Preparing for GDPR:helping EU SMEs to manage data breaches

Over the last decade, the number of small and medium (SME) businesses suffering data breaches has risen at an alarming rate. Knowing how to respond to inevitable data breaches is critically important. A number of guidelines exist to advise organisations on the steps necessary to ensure an effective incident response. These guidelines tend to be unsuitable for SMEs, who generally have limited resources to expend on security and incident responses. Qualitative interviews were conducted with SMEs to probe current data breach response practice and to gather best-practice advice from SMEs themselves. The interviews revealed no widespread de facto approach, with a variety of practices being reported. A number of prevalent unhelpful-practice themes emerged from the responses, which we propose specific mitigation techniques to address. We therefore propose a SME-specific incident response framework that is simple yet powerful enough to inform and guide SME responses to data breach incidents

Entangled Photon Pair Source Demonstrator using the Quantum Instrumentation Control Kit System

We report the first demonstration of using the Quantum Instrumentation and Control Kit (QICK) system on RFSoCFPGA technology to drive an entangled photon pair source and to detect the photon signals. With the QICK system, we achieve high levels of performance metrics including coincidence-to-accidental ratio exceeding 150, and entanglement visibility exceeding 95%, consistent with performance metrics achieved using conventional waveform generators. We also demonstrate simultaneous detector readout using the digitization functional of QICK, achieving internal system synchronization time resolution of 3.2 ps. The work reported in this paper represents an explicit demonstration of the feasibility for replacing commercial waveform generators and time taggers with RFSoC-FPGA technology in the operation of a quantum network, representing a cost reduction of more than an order of magnitude

Picosecond Synchronization of Photon Pairs through a Fiber Link between Fermilab and Argonne National Laboratories

We demonstrate a three-node quantum network for C-band photon pairs using 2 pairs of 59 km of deployed fiber between Fermi and Argonne National Laboratories. The C-band pairs are directed to nodes using a standard telecommunication switch and synchronized to picosecond-scale timing resolution using a coexisting O- or L-band optical clock distribution system. We measure a reduction of coincidence-to-accidental ratio (CAR) of the C-band pairs from 51 $\pm$ 2 to 5.3 $\pm$ 0.4 due to Raman scattering of the O-band clock pulses. Despite this reduction, the CAR is nevertheless suitable for quantum networks

HEP.TrkX Project: Deep Learning for Particle Tracking

Charged particle reconstruction in dense environments, such as the detectors of the High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) is a challenging pattern recognition problem. Traditional tracking algorithms, such as the combinatorial Kalman Filter, have been used with great success in HEP experiments for years. However, these state-of-the-art techniques are inherently sequential and scale quadratically or worse with increased detector occupancy. The HEP.TrkX project is a pilot project with the aim to identify and develop cross-experiment solutions based on machine learning algorithms for track reconstruction. Machine learning algorithms bring a lot of potential to this problem thanks to their capability to model complex non-linear data dependencies, to learn effective representations of high-dimensional data through training, and to parallelize easily on high-throughput architectures such as FPGAs or GPUs. In this paper we present the evolution and performance of our recurrent (LSTM) and convolutional neural networks moving from basic 2D models to more complex models and the challenges of scaling up to realistic dimensionality/sparsity

Pneumothorax during percutaneous tracheostomy ― a brief review of literature on attributable causes and preventable strategies

The significant advantages of percutaneous tracheostomy over surgical (open) tracheostomy has enabled its widespread acceptability and practice in intensive care units. Over the years, various modifications in the technique of percutaneous tracheostomy has increased its safety profile and reduced the overall complication rate. However, even though it is a bedside procedure, inappropriate patient selection and poor adherence to protocols can lead to devastating complications. One such complication, namely pneumothorax, is often overlooked. In this article, we have highlighted all the possible etiologies of pneumothorax during percutaneous tracheostomy. A brief insight into some of the preventable strategies is also discussed.The significant advantages of percutaneous tracheostomy over surgical (open) tracheostomy has enabled its widespread acceptability and practice in intensive care units. Over the years, various modifications in the technique of percutaneous tracheostomy has increased its safety profile and reduced the overall complication rate. However, even though it is a bedside procedure, inappropriate patient selection and poor adherence to protocols can lead to devastating complications. One such complication, namely pneumothorax, is often overlooked. In this article, we have highlighted all the possible etiologies of pneumothorax during percutaneous tracheostomy. A brief insight into some of the preventable strategies is also discussed

Design and Implementation of the Illinois Express Quantum Metropolitan Area Network

The Illinois Express Quantum Network (IEQNET) is a program to realize metropolitan-scale quantum networking over deployed optical fiber using currently available technology. IEQNET consists of multiple sites that are geographically dispersed in the Chicago metropolitan area. Each site has one or more quantum nodes (Q-Nodes) representing the communication parties in a quantum network. Q-Nodes generate or measure quantum signals such as entangled photons and communicate the measurement results via standard classical signals and conventional networking processes. The entangled photons in IEQNET nodes are generated at multiple wavelengths and are selectively distributed to the desired users via transparent optical switches. Here, we describe the network architecture of IEQNET, including the Internet-inspired layered hierarchy that leverages software-defined networking (SDN) technology to perform traditional wavelength routing and assignment between the Q-Nodes. Specifically, SDN decouples the control and data planes, with the control plane being entirely implemented in the classical domain. We also discuss the IEQNET processes that address issues associated with synchronization, calibration, network monitoring, and scheduling. An important goal of IEQNET is to demonstrate the extent to which the control plane classical signals can copropagate with the data plane quantum signals in the same fiber lines (quantum-classical signal “coexistence”). This goal is furthered by the use of tunable narrowband optical filtering at the receivers and, at least in some cases, a wide wavelength separation between the quantum and classical channels. We envision IEQNET to aid in developing robust and practical quantum networks by demonstrating metropolitan-scale quantum communication tasks such as entanglement distribution and quantum-state teleportation