Cryptanalysis of an involutional block cipher using cellular automata

In 2006, an involutional block cipher using cellular automata was proposed. A self-invertible CA-based structure allows for an efficient hardware implementation. This paper analyzes the insecurity of the cipher due to its conjugate property. The results of this study will make it possible to construct a decryption process without knowledge of the secret key.     

Impacts of spectral band difference effects on radiometric cross-calibration between satellite sensors in the solar-reflective spectral domain

In order for quantitative applications to make full use of the ever-increasing number of Earth observation satellite systems, data from the various imaging sensors involved must be on a consistent radiometric scale. This paper reports on an investigation of radiometric calibration errors due to differences in spectral response functions between satellite sensors when attempting cross-calibration based on near-simultaneous imaging of common ground targets in analogous spectral bands, a commonly used post-launch calibration methodology. Twenty Earth observation imaging sensors (including coarser and higher spatial resolution sensors) were considered, using the Landsat solar reflective spectral domain as a framework. Scene content was simulated using spectra for four ground target types (Railroad Valley Playa, snow, sand and rangeland), together with various combinations of atmospheric states and illumination geometries. Results were obtained as a function of ground target type, satellite sensor comparison, spectral region, and scene content. Overall, if spectral band difference effects (SBDEs) are not taken into account, the Railroad Valley Playa site is a “good” ground target for cross calibration between most but not all satellite sensors in most but not all spectral regions investigated. “Good” is defined as SBDEs within ± 3%. The other three ground target types considered (snow, sand and rangeland) proved to be more sensitive to uncorrected SBDEs than the RVPN site overall. The spectral characteristics of the scene content (solar irradiance, surface reflectance and atmosphere) are examined in detail to clarify why spectral difference effects arise and why they can be significant when comparing different imaging sensor systems. Atmospheric gas absorption features are identified as being the main source of spectral variability in most spectral regions. The paper concludes with recommendations on spectral data and tools that would facilitate cross-calibration between multiple satellite sensors.     

Characteristics of Schottky Barrier Junction Based on Hexagonal Microtube ZnO

Hexagonal microtube ZnO was firstly grown on single crystal p-Si (111) substrates by hydrothermal method, and fabricated Ag/n-ZnO and Au/n-ZnO Schottky junction. Schottky effective barrier heights were calculated by I-V measurement. It is confirmed that the presence of a large amount of surface states related possibly to lattice imperfections existed near the surface leads to the pinning of the surface Fermi level at 0.35 eV below the conduction-band edge. Then the fabricated Schottky barrier junctions are evaluated for their use as UV photodetectors.     

Conforming spectral methods for Poisson problems in cuboidal domains

A Chebyshev collocation strategy is introduced for the subdivision of cuboids into cuboidal subdomains (elements). These elements are conforming, which means that the approximation to the solution isC ⁰ continuous at all points across their interfaces.     

Group technology based adaptive cell formation using predator-prey genetic algorithm

In recent years, there has been a considerable growth of application of group technology in cellular manufacturing. This has led to investigation of the primary cell formation problem (CFP), both in classical and soft-computing domain. Compared to more well-known and analytical techniques like mathematical programming which have been used rigorously to solve CFPs, heuristic approaches have yet gained the same level of acceptance. In the last decade we have seen some fruitful attempts to use evolutionary techniques like genetic algorithm (GA) and Ant Colony Optimization to find solutions of the CFP. The primary aim of this study is to investigate the applicability of a fine grain variant of the predator-prey GA (PPGA) in CFPs. The algorithm has been adapted to emphasize local selection strategy and to maintain a reasonable balance between prey and predator population, while avoiding premature convergence. The results show that the algorithm is competitive in identifying machine-part clusters from the initial CFP matrix with significantly less number of iterations. The algorithm scaled efficiently for large size problems with competitive performance. Optimal cluster identification is then followed by removal of the bottleneck elements to give a final solution with minimum inter-cluster transition cost. The results give considerable impetus to study similar NP-complete combinatorial problems using fine-grain GAs in future.     

SPECTRAL RADIUS,KRONECKER PRODUCTS AND STATIONARITY

Abstract. We provide a stochastic proof of the inequality ρ(A?A+B?B) ≥ρ(A?A), where ρ(M) denotes the spectral radius of any square matrix M, i.e. max{|eigenvalues| of M}, and M?N denotes the Kronecker product of any two matrices M and N. The inequality is then used to show that stationarity of the bilinear model will imply stationarity of the linear part, i.e. the linear ARMA model for r= 1 and q= 1. Furthermore, it is shown that stationarity of the subdiagonal model, i.e. the bilinear model with b_ij=0 for i< j, again implies stationarity of its linear part, provided that the stationarity condition given by Bhaskara Rao and his colleagues is met. Interestingly, the conclusion that stationarity of the subdiagonal models, implies that the linear component models cannot be extended to the general non-subdiagonal bilinear models. The last observation is demonstrated via a simple example with p=m= 1, r= 0 and q= 2.     

SELECTIVITY STUDIES IN THE PHOTOCHLORINATION OF METHANE II: EFFECT OF THE RADIATION SOURCE OUTPUT POWER AND OUTPUT SPECTRAL DISTRIBUTION

The effect of the output power and output spectral distribution of the radiation energy fed to a photoreactor upon the reaction yield and selectivities is studied both theoretically and experimentally. The study aims at the analysis of these influences in a series reaction such as the photochlorination of methane where methylene chloride and eventually chloroform are the most valuable products. The computational model employed has been verified for a group of selected conditions by means of bench-sale experiments.

It is found that the chlorine conversion shows the expected square root dependence with respect to the Local Volumetric Rate of Energy Absorption (LVREA). This dependence, in a first approximation, can also be assigned to the effect of the radiation source output power upon yield. It is also found that by manipulating the amount of radiation power fed to the reactor it is possible to ascertain the operating conditions favoring the production of predetermined intermediate products (e.g., methylene chloride or chloroform).

It is concluded that the use of customized lamps especially designed for each particular product on the basis of feasible changes in the characteristics of the existing radiation sources will favor a selective and more economical production of some of the stable intermediates, i.e., lamp design is an important feature in any optimal process design.     

A Modified Nonparametric Prewhitened Covariance Estimator

Abstract. This paper proposes a fully modified version of the spectral matrix estimator (and the long‐run variance estimator as a special case) proposed originally by Xiao and Linton [Journal of Time Series Analysis (2002) Vol. 23, pp. 215–250], and derives its asymptotic results. A striking feature of the modified spectral matrix estimator is to achieve the convergence rate of O(T ^?8/9) in the mean squared error (MSE), which is usually achieved under the fourth‐order spectral window. However, this estimator does not sacrifice the positive definiteness of the resulting estimate for the rate improvement; it is Hermitian and positive definite in finite samples by construction. The faster convergence rate is established by a multiplicative bias correction of the crude spectral estimator under the second‐order spectral window. The approximations to some sensible definitions of the MSE of the estimator and the bandwidths that minimize the asymptotic MSEs are also derived. Monte Carlo results indicate that for a wide variety of processes the modified spectral matrix estimator reduces the bias without inflating the variance and thus improves the MSE, compared with the crude, bias‐uncorrected estimator.     

Detecting similarities in virtual machine behavior for cloud monitoring using smoothed histograms

The growing size and complexity of cloud systems determine scalability issues for resource monitoring and management. While most existing solutions consider each Virtual Machine (VM) as a black box with independent characteristics, we embrace a new perspective where VMs with similar behaviors in terms of resource usage are clustered together. We argue that this new approach has the potential to address scalability issues in cloud monitoring and management. In this paper, we propose a technique to cluster VMs starting from the usage of multiple resources, assuming no knowledge of the services executed on them. This innovative technique models VMs behavior exploiting the probability histogram of their resources usage, and performs smoothing-based noise reduction and selection of the most relevant information to consider for the clustering process. Through extensive evaluation, we show that our proposal achieves high and stable performance in terms of automatic VM clustering, and can reduce the monitoring requirements of cloud systems.