for each participant without any participant knowing who owns which output. CoinShuffle was invented by Tim Ruffing et al, and it is an upgrade of a protocol called CoinJoin, invented by Gregory Maxwell. This paper discusses the background, properties, applications, and design of bmd and Shufflepuff. There is also a report of a performance analysis on bmd.Electrical and Computer Engineerin
A Memetic Algorithm for the Generalized Traveling Salesman Problem
The generalized traveling salesman problem (GTSP) is an extension of the
well-known traveling salesman problem. In GTSP, we are given a partition of
cities into groups and we are required to find a minimum length tour that
includes exactly one city from each group. The recent studies on this subject
consider different variations of a memetic algorithm approach to the GTSP. The
aim of this paper is to present a new memetic algorithm for GTSP with a
powerful local search procedure. The experiments show that the proposed
algorithm clearly outperforms all of the known heuristics with respect to both
solution quality and running time. While the other memetic algorithms were
designed only for the symmetric GTSP, our algorithm can solve both symmetric
and asymmetric instances.Comment: 15 pages, to appear in Natural Computing, Springer, available online:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/5v4568l492272865/?p=e1779dd02e4d4cbfa49d0d27b19b929f&pi=1
Clean and green with deepening shadows? a non-complacent view of corruption in New Zealand
New Zealand has long been regarded as a country with little or no governmental corruption. In recent times it has been ranked consistently as one of the five least corrupt countries in the world, on Transparency Internationalâs (TI) Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). In 2009 and 2011 it was ranked as the single most corruption-free country on the CPI, and in 2012 it shared first place with Denmark and Finland. This paper examines the reasons why historically New Zealand has been largely free of governmental corruption, using widely accepted definitions of what constitutes corrupt behaviour. It goes on to argue that, at least by its own normal standards, the country might now be more susceptible to corruption, for a variety of reasons, in both the public and private sectors, and that more political and administrative attention may need to be paid to this issue. The paper discusses New Zealandâs surprising tardiness in ratifying the United Nations Convention against Corruption, an apparent reluctance that leaves the country sitting alongside other non-ratifying countries which have endemic levels of corruption in all its forms. In this context, the paper also notes some international dissatisfaction with New Zealandâs anti-money laundering legislation, enacted in 2009
The Cosmic Ray Observatory Project: A Statewide Outreach and Education Experiment in Nebraska
The Cosmic Ray Observatory Project (CROP) is a statewide education and
research experiment involving Nebraska high school students, teachers and
university undergraduates in the study of extensive cosmic-ray air showers. A
network of high school teams construct, install, and operate school-based
detectors in coordination with University of Nebraska physics professors and
graduate students. The detector system at each school is an array of
scintillation counters recycled from the Chicago Air Shower Array in
weather-proof enclosures on the school roof, with a GPS receiver providing a
time stamp for cosmic-ray events. The detectors are connected to triggering
electronics and a data-acquisition PC inside the building. Students share data
via the Internet to search for time coincidences with other sites. Funded by
the National Science Foundation, CROP has enlisted 29 schools with the aim of
expanding to the 314 high schools in the state over several years. This report
highlights both the scientific and professional development achievements of the
project to date.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, submitted to the 2007 International Cosmic Ray
Conference (ICRC2007), Merida, Mexico, July 200
Setting the quantum integrand of M-theory
In anomaly-free quantum field theories the integrand in the bosonic
functional integral--the exponential of the effective action after integrating
out fermions--is often defined only up to a phase without an additional choice.
We term this choice ``setting the quantum integrand''. In the low-energy
approximation to M-theory the E(8)-model for the C-field allows us to set the
quantum integrand using geometric index theory. We derive mathematical results
of independent interest about pfaffians of Dirac operators in 8k+3 dimensions,
both on closed manifolds and manifolds with boundary. These theorems are used
to set the quantum integrand of M-theory for closed manifolds and for compact
manifolds with either temporal (global) or spatial (local) boundary conditions.
In particular, we show that M-theory makes sense on arbitrary 11-manifolds with
spatial boundary, generalizing the construction of heterotic M-theory on
cylinders.Comment: 52 pages; revised version for publication in Commun. Math. Phys.
corrects a few typo
Religion and the Cell-Only Population
Compares the religious affiliations, church attendance, and religious salience of the cell phone-only, landline, and combined cell/landline samples, and explores the extent to which the differences are due to the relative youth of the cell-only group
- âŠ