A Novel Gesture-based CAPTCHA Design for Smart Devices

CAPTCHAs have been widely used in Web applications to prevent service abuse. With the evolution of computing environment from desktop computing to ubiquitous computing, more and more users are accessing Web applications on smart devices where touch based interactions are dominant. However, the majority of CAPTCHAs are designed for use on computers and laptops which do not reflect the shift of interaction style very well. In this paper, we propose a novel CAPTCHA design to utilise the convenience of touch interface while retaining the needed security. This is achieved through using a hybrid challenge to take advantages of human’s cognitive abilities. A prototype is also developed and found to be more user friendly than conventional CAPTCHAs in the preliminary user acceptance test

Coupled-Channel-Induced S−DS-D mixing of Charmonia and Testing Possible Assignments for Y(4260)Y(4260) and Y(4360)Y(4360)

The mass spectrum and the two-body open-charm decays of the $J^{PC}=1^{--}$ charmonium states are studied with the coupled-channel effects taken into account. The coupled-channel-induced mixing effects among the excited vector charmonia are studied. Based on our calculations of the masses and the decay widths, we find that the tension between the observed properties of $Y(4260)/Y(4360)$ and their conventional charmonia interpretations could be softened.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, 5 table

Geometric convexity of the generalized sine and the generalized hyperbolic sine

In the paper, the authors prove that the generalized sine function $\sin_{p,q}(x)$ and the generalized hyperbolic sine function $\sinh_{p,q}(x)$ are geometrically concave and geometrically convex, respectively. Consequently, the authors verify a conjecture posed in the paper "B. A. Bhayo and M. Vuorinen, On generalized trigonometric functions with two parameters, J. Approx. Theory 164 (2012), no.~10, 1415\nobreakdash--1426; Available online at \url{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jat.2012.06.003}".Comment: 5 page

Some sharp inequalities involving Seiffert and other means and their concise proofs

In the paper, by establishing the monotonicity of some functions involving the sine and cosine functions, the authors provide concise proofs of some known inequalities and find some new sharp inequalities involving the Seiffert, contra-harmonic, centroidal, arithmetic, geometric, harmonic, and root-square means of two positive real numbers $a$ and $b$ with $a\ne b$.Comment: 10 page

Bipolaronic blockade effect in quantum dots with negative charging energy

We investigate single-electron transport through quantum dots with negative charging energy induced by a polaronic energy shift. For weak dot-lead tunnel couplings, we demonstrate a bipolaronic blockade effect at low biases which suppresses the oscillating linear conductance, while the conductance resonances under large biases are enhanced. Novel conductance plateau develops when the coupling asymmetry is introduced, with its height and width tuned by the coupling strength and external magnetic field. It is further shown that the amplitude ratio of magnetic-split conductance peaks changes from 3 to 1for increasing coupling asymmetry. Though we demonstrate all these transport phenomena in the low-order single-electron tunneling regime, they are already strikingly different from the usual Coulomb blockade physics and are easy to observe experimentally.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure