Quantum Lock: A Provable Quantum Communication Advantage

Physical unclonable functions(PUFs) provide a unique fingerprint to a physical entity by exploiting the inherent physical randomness. Gao et al. discussed the vulnerability of most current-day PUFs to sophisticated machine learning-based attacks. We address this problem by integrating classical PUFs and existing quantum communication technology. Specifically, this paper proposes a generic design of provably secure PUFs, called hybrid locked PUFs(HLPUFs), providing a practical solution for securing classical PUFs. An HLPUF uses a classical PUF(CPUF), and encodes the output into non-orthogonal quantum states to hide the outcomes of the underlying CPUF from any adversary. Here we introduce a quantum lock to protect the HLPUFs from any general adversaries. The indistinguishability property of the non-orthogonal quantum states, together with the quantum lockdown technique prevents the adversary from accessing the outcome of the CPUFs. Moreover, we show that by exploiting non-classical properties of quantum states, the HLPUF allows the server to reuse the challenge-response pairs for further client authentication. This result provides an efficient solution for running PUF-based client authentication for an extended period while maintaining a small-sized challenge-response pairs database on the server side. Later, we support our theoretical contributions by instantiating the HLPUFs design using accessible real-world CPUFs. We use the optimal classical machine-learning attacks to forge both the CPUFs and HLPUFs, and we certify the security gap in our numerical simulation for construction which is ready for implementation.Comment: Replacement of paper "Hybrid PUF: A Novel Way to Enhance the Security of Classical PUFs" (arXiv:2110.09469

AiM: Taking Answers in Mind to Correct Chinese Cloze Tests in Educational Applications

To automatically correct handwritten assignments, the traditional approach is to use an OCR model to recognize characters and compare them to answers. The OCR model easily gets confused on recognizing handwritten Chinese characters, and the textual information of the answers is missing during the model inference. However, teachers always have these answers in mind to review and correct assignments. In this paper, we focus on the Chinese cloze tests correction and propose a multimodal approach (named AiM). The encoded representations of answers interact with the visual information of students' handwriting. Instead of predicting 'right' or 'wrong', we perform the sequence labeling on the answer text to infer which answer character differs from the handwritten content in a fine-grained way. We take samples of OCR datasets as the positive samples for this task, and develop a negative sample augmentation method to scale up the training data. Experimental results show that AiM outperforms OCR-based methods by a large margin. Extensive studies demonstrate the effectiveness of our multimodal approach.Comment: Accepted to COLING 202

Radiative Seesaw in SO(10) with Dark Matter

High energy accelerators may probe into dark matter and the seesaw neutrino mass scales if they are not much heavier than ~O(TeV). In the absence of supersymmetry, we extend a class of SO(10) models to predict well known cold dark matter candidates while achieving precision unification with experimentally testable proton lifetime. The most important prediction is a new radiative seesaw formula of Ma type accessible to accelerator tests while the essential small value of its quartic coupling also emerges naturally. This dominates over the high-scale seesaw contributions making a major impact on neutrino physics and dark matter, opening up high prospects as a theory of fermion masses.Comment: 11 pages LaTex, no figures.hep-ph, astro-ph, hep-th; Version accepted in Phys. Lett.

Neutrino mass and low-scale leptogenesis in a testable SUSY SO(10) model

It is shown that a supersymmetric SO(10) model extended with fermion singlets can accommodate the observed neutrino masses and mixings as well as generate the desired lepton asymmetry in concordance with the gravitino constraint. A necessary prediction of the model is near-TeV scale doubly-charged Higgs scalars which should be detectable at the LHC.Comment: Latex, 7 pages, 2 figures, minor clarifications added, to appear in Physics Letters

Variable, but not free-weight, resistance back squat exercise potentiates jump performance following a comprehensive task-specific warm-up

Studies examining acute, high-speed movement performance enhancement following intense muscular contractions (frequently called "post-activation potentiation"; PAP) often impose a limited warm-up, compromizing external validity. In the present study, the effects on countermovement vertical jump (CMJ) performance of back squat exercises performed with or without elastic bands during warm-up were compared. After familiarization, fifteen active men visited the laboratory on two occasions under randomized, counterbalanced experimental squat warm-up conditions: (a) free-weight resistance (FWR) and (b) variable resistance (VR). After completing a comprehensive task-specific warm-up, three maximal CMJs were performed followed by three back squat repetitions completed at 85% of 1-RM using either FWR or VR Three CMJs were then performed 30 seconds, 4 minutes, 8 minutes, and 12 minutes later. During CMJ trials, hip, knee, and ankle joint kinematics, ground reaction force data and vastus medialis, vastus lateralis, and gluteus maximus electromyograms (EMG) were recorded simultaneously using 3D motion analysis, force platform, and EMG techniques, respectively. No change in any variable occurred after FWR (P > 0.05). Significant increases (P < 0.05) were detected at all time points following VR in CMJ height (5.3%-6.5%), peak power (4.4%-5.9%), rate of force development (12.9%-19.1%), peak concentric knee angular velocity (3.1%-4.1%), and mean concentric vastus lateralis EMG activity (27.5%-33.4%). The lack of effect of the free-weight conditioning contractions suggests that the comprehensive task-specific warm-up routine mitigated any further performance augmentation. However, the improved CMJ performance following the use of elastic bands is indicative that specific alterations in force-time properties of warm-up exercises may further improve performance

SARS-CoV-2 sero-surveillance in Greece: evolution over time and epidemiological attributes during the pre-vaccination pandemic era

BACKGROUND: Nation-wide SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence surveys provide valuable insights into the course of the pandemic, including information often not captured by routine surveillance of reported cases. METHODS: A serosurvey of IgG antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 was conducted in Greece between March and December 2020. It was designed as a cross-sectional survey repeated at monthly intervals. The leftover sampling methodology was used and a geographically stratified sampling plan was applied. RESULTS: Of 55,947 serum samples collected, 705 (1.26%) were found positive for anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, with higher seroprevalence (9.09%) observed in December 2020. Highest seropositivity levels were observed in the "0-29" and "30-49" year age groups. Seroprevalence increased with age in the "0-29" age group. Highly populated metropolitan areas were characterized with elevated seroprevalence levels (11.92% in Attica, 12.76% in Thessaloniki) compared to the rest of the country (5.90%). The infection fatality rate (IFR) was estimated at 0.451% (95% CI: 0.382-0.549%) using aggregate data until December 2020, and the ratio of actual to reported cases was 9.59 (7.88-11.33). CONCLUSIONS: The evolution of seroprevalence estimates aligned with the course of the pandemic and varied widely by region and age group. Young and middle-aged adults appeared to be drivers of the pandemic during a severe epidemic wave under strict policy measures

Altered drop jump landing biomechanics following eccentric exercise-induced muscle damage

© 2021 The Authors. Published by MDPI. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.3390/sports9020024Limited research exists in the literature regarding the biomechanics of the jump-landing sequence in individuals that experience symptoms of muscle damage. The present study investigated the effects of knee localized muscle damage on sagittal plane landing biomechanics during drop vertical jump (DVJ). Thirteen regional level athletes performed five sets of 15 maximal eccentric voluntary contractions of the knee extensors of both legs at 60◦/s. Pelvic and lower body kinematics and kinetics were measured preand 48 h post-eccentric exercise. The examination of muscle damage indicators included isometric torque, muscle soreness, and serum creatine kinase (CK) activity. The results revealed that all indicators changed significantly following eccentric exercise (p< 0.05). Peak knee and hip joint flexion as well as peak anterior pelvic tilt significantly increased, whereas vertical ground reaction force (GRF), internal knee extension moment, and knee joint stiffness significantly decreased during landing (p< 0.05). Therefore, the participants displayed a softer landing pattern following knee-localized eccentric exercise while being in a muscle-damaged state. This observation provides new insights on how the DVJ landing kinematics and kinetics alter to compensate the impaired function of the knee extensors following exercise-induced muscle damage (EIMD) and residual muscle soreness 48 h post-exercise.This research was supported by the postdoctoral scholarship program implemented by University of Thessaly (Greece) and funded by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, grant number 5394.02.02Published versio