A Search for Good Pseudo-random Number Generators : Survey and Empirical Studies

In today's world, several applications demand numbers which appear random but are generated by a background algorithm; that is, pseudo-random numbers. Since late $19^{th}$ century, researchers have been working on pseudo-random number generators (PRNGs). Several PRNGs continue to develop, each one demanding to be better than the previous ones. In this scenario, this paper targets to verify the claim of so-called good generators and rank the existing generators based on strong empirical tests in same platforms. To do this, the genre of PRNGs developed so far has been explored and classified into three groups -- linear congruential generator based, linear feedback shift register based and cellular automata based. From each group, well-known generators have been chosen for empirical testing. Two types of empirical testing has been done on each PRNG -- blind statistical tests with Diehard battery of tests, TestU01 library and NIST statistical test-suite and graphical tests (lattice test and space-time diagram test). Finally, the selected $29$ PRNGs are divided into $24$ groups and are ranked according to their overall performance in all empirical tests

Public Space and Women

The article proposes to problematize the notion of ‘public space’ by positing it in the context of access by male and female members of the society. The question of access to ‘public space’ is largely governed by the power equation that exists in the society. The patriarchal society restricts the movement of women and their access to public space and heavily curtails the freedom of women. This nonetheless handicaps the creative and enterprising activities of women who live in the shadow of fear for a number of reasons. The heavily sexualized popular culture accentuated by cultural products like films, songs, etc. breeds a kind of fear psychosis in women. No wonder while a large number of women face actual violence and atrocity, others undergo perceived threat even in their movement in public space. The article further seeks to make sense of the ‘fear’ perceived by women, and also tries to suggest possible measures that may be adopted to ensure greater safety for women. The article endeavours to shed light on the way the sexual violence against women may be understood. The issue may not be properly understood only by looking at it from the violence perpetrated against women by men, but by understanding the sexualisation of culture. The popular culture nourished by the patriarchy with its sexist ideology is largely responsible for commodification of women. The article gestures towards a more nuanced and critical understanding of ‘space’ and popular culture for better understanding of the nature of ‘fear’ perceived by women in their access to public space

A Survey of Cellular Automata: Types, Dynamics, Non-uniformity and Applications

Cellular automata (CAs) are dynamical systems which exhibit complex global behavior from simple local interaction and computation. Since the inception of cellular automaton (CA) by von Neumann in 1950s, it has attracted the attention of several researchers over various backgrounds and fields for modelling different physical, natural as well as real-life phenomena. Classically, CAs are uniform. However, non-uniformity has also been introduced in update pattern, lattice structure, neighborhood dependency and local rule. In this survey, we tour to the various types of CAs introduced till date, the different characterization tools, the global behaviors of CAs, like universality, reversibility, dynamics etc. Special attention is given to non-uniformity in CAs and especially to non-uniform elementary CAs, which have been very useful in solving several real-life problems.Comment: 43 pages; Under review in Natural Computin

The Clouds in Asynchronous Cellular Automata

This article introduces the notion of clouds in asynchronous cellular automata (ACAs). We show that the cloud behaviour of ACAs has similarity with natural clouds across the sky, election model of parliamentary democratic system, and electron cloud around nucleus. These systems, therefore, can be modelled by the ACAs