Leakage suppression of gated diodes fabricated under low-temperature annealing with substitutional carbon Si/sub 1-y/C/sub y/ incorporation

We have demonstrated the fabrication of n/sup +/-p gated diodes using low-temperature annealing of 700/spl deg/C for 30 s with a significantly reduced junction leakage current. This is achieved with the incorporation of an epitaxially grown Si/sub 1-y/C/sub y/(y=0.0007) layer in the substrate located at the end-of-range (EOR) of arsenic implantations. The carbon devices show effectively suppressed EOR defects in the cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy images and leakage characteristics similar to the controlled silicon device fabricated under high-temperature annealing of 950/spl deg/C for 30 s. Arrhenius measurement of the leakage profiles has indicated identical leakage mechanism for both the pure silicon and carbon devices, thus signifying the substantial elimination of the secondary EOR defects resulted from the implantations despite the low-temperature annealing of the latter.     

Potent‐By‐Design: Amino Acids Mimicking Porous Nanotherapeutics with Intrinsic Anticancer Targeting Properties

Exogenous sources of amino acids are essential nutrients to fuel cancer growth. Here, the increased demand for amino acid displayed by cancer cells is unconventionally exploited as a design principle to replete cancer cells with apoptosis inducing nanoscopic porous amino acid mimics (Nano‐PAAM). A small library consisting of nine essential amino acids nanoconjugates (30 nm) are synthesized, and the in vitro anticancer activity is evaluated. Among the Nano‐PAAMs, l ‐phenylalanine functionalized Nano‐PAAM (Nano‐pPAAM) has emerged as a novel nanotherapeutics with excellent intrinsic anticancer and cancer‐selective properties. The therapeutic efficacy of Nano‐pPAAM against a panel of human breast, gastric, and skin cancer cells could be ascribed to the specific targeting of the overexpressed human large neutral amino acid transporter SLC7A5 (LAT‐1) in cancer cells, and its intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) inducing properties of the nanoporous core. At the mechanistic level, it is revealed that Nano‐pPAAM could activate both the extrinsic and intrinsic apoptosis pathways to exert a potent “double‐whammy” anticancer effect. The potential clinical utility of Nano‐pPAAM is further investigated using an MDA‐MB‐231 xenograft in NOD scid gamma mice, where an overall suppression of tumor growth by 60% is achieved without the aid of any drugs or application of external stimuli.     

RVGEN: a tool for generation of random variates

A number of applications in simulation and software testing require random number generation, both uniform and non-uniform. Although libraries are available for random number generation, there is no user-friendly tool to enable the user to use and build random number generators. This paper presents the RVGEN tool, developed at TRDDC. Using the tool, the software developer can design a random number generator specific to a particular pattern. The tool takes specifications at a high level and also partly in C++, and generates C++ code for a number of user-friendly functions. These include setting and getting of random variate parameters, GUIs for inputting parameters, validation of parameters, parameter input and output from a file, generation of random variate class declarations, generation of seeds for multiple streams, and testing of the random variate generator. The tool provides a number of classical, general-purpose and empiric distributions by default.     

On the structure of the privacy hierarchy

An N argument function f(x ₁,...,x _N ) is called t-private if a protocol for computing f exists so that no coalition of at most t parties can infer any additional information from the execution, other than the value of the function. The motivation of this work is to understand what levels of privacy are attainable. So far, only two levels of privacy are known for N argument functions which are defined over finite domains: functions that are N-private and functions that are (N – 1)/2-private but not N/2-private.In this work we show that the privacy hierarchy for N-argument functions which are defined over finite domains, has exactly (N + 1)/2 levels. We prove this by constructing, for any N/2 t N – 2, an N-argument function which is t-private but not (t + 1)-private.This research was supported by US-Israel Binational Science Foundation Grant 88-00282.     

Efficiently enumerating results of keyword search over data graphs

Various approaches for keyword search in different settings (e.g., relational databases and XML) actually deal with the problem of enumerating K-fragments. For a given set of keywords K, a K-fragment is a subtree T of the given data graph, such that T contains all the keywords of K and no proper subtree of T has this property. There are three types of K-fragments: directed, undirected and strong. This paper describes efficient algorithms for enumerating K-fragments. Specifically, for all three types of K-fragments, algorithms are given for enumerating all K-fragments with polynomial delay and polynomial space. It is shown how these algorithms can be enhanced to enumerate K-fragments in a heuristic order. For directed K-fragments and acyclic data graphs, an algorithm is given for enumerating with polynomial delay in the order of increasing weight (i.e., the ranked order), assuming that K is of a fixed size.     

Peer-to-peer secure multi-party numerical computation facing malicious adversaries

We propose an efficient framework for enabling secure multi-party numerical computations in a Peer-to-Peer network. This problem arises in a range of applications such as collaborative filtering, distributed computation of trust and reputation, monitoring and other tasks, where the computing nodes are expected to preserve the privacy of their inputs while performing a joint computation of a certain function. Although there is a rich literature in the field of distributed systems security concerning secure multi-party computation, in practice it is hard to deploy those methods in very large scale Peer-to-Peer networks. In this work, we try to bridge the gap between theoretical algorithms in the security domain, and a practical Peer-to-Peer deployment. We consider two security models. The first is the semi-honest model where peers correctly follow the protocol, but try to reveal private information. We provide three possible schemes for secure multi-party numerical computation for this model and identify a single light-weight scheme which outperforms the others. Using extensive simulation results over real Internet topologies, we demonstrate that our scheme is scalable to very large networks, with up to millions of nodes. The second model we consider is the malicious peers model, where peers can behave arbitrarily, deliberately trying to affect the results of the computation as well as compromising the privacy of other peers. For this model we provide a fourth scheme to defend the execution of the computation against the malicious peers. The proposed scheme has a higher complexity relative to the semi-honest model. Overall, we provide the Peer-to-Peer network designer a set of tools to choose from, based on the desired level of security.     

Efficient trace and revoke schemes

Our goal is to design encryption schemes for mass distribution of data , which enable to (1) deter users from leaking their personal keys, (2) trace the identities of users whose keys were used to construct illegal decryption devices, and (3) revoke these keys as to render the devices dysfunctional. We start by designing an efficient revocation scheme, based on secret sharing. It can remove up to t parties, is secure against coalitions of up to t users, and is more efficient than previous schemes with the same properties. We then show how to enhance the revocation scheme with traitor tracing and self-enforcement properties. More precisely, how to construct schemes such that (1) each user’s personal key contains some sensitive information of that user (e.g., the user’s credit card number), in order to make users reluctant to disclose their keys. (2) An illegal decryption device discloses the identity of users that contributed keys to construct the device. And, (3) it is possible to revoke the keys of corrupt users. For the last point, it is important to be able to do so without publicly disclosing the sensitive information.     

A matrix geometric representation for the queue length distribution of multitype semi-Markovian queues

In this paper we study a broad class of semi-Markovian queues introduced by Sengupta. This class contains many classical queues such as the GI/M/1 queue, SM/MAP/1 queue and others, as well as queues with correlated inter-arrival and service times. Queues belonging to this class are characterized by a set of matrices of size $m$ and Sengupta showed that its waiting time distribution can be represented as a phase-type distribution of order $m$. For the special case of the SM/MAP/1 queue without correlated service and inter-arrival times the queue length distribution was also shown to be phase-type of order $m$, but no derivation for the queue length was provided in the general case.This paper introduces an order $m^2$ phase-type representation $(\kappa ,K)$ for the queue length distribution in the general case and proves that the order $m^2$ of the distribution cannot be further reduced in general. A matrix geometric representation $(\kappa ,K,\nu )$ is also established for the number of type $\tau ?\{1,\dots ,m\}$ customers in the system, where a customer is of type $\tau$ if the phase in which it completes service belongs to $\tau$. We derive these results in both discrete and continuous time and also discuss the numerical procedure to compute $(\kappa ,K,\nu )$. When the arrivals have a Markovian structure, the numerical procedure is reduced to solving a Quasi–Birth–Death (for the discrete time case) or fluid queue (for the continuous time case).Finally, by combining a result of Sengupta and Ozawa, we provide a simple formula to compute the order $m$ phase-type representation of the waiting time in a MAP/MAP/1 queue without correlated service and inter-arrival times, using the $R$ matrix of a Quasi–Birth–Death Markov chain.