81 research outputs found
Autonomous Sensor Node Powered by CM-Scale Benthic Microbial Fuel Cell and Low-Cost and Off-the-Shelf Components
International audienceMicrobial fuel cells (MFC's) are promising energy harvesters to constantly supply energy to sensors deployed in aquatic environments where solar, thermal and vibration sources are inadequate. In order to show the ready-to-use MFC potential as energy scavengers, this paper presents the association of a durable benthic MFC with a few dollars of commercially-available power management units (PMU's) dedicated to other kinds of harvesters. With 20cm 2 of cheap material electrodes, and experimental conditions similar to real ones, 101µW has been generated at 320mV in steady-state operation. In burst mode, the MFC can generate up to 400µW. The PMU, configured to extract the maximum available energy, provides 47µW at 3V in steady state, which would allow a wide range of environmental sensors to be powered. A sensor node, consuming 100µJ every 4s for measurement and wireless transmission of temperature, has been successfully powered by the association of our MFC and the PMU
Quantum bit commitment under Gaussian constraints
Quantum bit commitment has long been known to be impossible. Nevertheless,
just as in the classical case, imposing certain constraints on the power of the
parties may enable the construction of asymptotically secure protocols. Here,
we introduce a quantum bit commitment protocol and prove that it is
asymptotically secure if cheating is restricted to Gaussian operations. This
protocol exploits continuous-variable quantum optical carriers, for which such
a Gaussian constraint is experimentally relevant as the high optical
nonlinearity needed to effect deterministic non-Gaussian cheating is
inaccessible.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure
Fully Distrustful Quantum Cryptography
In the distrustful quantum cryptography model the different parties have
conflicting interests and do not trust one another. Nevertheless, they trust
the quantum devices in their labs. The aim of the device-independent approach
to cryptography is to do away with the necessity of making this assumption,
and, consequently, significantly increase security. In this paper we enquire
whether the scope of the device-independent approach can be extended to the
distrustful cryptography model, thereby rendering it `fully' distrustful. We
answer this question in the affirmative by presenting a device-independent
(imperfect) bit-commitment protocol, which we then use to construct a
device-independent coin flipping protocol
Multipartite entanglement verification resistant against dishonest parties
Future quantum information networks will likely consist of quantum and
classical agents, who have the ability to communicate in a variety of ways with
trusted and untrusted parties and securely delegate computational tasks to
untrusted large-scale quantum computing servers. Multipartite quantum
entanglement is a fundamental resource for such a network and hence it is
imperative to study the possibility of verifying a multipartite entanglement
source in a way that is efficient and provides strong guarantees even in the
presence of multiple dishonest parties. In this work, we show how an agent of a
quantum network can perform a distributed verification of a multipartite
entangled source with minimal resources, which is, nevertheless, resistant
against any number of dishonest parties. Moreover, we provide a tight tradeoff
between the level of security and the distance between the state produced by
the source and the ideal maximally entangled state. Last, by adding the
resource of a trusted common random source, we can further provide security
guarantees for all honest parties in the quantum network simultaneously.Comment: The statement of Theorem 2 has been revised and a new proof is given.
Other results unchange
Fair Loss-Tolerant Quantum Coin Flipping
Coin flipping is a cryptographic primitive in which two spatially separated
players, who in principle do not trust each other, wish to establish a common
random bit. If we limit ourselves to classical communication, this task
requires either assumptions on the computational power of the players or it
requires them to send messages to each other with sufficient simultaneity to
force their complete independence. Without such assumptions, all classical
protocols are so that one dishonest player has complete control over the
outcome. If we use quantum communication, on the other hand, protocols have
been introduced that limit the maximal bias that dishonest players can produce.
However, those protocols would be very difficult to implement in practice
because they are susceptible to realistic losses on the quantum channel between
the players or in their quantum memory and measurement apparatus. In this
paper, we introduce a novel quantum protocol and we prove that it is completely
impervious to loss. The protocol is fair in the sense that either player has
the same probability of success in cheating attempts at biasing the outcome of
the coin flip. We also give explicit and optimal cheating strategies for both
players.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure; various minor typos corrected in version
Experimental verification of multipartite entanglement in quantum networks
Multipartite entangled states are a fundamental resource for a wide range of
quantum information processing tasks. In particular, in quantum networks it is
essential for the parties involved to be able to verify if entanglement is
present before they carry out a given distributed task. Here we design and
experimentally demonstrate a protocol that allows any party in a network to
check if a source is distributing a genuinely multipartite entangled state,
even in the presence of untrusted parties. The protocol remains secure against
dishonest behaviour of the source and other parties, including the use of
system imperfections to their advantage. We demonstrate the verification
protocol in a three- and four-party setting using polarization-entangled
photons, highlighting its potential for realistic photonic quantum
communication and networking applications.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure
Simultaneous pain intensity rating and quantification of ischemia throughout exercise and recovery in proximal versus distal arterial claudication
Data on simultaneous hemodynamic changes and pain rating estimation in arterial claudication while walking are lacking. This study was conducted to determine if a difference in transcutaneous oxygen pressure (tcpO2) exists between proximal and distal localization at pain appearance (PAINapp), maximal pain (PAINmax) and pain relief (PAINrel) in proximal or distal claudication and if a relationship exists between tcpO2 changes and pain intensity. We analyzed the pain rating (Visual Analog Scale (VAS)) to lower limb ischemia, measured with the decrease from rest of oxygen pressure (DROP) tcpO2 index during constant-load treadmill tests in patients with calf (n = 41) or buttock (n = 19) claudication. Calves versus buttocks results were analyzed with ANOVA tests. The R2 correlation coefficient between individual VAS versus DROP was calculated. Ischemia intensity versus pain rating changes were correlated. Significant ischemia was required for pain appearance, but pain disappeared despite the persistence of ischemia. We observed no statistical difference for DROP at PAINapp, PAINmax or PAINrel between proximal or distal claudication. A significant correlation between pain rating versus DROP was found: from PAINapp to PAINmax, R2 = 0.750 (calves) and 0.829 (buttocks), and from PAINmax to PAINrel, R2 = 0.608 (calves) and 0.560 (buttocks); p<0.05. Pain appeared after a significant decrease of hemodynamic parameters but disappeared while parameters were not normalized. No difference in pain rating was found in proximal versus distal claudication
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