Reviewerly/exHarmony huggingface dataset:
Distilling Programs to Prove Termination

The problem of determining whether or not any program terminates was shown to be undecidable by Turing, but recent advances in the area have allowed this information to be determined for a large class of programs.The classic method for deciding whether a program terminates dates back to Turing himself and involves finding a ranking function that maps a program state to a well-order, and then proving that the result of this function decreases for every possible program transition.More recent approaches to proving termination have involved moving away from the search for a single ranking function and toward a search for a set of ranking functions; this set is a choice of ranking functions and a disjunctive termination argument is used.In this paper, we describe a new technique for determining whether programs terminate.Our technique is applied to the output of the distillation program transformation that converts programs into a simplified form called distilled form.Programs in distilled form are converted into a corresponding labelled transition system and termination can be demonstrated by showing that all possible infinite traces through this labelled transition system would result in an infinite descent of well-founded data values.We demonstrate our technique on a number of examples, and compare it to previous work.
Weighted-encoding-based image interpolation with the nonlocal linear regression model

An image interpolation model based on sparse representation is proposed. Two widely used priors including sparsity and nonlocal self-similarity are used as the regularization terms to boost the performance of the interpolation model. Meanwhile, we incorporate nonlocal linear regression into this model, since nonlocal similar patches could provide a better approximation to a given patch. Moreover, we propose a new approach to learn an adaptive sub-dictionary online instead of clustering. For each patch, similar patches are grouped to learn the adaptive sub-dictionary, generating a more sparse and accurate representation. Finally, weighted encoding is introduced to suppress tailing of fitting residuals in data fidelity. Abundant experimental results show that our proposed method achieves better performance compared to several state-of-the-art methods in terms of subjective and objective evaluations.
Reply to comment on ‘SFVCC: Chaotic map‐based security framework for vehicular cloud computing’

As far as DoS attack is concerned, Irshad and Chaudhry have not taken any reference or adversary model in this regard. They simply claiming that a greater number of requests at a time could cause DoS attack. Their statement is as follows: ‘the adversary may overburden the server with too many fake requests just in the case of denial-of-service (DoS) attack, and the latter may not be able to distinguish a legal request from a fake one’. It would be interesting to know which security model considers this attack as a DoS attack. It should be noted that an adversary cannot alter the information at user/ server side, which can lead to a denial of service attack.
Summarising big data: public GitHub dataset for software engineering challenges

In open-source software development environments; textual, numerical, and relationship-based data generated are of interest to researchers. Various data sets are available for this data, which is frequently used in areas such as software engineering and natural language processing. However, since these data sets contain all the data in the environment, the problem arises in the terabytes of data processing. For this reason, almost all of the studies using GitHub data use filtered data according to certain criteria. In this context, using a different data set in each study makes a comparison of the accuracy of the studies quite difficult. In order to solve this problem, a common dataset was created and shared with the researchers, which would allow to work on many software engineering problems.
Enhance Students’ Motivation to Learn Programming Through Projects

This article presents the results of a pedagogical experiment when teaching microcontroller programming. The pedagogical experiment was conducted at the Faculty of Information Technology of the L.N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University in the form of project-based seminars on the Arduino platform (2017-2020). The experiment was attended by 88 first-year IT students. Our goal in this study is to verify the proposed hypothesis on the use of the project-based learning method in teaching microcontroller programming. In the process of conducting a pedagogical experiment, we divided our students into 2 groups: control and experimental. The training of both groups was carried out according to one curriculum, but using different methods. In the control group, traditional teaching methods and learning tools were used, and in the experimental group, we used the technology of project-based learning. As assessment criteria, we took the test tasks “pre-test” and “post-test” that we developed, and conducted a survey for the control and experimental groups. We used statistical methods to confirm or refute the proposed hypothesis of our research, that is, at the end of the pedagogical experiment to get an informed decision about the difference and coincidence of the obtained data.
Improving performance of an analog electronic device using quantum error correction

The use of analog classical systems for computation is generally thought to be a difficult proposition due to the susceptibility of these devices to noise and the lack of a clear framework for achieving fault-tolerance. We present experimental results for the application of quantum error correction (QEC) techniques to a prototype analog computational device called a quantum emulation device. It is shown that for the gates tested (transversal $Z$, $X$ and $SH$) there is a marked improvement in the performance characteristics of the gate operations following error correction using the 5-Qubit Perfect code. In the case of the $Z$ gate, the median fidelity improved from 0.995 to 0.99998, a reduction in the gate error by over two orders of magnitude. Other transverse gates similarly show strong improvements.
Epistemic Logic with Partial Dependency Operator

In this paper, we introduce partial dependency modality $$\mathcal {D}$$ into epistemic logic so as to reason about partial dependency relationship in Kripke models. The resulted dependence epistemic logic possesses decent expressivity and beautiful properties. Several interesting examples are provided, which highlight this logic’s practical usage. The logic’s bisimulation is then discussed, and we give a sound and strongly complete axiomatization for a sub-language of the logic.
Parity (XOR) Reasoning for the Index Calculus Attack

Cryptographic problems can often be reduced to solving Boolean polynomial systems, whose equivalent logical formulas can be treated using SAT solvers. Given the algebraic nature of the problem, the use of the logical XOR operator is common in SAT-based cryptanalysis. Recent works have focused on advanced techniques for handling parity (XOR) constraints, such as the Gaussian Elimination technique. First, we propose an original XOR-reasoning SAT solver, named WDSat (Weil Descent SAT solving), dedicated to a specific cryptographic problem. Secondly, we show that in some cases Gaussian Elimination on SAT instances does not work as well as Gaussian Elimination on algebraic systems. We demonstrate how this oversight is fixed in our solver, which is adapted to read instances in algebraic normal form (ANF). Finally, we propose a novel preprocessing technique based on the Minimal Vertex Cover Problem in graph theory. This preprocessing technique is, within the framework of multivariate Boolean polynomial systems, used as a DLL branching selection rule that leads to quick linearization of the underlying algebraic system. Our benchmarks use a model obtained from cryptographic instances for which a significant speedup is achieved using the findings in this paper. We further explain how our preprocessing technique can be used as an assessment of the security of a cryptographic system.
QDB: From Quantum Algorithms Towards Correct Quantum Programs

With the advent of small-scale prototype quantum computers, researchers can now code and run quantum algorithms that were previously proposed but not fully implemented. In support of this growing interest in quantum computing experimentation, programmers need new tools and techniques to write and debug QC code. In this work, we implement a range of QC algorithms and programs in order to discover what types of bugs occur and what defenses against those bugs are possible in QC programs. We conduct our study by running small-sized QC programs in QC simulators in order to replicate published results in QC implementations. Where possible, we cross-validate results from programs written in different QC languages for the same problems and inputs. Drawing on this experience, we provide a taxonomy for QC bugs, and we propose QC language features that would aid in writing correct code.
Assessing Support for Industry Standards in Reference Medical Software Architectures

Industrial standards for developing medical device software provide requirements that conforming devices must meet. A number of reference software architectures have been proposed to develop such software. The ISO/IEC 25010:2011 family of standards provides a comprehensive software product quality model, including characteristics that are highly desirable in medical devices. Furthermore, frameworks like 4+1 Views provide a robust framework to develop the software architecture or high level design for any software, including for medical devices. However, the alignment between industrial standards and reference architectures for medical device software, on one hand, and ISO/IEC 25010:2011 and 4+1 Views, on the other, is not well understood. This paper aims to explore how ISO/IEC 25010:2011 and 4+1 Views are supported by current standards, namely ISO 13485:2016, ISO 14971:2012, IEC 62304:2006 and IEC 62366:2015, and current reference architectures for medical device software. We classified requirements from medical devices standards into qualities from ISO/IEC 25010:2011 and architectural views from 4+1 Views. A systematic literature review (SLR) method was followed to review current references software architectures and a mapping of their support for the identified ISO/IEC 25010:2011 qualities in the previous step was carried out. Our results show that ISO/IEC 25010:2011 qualities like functional suitability, portability, maintainability, usability, security, reliability and compatibility are highly emphasised in medical device standards. Furthermore, we show that current reference architectures only partially support these qualities. This paper can help medical device developers identify focus areas for developing standards-compliant software. A wider study involving under-development medical devices can help improve the accuracy of our findings in the future.
Empirical Bayes method for Boltzmann machines

Abstract We consider an empirical Bayes method for Boltzmann machines and propose an algorithm for it. The empirical Bayes method allows for estimation of the values of the hyperparameters of the Boltzmann machine by maximizing a specific likelihood function referred to as the empirical Bayes likelihood function in this study. However, the maximization is computationally hard because the empirical Bayes likelihood function involves intractable integrations of the partition function. The proposed algorithm avoids this computational problem by using the replica method and the Plefka expansion. Our method is quite simple and fast because it does not require any iterative procedures and gives reasonable estimates at a certain condition. However, our method introduces a bias to the estimate, which exhibits an unnatural behavior with respect to the size of the dataset. This peculiar behavior is supposed to be due to the approximate treatment by the Plefka expansion. A possible extension to overcome this behavior is also discussed.
Irreducible polynomials over <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" altimg="si1.gif" overflow="scroll"><mml:msub><mml:mrow><mml:mi mathvariant="double-struck">F</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:msup><mml:mrow><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mi>r</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:msup></mml:mrow></mml:msub></mml:math> with three prescribed coefficients

For any positive integers $n \ge 3$ and $r \ge 1$, we prove that the number of monic irreducible polynomials of degree $n$ over $\mathbb{F}_{2^r}$ in which the coefficients of $T^{n-1}$, $T^{n-2}$ and $T^{n-3}$ are prescribed has period $24$ as a function of $n$, after a suitable normalization. A similar result holds over $\mathbb{F}_{5^r}$, with the period being $60$. We also show that this is a phenomena unique to characteristics $2$ and $5$. The result is strongly related to the supersingularity of certain curves associated with cyclotomic function fields, and in particular it complements an equidistribution result of Katz.
Directional quantum random walk induced by coherence

Quantum walk (QW), which is considered as the quantum counterpart of the classical random walk (CRW), is actually the quantum extension of CRW from the single-coin interpretation. The sequential unitary evolution engenders correlation between different steps in QW and leads to a non-binomial position distribution. In this paper, we propose an alternative quantum extension of CRW from the ensemble interpretation, named quantum random walk (QRW), where the walker has many unrelated coins, modeled as two-level systems, initially prepared in the same state. We calculate the walker’s position distribution in QRW for different initial coin states with the coin operator chosen as Hadamard matrix. In one-dimensional case, the walker’s position is the asymmetric binomial distribution. We further demonstrate that in QRW, coherence leads the walker to perform directional movement. For an initially decoherenced coin state, the walker’s position distribution is exactly the same as that of CRW. Moreover, we study QRW in 2D lattice, where the coherence plays a more diversified role in the walker’s position distribution.
Markovian and Non-Markovian Dynamics in the One-Dimensional Transverse-Field XY Model

We consider an anisotropic spin-1/2 XY Heisenberg chain in the presence of a transverse magnetic field. Selecting the nearest neighbor pair spins as an open quantum system, the rest of the chain plays the role of the structured environment. In fact, the aforementioned system is used as a quantum probe signifying nontrivial features of the environment with which is interacting. We use a general measure that is based on the trace distance for the degree of non-Markovian behavior in open quantum systems. The witness of non-Markovianity takes on nonzero values whenever there is a flow of information from the environment back to the open system. We have shown that the dynamics of the system with isotropic Heisenberg interaction is Markovian. A dynamical transition into the non-Markovian regime is observed as soon as the anisotropy, $$\gamma $$ , is applied. At the Ising value of the anisotropy $$\gamma =1.0$$ , all the information flows back from the environment to the system. The additional dynamical transition from the non-Markovian to the Markovian is obtained by applying the transverse magnetic field. In addition, we have focused on the time evolution of the Loschmidt-echo return rate function. It is found that a non-analyticity can be seen in the time evolution of the Loschmidt-echo return rate function exactly at the critical points where a dynamical transition from the Markovian to the non-Markovian occurs.
Distribution of Behaviour into Parallel Communicating Subsystems

The process of decomposing a complex system into simpler subsystems has been of interest to computer scientists over many decades, for instance, for the field of distributed computing. In this paper, motivated by the desire to distribute the process of active automata learning onto multiple subsystems, we study the equivalence between a system and the total behaviour of its decomposition which comprises subsystems with communication between them. We show synchronously- and asynchronously-communicating decompositions that maintain branching bisimilarity, and we prove that there is no decomposition operator that maintains divergence-preserving branching bisimilarity over all LTSs.
Finite-key analysis for twin-field quantum key distribution based on generalized operator dominance condition

Quantum key distribution (QKD) can help two distant peers to share secret key bits, whose security is guaranteed by the law of physics. In practice, the secret key rate of a QKD protocol is always lowered with the increasing of channel distance, which severely limits the applications of QKD. Recently, twin-field (TF) QKD has been proposed and intensively studied, since it can beat the rate-distance limit and greatly increase the achievable distance of QKD. Remarkalebly, K. Maeda et. al. proposed a simple finite-key analysis for TF-QKD based on operator dominance condition. Although they showed that their method is sufficient to beat the rate-distance limit, their operator dominance condition is not general, i.e. it can be only applied in three decoy states scenarios, which implies that its key rate cannot be increased by introducing more decoy states, and also cannot reach the asymptotic bound even in case of preparing infinite decoy states and optical pulses. Here, to bridge this gap, we propose an improved finite-key analysis of TF-QKD through devising new operator dominance condition. We show that by adding the number of decoy states, the secret key rate can be furtherly improved and approach the asymptotic bound. Our theory can be directly used in TF-QKD experiment to obtain higher secret key rate. Our results can be directly used in experiments to obtain higher key rates.
Quaternary quadratic lattices over number fields

We relate proper isometry classes of maximal lattices in a totally definite quaternary quadratic space (V,q) with trivial discriminant to certain equivalence classes of ideals in the quaternion algebra representing the Clifford invariant of (V,q). This yields a good algorithm to enumerate a system of representatives of proper isometry classes of lattices in genera of maximal lattices in (V,q).
A simple protocol for measuring device independent quantum key distribution based on hybrid encoding

Quantum key distribution technology refers to a method to share keys between communication parties by transmitting quantum states in public channels. Although unconditional security is the main advantage of QKD, its application prospect has been controversial in practical implementation due to the potential security risks caused by device imperfections. Fortunately, the measurement device independent quantum key distribution protocol removes the vulnerability of all measurement devices and greatly improves the practical security of the quantum key distribution system. However, the security key rate of this protocol is still lower than that of other quantum key distribution protocols. At present, using high-dimensional coding to improve the performance of the quantum key distribution protocol has been proved in theory and experiment, and recently, it has been proposed to use high-dimensional coding to improve the performance of measurement device independent quantum key distribution protocol, but because these protocols have higher requirements for the laboratory equipment performance, that the high-dimensional encoding is applied to the aforementioned protocol still has many difficulties in practical application. In this paper, we propose a hybrid coding based on the polarization and two-degree phase of freedom measurement device independent quantum key distribution protocol. In the first place in an ideal case, we introduce in detail the protocol decoding rules, then introduce 4intensity decoy-state method to solve the problem of actual light source multiphoton, in addition we also consider the statistical fluctuation effect under the condition of limited code length, channel loss, actual dark count of single photon detector and detection efficiency problem. Finally, the optimal security code rate and its corresponding optimal parameters are obtained by full parameter optimization method, And the numerical simulation results show that the security key rate of this protocol is increased by 50% by considering the practical implementation. We point out that compared with other measurement device independent quantum key distribution protocol, the proposed agreement requires local users only to have a phase encoding device and a polarization coding device, and 4 single photon detectors for detecting side. The proposed device can use the existing experimental condition, beyond that, compared with the time encoding based high dimensional measurement device independent quantum key distribution protocol, the proposed protocol possesses the advantage that the rate of system security key can be increased without increasing the repetition frequency of users. It is proved that this protocol has great application value in the future field of quantum communication, especially, in the field of quantum network communication.
Combining Robust Technology and Gamified Learning to Democratize Access to Growth Mindset

This chapter is written by mobile learning practitioners at Funzilife Ltd and describes the methods used to create a mobile learning service that aims to give everyone with a connected device access to quality learning in non-formal and informal settings, using robust technologies and a gamified pedagogy. The authors put the development process of the service into a framework at the intersection of human-centered design, learning, and digital technology. The impact and challenges of the project are illustrated through real-life case studies and lessons learned. We deem our practitioners’ learning to have broader benefit to the community at large, due to an intense focus on building a learning service that learners reach, use, and love, and due to the service having indeed reached millions of learners with glowing feedback on the impact it has had on their lives.
Homotopic Digital Rigid Motion: An Optimization Approach on Cellular Complexes

Topology preservation is a property of rigid motions in \({\mathbb R^2}\), but not in \({\mathbb {Z}}^2\). In this article, given a binary object \({\mathsf {X}} \subset {\mathbb {Z}}^2\) and a rational rigid motion \({\mathcal R}\), we propose a method for building a binary object \(\mathsf X_{\mathcal R}\subset \mathbb Z^2\) resulting from the application of \({\mathcal R}\) on a binary object \(\mathsf X\). Our purpose is to preserve the homotopy type between \(\mathsf X\) and \(\mathsf X_{\mathcal R}\). To this end, we formulate the construction of \(\mathsf X_{\mathcal R}\) from \(\mathsf X\) as an optimization problem in the space of cellular complexes with the notion of collapse on complexes. More precisely, we define a cellular space \(\mathbb H\) by superimposition of two cubical spaces \(\mathbb F\) and \(\mathbb G\) corresponding to the canonical Cartesian grid of \(\mathbb Z^2\) where \(\mathsf X\) is defined, and the Cartesian grid induced by the rigid motion \({\mathcal R}\), respectively. The object \(\mathsf X_{\mathcal R}\) is then computed by building a homotopic transformation within the space \(\mathbb H\), starting from the cubical complex in \(\mathbb G\) resulting from the rigid motion of \(\mathsf X\) with respect to \({\mathcal R}\) and ending at a complex fitting \(\mathsf X_{\mathcal R}\) in \(\mathbb F\) that can be embedded back into \(\mathbb Z^2\).