Variants of waters’ dual system primitives using asymmetric pairings

Waters, in 2009, introduced an important technique, called dual system encryption, to construct identity-based encryption (IBE) and related schemes. The resulting IBE scheme was described in the setting of symmetric pairing. A key feature of the construction is the presence of random tags in the ciphertext and decryption key. Later work by Lewko and Waters removed the tags and proceeding through composite-order pairings led to a more efficient dual system IBE scheme using asymmetric pairings whose security is based on non-standard but static assumptions. In this work, we have systematically simplified Waters 2009 IBE scheme in the setting of asymmetric pairing. The simplifications retain tags used in the original description. This leads to several variants, the first one of which is based on standard assumptions and in comparison to Waters’ original scheme reduces ciphertexts and keys by two elements each. Going through several stages of simplifications, we finally obtain a simple scheme whose security can be based on two standard assumptions and a natural and minimal extension of the decision Diffie-Hellman problem for asymmetric pairing groups. The scheme itself is also minimal in the sense that apart from the tags, both encryption and key generation use exactly one randomiser each. This final scheme is more efficient than both the previous dual system IBE scheme in the asymmetric setting due to Lewko and Waters and the more recent dual system IBE scheme due to Lewko. We extend the IBE scheme to hierarchical IBE (HIBE) and broadcast encryption (BE) schemes. Both primitives are secure in their respective full models and have better efficiencies compared to previously known schemes offering the same level and type of security.

Fast and efficient automatic memory management for GPUs using compiler-assisted runtime coherence scheme

Exploiting the performance potential of GPUs requires managing the data transfers to and from them efficiently which is an error-prone and tedious task. In this paper, we develop a software coherence mechanism to fully automate all data transfers between the CPU and GPU without any assistance from the programmer. Our mechanism uses compiler analysis to identify potential stale accesses and uses a runtime to initiate transfers as necessary. This allows us to avoid redundant transfers that are exhibited by all other existing automatic memory management proposals. We integrate our automatic memory manager into the X10 compiler and runtime, and find that it not only results in smaller and simpler programs, but also eliminates redundant memory transfers. Tested on eight programs ported from the Rodinia benchmark suite it achieves (i) a 1.06x speedup over hand-tuned manual memory management, and (ii) a 1.29x speedup over another recently proposed compiler--runtime automatic memory management system. Compared to other existing runtime-only and compiler-only proposals, it also transfers 2.2x to 13.3x less data on average.

Reconciling transactional conflicts with compiler's help

Software transactional memory(STM) is a promising programming paradigm for shared memory multithreaded programs. While STM offers the promise of being less error-prone and more programmer friendly compared to traditional lock-based synchronization, it also needs to be competitive in performance in order for it to be adopted in mainstream software. A major source of performance overheads in STM is transactional aborts. Conflict resolution and aborting a transaction typically happens at the transaction level which has the advantage that it is automatic and application agnostic. However it has a substantial disadvantage in that STM declares the entire transaction as conflicting and hence aborts it and re-executes it fully, instead of partially re-executing only those part(s) of the transaction, which have been affected due to the conflict. This "Re-execute Everything" approach has a significant adverse impact on STM performance. In order to mitigate the abort overheads, we propose a compiler aided Selective Reconciliation STM (SR-STM) scheme, wherein certain transactional conflicts can be reconciled by performing partial re-execution of the transaction. Ours is a selective hybrid approach which uses compiler analysis to identify those data accesses which are legal and profitable candidates for reconciliation and applies partial re-execution only to these candidates selectively while other conflicting data accesses are handled by the default STM approach of abort and full re-execution. We describe the compiler analysis and code transformations required for supporting selective reconciliation. We find that SR-STM is effective in reducing the transactional abort overheads by improving the performance for a set of five STAMP benchmarks by 12.58% on an average and up to 22.34%.

Joint Evaluation of Reduced Feedback Scheme, Scheduling, and Rate Adaptation in OFDMA Systems with Feedback Delays

Orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems exploit multiuser diversity and frequency-selectivity to achieve high spectral efficiencies. However, they require considerable feedback for scheduling and rate adaptation, and are sensitive to feedback delays. We develop a comprehensive analysis of the OFDMA system throughput as a function of the feedback scheme, frequency-domain scheduler, and discrete rate adaptation rule in the presence of feedback delays. We analyze the popular best-n and threshold-based feedback schemes. We show that for both the greedy and round-robin schedulers, the throughput degradation, given a feedback delay, depends primarily on the fraction of feedback reduced by the feedback scheme and not the feedback scheme itself. Even small feedback delays at low vehicular speeds are shown to significantly degrade the throughput. We also show that optimizing the link adaptation thresholds as a function of the feedback delay can effectively counteract the detrimental effect of delays.

Group testing based spectrum hole search using a simple sub-nyquist sampling scheme

In this paper, we consider the problem of finding a spectrum hole of a specified bandwidth in a given wide band of interest. We propose a new, simple and easily implementable sub-Nyquist sampling scheme for signal acquisition and a spectrum hole search algorithm that exploits sparsity in the primary spectral occupancy in the frequency domain by testing a group of adjacent subbands in a single test. The sampling scheme deliberately introduces aliasing during signal acquisition, resulting in a signal that is the sum of signals from adjacent sub-bands. Energy-based hypothesis tests are used to provide an occupancy decision over the group of subbands, and this forms the basis of the proposed algorithm to find contiguous spectrum holes. We extend this framework to a multi-stage sensing algorithm that can be employed in a variety of spectrum sensing scenarios, including non-contiguous spectrum hole search. Further, we provide the analytical means to optimize the hypothesis tests with respect to the detection thresholds, number of samples and group size to minimize the detection delay under a given error rate constraint. Depending on the sparsity and SNR, the proposed algorithms can lead to significantly lower detection delays compared to a conventional bin-by-bin energy detection scheme; the latter is in fact a special case of the group test when the group size is set to 1. We validate our analytical results via Monte Carlo simulations.

An adaptive modulation scheme for two-user fading MAC with quantized fade state feedback

For transmission over the two-user Gaussian Multiple Access Channel with fading and finite constellation at the inputs, we propose a scheme which uses only quantized knowledge of fade state at users with the feedback overhead being nominal. One of the users rotates its constellation without varying the transmit power to adapt to the existing channel conditions, in order to meet certain pre-determined minimum Euclidean distance requirement in the equivalent constellation at the destination. The optimal modulation scheme has been described for the case when both the users use symmetric M-PSK constellations at the input, where M = 2λ, λ being a positive integer. The strategy has been illustrated by considering examples where both the users use QPSK signal set at the input. It is shown that the proposed scheme has considerable better error performance compared to the conventional non-adaptive scheme, at the cost of a feedback overhead of just [log2 (M2/8 - M/4 + 2)] + 1 bits, for the M-PSK case.

A Cooperative ARQ Scheme for Infrastructure WLANs

We propose a Cooperative Opportunistic Automatic Repeat ReQuest (CoARQ) scheme to solve the HOL-blocking problem in infrastructure IEEE 802.11 WLANs. HOL blocking occurs when the head-of-the-line packet at the Access Point (AP) queue blocks the transmission of packets to other destinations resulting in severe throughput degradation. When the AP transmits a packet to a mobile station (STA), some of the nodes in the vicinity can overhear this packet transmission successfully. If the original transmission by the AP is unsuccessful, our CoARQ scheme chooses the station. STA or AP) with the best channel to the intended receiver as a relay and the chosen relay forwards the AP's packet to the receiver. This way, our scheme removes the bottleneck at the AP, thereby providing significant improvements in the throughput of the AP. We analyse the performance of our scheme in an infrastructure WLAN under a TCP controlled file download scenario and our analytical results are further validated by extensive simulations.

System-level SoC near-field (NF) emissions: Simulation to measurement correlation

As System-on-Chip (SoC) designs migrate to 28nm process node and beyond, the electromagnetic (EM) co-interactions of the Chip-Package-Printed Circuit Board (PCB) becomes critical and require accurate and efficient characterization and verification. In this paper a fast, scalable, and parallelized boundary element based integral EM solutions to Maxwell equations is presented. The accuracy of the full-wave formulation, for complete EM characterization, has been validated on both canonical structures and real-world 3-D system (viz. Chip + Package + PCB). Good correlation between numerical simulation and measurement has been achieved. A few examples of the applicability of the formulation to high speed digital and analog serial interfaces on a 45nm SoC are also presented.

Formation flying of small satellites using suboptimal MPSP guidance

Using the recently developed model predictive static programming (MPSP), a suboptimal guidance logic is presented in this paper for formation flying of small satellites. Due to the inherent nature of the problem formulation, MPSP does not require the system dynamics to be linearized. The proposed guidance scheme is valid both for high eccentricity chief satellite orbits as well as large separation distance between chief and deputy satellites. Moreover, since MPSP poses the desired conditions as a set of `hard constraints', the final accuracy level achieved is very high. The proposed guidance scheme has been tested successfully for a variety of initial conditions and for a variety of formation commands as well. Comparison with standard Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) solution (which serves as a guess solution for MPSP) and another nonlinear controller, State Dependent Riccati Equation (SDRE) reveals that MPSP guidance achieves the objective with higher accuracy and with lesser amount of control usage as well.

A landscape-level assessment of Asian elephant habitat, its population and elephant-human conflict in the Anamalai hill ranges of southern Western Ghats, India

Spatial information at the landscape scale is extremely important for conservation planning, especially in the case of long-ranging vertebrates. The biodiversity-rich Anamalai hill ranges in the Western Ghats of southern India hold a viable population for the long-term conservation of the Asian elephant. Through rapid but extensive field surveys we mapped elephant habitat, corridors, vegetation and land-use patterns, estimated the elephant population density and structure, and assessed elephant-human conflict across this landscape. GIS and remote sensing analyses indicate that elephants are distributed among three blocks over a total area of about 4600 km(2). Approximately 92% remains contiguous because of four corridors; however, under 4000 km2 of this area may be effectively used by elephants. Nine landscape elements were identified, including five natural vegetation types, of which tropical moist deciduous forest is dominant. Population density assessed through the dung count method using line transects covering 275 km of walk across the effective elephant habitat of the landscape yielded a mean density of 1.1 (95% Cl = 0.99-1.2) elephant/km(2). Population structure from direct sighting of elephants showed that adult male elephants constitute just 2.9% and adult females 42.3% of the population with the rest being subadults (27.4%), juveniles (16%) and calves (11.4%). Sex ratios show an increasing skew toward females from juvenile (1:1.8) to sub-adult (1:2.4) and adult (1:14.7) indicating higher mortality of sub-adult and adult males that is most likely due to historical poaching for ivory. A rapid questionnaire survey and secondary data on elephant-human conflict from forest department records reveals that villages in and around the forest divisions on the eastern side of landscape experience higher levels of elephant-human conflict than those on the western side; this seems to relate to a greater degree of habitat fragmentation and percentage farmers cultivating annual crops in the east. We provide several recommendations that could help maintain population viability and reduce elephant-human conflict of the Anamalai elephant landscape. (C) 2013 Deutsche Gesellschaft far Saugetierkunde. Published by Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

A Three-Level Common-Mode Voltage Eliminated Inverter With Single DC Supply Using Flying Capacitor Inverter and Cascaded H-Bridge

A three-level common-mode voltage eliminated inverter with single dc supply using flying capacitor inverter and cascaded H-bridge has been proposed in this paper. The three phase space vector polygon formed by this configuration and the polygon formed by the common-mode eliminated states have been discussed. The entire system is simulated in Simulink and the results are experimentally verified. This system has an advantage that if one of devices in the H-bridge fails, the system can still be operated as a normal three-level inverter at full power. This inverter has many other advantages like use of single dc supply, making it possible for a back-to-back grid-tied converter application, improved reliability, etc.

Implementation of throughput enhancing client-AP association scheme On a WLAN controller

In a typical enterprise WLAN, a station has a choice of multiple access points to associate with. The default association policy is based on metrics such as Re-ceived Signal Strength(RSS), and “link quality” to choose a particular access point among many. Such an approach can lead to unequal load sharing and diminished system performance. We consider the RAT (Rate And Throughput) policy [1] which leads to better system performance. The RAT policy has been implemented on home-grown centralized WLAN controller, ADWISER [2] and we demonstrate that the RAT policy indeed provides a better system performance.

A multi-level multi-scale approach to study essential genes in Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Background: The set of indispensable genes that are required by an organism to grow and sustain life are termed as essential genes. There is a strong interest in identification of the set of essential genes, particularly in pathogens, not only for a better understanding of the pathogen biology, but also for identifying drug targets and the minimal gene set for the organism. Essentiality is inherently a systems property and requires consideration of the system as a whole for their identification. The available experimental approaches capture some aspects but each method comes with its own limitations. Moreover, they do not explain the basis for essentiality in most cases. A powerful prediction method to recognize this gene pool including rationalization of the known essential genes in a given organism would be very useful. Here we describe a multi-level multi-scale approach to identify the essential gene pool in a deadly pathogen, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Results: The multi-level workflow analyses the bacterial cell by studying (a) genome-wide gene expression profiles to identify the set of genes which show consistent and significant levels of expression in multiple samples of the same condition, (b) indispensability for growth by using gene expression integrated flux balance analysis of a genome-scale metabolic model, (c) importance for maintaining the integrity and flow in a protein-protein interaction network and (d) evolutionary conservation in a set of genomes of the same ecological niche. In the gene pool identified, the functional basis for essentiality has been addressed by studying residue level conservation and the sub-structure at the ligand binding pockets, from which essential amino acid residues in that pocket have also been identified. 283 genes were identified as essential genes with high-confidence. An agreement of about 73.5% is observed with that obtained from the experimental transposon mutagenesis technique. A large proportion of the identified genes belong to the class of intermediary metabolism and respiration. Conclusions: The multi-scale, multi-level approach described can be generally applied to other pathogens as well. The essential gene pool identified form a basis for designing experiments to probe their finer functional roles and also serve as a ready shortlist for identifying drug targets.

A 5th and 7th Order Harmonic Suppression Scheme for Open-end Winding Asymmetrical Six-phase IM Drive Using Capacitor-fed Inverter

Voltage source inverter (VSI) fed six-phase induction motor drives have high 6n +/- 1; n = odd order harmonic currents, due to absence of back emf for these currents. To suppress these harmonic currents, either bulky inductive harmonic filters or complex pulse width modulation (PWM) techniques have to be used. This paper proposes a simple harmonic elimination scheme using capacitor fed inverters, for an asymmetrical six-phase induction motor VSI fed drive. Two three phase inverters fed from a single capacitor is used on the open-end side of the motor, to suppress 6n +/- 1; n = odd order harmonics. A PWM scheme that can suppress the harmonics, as well as balance the capacitor voltage is also proposed. The capacitor fed inverters are switched so that the fundamental voltage is not affected. The proposed scheme is verified using MATLAB Simulink simulation at different speeds. The effectiveness of the scheme is demonstrated by comparing the results with those obtained by disabling the capacitor fed inverters. Experimental results are also provided to validate the functionality of the proposed controller.

A Seventeen-level Inverter With a Single DC-link For Motor Drives

In the present paper, a novel topology for generating a 17-level inverter using three-level flying capacitor inverter and cascaded H-bridge modules with floating capacitors. The proposed circuit is analyzed and various aspects of it are presented in the paper. This circuit is experimentally verified and the results are shown. The stability of the capacitor balancing algorithm has been verified during sudden acceleration. This circuit has many pole voltage redundancies. This circuit has an advantage of balancing all the capacitor voltages instantaneously by switching through the redundancies. Another advantage of this topology is its ability to generate all the 17 pole voltages from a single DC link which enables back to back converter operation. Also, the proposed inverter can be operated at all load power factors and modulation indices. Another advantage is, if one of the H-bridges fail, the inverter can still be operated at full load with reduced number of levels.