Algebraic Immunity of S-Boxes and Augmented Functions
In this paper, the algebraic immunity of S-boxes and augmented functions of stream ciphers is investigated. Augmented functions are shown to have some algebraic properties that are not covered by previous measures of immunity. As a result, efficient algebraic attacks with very low data complexity on certain filter generators become possible. In a similar line, the algebraic immunity of the augmented function of the eSTREAM candidate Trivium is experimentally tested. These tests suggest that Trivium has some immunity against algebraic attacks on augmented functions.

title: Chosen IV Statistical Analysis for Key Recovery Attacks on Stream Ciphers
abstract: A recent framework for chosen IV statistical distinguishing analysis of stream ciphers is exploited and formalized to provide new methods for key recovery attacks. As an application, a key recovery attack on simplified versions of two eSTREAM Phase 3 candidates is given: For Grain-128 with IV initialization reduced to up to 180 of its 256 iterations, and for Trivium with IV initialization reduced to up to 672 of its 1152 iterations, it is experimentally demonstrated how to deduce a few key bits. Evidence is given that the present analysis is not applicable on Grain-128 or Trivium with full IV initialization.

title: Non-randomness in eSTREAM Candidates Salsa20 and TSC-4
abstract: Stream cipher initialisation should ensure that the initial state or keystream is not detectably related to the key and initialisation vector. In this paper we analyse the key/IV setup of the eSTREAM Phase 2 candidates Salsa20 and TSC-4. In the case of Salsa20 we demonstrate a key recovery attack on six rounds and observe non-randomness after seven. For TSC-4, non-randomness over the full eight-round initialisation phase is detected, but would also persist for more rounds.

title: Face Authentication Using Morphological Dynamic Link Architecture
abstract: A very attractive approach for face detection is based on multiresolution images (also known as mosaic images). Motivated by the simplicity of this approach, a rule-based face detection algorithm in frontal views is developed first. Second, a novel dynamic link architecture based on multiscale morphological dilation-erosion is proposed for face authentication. More specifically, a sparse grid is placed over the outcome of face detection stage for each person in a reference set. Subsequently, multiscale morphological operations are employed to yield a feature vector at each node of the grid and dynamic link matching is applied to verify the identity of each person from a test set. The first experimental results reported in this paper verify the superiority of the proposed method over the (standard) dynamic link matching that is based on Gabor wavelets.

title: Expert Conciliation for Multi Modal Person Authentication Systems by Bayesian Statistics
abstract: We present an algorithm functioning as a supervisor module in a multi expert decision making machine. It uses the Bayes theory in order to estimate the biases of individual expert opinions. These are then used to calibrate and conciliate expert opinions to one opinion. We present a framework for simulating decision strategies using expert opinions whose properties are easily modifiable. By using real data coming from a person authentication system using image and speech data we were able to confirm that the proposed supervisor improves the quality of individual expert decisions by reaching success rates of 99.5 %.

title: Shape Normalisaiton for Face Recognition
abstract: This paper presents methods for shape normalisation of face images. Localisation and shape normalisation are prerequisites for face recognition algorithms like the eigenface approach. Other established face recognition methods like labeled graph matching can also be accelerated by providing normalised face image databases.

title: Automatic Identification of Diatoms Using Visual Human-Interpretable Features
abstract: In this paper we present an identification scheme for diatoms using visual human-interpretable features. Diatoms are unicellular algae found in water and other places wherever there is humidity and enough light for photosynthesis. The automatic identification of diatoms has applications in a number of areas, for example, environmental monitoring and climate research. The overall identification is performed by an ensemble of multiple decision trees following the bagging approach. The use of human-interpretable features in contrast to traditional features, such as Fourier descriptors or moment invariants, makes it possible for a human expert to verify the induced decision trees and opens up the possibility of integrating human expert knowledge into automatically derived decision trees.

title: Can the calculation of ligand binding free energies be improved with continuum solvent electrostatics and an ideal-gas entropy correction?
abstract: The prediction of a ligand binding constant requires generating three-dimensional structures of the complex concerned and reliably scoring these structures. Here, the scoring problem is investigated by examining benzamidine-like inhibitors of trypsin, a system for which errors in the structures are small. Precise and consistent binding free energies for the inhibitors are determined experimentally for this test system. To examine possible improvement of scoring methods, we test the suitability of continuum electrostatics to account for solvation effects and use an ideal-gas entropy correction to account for the changes in the degrees of freedom of the ligand. The small observed root-mean-square deviation of 0.55 kcal/mol of the calculated relative to the experimental values indicates that the essentials of the binding process have been captured. Even though all six ligands make the same salt bridge and H-bonds to the protein, the electrostatic contribution varies among the ligands by as much as 2 kcal/mol. Moreover, although the ligands are rigid and similar in size, the entropic terms also significantly affect the relative binding affinities (by up to 2.7 kcal/mol). The present approach to solvation and entropy may allow the ranking of the ligands to be considerably improved at a cost that makes the method applicable to the optimization of lead compounds or to the screening of small collections of ligands.