Stock market return distributions: from past to present

We show that recent stock market fluctuations are characterized by the cumulative distributions whose tails on short, minute time scales exhibit power scaling with the scaling index alpha > 3 and this index tends to increase quickly with decreasing sampling frequency. Our study is based on high-frequency recordings of the S&P500, DAX and WIG20 indices over the interval May 2004 - May 2006. Our findings suggest that dynamics of the contemporary market may differ from the one observed in the past. This effect indicates a constantly increasing efficiency of world markets.Comment: to appear in Physica

RECODIS : Resilient communication services protecting end-user applications from disaster-based failures

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Security in IoT pairing & authentication protocols, a threat model and a case study analysis

The Internet of Things has changed the way we interact with the environment around us in our daily life, and it is increasingly common to find more than one IoT device in our home. However, the current design approaches adopted by the vendors are more oriented towards customer usability than to security. This often results in more and more devices exposing serious security problems. This work focuses on the security implications, i.e. the threats and the risks, of the current IoT pairing mechanisms and represents a step forward in the definition of our automated penetration testing methodology. In addition to the general threat model for a general IoT pairing process, we present the analysis of a QR code-based pairing mechanism implemented by a class of devices taken from the real market, which led to the identification of two vulnerabilities, one of which publicly disclosed as CVE-2021-27941

On the Use of DHB/Aniline and DHB/N,N-Dimethylaniline Matrices for Improved Detection of Carbohydrates: Automated Identification of Oligosaccharides and Quantitative Analysis of Sialylated Glycans by MALDI-TOF Mass Spectrometry

This study demonstrates the application of 2,5-dihydrohybenzoic acid/aniline (DHB/An) and 2,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid/N,N-dimethylaniline (DHB/DMA) matrices for automated identification and quantitative analysis of native oligosaccharides by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI-MS). Both matrices are shown to be superior to pure DHB for native glycans in terms of signal intensities of analytes and homogeneity of sample distribution throughout the crystal layer. On-target formation of stable aniline Schiff base derivatives of glycans in DHB/An and the complete absence of such products in the mass spectra acquired in DHB/DMA matrix provide a platform for automated identification of reducing oligosaccharides in the MALDI mass spectra of complex samples. The study also shows how enhanced sensitivity is achieved with the use of these matrices and how the homogeneity of deposited sample material may be exploited for quick and accurate quantitative analysis of native glycan mixtures containing neutral and sialylated oligosaccharides in the low-nanogram to mid-picogram range

Toward the automation of threat modeling and risk assessment in IoT systems

The Internet of Things (IoT) has recently become one of the most relevant emerging technologies in the IT landscape. IoT systems are characterized by the high heterogeneity of involved architectural components (e.g., device platforms, services, networks, architectures) and involve a multiplicity of application domains. In the IoT scenario, the identification of specific security requirements and the security design are very complex and expensive tasks, since they heavily depend on the configuration deployment actually in place and require security experts. In order to overcome these issues, we propose an approach aimed at supporting the security analysis of an IoT system by means of an almost completely automated process for threat modeling and risk assessment, which also helps identify the security controls to implement in order to mitigate existing security risks. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach by discussing its application to a home automation system, built on top of commercial IoT products

The foreign exchange market: return distributions, multifractality, anomalous multifractality and Epps effect

We present a systematic study of various statistical characteristics of high-frequency returns from the foreign exchange market. This study is based on six exchange rates forming two triangles: EUR-GBP-USD and GBP-CHF-JPY. It is shown that the exchange rate return fluctuations for all the pairs considered are well described by the nonextensive statistics in terms of q-Gaussians. There exist some small quantitative variations in the nonextensivity q-parameter values for different exchange rates and this can be related to the importance of a given exchange rate in the world's currency trade. Temporal correlations organize the series of returns such that they develop the multifractal characteristics for all the exchange rates with a varying degree of symmetry of the singularity spectrum f(alpha) however. The most symmetric spectrum is identified for the GBP/USD. We also form time series of triangular residual returns and find that the distributions of their fluctuations develop disproportionately heavier tails as compared to small fluctuations which excludes description in terms of q-Gaussians. The multifractal characteristics for these residual returns reveal such anomalous properties like negative singularity exponents and even negative singularity spectra. Such anomalous multifractal measures have so far been considered in the literature in connection with the diffusion limited aggregation and with turbulence. We find that market inefficiency on short time scales leads to the occurrence of the Epps effect on much longer time scales. Although the currency market is much more liquid than the stock markets and it has much larger transaction frequency, the building-up of correlations takes up to several hours - time that does not differ much from what is observed in the stock markets. This may suggest that non-synchronicity of transactions is not the unique source of the observed effect

PHENIX Highlights

Recent highlights of measurements by the PHENIX experiment at RHIC are presented.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figures. Talk at Quark Matter 200

Calabi-Yau Orbifolds and Torus Coverings

The theory of coverings of the two-dimensional torus is a standard part of algebraic topology and has applications in several topics in string theory, for example, in topological strings. This paper initiates applications of this theory to the counting of orbifolds of toric Calabi-Yau singularities, with particular attention to Abelian orbifolds of C^D. By doing so, the work introduces a novel analytical method for counting Abelian orbifolds, verifying previous algorithm results. One identifies a p-fold cover of the torus T^{D-1} with an Abelian orbifold of the form C^D/Z_p, for any dimension D and a prime number p. The counting problem leads to polynomial equations modulo p for a given Abelian subgroup of S_D, the group of discrete symmetries of the toric diagram for C^D. The roots of the polynomial equations correspond to orbifolds of the form C^D/Z_p, which are invariant under the corresponding subgroup of S_Ds. In turn, invariance under this subgroup implies a discrete symmetry for the corresponding quiver gauge theory, as is clearly seen by its brane tiling formulation.Comment: 33 pages, 5 figures, 7 tables; version published on JHE

Jet quenching in relativistic heavy ion collisions

Parton propagation in dense nuclear matter results in elastic, inelastic and coherent multiple soft scattering with the in-medium color charges. Such scattering leads to calculable modifications of the hadron production cross section that is evaluated in the framework of the perturbative QCD factorization approach. Final state medium-induced gluon bremsstrahlung is arguably the most efficient way of suppressing large transverse momentum particle production in nucleus-nucleus collisions. The observed hadronic attenuation, known as jet quenching, can be related to the properties of the medium, such as density and temperature, and carries valuable information about the early stages of heavy ion reactions. Non-Abelian energy loss in the quark-gluon plasma can be studied in much greater detail through the modification of the two particle back-to-back correlations. Perturbative calculations give good description of the redistribution of the lost energy in lower transverse momentum particles and predict significant increase of the correlation width of away-side di-hadrons. In contrast, energy loss in cold nuclear matter was found to be small but for large values of Feynman-x is expected to complement the dynamical higher twist shadowing in experimentally observable forward rapidity hadron suppression.Comment: Invited plenary talk at the V-th international conference on the physics and astrophysics of the quark-gluon plasma. 8 pages, 4 figure