Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Note on the Quantum Query Complexity of Permutation Symmetric Functions

It is known since the work of [AA14] that for any permutation symmetric function $f$, the quantum query complexity is at most polynomially smaller than the classical randomized query complexity, more precisely that $R(f) = \widetilde{O}\left(Q^7(f)\right)$. In this paper, we improve this result and show that $R(f) = {O}\left(Q^3(f)\right)$ for a more general class of symmetric functions. Our proof is constructive and relies largely on the quantum hardness of distinguishing a random permutation from a random function with small range from Zhandry [Zha15].
Network-scape metric analysis: a new approach for the pattern analysis of urban road networks

ABSTRACT The spatial patterns of road networks reflect the morphological and structural characteristics of cities. Previous studies have focused mainly on seeking universal laws in road networks rather than explaining their differences. A new approach for road network pattern analysis is proposed that has been inspired by landscape metric analysis. The utility of this approach is illustrated through (but is not limited to) the extraction of the main factors in network landscapes, or network-scapes for short. Twenty-four metrics were calculated for network-scapes of 100 cities worldwide, before an exploratory analysis is performed to detect the main factors. Four main factors were revealed and may be regarded as the characteristic indicators of road networks, which were identified to be evenness, richness-density, shape irregularity, and size and shape variation. The meanings of these factors are explained, and their spatial distributions are illustrated. Compared to existing road network analytics, these factors depict better the characteristic differences of road networks. The proposed approach provides a new framework for road network pattern analysis from a cellular perspective.
Measurement of normal and shear forces during refining using a piezoelectric force sensor

Nous avons mesure les forces normale et tangentielle agissant localement sur les amas de pâte et les copeaux entre les lames d'un raffineur, sur une section de lame de 5 mm, a l'aide d'un nouveau capteur de force piezoelectrique. Les resultats de cette etude preliminaire indiquent que les forces agissant sur des amas de pate a 20% de concentration sont qualitativement similaires a celles qui furent mesurees lors du raffinage a basse concentration. Les forces normale et tangentielle montrent toutes deux un pic prononce en debut d'impact, et leur amplitude est considerablement reduite dans la portion finale de l'impact. Lors du raffinage de copeaux, des trains d'impacts d'une duree equivalente a plusieurs croisements de lames furent observes. Ces trains d'impacts se repetaient souvent avec une periodicite correspondant a une rotation complete du raffineur. Cette observation concorde avec les resultats d'une etude antecedante de l'ecoulement des copeaux dans un raffineur non-pressurise par imagerie a haute vitesse.
A simple and practical concurrent non-blocking unbounded graph with linearizable reachability queries

Graph algorithms applied in many applications, including social networks, communication networks, VLSI design, graphics, and several others, require dynamic modifications - addition and removal of vertices and/or edges - in the graph. This paper presents a novel concurrent non-blocking algorithm to implement a dynamic unbounded directed graph in a shared-memory machine. The addition and removal operations of vertices and edges are lock-free. For a finite sized graph, the lookup operations are wait-free. Most significant component of the presented algorithm is the reachability query in a concurrent graph. The reachability queries in our algorithm are obstruction-free and thus impose minimal additional synchronization cost over other operations. We prove that each of the data structure operations are linearizable. We extensively evaluate a sample C/C++ implementation of the algorithm through a number of micro-benchmarks. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm scales well with the number of threads and on an average provides 5 to 7x performance improvement over a concurrent graph implementation using coarse-grained locking.
A learning automata‐based clustering algorithm using ant swarm intelligence

Ant‐based clustering algorithms are inspired by the behaviour of real ants. In most ant‐based clustering algorithms, each ant lacks global visibility and only uses local search to find the best place on a grid to drop its data item. This paper presents a new clustering method called learning automata‐based clustering algorithm using learning automata (LA) and ant swarm intelligence. In this paper, the problem of finding the best location of grid for dropping a data item is solved using LA. We introduced a new drop operation using the global search capability of LA that can increase the quality of clustering. In the proposed method, each ant is equipped with an LA and a two‐dimensional grid is partitioned into a number of clusters. To drop a data item, the LA of each ant will be responsible for finding one of the best clusters on a grid unlike other methods that use the random search of a grid. To evaluate the results, some clustering evaluation criteria, such as the number of obtained clusters, f‐measure, Rand index, intracluster variance, Dunn index, error rate, and time cost were employed. Additionally, the proposed algorithms were compared with k‐means, Lumer and Faieta, ant clustering algorithm, modified version of the ant‐clustering algorithm, Chaotic Ant clustering (CAC), chaotic ant clustering algorithm, adaptive ant‐based clustering algorithm, adaptive artificial ant clustering algorithm, and ant clustering algorithm with information theoretic learning algorithms on both real and synthetic datasets. Experimental results show that the proposed method can increase the efficiency of the real dataset by 11.13% and that of the synthetic dataset by 16.11%. It also reduces the number of neighbouring function calls by 16% for the real dataset and by 28% for the synthetic dataset.
A Microservice Architecture for the Industrial Internet-Of-Things

With the introduction of Internet-of-Things (IoT) and cyber-physical system (CPS) concepts the industrial automation sector is undergoing enormous change towards highly interconnected and globally distributed automation systems. Following this trend the industry is facing interoperability challenges between devices and systems, which origin in the market and technology fragmentation of the past years. However, established integration techniques from the IoT domain cannot be fully adapted in industrial Internet-of-Things (IIoT) environments due to stricter dependability and real time constraints. Since design patterns offer a practical means to gain a deeper understanding of the problem domain, patterns are applied in this paper to develop a software architecture that is suitable for the deployment in the upcoming IIoT environments. The resulting software architecture combines ideas from the IoT world, industrial automation systems, as well as modern information technology (IT) and cloud architectures. Its lightweight and flexible design, along with the support of state-of-the-art development approaches (containerization, continuous integration (CI), continuous deployment (CD)) make the architecture equally suitable for the deployment on cloud, fog and edge devices. All in all, these features facilitate the deployment of services and communication protocols on device level, to enable the transparent and automatic integration of heterogenous devices and protocols, on demand.
Qualité des sources en fusion d'informations dans le cadre de la théorie des fonctions de croyance

La fusion d’informations est un processus dont l’objectif est d’extraire une connaissance veridique et aussi fine que possible a propos d’une entite d’interet, etant donne des temoignages incertains provenant de sources de qualite variable. Un ensemble de resultats synthetises dans ce document indique que la theorie des fonctions de croyance est particulierement adaptee a ce probleme. Il est montre que tout ensemble de temoignages elementaires issus de sources partiellement fiables induit une fonction de croyance et, surtout, que toute fonction de croyance resulte d’un tel ensemble. Une approche generale est proposee pour la fusion de fonctions de croyance emises par des sources, ou les connaissances utilisees quant a leur qualite sont explicites et ou cette qualite peut concerner d’autres aspects que la fiabilite tels que la sincerite. Des moyens sont fournis pour etablir ces connaissances a partir d’une experience prealable des sources ou, a defaut, pour les deriver de principes generaux. L’interet pratique de ces propositions est montre a travers quelques problemes de classification supervisee. L’interet plus general de la theorie des fonctions de croyance en tant que theorie de l’incertain, est exhibe dans le cas du probleme de tournees de vehicules avec demandes incertaines. Un projet de recherches est finalement presente ; bien que la vitalite et la maturite de la theorie des fonctions de croyance et de sa communaute soient deja reconnues, ce projet illustre incidemment une partie de ce que ce formalisme peut encore apporter.
Improving performance of TCP for wireless network using SDN

This paper addresses the problem of non-optimal performance of Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) over Wi-Fi networks. TCP considers packet loss as a signal for congestion leading to reduced sending rate. This idea works well for the wired networks where majority of the packet losses are due to congestion. However, in wireless networks, packets are mostly lost because of transmission errors and mobility of the end hosts. Also, when packets are lost due to disassociation of the receiver from the network during mobility, sender remains idle for a significant period even after the receiver is re-associated. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of Software Defined Network (SDN) assisted TCP for wireless networks. In our approach, mobility induced packet losses are tackled smartly to avoid reduction in sending rate. Further, the data transfer starts immediately as soon as the receiver is re-associated to the network during mobility. Unlike existing solutions, our SDN assisted TCP does not violate the end-to-end semantics and no modification is required in the TCP protocol running at the end hosts. We have implemented and evaluated our approach using Mininet Wi-fi emulation platform. The results establish the applicability of our approach.
Prescribed performance global stable adaptive neural dynamic surface consensus tracking control of stochastic multi-agent systems with hysteresis inputs and nonlinear dynamics

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the leader-following consensus control problem of stochastic multi-agent systems with hysteresis inputs and nonlinear dynamics. A leader-following consensus scheme is presented for stochastic multi-agent systems directions under directed graphs, which can achieve predefined synchronisation error bounds. By mainly activating an auxiliary robust control component for pulling back the transient escaped from the neural active region, a multi-switching robust neuro adaptive controller in the neural approximation domain, which can achieve globally uniformly ultimately bounded tracking stability of multi-agent systems recently. A specific Nussbaum-type function is introduced to solve the problem of unknown control directions. Using a dynamic surface control technique, distributed consensus controllers are developed to guarantee that the outputs of all followers synchronise with that of the leader with prescribed performance. Based on Lyapunov stability theory, it is proved that all signals in closed-loop systems are uniformly ultimately bounded and all the follower agents can keep consensus with the leader. Two simulation examples are provided to illustrate the effectiveness and advantage of the proposed control scheme.
To the Limit

We obtain an improved upper bound on the lightest neutral CP-even Higgs boson mass from a low energy renormalisation-group analysis of the Higgs sector of the nextto-minimal supersymmetric standard model. We find mh < 145 GeV for mt = 90 GeV, decreasing to mh < 123 GeV for mt = 180 GeV. We also discuss the light Higgs spectrum in the region of parameter space close to the upper bound. The question of the origin of electroweak mass is one of the most urgent questions of present day particle physics. The discovery of a particle which resembles the Higgs boson of the minimal standard model, and the measurement of its mass, will provide clues as to the nature of new physics beyond the standard model. In this letter we shall be concerned with the question of how heavy the lightest neutral CP-even supersymmetric Higgs boson, h, can be within the framework of supersymmetric grand unified theories (SUSY GUTs) [1]. In SUSY GUTs all the Yukawa couplings are constrained to remain perturbative in the region MSUSY ∼ 1 TeV to MGUT ∼ 10 GeV. This constraint provides a maximum value at low energies for those Yukawa couplings which are not asymptotically-free, and is obtained from the renormalisation group (RG) equations together with the boundary conditions that the couplings become non-perturbative at MGUT – the so-called “triviality limit”. In the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) [2], the triviality limits provide a useful bound on the top quark mass mt. The upper bound on the h 0 mass, mh, in the MSSM, including radiative corrections, has recently been the subject of much discussion[3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]. However the MSSM is not the most general low energy manifestation of SUSY GUTs. It is possible that SUSY GUTs give rise to a low energy theory which contains an additional gauge singlet field, the so called next-to-minimal supersymmetric standard model (NMSSM) [10, 11, 12]. Here we shall concentrate on the question of the upper-bound on mh in the NMSSM which is obtained from triviality limits of Yukawa couplings. In the NMSSM there are two Higgs doublets H1, H2 and a complex Higgs singlet N , leading to three neutral CP-even Higgs bosons, two neutral CP-odd states and two charged bosons in the physical spectrum. The superpotential has the form W = htQt H2 + λNH1H2 − k 3 N + . , (1) where the superfield Q contains the left-handed third family quark doublet (tL, bL),
Social Distance Matters in Dictator Games: Evidence from 11 Mexican Villages

We examine the impact of social distance in dictator game giving. The study is conducted in a field setting with high stakes (two days’ wages). The sample is a representative sample from eleven low-income Mexican villages. Subjects make multiple dictator decisions simultaneously, in a comparative dictator game. We show the relationship between social distance and giving using several family members, a member of the same village, and a stranger from a different village. Dictator giving shows substantial variation across recipient types and varies directly with social distance. We find higher giving towards family members than towards community members and strangers. Furthermore, our results indicate that giving to community members and to strangers is not different. In light of our results, it is important to consider the impact of social distance on inter- and intra-household transfers in policy interventions that alleviate poverty, e.g., conditional transfers.
Instant Privacy-Preserving Biometric Authentication for Hamming Distance

In recent years, there has been enormous research attention in privacy-preserving biometric authentication, which enables a user to verify him or herself to a server without disclosing raw biometric information. Since biometrics is irrevocable when exposed, it is very important to protect its privacy. In IEEE TIFS 2018, Zhou and Ren proposed a privacy-preserving user-centric biometric authentication scheme named PassBio, where the end-users encrypt their own templates, and the authentication server never sees the raw templates during the authentication phase. In their approach, it takes about 1 second to encrypt and compare 2000-bit templates based on Hamming distance on a laptop. However, this result is still far from practice because the size of templates used in commercialized products is much larger: according to NIST IREX IX report of 2018 which analyzed 46 iris recognition algorithms, size of their templates varies from 4,632-bit (579-byte) to 145,832-bit (18,229-byte). In this paper, we propose a new privacy-preserving user-centric biometric authentication (HDM-PPBA) based on Hamming distance, which shows a big improvement in efficiency to the previous works. It is based on our new single-key function-hiding inner product encryption, which encrypts and computes the Hamming distance of 145,832-bit binary in about 0.3 seconds on Intel Core i5 2.9GHz CPU. We show that it satisfies simulation-based security under the hardness assumption of Learning with Errors (LWE) problem. The storage requirements, bandwidth and time complexity of HDM-PPBA depend linearly on the bit-length of biometrics, and it is applicable to any large templates used in NIST IREX IX report with high efficiency.
A data‐driven method for rating management information systems journals in the same scale of the Association of Business Schools Journal Guide

An appropriate measurement of journal quality is essential in accreditation, funding allocation, hiring, merit pay, tenure, and promotion decisions in academics. The current best practice to rate journal quality is to combine journal bibliometrics with expert assessment. For example, the Association of Business Schools (ABS) Journal Guide generated by this method is widely used by many business schools. However, different journal bibliometrics calculated in the citation network sometimes provide inconsistent ranking, and it is hard for domain experts to utilize the conflicting information. Therefore, given a journal, if the ABS Scientific Committee members are not familiar with it and different journal bibliometrics provide conflicting information, the given journal is hard to be rated and will not be included in the ABS journal list. In order to solve the above issue and maintain a comprehensive list of journals in the management information systems (MIS) field, this paper proposes a data‐driven method to predict the ABS rating based on six popular bibliometrics for any given MIS journal. To the best of our knowledge, our method is the first work on this type to predict ABS ratings, which can serve as a more reliable rating reference and is much easier to be used to generate the rating for a comprehensive list of journals in the MIS field. In this paper, comprehensive experiments are conducted to evaluate the rating performance of our method from four different perspectives, including new journals, top journals, and interdisciplinary journals, and identifying overrated and underrated journals by ABS. Experiment results show our method can provide very reliable estimated ABS ratings for most MIS journals with few exceptions. Since our method is not perfect, expert knowledge is encouraged to be included to correct our estimated ABS ratings. However, such correction must be conducted under the following two constraints. First, domain experts must have sufficient evidences to do the correction. Second, correction can be adding or subtracting 1, but not beyond 1.
Equilibrium Analysis for Platform Developers in Two-Sided Market with Backward Compatibility

We consider a dominant platform provider operating both legacy and new platforms that connects users with suppliers in a two-sided market context. In addition to the typical indirect network effects in the two-sided market, backward compatibility works on the new platform. Thus, users joining the new one can also enjoy the services provided by suppliers using the legacy platform. Users and suppliers are linearly differentiated between two platforms as in the Hotelling model and play a subscription game of choosing one platform at the lower level. The suppliers in the new platform may suffer from congestion, which can be alleviated by platform provider’s investment on the new one. The platform provider also determines price margins for the supplier sides. Our equilibrium (eq.) analysis in the subscription game identifies an interior eq. (coexistence of both platforms in both sides). Though the backward compatibility plays a stabilizing role for the interior eq., its stability is fragile due to the network effects. Rather, some boundary eq.’s, where at least one side tips to the legacy or the new platform, are more likely to be stable. The backward compatibility is a key factor that characterizes the stable boundary eq.’s. The upper stage game is led by the platform provider, which tries to maneuver the system toward one of the stable boundary eq.’s using price margins and investment. The platform provider prefers an all-new boundary eq. when the indirect network effect and the maximum price margin for the new platform are large; thus, it puts a significant investment in the new one. With a small indirect network effect for suppliers, however, the platform provider does not invest in the new platform and choose a separate boundary eq. where two sides split into different platforms. Whether the user side completely tips to the new one (completely separated eq.) or not (partially separated eq.) depends on the backward compatibility. The relative advantage of the all-new eq. over the separate eq.’s in terms of social welfare from both sides depends on the backward compatibility as well as the indirect network effects for the new platform.
On designing a fast-deployable 'localized' GIS platform for using 'offline' during post-disaster situation

Modeling the demand and supply during an absolute catastrophe is a major challenge for any disaster manager. This paper demonstrates implementation of an easily deployable end-to-end system, by which, various situational data can be collected by the stakeholders during any post-disaster circumstances, and a general summarized view can be plotted on crisis map. The proposed Four Tier Hybrid Ad hoc Network Architecture does not require an Internet backbone but can conduct the complete process in 'offline' mode. Periodic Merging of GIS data enriches the quality of the summarized view. Here we have tried to evaluate the system based on some initial results on a dummy challenged network scenario.
XMSS and Embedded Systems - XMSS Hardware Accelerators for RISC-V

We describe a software-hardware co-design for the hash-based post-quantum signature scheme XMSS on a RISC-V embedded processor. We provide software optimizations for the XMSS reference implementation for SHA-256 parameter sets and several hardware accelerators that allow to balance area usage and performance based on individual needs. By integrating our hardware accelerators into the RISC-V processor, the version with the best time-area product generates a key pair (that can be used to generate 2 10 signatures) in 3 . 44 s, achieving an over 54 × speedup in wall-clock time compared to the pure software version. For such a key pair, signature generation takes less than 10 ms and veriﬁcation takes less than 6 ms, bringing speedups of over 42 × and 17 × respectively. We tested and measured the cycle count of our implementation on an Intel Cyclone V SoC FPGA. The integration of our XMSS accelerators into an embedded RISC-V processor shows that it is possible to use hash-based post-quantum signatures for a large variety of embedded applications.