Comparison of $$(1+\alpha )$$ Fractional-Order Transfer Functions to Approximate Lowpass Butterworth Magnitude Responses

Three fractional-order transfer functions are analyzed for differences in realizing (\(1+\alpha \)) order lowpass filters approximating a traditional Butterworth magnitude response. These transfer functions are realized by replacing traditional capacitors with fractional-order capacitors (\(Z=1/s^{\alpha }C\) where \(0\le \alpha \le 1\)) in biquadratic filter topologies. This analysis examines the differences in least squares error, stability, \(-\)3 dB frequency, higher-order implementations, and parameter sensitivity to determine the most suitable (\(1+\alpha \)) order transfer function for the approximated Butterworth magnitude responses. Each fractional-order transfer function for \((1+\alpha )=1.5\) is realized using a Tow–Thomas biquad a verified using SPICE simulations.     

Minimizing the Two-Round Even–Mansour Cipher

The r-round (iterated) Even–Mansour cipher (also known as key-alternating cipher) defines a block cipher from r fixed public n-bit permutations \(P_1,\ldots ,P_r\) as follows: Given a sequence of n-bit round keys \(k_0,\ldots ,k_r\), an n-bit plaintext x is encrypted by xoring round key \(k_0\), applying permutation \(P_1\), xoring round key \(k_1\), etc. The (strong) pseudorandomness of this construction in the random permutation model (i.e., when the permutations \(P_1,\ldots ,P_r\) are public random permutation oracles that the adversary can query in a black-box way) was studied in a number of recent papers, culminating with the work of Chen and Steinberger (EUROCRYPT 2014), who proved that the r-round Even–Mansour cipher is indistinguishable from a truly random permutation up to \(\mathcal {O}(2^{\frac{rn}{r+1}})\) queries of any adaptive adversary (which is an optimal security bound since it matches a simple distinguishing attack). All results in this entire line of work share the common restriction that they only hold under the assumption that the round keys \(k_0,\ldots ,k_r\) and the permutations \(P_1,\ldots ,P_r\) are independent. In particular, for two rounds, the current state of knowledge is that the block cipher \(E(x)=k_2\oplus P_2(k_1\oplus P_1(k_0\oplus x))\) is provably secure up to \(\mathcal {O}(2^{2n/3})\) queries of the adversary, when \(k_0\), \(k_1\), and \(k_2\) are three independent n-bit keys, and \(P_1\) and \(P_2\) are two independent random n-bit permutations. In this paper, we ask whether one can obtain a similar bound for the two-round Even–Mansour cipher from just one n-bit key and one n-bit permutation. Our answer is positive: When the three n-bit round keys \(k_0\), \(k_1\), and \(k_2\) are adequately derived from an n-bit master key k, and the same permutation P is used in place of \(P_1\) and \(P_2\), we prove a qualitatively similar \(\widetilde{\mathcal {O}}(2^{2n/3})\) security bound (in the random permutation model). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first “beyond the birthday bound” security result for AES-like ciphers that does not assume independent round keys.     

Direction of arrival estimation via reweighted $$l_1$$ norm penalty algorithm for monostatic MIMO radar

In this paper, a reweighted \(l_1\) norm penalty algorithm for direction of arrival (DOA) estimation in monostatic multiple-input multiple-output radar is proposed. In the proposed method, exploiting the inherent multidimensional structure of received data after matched filtering, the singular value decomposition (SVD) technique of the data matrix is employed to reduce the dimension of the received signal. Then a novel weight matrix is designed for reweighting the \(l_1\) norm minimization by exploiting the coefficients of the reduced-dimensional Capon (RD-Capon) spatial spectrum. The proposed algorithm enhances the sparsity of the solution by the reweighted \(l_1\) norm constraint minimization, and the DOAs can be estimated by finding the non-zero rows of the recovered matrix. Owing to utilizing the SVD technique and the novel weight matrix, the proposed algorithm can provide better angle estimation performance than RD-Capon and \(l_1\)-SRACV algorithms. Furthermore, it is suitable for coherent sources and has a low sensitivity to the incorrect determination of the source numbers. The effectiveness and superior performance of the proposed algorithm are demonstrated by numerical simulations.     

5.18–7.42 GHz LC-VCO in subthreshold regime with low power low phase noise and immunity to PVT variations in 130 nm CMOS technology

In this paper, we propose an LC-VCO using automatic amplitude control and filtering technique to eliminate frequency noise around 2\(\omega _0\). The LC-VCO is designed with TSMC 130 nm CMOS RF technology, and biased in subthreshold regime in order to get more negative transconductance to overcome the losses in the LC-Tank and achieve less power consumption. The designed VCO operates at 5.17 GHz and can be tuned from 5.17 to 7.398 GHz, which is corresponding to 35.5% tuning range. The VCO consumes through it 495–440.5 \(\upmu\)W from 400 mV dc supply. This VCO achieves a phase noise of \(-\,122.3\) and \(-\,111.7\) dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset from 5.17 and 7.39 GHz carrier, respectively. The calculated Figure-of-merits (FoM) at 1 MHz offset from 5.17 and 7.39 GHz is \(-\,199.7\) and \(-\,192.4\) dBc/Hz, respectively. And it is under \(-\,190.5\) dBc/Hz through all the tuning range. The FoM\(_T\) at 1 MHz offset from 5.17 GHz carrier is \(-\,210.6\) dBc/Hz. The proposed design was simulated for three different temperatures (\(-\,55\), 27, \(125\,^{\circ }\hbox {C}\)), and three supply voltages (0.45, 0.4, 0.35 V), it was concluded that the designed LC-VCO presents high immunity to PVT variations, and can be used for multi-standard wireless LAN communication protocols 802.11a/b/g.     

Design and Performance Study of Dynamic Fractors in Any of the Four Quadrants

A fractor is a simple fractional-order system. Its transfer function is \(1/Fs^{\alpha }\); the coefficient, F, is called the fractance, and \(\alpha \) is called the exponent of the fractor. This paper presents how a fractor can be realized, using RC ladder circuit, meeting the predefined specifications on both F and \(\alpha \). Besides, commonly reported fractors have \(\alpha \) between 0 and 1. So, their constant phase angles (CPA) are always restricted between \(0^{\circ }\) and \(-90^{\circ }\). This work has employed GIC topology to realize fractors from any of the four quadrants, which means fractors with \(\alpha \) between \(-\)2 and +2. Hence, one can achieve any desired CPA between \(+180^{\circ }\) and \(-180^{\circ }\). The paper also exhibits how these GIC parameters can be used to tune the fractance of emulated fractors in real time, thus realizing dynamic fractors. In this work, a number of fractors are developed as per proposed technique, their impedance characteristics are studied, and fractance values are tuned experimentally.     

Automata Evaluation and Text Search Protocols with Simulation-Based Security

This paper presents efficient protocols for securely computing the following two problems: (1) The fundamental problem of pattern matching. This problem is defined in the two-party setting, where party \(P_1\) holds a pattern and party \(P_2\) holds a text. The goal of \(P_1\) is to learn where the pattern appears in the text, without revealing it to \(P_2\) or learning anything else about \(P_2\)’s text. This problem has been widely studied for decades due to its broad applicability. We present several protocols for several notions of security. We further generalize one of our solutions to solve additional pattern matching-related problems of interest. (2) Our construction from above, in the malicious case, is based on a novel protocol for secure oblivious automata evaluation which is of independent interest. In this problem, party \(P_1\) holds an automaton and party \(P_2\) holds an input string, and they need to decide whether the automaton accepts the input, without learning anything else. Our protocol obtains full security in the face of malicious adversaries.     

Intermittent Fault Diagnosability of Hyper Petersen Network

The problem of permanent fault diagnosis has been discussed widely, and the diagnosability of many well-known networks have been explored. Faults of a multiprocessor system generally include permanent and intermittent, with intermittent faults regarded as the most challenging to diagnose. In this paper, we investigate the intermittent fault diagnosability of hyper Petersen networks. First, we derive that an \(n\)-dimensional hyper Petersen network \(HP_{n}\) with fault-free edges is \((n - 1)_{i}\)-diagnosable under the PMC model. Then, we investigate the intermittent fault diagnosability of \(HP_{n}\) with faulty edges under the PMC model. Finally, we prove that an \(n\)-dimensional hyper Petersen network \(HP_{n}\) is \((n - 2)_{i}\)-diagnosable under the MM* model.     

On the equivalence of multivariate polynomial matrices

The equivalence of system is an important concept in multidimensional (\(n\)D) system, which is closely related to equivalence of multivariate polynomial matrices. This paper mainly investigates the equivalence of some \(n\)D polynomial matrices, several new results and conditions on the reduction by equivalence of a given \(n\)D polynomial matrix to its Smith form are obtained.     

Analysis and Design of $$H_{\infty }$$ Controllers for 2D Singular Systems with Delays

The \(H_{\infty }\) control design problem is solved for the class of 2D discrete singular systems with delays. More precisely, the problem addressed is the design of state-feedback controllers such that the acceptability, internal stability and causality of the resulting closed-loop system are guaranteed, while a prescribed \(H_\infty \) performance level is simultaneously fulfilled. By establishing a novel version of the bounded real lemma, a linear matrix inequality condition is derived for the existence of these \(H_\infty \) controllers. They can then be designed by solving an iterative algorithm based on LMI optimizations. An illustrative example shows the applicability of the algorithm proposed.     

Electrical Transport Mechanisms and Photoconduction in Undoped Crystalline Flash-Evaporated Lead Iodide Thin Films

The flash-evaporation technique was utilized to fabricate undoped 1.35-μm and 1.2-μm thick lead iodide films at substrate temperatures \( T_{\rm{s}} = 150 \)°C and 200°C, respectively. The films were deposited onto a coplanar comb-like copper (Cu-) electrode pattern, previously coated on glass substrates to form lateral metal–semiconductor–metal (MSM-) structures. The as-measured constant-temperature direct-current (dc)-voltage (\( I\left( {V;T} \right) - V \)) curves of the obtained lateral coplanar Cu-PbI₂-Cu samples (film plus electrode) displayed remarkable ohmic behavior at all temperatures (\( T = 18 - 90\,^\circ {\hbox{C}} \)). Their dc electrical resistance \( R_{\rm{dc}} (T \)) revealed a single thermally-activated conduction mechanism over the temperature range with activation energy \( E_{\rm{act}} \approx 0.90 - 0.98 \,{\hbox{eV}} \), slightly less than half of room-temperature bandgap energy \( E_{\rm{g}} \) (\( \approx \,2.3\, {\hbox{eV}} \)) of undoped 2H-polytype PbI₂ single crystals. The undoped flash-evaporated \( {\hbox{PbI}}_{\rm{x}} \) thin films were homogeneous and almost stoichiometric (\( x \approx 1.87 \)), in contrast to findings on lead iodide films prepared by other methods, and were highly crystalline hexagonal 2H-polytypic structure with c-axis perpendicular to the surface of substrates maintained at \( T_{\rm{s}} { \gtrsim }150^\circ {\hbox{C}} \). Photoconductivity measurements made on these lateral Cu-PbI₂-Cu-structures under on–off visible-light illumination reveal a feeble photoresponse for long wavelengths (\( \lambda > 570\,{\hbox{nm}} \)), but a strong response to blue light of photon energy \( E_{\rm{ph}} \) \( \approx \,2.73 \, {\hbox{eV}} \) (\( > E_{\rm{g}} \)), due to photogenerated electron–hole (e–h) pairs via direct band-to-band electronic transitions. The constant-temperature/dc voltage current–time \( I\left( {T,V} \right) - t \) curves of the studied lateral PbI₂ MSM-structures at low ambient temperatures (\( T < 50^\circ {\hbox{C}} \)), after cutting off the blue-light illumination, exhibit two trapping mechanisms with different relaxation times. These strongly depend on \( V \) and \( T \), with thermally generated charge carriers in the PbI₂ mask photogenerated (e–h) pairs at higher temperatures.     

Two-channel perfect reconstruction (PR) quadrature mirror filter (QMF) bank design using logarithmic window function and spline function

In this work, two-channel perfect reconstruction quadrature mirror filter (QMF) bank has been proposed based on the prototype filter using windowing method. A novel window function based on logarithmic function along with the spline function is utilized for the design of prototype filter. The proposed window has a variable parameter ‘\(\alpha \)’, which varies the peak side lobe level and rate of fall-off side lobe level which in turn affects the peak reconstruction error (PRE) and amplitude distortion (\(e_{am}\)) of the QMF bank . The transition width of the prototype is controlled by the spline function using the parameter ‘\(\mu \)’. The perfect reconstruction condition is satisfied by setting the cutoff frequency (\(\omega _{c}\)) of the prototype low-pass filter at ‘\(\pi /2\)’. The performance of the proposed design method has been evaluated in terms of mean square error in the pass band, mean square error in the stop band, first side lobe attenuation (\(A_{1}\)), peak reconstruction error (PRE) and amplitude error (\(e_{am}\)) for different values of ‘\(\alpha \)’ and ‘\(\mu \)’. The results are provided and compared with the existing methods.     

Error performance of optically preamplified hybrid BPSK-PPM systems with transmitter and receiver imperfections

In this paper, we investigate the impact of the transmitter finite extinction ratio and the receiver carrier recovery phase offset on the error performance of two optically preamplified hybrid M-ary pulse position modulation (PPM) systems with coherent detection. The first system, referred to as PB-mPPM, combines polarization division multiplexing (PDM) with binary phase-shift keying and M-ary PPM, and the other system, referred to as PQ-mPPM, combines PDM with quadrature phase-shift keying and M-ary PPM. We provide new expressions for the probability of bit error for PB-mPPM and PQ-mPPM under finite extinction ratios and phase offset. The extinction ratio study indicates that the coherent systems PB-mPPM and PQ-mPPM outperform the direct-detection ones. It also shows that at \(P_b=10^{-9}\) PB-mPPM has a slight advantage over PQ-mPPM. For example, for a symbol size \(M=16\) and extinction ratio \(r=30\) dB, PB-mPPM requires 0.6 dB less SNR per bit than PQ-mPPM to achieve \(P_b=10^{-9}\). This investigation demonstrates that PB-mPPM is less complex and less sensitive to the variations of the offset angle \(\theta \) than PQ-mPPM. For instance, for \(M=16\), \(r=30\) dB, and \(\theta =10^{\circ }\) PB-mPPM requires 1.6 dB less than PQ-mPPM to achieve \(P_b=10^{-9}\). However, PB-mPPM enhanced robustness to phase offset comes at the expense of a reduced bandwidth efficiency when compared to PQ-mPPM. For example, for \(M=2\) its bandwidth efficiency is 60 % that of PQ-mPPM and \(\approx 86\,\%\) for \(M=1024\). For these reasons, PB-mPPM can be considered a reasonable design trade-off for M-ary PPM systems.     

Mixed RF/FSO bidirectional system achieving spectral efficiency

The performance of two-way relay (TWR)-assisted mixed radio-frequency/free-space optical (RF/FSO) system is evaluated in this letter. The proposed system employs decode-and-forward relaying phenomena where the relay is basically an interfacing node between two source nodes \(S_1\) and \(S_2\), where \(S_1\) supports RF signal, while \(S_2\) supports FSO signal. The TWR-assisted system helps in achieving spectral efficiency by managing bidirectional communication in three time slots, thus maximizing the achievable rate of the network. The RF link is subjected to generalized \(\eta -\mu \) distribution, and the optical channel is affected by path loss, pointing errors and gamma–gamma (gg) distributed atmospheric turbulence. The novel expressions for the probability density function and cumulative distribution function of the equivalent end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) are derived. Capitalizing on these derived statistics of end-to-end SNR, the expressions of outage probability and the bit-error rate for different binary modulations and M-ary modulations are provided.     

High-Accuracy Time-Mode Duty-Cycle-Modulation-Based Temperature Sensor for Energy-Efficient System Applications

This paper presents a new time-mode duty-cycle-modulation-based high-accuracy temperature sensor. Different from the well-known \({\varSigma }{\varDelta }\) ADC-based readout structure, this temperature sensor utilizes a temperature-dependent oscillator to convert the temperature information into temperature-related time-mode parameter values. The useful output information of the oscillator is the duty cycle, not the absolute frequency. In this way, this time-mode duty-cycle-modulation-based temperature sensor has superior performance over the conventional inverter-chain-based time domain types. With a linear formula, the duty-cycle output streams can be converted into temperature values. The design is verified in 65nm standard digital CMOS process. The verification results show that the worst temperature inaccuracy is kept within 1\(\,^{\circ }\mathrm{C}\) with a one-point calibration from \(-\)55 to 125 \(^{\circ }\mathrm{C}\). At room temperature, the average current consumption is only 0.8 \(\upmu \)A (1.1\(\,\upmu \)A in one phase and 0.5 \(\upmu \)A in the other) with 1.2 V supply voltage, and the total energy consumption for a complete measurement is only 0.384 \({\hbox {nJ}}\).     

Bandgap Tuning of Sm and Co Co-doped BFO Nanoparticles for Photovoltaic Application

Multiferroic \(BiFeO_3\) (BFO) with bandgap energy (\(E_g\)) between 2.2 eV to 2.7 eV is a potential candidate for photovoltaic (PV) application. However, the efficiency of BFO based PV solar cells is reportedly still too low (less than 2%) to be used for practical applications. Reducing \(E_g\) of BFO without compromising the ferroelectric properties is a big challenge to the scientific community to obtain power conversion efficiencies beyond the maximum value of 26.6% reported in general for silicon based hetero-structure PV solar cells. In this context, samarium (Sm) and cobalt (Co) co-doped BFO (\(Bi_{0.9}Sm_{0.1}Fe_{0.9}Co_{0.1}O_3\)) nanoparticles were synthesized using the sol-gel method. X-ray diffractometry was employed to determine the structure of synthesized nanoparticles. A well-defined crystalline structure of co-doped BFO nanoparticles was confirmed. Field emission scanning electron microscopy was carried out to study grain morphology of synthesized nanoparticles. Sm and Co dopants have been shown to reduce grain size significantly from 68.3 nm to 18.5 nm. An UV-Vis-NIR spectrophotometer was used to measure diffuse reflectance to calculate \(E_g\). A significant reduction of \(E_g\) down to 1.50 eV of co-doped BFO compared to undoped and or single doped counterpart has been manifested.     

The $$\mathbb {}$$-curve Construction for Endomorphism-Accelerated Elliptic Curves

We give a detailed account of the use of \(\mathbb {Q}\)-curve reductions to construct elliptic curves over \(\mathbb {F}_{p^2}\) with efficiently computable endomorphisms, which can be used to accelerate elliptic curve-based cryptosystems in the same way as Gallant–Lambert–Vanstone (GLV) and Galbraith–Lin–Scott (GLS) endomorphisms. Like GLS (which is a degenerate case of our construction), we offer the advantage over GLV of selecting from a much wider range of curves and thus finding secure group orders when \(p\) is fixed for efficient implementation. Unlike GLS, we also offer the possibility of constructing twist-secure curves. We construct several one-parameter families of elliptic curves over \(\mathbb {F}_{p^2}\) equipped with efficient endomorphisms for every \(p > 3\), and exhibit examples of twist-secure curves over \(\mathbb {F}_{p^2}\) for the efficient Mersenne prime \(p = 2^{127}-1\).     

Efficient Slide Attacks

The slide attack, presented by Biryukov and Wagner, has already become a classical tool in cryptanalysis of block ciphers. While it was used to mount practical attacks on a few cryptosystems, its practical applicability is limited, as typically, its time complexity is lower bounded by \(2^n\) (where n is the block size). There are only a few known scenarios in which the slide attack performs better than the \(2^n\) bound. In this paper, we concentrate on efficient slide attacks, whose time complexity is less than \(2^n\). We present a number of new attacks that apply in scenarios in which previously known slide attacks are either inapplicable, or require at least \(2^n\) operations. In particular, we present the first known slide attack on a Feistel construction with a 3-round self-similarity, and an attack with practical time complexity of \(2^{40}\) on a 128-bit key variant of the GOST block cipher with unknown S-boxes. The best previously known attack on the same variant, with known S-boxes (by Courtois), has time complexity of \(2^{91}\).     

An Investigation of Massive Gain in Hybrid Configurable Cylindrical Dielectric Resonator Antenna

Delay Tolerant Networks (DTNs) have attracted various interests these days. Since DTNs are subject to high loss rate, large delay, intermittent connection, and even no end-to-end connectivity, relay nodes, such as throwboxes, are deployed to enhance network performance. Internet-based systems have contemporaneous connectivity between location-distributed nodes, and this does not apply to DTNs. Thus, the traditional relay node deployment strategies are no longer suitable for DTNs. In this paper, we propose a novel strategy, named Connection-2 (\(CO_2\)), to deploy throwboxes to enhance the fault tolerance of DTNs. \(CO_2\) constructs a 2-connected DTN using an approximation algorithm. Every mobile node in the 2-connected DTN can reach another mobile node via two or more node-disjoint paths within its mobility range. While enhancing fault tolerance, the number of throwboxes that \(CO_2\) requires is small. We conduct various experiments based on the simulation of the real Tuscaloosa bus transit system and compare its performance with two popular strategies. Experimental results show that \(CO_2\) is effective.     

Study on the Effect of Mn,Zn, and Sb on Undercooling Behavior of Sn-Ag-Cu Alloys Using Differential Thermal Analysis

Differential thermal analysis (DTA) has been conducted on directionally solidified near-eutectic Sn-3.0 wt.%Ag-0.5 wt.%Cu (SAC), SAC \(+\) 0.2 wt.%Sb, SAC \(+\) 0.2 wt.%Mn, and SAC \(+\) 0.2 wt.%Zn. Laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy was used to study element partitioning behavior and estimate DTA sample compositions. Mn and Zn additives reduced the undercooling of SAC from 20.4\(^\circ \hbox {C}\) to \(4.9^\circ \hbox {C}\) and \(2^\circ \hbox {C}\), respectively. Measurements were performed at cooling rate of \(10^\circ \hbox {C}\) per minute. After introducing 200 ppm \(\hbox {O}_2\) into the DTA, this undercooling reduction ceased for SAC \(+\) Mn but persisted for SAC \(+\) Zn.     

The Security of Tandem-DM in the Ideal Cipher Model

We prove that Tandem-DM, one of the two “classical” schemes for turning an n-bit blockcipher of 2n-bit key into a double-block-length hash function, has birthday-type collision resistance in the ideal cipher model. For \(n=128\), an adversary must make at least \(2^{120.87}\) blockcipher queries to achieve chance 0.5 of finding a collision. A collision resistance analysis for Tandem-DM achieving a similar birthday-type bound was already proposed by Fleischmann, Gorski and Lucks at FSE 2009. As we detail, however, the latter analysis is wrong, thus leaving the collision resistance of Tandem-DM as an open problem until now. Our analysis exhibits a novel feature in that we introduce a trick never used before in ideal cipher proofs. We also give an improved bound on the preimage security of Tandem-DM. For \(n=128\), we show that an adversary must make at least \(2^{245.99}\) blockcipher queries to achieve chance 0.5 of inverting a randomly chosen point in the range. Asymptotically, Tandem-DM is proved to be preimage resistant up to \(2^{2n}/n\) blockcipher queries. This bound improves upon the previous best bound of \({{\varOmega }}(2^n)\) queries and is optimal (ignoring log factors) since Tandem-DM has range of size \(2^{2n}\).