The orbital angular momentum (OAM) spatial degree of freedom of light has been widely explored in many applications, including telecommunications, quantum information, and light-based micromanipulation. The ability to separate and distinguish between the different transverse spatial modes is called mode sorting or mode demultiplexing, and it is essential to recover the encoded information in such applications. An ideal d mode sorter should be able to faithfully distinguish between the different d spatial modes, with minimal losses, and have d outputs and fast response times. All previous mode sorters rely on bulk optical elements, such as spatial light modulators, which cannot be quickly tuned and have additional losses if they are to be integrated with optical fiber systems. Here, we propose and experimentally demonstrate, to the best of our knowledge, the first all-in-fiber method for OAM mode sorting with ultrafast dynamic reconfigurability. Our scheme first decomposes the OAM mode in-fiber-optical linearly polarized (LP) modes and then interferometrically recombines them to determine the topological charge, thus correctly sorting the OAM mode. In addition, our setup can also be used to perform ultrafast routing of the OAM modes. These results show a novel and fiber-integrated form of optical spatial mode sorting that can be readily used for many new applications in classical and quantum information processing.

The distributed source coding problem is extended by positing that noisy measurements of a remote source are the correlated random variables that should be reconstructed at another terminal. We consider a secure and private distributed lossy source coding problem with two encoders and one decoder such that (i) all terminals noncausally observe a noisy measurement of the remote source; (ii) a private key is available to each legitimate encoder and all private keys are available to the decoder; (iii) rate-limited noiseless communication links are available between each encoder and the decoder; (iv) the amount of information leakage to an eavesdropper about the correlated random variables is defined as (v) secrecy leakage, and privacy leakage is measured with respect to the remote source; and (vi) two passive attack scenarios are considered, where a strong eavesdropper can access both communication links and a weak eavesdropper can choose only one of the links to access. Inner and outer bounds on the rate regions defined under secrecy, privacy, communication, and distortion constraints are derived for both passive attack scenarios. When one or both sources should be reconstructed reliably, the rate region bounds are simplified.

A methodology for the generation of representative driving cycles is proposed and evaluated. The proposed method combines traffic simulation and driving behavior modeling to generate mission-based driving cycles. Extensions to the existing behavioral model in a traffic simulation tool are suggested and parameterized for different driver categories to capture the effects of road geometry and variances between drivers. The evaluation results illustrate that the developed extensions significantly improve the match between driving data and the driving cycles generated by traffic simulation. Using model extensions parameterized for different driver categories, instead of only one average driver, provides the possibility to represent different driving behaviors and further improve the realism of the resulting driving cycles.

We present a method to estimate the time-to-impact (TTI) from a sequence of images. The method is based on detecting and tracking local extremal points. Their endurance within and between pixels is measured, accumulated, and used to achieve the TTI. This method, which improves on an earlier proposal, is entirely different from the ordinary optical flow technique and allows for fast and low-complex processing. The method is inspired by insects, which have some TTI capability without the possibility to compute high-complex optical flow. The method is further suitable for near-sensor image processing architectures. (c) The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI.

A central result in the foundations of quantum mechanics is the Kochen-Specker theorem. In short, it states that quantum mechanics is in conflict with classical models in which the result of a measurement does not depend on which other compatible measurements are jointly performed. Here compatible measurements are those that can be implemented simultaneously or, more generally, those that are jointly measurable. This conflict is generically called quantum contextuality. In this review, an introduction to this subject and its current status is presented. Several proofs of the Kochen-Specker theorem and different notions of contextuality are reviewed. How to experimentally test some of these notions is explained, and connections between contextuality and nonlocality or graph theory are discussed. Finally, some applications of contextuality in quantum information processing are reviewed.

The secure transfer of information is critical to the ever-increasing demands of the digital world. Continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CV-QKD) is a promising technology that can provide high secret key rates over metropolitan areas, using conventional telecom components. In this study, we demonstrate the utilization of CV-QKD over a 15 km multi-core fiber (MCF), in which we take advantage of one core to remotely frequency lock Bobs local oscillator with Alices transmitter. We also demonstrate the capacity of the MCF to boost the secret key rate by parallelizing CV-QKD across multiple cores. Our results indicate that MCFs are promising for the metropolitan deployment of QKD systems.

Organic electronic circuits based on organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) are attracting great attention due to their printability, flexibility, and low voltage operation. Inverters are the building blocks of digital logic circuits (e.g., NAND gates) and analog circuits (e.g., amplifiers). However, utilizing OECTs in electronic logic circuits is challenging due to the resulting low voltage gain and low output voltage levels. Hence, inverters capable of operating at relatively low supply voltages, yet offering high voltage gain and larger output voltage windows than the respective input voltage window are desired. Herein, inverters realized from poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):polystyrene sulfonate-based OECTs are designed and explored, resulting in logic inverters exhibiting high voltage gains, enlarged output voltage windows, and tunable switching points. The inverter designs are based on multiple screen-printed OECTs and a resistor ladder, where one OECT is the driving transistor while one or two additional OECTs are used as variable resistors in the resistor ladder. The inverters performances are investigated in terms of voltage gain, output voltage levels, and switching point. Inverters, operating at +/-2.5 V supply voltage and an input voltage window of 1 V, that can achieve an output voltage window with similar to 110% increment and a voltage gain up to 42 are demonstrated.

A natural choice for quantum communication is to use the relative phase between two paths of a single photon for information encoding. This method was nevertheless quickly identified as impractical over long distances, and thus a modification based on single-photon time bins has become widely adopted. It, how-ever, introduces a fundamental loss, which increases with the dimension and limits its application over long distances. Here solve this long-standing hurdle by using a few-mode-fiber space-division-multiplexing platform working with orbital-angular-momentum modes. In our scheme, we maintain the practicability provided by the time-bin scheme, while the quantum states are transmitted through a few-mode fiber in a configuration that does not introduce postselection losses. We experimentally demonstrate our proposal by successfully transmitting phase-encoded single-photon states for quantum cryptography over 500 m of few-mode fiber, showing the feasibility of our scheme.

In this paper, we suggest basing the development of classification methods on traditional techniques but approximating them in whole or in part with artificial neural networks (ANNs). Compared to a direct ANN approach, the underlying traditional method is often easier to analyse. Classification failures can be better understood and corrected for, while at the same time faster execution can be obtained due to the parallel ANN structure. Furthermore, such a two-step design philosophy partly eliminates the guesswork associated with the design of ANNs. The expected gain is thus that the benefits from the traditional field, and the ANN field can be obtained by combining the best features from both fields. We illustrate our approach by working through an explicit example, namely, a Nearest Neighbour classifier applied to a subset of the MNIST database of handwritten digits. Two different approaches are discussed for how to translate the traditional method into an ANN. The first approach is based on a constructive implementation which directly reflects the original algorithm. The second approach uses ANNs to approximate the whole, or part of, the original method. An important part of the approach is to show how improvements can be introduced. In line with the presented philosophy, this is done by extending the traditional method in several ways followed by ANN approximation of the modified algorithms. The extensions are based on a windowed version of the nearest neighbour algorithm. We show that the improvements carry over to the ANN implementations. We further investigate the stability of the solutions by modifying the training set. It is shown that the errors do not change significantly. This also holds true for the ANN approximations providing confidence that the two-step strategy is robust.

The optical fibre is an essential tool for our communication infrastructure since it is the main transmission channel for optical communications. The latest major advance in optical fibre technology is space-division multiplexing, where new fibre designs and components establish multiple co-existing data channels based on light propagation over distinct transverse optical modes. Simultaneously, there have been many recent developments in the field of quantum information processing, with novel protocols and devices in areas such as computing and communication. Here, we review recent results in quantum information based on space-division multiplexing optical fibres, and discuss new possibilities based on this technology.

A CMOS sensor chip was used, together with an Arduino microcontroller, to create and verify a low-power low-cost optical motion detector for use in traffic detection under dark and daylight conditions. The chip can sense object features with very high dynamic range. On-chip near sensor image processing was used to reduce the data to be transferred to a host computer. A method using local extrema point detection was used to estimate motion through time-to-impact (TTI). Sensor data from the headlights of an approaching/passing car were used to extract TTI values similar to estimations from distance and speed of the object. The method can be used for detection of approaching objects to switch on streetlights (dark conditions) or sensors for traffic lights instead of magnetic sensors in the streets or conventional cameras (dark and daylight conditions). A sensor with a microcontroller operating at low clock frequency will consume less than 30 mW in this application. 

Multi-port beam splitters are cornerstone devices for high-dimensional quantum information tasks, which can outperform the two-dimensional ones. Nonetheless, the fabrication of such devices has proven to be challenging with progress only recently achieved with the advent of integrated photonics. Here, we report on the production of high-quality N x N (with N = 4, 7) multi-port beam splitters based on a new scheme for manipulating multi-core optical fibers. By exploring their compatibility with optical fiber components, we create four-dimensional quantum systems and implement the measurement-device-independent random number generation task with a programmable four-arm interferometer operating at a 2 MHz repetition rate. Due to the high visibilities observed, we surpass the one-bit limit of binary protocols and attain 1.23 bits of certified private randomness per experimental round. Our result demonstrates that fast switching, low loss, and high optical quality for high-dimensional quantum information can be simultaneously achieved with multi-core fiber technology. (C) 2020 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement

The communication outposts of the emerging Internet of Things are embodied by ordinary items, which desirably include all-printed flexible sensors, actuators, displays and akin organic electronic interface devices in combination with silicon-based digital signal processing and communication technologies. However, hybrid integration of smart electronic labels is partly hampered due to a lack of technology that (de)multiplex signals between silicon chips and printed electronic devices. Here, we report all-printed 4-to-7 decoders and seven-bit shift registers, including over 100 organic electrochemical transistors each, thus minimizing the number of terminals required to drive monolithically integrated all-printed electrochromic displays. These relatively advanced circuits are enabled by a reduction of the transistor footprint, an effort which includes several further developments of materials and screen printing processes. Our findings demonstrate that digital circuits based on organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) provide a unique bridge between all-printed organic electronics (OEs) and low-cost silicon chip technology for Internet of Things applications.

Query complexity is a common tool for comparing quantum and classical computation, and it has produced many examples of how quantum algorithms differ from classical ones. Here we investigate in detail the role that oracles play for the advantage of quantum algorithms. We do so by using a simulation framework, Quantum Simulation Logic (QSL), to construct oracles and algorithms that solve some problems with the same success probability and number of queries as the quantum algorithms. The framework can be simulated using only classical resources at a constant overhead as compared to the quantum resources used in quantum computation. Our results clarify the assumptions made and the conditions needed when using quantum oracles. Using the same assumptions on oracles within the simulation framework we show that for some specific algorithms, such as the Deutsch-Jozsa and Simons algorithms, there simply is no advantage in terms of query complexity. This does not detract from the fact that quantum query complexity provides examples of how a quantum computer can be expected to behave, which in turn has proved useful for finding new quantum algorithms outside of the oracle paradigm, where the most prominent example is Shors algorithm for integer factorization.

Driving cycles are nowadays, to an increasing extent, used as input to model-based vehicle design and as training data for development of vehicle models and functions with machine learning algorithms. Recorded real driving data may underrepresent or even lack important characteristics, and therefore there is a need to complement driving cycles obtained from real driving data with synthetic data that exhibit various desired characteristics. In this paper, an efficient method for generation of mission-based driving cycles is developed for this purpose. It is based on available effective methods for traffic simulation and available maps to define driving missions. By comparing the traffic simulation results with real driving data, insufficiencies in the existing behavioral model in the utilized traffic simulation tool are identified. Based on these findings, four extensions to the behavioral model are suggested, staying within the same class of computational complexity so that it can still be used in a large scale. The evaluation results show significant improvements in the match between the data measured on the road and the outputs of the traffic simulation with the suggested extensions of the behavioral model. The achieved improvements can be observed with both visual inspection and objective measures. For instance, the 40% difference in the relative positive acceleration of the originally simulated driving cycle compared to real driving data was eliminated using the suggested model.

Paper is emerging as a promising flexible, high surface-area substrate for various new applications such as printed electronics, energy storage, and paper-based diagnostics. Many applications, however, require paper that reaches metallic conductivity levels, ideally at low cost. Here, an aqueous electroless copper-plating method is presented, which forms a conducting thin film of fused copper nanoparticles on the surface of the cellulose fibers. This paper can be used as a current collector for anodes of lithium-ion batteries. Owing to the porous structure and the large surface area of cellulose fibers, the copper-plated paper-based half-cell of the lithium-ion battery exhibits excellent rate performance and cycling stability, and even outperforms commercially available planar copper foil-based anode at ultra-high charge/discharge rates of 100 C and 200 C. This mechanically robust metallic-paper composite has promising applications as the current collector for light-weight, flexible, and foldable paper-based 3D Li-ion battery anodes.

We combine the near-sensor image processing concept with address-event representation leading to an intensity-ranking image sensor (IRIS) and show the benefits of using this type of sensor for image classification. The functionality of IRIS is to output pixel coordinates (X and Y values) continuously as each pixel has collected a certain number of photons. Thus, the pixel outputs will be automatically intensity ranked. By keeping track of the timing of these events, it is possible to record the full dynamic range of the image. However, in many cases, this is not necessary-the intensity ranking in itself gives the needed information for the task at hand. This paper describes techniques for classification and proposes a particular variant (groves) that fits the IRIS architecture well as it can work on the intensity rankings only. Simulation results using the CIFAR-10 dataset compare the results of the proposed method with the more conventional ferns technique. It is concluded that the simultaneous sensing and classification obtainable with the IRIS sensor yields both fast (shorter than full exposure time) and processing-efficient classification.

We report on a new class of dimension witnesses, based on quantum random access codes, which are a function of the recorded statistics and that have different bounds for all possible decompositions of a high-dimensional physical system. Thus, it certifies the dimension of the system and has the new distinct feature of identifying whether the high-dimensional system is decomposable in terms of lower dimensional subsystems. To demonstrate the practicability of this technique, we used it to experimentally certify the generation of an irreducible 1024-dimensional photonic quantum state. Therefore, certifying that the state is not multipartite or encoded using noncoupled different degrees of freedom of a single photon. Our protocol should find applications in a broad class of modern quantum information experiments addressing the generation of high-dimensional quantum systems, where quantum tomography may become intractable.

We consider buffered real-time communication over channels with time-dependent capacities which are known in advance. The real-time constraint is imposed in terms of limited transmission time between sender and receiver. For a network consisting of a single channel it is shown that there is a coding rate strategy, geometrically characterized as a taut string, which minimizes the average distortion with respect to all convex distortionrate functions. Utilizing the taut string characterization further, an algorithm that computes the optimal coding rate strategy is provided. We then consider more general networks with several connected channels in parallel or series with intermediate buffers. It is shown that also for these networks there is a coding rate strategy, geometrically characterized as a taut string, which minimizes the average distortion with respect to all convex distortion-rate functions. The optimal offline strategy provides a benchmark for the evaluation of different coding rate strategies. Further, it guides us in the construction of a simple but rather efficient strategy for channels in the online setting which alternates between a good and a bad state.

Organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) have been the subject of intense research in recent years. To date, however, most of the reported OECTs rely entirely on p-type (hole transport) operation, while electron transporting (n-type) OECTs are rare. The combination of efficient and stable p-type and n-type OECTs would allow for the development of complementary circuits, dramatically advancing the sophistication of OECT-based technologies. Poor stability in air and aqueous electrolyte media, low electron mobility, and/or a lack of electrochemical reversibility, of available high-electron affinity conjugated polymers, has made the development of n-type OECTs troublesome. Here, it is shown that ladder-type polymers such as poly(benzimidazobenzophenanthroline) (BBL) can successfully work as stable and efficient n-channel material for OECTs. These devices can be easily fabricated by means of facile spray-coating techniques. BBL-based OECTs show high transconductance (up to 9.7 mS) and excellent stability in ambient and aqueous media. It is demonstrated that BBL-based n-type OECTs can be successfully integrated with p-type OECTs to form electrochemical complementary inverters. The latter show high gains and large worst-case noise margin at a supply voltage below 0.6 V.

Vertical organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) have been manufactured solely using screen printing. The OECTs are based on PEDOT:PSS (poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) doped with poly (styrene sulfonic acid)), which defines the active material for both the transistor channel and the gate electrode. The resulting vertical OECT devices and circuits exhibit low-voltage operation, relatively fast switching, small footprint and high manufacturing yield; the last three parameters are explained by the reliance of the transistor configuration on a robust structure in which the electrolyte vertically bridges the bottom channel and the top gate electrode. Two different architectures of the vertical OECT have been manufactured, characterized and evaluated in parallel throughout this report. In addition to the experimental work, SPICE models enabling simulations of standalone OECTs and OECT-based circuits have been developed. Our findings may pave the way for fully integrated, low-voltage operating and printed signal processing systems integrated with e.g. printed batteries, solar cells, sensors and communication interfaces. Such technology can then serve a low-cost base technology for the internet of things, smart packaging and home diagnostics applications.

Along-standing aim of quantum information research is to understand what gives quantum computers their advantage. This requires separating problems that need genuinely quantum resources from those for which classical resources are enough. Two examples of quantum speed-up are the Deutsch-Jozsa and Simons problem, both efficiently solvable on a quantum Turing machine, and both believed to lack efficient classical solutions. Here we present a framework that can simulate both quantum algorithms efficiently, solving the Deutsch-Jozsa problem with probability 1 using only one oracle query, and Simons problem using linearly many oracle queries, just as expected of an ideal quantum computer. The presented simulation framework is in turn efficiently simulatable in a classical probabilistic Turing machine. This shows that the Deutsch-Jozsa and Simons problem do not require any genuinely quantum resources, and that the quantum algorithms show no speed-up when compared with their corresponding classical simulation. Finally, this gives insight into what properties are needed in the two algorithms and calls for further study of oracle separation between quantum and classical computation.

The design, fabrication and operation of a range of functional power converter circuits, based on diode configured organic field-effect transistors as the rectifying unit and capable of transforming a high AC input voltage to a selectable DC voltage, are presented. The converter functionality is demonstrated by selecting and tuning its constituents so that it can effectively drive a low-voltage organic electronic device, a light-emitting electrochemical cell (LEC), when connected to high-voltage AC mains. It is established that the preferred converter circuit for this task comprises an organic full-wave rectifier and a regulation resistor but is void of a smoothing capacitor, and that such a circuit connected to the AC mains (230 V, 50 Hz) successfully can drive an LEC to bright luminance (360 cd m(-2)) and high efficiency (6.4 cd A(-1)). (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Cell voltage equalizers are an important part in electric energy storage systems comprising series-connected cells, for example, supercapacitors. Hybrid electronics with silicon chips and printed devices enables electronic systems with moderate performance and low cost. This paper presents a silicon-organic hybrid voltage equalizer to balance and protect series-connected supercapacitor cells during charging. Printed organic electrochemical transistors with conducting polymer poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene): poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT: PSS) are utilized to bypass excess current when the supercapacitor cells are fully charged to desired voltages. In this study, low-cost silicon microcontrollers (ATtiny85) are programmed to sense voltages across the supercapacitor cells and control the organic electrochemical transistors to bypass charging current when the voltages exceed 1 V. Experimental results show that the hybrid equalizer with the organic electrochemical transistors works in dual-mode, switched-transistor mode or constant-resistor mode, depending on the charging current applied (0.3-100 mA). With the voltage equalizer, capacitors are charged equally regardless of their capacitances. This work demonstrates a low-cost hybrid solution for supercapacitor balancing modules at large-scale packs.

Experimental violations of Bell inequalities are in general vulnerable to so-called loopholes. In this work, we analyze the characteristics of a loophole-free Bell test with photons, closing simultaneously the locality, freedom-of-choice, fair-sampling (i.e., detection), coincidence-time, and memory loopholes. We pay special attention to the effect of excess predictability in the setting choices due to nonideal random-number generators. We discuss necessary adaptations of the Clauser-Horne and Eberhard inequality when using such imperfect devices and-using Hoeffdings inequality and Doobs optional stopping theorem-the statistical analysis in such Bell tests.

A simplified model is developed to understand the field and potential distribution through devices based on a ferroelectric film in direct contact with an electrolyte. Devices based on the ferroelectric polymer polyvinylidenefluoride-trifluoroethylene (PVDF-TrFE) were produced – in metalferroelectric-metal, metal-ferroelectric-dielectric-metal, and metal-ferroelectric-electrolyte-metal architectures – and used to test the model, and simulations based on the model and these fabricated devices were performed. From these simulations we find indication of progressive polarization of the films. Furthermore, the model implies that there is a relation between the separation of charge within the devices and the observed open circuit voltage. This relation is confirmed experimentally. The ability to polarize ferroelectric polymer films through aqueous electrolytes, combined with the strong correlation between the properties of the electrolyte double layer and the device potential, opens the door to a variety of new applications for ferroelectric technologies, e.g., regulation of cell culture growth and release, steering molecular self-assembly, or other large area applications requiring aqueous environments.

In this paper, we present a consistent model to analyzethe drain current mismatch of organic thin-film transistors.The model takes charge fluctuations and edge effects into account,to predict the fluctuations of drain currents. A Poisson distributionfor the number of charge carriers is assumed to represent therandom distribution of charge carriers in the channel. The edge effectsdue to geometric variations in fabrication processes are interpretedin terms of the fluctuations of channel length and width. Thesimulation results are corroborated by experimental results takenfrom over 80 organic transistors on a flexible plastic substrate.

Elastic optical networking (EON) with space-division multiplexing (SDM) is the only evident long-term solution to the capacity needs of the future networks. The introduction of space via spatial fibers, such as multicore fibers (MCF) to EON provides an additional dimension as well as challenges to the network planning and resource optimization problem. There are various types of technologies for SDM transmission medium, switching, and amplification; each of them induces different capabilities and constraints on the network. For example, employing MCF as the transmission medium for SDM mitigates the spectrum continuity constraint of the routing and spectrum allocation problem for EON. In fact, cores can be switched freely on different links during routing of the network traffic. On the other hand, intercore crosstalk should be taken into account while solving the resource allocation problem. In the framework of switching for elastic SDM network, the programmable architecture on demand (AoD) node (optical white box) can provide a more scalable solution with respect to the hard-wired reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers (ROADMs) (optical black box). This study looks into the routing, modulation, spectrum, and core allocation (RMSCA) problem for weakly-coupled MCF-based elastic SDM networks implemented through AoDs and static ROADMs. The proposed RMSCA strategies integrate the spectrum resource allocation, switching resource deployment, and physical layer impairment in terms of intercore crosstalk through a multiobjective cost function. The presented strategies perform a cross-layer optimization between the network and physical layers to compute the actual intercore crosstalk for the candidate resource solutions and are specifically tailored to fit the type of optical node deployed in the network. The aim of all these strategies is to jointly optimize the switching and spectrum resource efficiency when provisioning demands with diverse capacity requirements. Extensive simulation results demonstrate that 1) by exploiting the dense intranodal connectivity of the ROADM-based SDM network, resource efficiency and provisioned traffic volume improve significantly related to the AoD-based solution, 2) the intercore crosstalk aware strategies improve substantially the provisioned traffic volume for the AoD-based SDM network, and 3) the switching modules grows very gently for the network designed with AoD nodes related to the one with ROADMs as the traffic increases, qualifying AoD as a scalable and cost-efficient choice for future SDM networks.

Device-independent quantum communication will require a loophole-free violation of Bell inequalities. In typical scenarios where line of sight between the communicating parties is not available, it is convenient to use energy-time entangled photons due to intrinsic robustness while propagating over optical fibers. Here we show an energy-time Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt Bell inequality violation with two parties separated by 3.7 km over the deployed optical fiber network belonging to the University of Concepcion in Chile. Remarkably, this is the first Bell violation with spatially separated parties that is free of the postselection loophole, which affected all previous in-field long-distance energy-time experiments. Our work takes a further step towards a fiber-based loophole-free Bell test, which is highly desired for secure quantum communication due to the widespread existing telecommunication infrastructure.

This paper gives an introduction to some of the problems of modern camera surveillance, and how these problems are, or can be, addressed using visualization techniques. The paper is written from an engineering point of view, attempting to communicate visualization techniques invented in recent years to the non-engineer reader. Most of these techniques have the purpose of facilitating for the surveillance operator to recognize or detect relevant events (such as violence), while, in contrast, some have the purpose of hiding information in order to be less privacy-intrusive. Furthermore, there are also cameras and sensors that produce data that have no natural visible form, and methods for visualizing such data are discussed as well. Finally, in a concluding discussion an attempt is made to predict how the discussed methods and techniques will be used in the future. 

Poly(3-hexylthiophene)(P3HT) transistors with a thin ion-gel gate dielectric layer (100 nm thickness) was fabricated. The thin ion-gel dielectric layer retarded the capacitance drop at high frequencies and the diffusion of the ionic molecules in the polymer active layer that are severe drawbacks of the ion-gel dielectric transistors. Thereby, the thin ion-gel transistors showed hysteresis-free I-V characteristics, less frequency-dependence, and enhanced bias-stability. The average charge mobility was similar to 2 cm(2)/Vs and the on/off ratio was 10(4)similar to 10(5). The dependence of the capacitance and the kinetics of ion translation on the thickness of the ion-gel were discussed by both experiments and theoretical calculations.

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Bell inequalities are intended to show that local realist theories cannot describe the world. A local realist theory is one where physical properties are defined prior to and independent of measurement, and no physical influence can propagate faster than the speed of light. Quantum-mechanical predictions for certain experiments violate the Bell inequality while a local realist theory cannot, and this shows that a local realist theory cannot give those quantum-mechanical predictions. However, because of unexpected circumstances or loopholes in available experiment tests, local realist theories can reproduce the data from these experiments. This paper reviews such loopholes, what effect they have on Bell inequality tests, and how to avoid them in experiment. Avoiding all these simultaneously in one experiment, usually called a loophole-free or definitive Bell test, remains an open task, but is very important for technological tasks such as device-independent security of quantum cryptography, and ultimately for our understanding of the world.

Purpose – A model for streamers based on charge transport has been developed by MIT and ABB. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the consequences of changing numerical method from the finite element method (FEM) to the finite volume method (FVM) for simulations using the streamer model. The new solver is also used to extend the simulations to 3D. Design/methodology/approach – The equations from the MIT-ABB streamer model are implemented in OpenFOAM which uses the FVM. Checks of the results are performed including verification of convergence. The solver is then applied to some of the key simulations from the FEM model and results presented. Findings – The results for second mode streamers are confirmed, whereas the results for third mode streamers differ significantly leading to questioning of one hypothesis proposed based on the FEM results. The 3D simulations give consistent results and show a way forward for future simulations. Originality/value – The FVM has not been applied to the model before and led to more confidence in second mode result and revising of third mode results. In addition the new simulation method makes it possible to extend the results to 3D.

We show that the phenomenon of quantum contextuality can be used to certify lower bounds on the dimension accessed by the measurement devices. To prove this, we derive bounds for different dimensions and scenarios of the simplest noncontextuality inequalities. Some of the resulting dimension witnesses work independently of the prepared quantum state. Our constructions are robust against noise and imperfections, and we show that a recent experiment can be viewed as an implementation of a state-independent quantum dimension witness.

It is known that if the dimension is a perfect square the Clifford group can be represented by monomial matrices. Another way of expressing this result is to say that when the dimension is a perfect square the standard representation of the Clifford group has a system of imprimitivity consisting of one dimensional subspaces. We generalize this result to the case of an arbitrary dimension. Let k be the square-free part of the dimension. Then we show that the standard representation of the Clifford group has a system of imprimitivity consisting of k-dimensional subspaces. To illustrate the use of this result we apply it to the calculation of SIC-POVMs (symmetric informationally complete positive operator valued measures), constructing exact solutions in dimensions 8 (hand-calculation) as well as 12 and 28 (machine-calculation).

District heating is a common way of providing heat to buildings in urban areas. The heat is carried by hot water or steam and distributed in a network of pipes from a central powerplant. It is of great interest to minimize energy losses due to bad pipe insulation or leakages in such district heating networks. As the pipes generally are placed underground, it may be difficult to establish the presence and location of losses and leakages. Toward this end, this work presents methods for large-scale monitoring and detection of leakages by means of remote sensing using thermal cameras, so-called airborne thermography. The methods rely on the fact that underground losses in district heating systems lead to increased surface temperatures. The main contribution of this work is methods for automatic analysis of aerial thermal images to localize leaking district heating pipes. Results and experiences from large-scale leakage detection in several cities in Sweden and Norway are presented.

Information-theoretically secure (ITS) authentication is needed in Quantum Key Distribution (QKD). In this paper, we study security of an ITS authentication scheme proposed by Wegman& Carter, in the case of partially known authentication key. This scheme uses a new authentication key in each authentication attempt, to select a hash function from an Almost Strongly Universal₂ hash function family. The partial knowledge of the attacker is measured as the trace distance between the authentication key distribution and the uniform distribution; this is the usual measure in QKD. We provide direct proofs of security of the scheme, when using partially known key, first in the information-theoretic setting and then in terms of witness indistinguishability as used in the Universal Composability (UC) framework. We find that if the authentication procedure has a failure probability ε and the authentication key has an ε´ trace distance to the uniform, then under ITS, the adversary’s success probability conditioned on an authentic message-tag pair is only bounded by ε +|Ƭ|ε´, where |Ƭ| is the size of the set of tags. Furthermore, the trace distance between the authentication key distribution and the uniform increases to |Ƭ|ε´ after having seen an authentic message-tag pair. Despite this, we are able to prove directly that the authenticated channel is indistinguishable from an (ideal) authentic channel (the desired functionality), except with probability less than ε + ε´. This proves that the scheme is (ε + ε´)-UC-secure, without using the composability theorem.

Optical networks are expected to provide a unified platform for a diverse set of emerging applications (three-dimensional TV, digital cinema, e-health, grid computing, etc). The service differentiation will be an essential feature of these networks. Considering the fact that users have different levels of patience for different network applications, referred to as set-up delay tolerance, it will be one of the key parameters for service differentiation. Service differentiation based on set-up delay tolerance will not only enable network users to select an appropriate service class (SC) in compliance with their requirements, but will also provide an opportunity to optimize the network resource provisioning by exploiting this information, resulting in an improvement in the overall performance. Improvement in network performance can be further enhanced by exploiting the connection holding-time awareness. However, when multiple classes of service with different set-up delay tolerances are competing for network resources, the connection requests belonging to SCs with higher set-up delay tolerance have better chances to grab the resources and leave less room for the others, resulting in degradation in the blocking performance of less patient customers. This study proposes different scheduling strategies for promoting the requests belonging to smaller set-up delay tolerance SCs, such as giving priority, reserving some fraction of available resources, and augmenting the research space by providing some extra paths. Extensive simulation results show that 1) priority in the rescheduling queue is not always sufficient for eradicating the degradation effect of high delay tolerant SCs on the provisioning rate of the most stringent SC, and 2) by utilizing the proposed strategies, resource efficiency and overall network blocking performance improve significantly in all SCs.

In this Comment we argue that the experiment describedin the recent Letter does not allow one to make con-clusions about contextuality. Our main criticism is that themeasurement of the observables as well as the preparationof the state manifestly depend on the chosen context.Contrary to that, contextuality is about the behavior ofthesamemeasurement device in different experimentalcontexts.

Contextuality is a natural generalization of nonlocality which does not need composite systems or spacelike separation and offers a wider spectrum of interesting phenomena. Most notably, in quantum mechanics there exist scenarios where the contextual behavior is independent of the quantum state. We show that the quest for an optimal inequality separating quantum from classical noncontextual correlations in a state-independent manner admits an exact solution, as it can be formulated as a linear program. We introduce the noncontextuality polytope as a generalization of the locality polytope and apply our method to identify two different tight optimal inequalities for the most fundamental quantum scenario with state-independent contextuality.

We present approximations of the LLR distribution for a class of fixed-complexity soft-output MIMO detectors, such as the optimal soft detector and the soft-output via partial marginalization detector. More specifically, in a MIMO AWGN setting, we approximate the LLR distribution conditioned on the transmitted signal and the channel matrix with a Gaussian mixture model (GMM). Our main results consist of an analytical expression of the GMM model (including the number of modes and their corresponding parameters) and a proof that, in the limit of high SNR, this LLR distribution converges in probability towards a unique Gaussian distribution.

Precise control over processing, transport and delivery of ionic and molecular signals is of great importance in numerous fields of life sciences. Integrated circuits based on ion transistors would be one approach to route and dispense complex chemical signal patterns to achieve such control. To date several types of ion transistors have been reported; however, only individual devices have so far been presented and most of them are not functional at physiological salt concentrations. Here we report integrated chemical logic gates based on ion bipolar junction transistors. Inverters and NAND gates of both npn type and complementary type are demonstrated. We find that complementary ion gates have higher gain and lower power consumption, as compared with the single transistor-type gates, which imitates the advantages of complementary logics found in conventional electronics. Ion inverters and NAND gates lay the groundwork for further development of solid-state chemical delivery circuits.

We propose an RLC model for PEDOT:PSS electrochemical transistors to interpret the persistent oscillating currents observed in experiments. The electrochemical reaction is represented by an inductor in the equivalent circuit. The simulation results show that an electrochemical device can be operated as normal transistors or oscillators under different voltage bias. This model predicts that analog circuit functions can be realized with "inductor-like" electrochemical devices.

The Hardy test of nonlocality can be seen as a particular case of the Bell tests based on the Clauser-Horne (CH) inequality. Here we stress this connection when we analyze the relation between the CH-inequality violation, its threshold detection efficiency, and the measurement settings adopted in the test. It is well known that the threshold efficiencies decrease when one considers partially entangled states and that the use of these states, unfortunately, generates a reduction in the CH violation. Nevertheless, these quantities are both dependent on the measurement settings considered, and in this paper we show that there are measurement bases which allow for an optimal situation in this trade-off relation. These bases are given as a generalization of the Hardy measurement bases, and they will be relevant for future Bell tests relying on pairs of entangled qubits.

The simulation of quantum effects requires certain classical resources, and quantifying them is an important step to characterize the difference between quantum and classical physics. For a simulation of the phenomenon of state-independent quantum contextuality, we show that the minimum amount of memory used by the simulation is the critical resource. We derive optimal simulation strategies for important cases and prove that reproducing the results of sequential measurements on a two-qubit system requires more memory than the information-carrying capacity of the system.

In this paper we present a solution for the three dimensional representation of mobile computer games which includes both motion parallax and an autostereoscopic display. The system was built on hardware which is available on the consumer market: an iPhone 3G with a Wazabee 3Dee Shell, which is an autostereoscopic extension for the iPhone. The motion sensor of the phone was used for the implementation of the motion parallax effect as well as for a tilt compensation for the autostereoscopic display. This system was evaluated in a limited user study on mobile 3D displays. Despite some obstacles that needed to be overcome and a few remaining shortcomings of the final system, an overall acceptable 3D experience could be reached. That leads to the conclusion that portable systems for the consumer market which include 3D displays are within reach.

Klyachko and coworkers consider an orthogonality graph in the form of a pentagram, and in this way derive a Kochen-Specker inequality for spin 1 systems. In some low-dimensional situations Hilbert spaces are naturally organised, by a magical choice of basis, into SO(N) orbits. Combining these ideas some very elegant results emerge. We give a careful discussion of the pentagram operator, and then show how the pentagram underlies a number of other quantum "paradoxes", such as that of Hardy.

The Kochen-Specker theorem states that noncontextual hidden variable models are inconsistent with the quantum predictions for every yes-no question on a qutrit, corresponding to every projector in three dimensions. It has been suggested [D.A. Meyer, Phys. Rev. Lett. 83 (1999) 3751] that the inconsistency would disappear when restricting to projectors on unit vectors with rational components; that noncontextual hidden variables could reproduce the quantum predictions for rational vectors. Here we show that a qutrit state with rational components violates an inequality valid for noncontextual hidden-variable models [A.A. Klyachko et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 101 (2008) 020403] using rational projectors. This shows that the inconsistency remains even when using only rational vectors.

Recent years have seen advances in the estimation of full 6 degree-of-freedom object pose from a single 2D image. These advances have often been presented as a result of, or together with, a new local image feature type. This paper examines how the pose accuracy and recognition robustness for such a system varies with choice of feature type. This is done by evaluating a full 6 degree-of-freedom pose estimation system for 17 different combinations of local descriptors and detectors. The evaluation is done on data sets with photos of challenging 3D objects with simple and complex backgrounds and varying illumination conditions. We examine the performance of the system under varying levels of object occlusion and we find that many features allow considerable object occlusion. From the experiments we can conclude that duplet features, that use pairs of interest points, improve pose estimation accuracy, compared to single point features. Interestingly, we can also show that many features previously used for recognition and wide-baseline stereo are unsuitable for pose estimation, one notable example are the affine covariant features that have been proven quite successful in other applications. The data sets and their ground truths are available on the web to allow future comparison with novel algorithms.

In this paper, we review and comment on "A novel protocol-authentication algorithm ruling out a man-in-the-middle attack in quantum cryptography" [M. Peev et al., Int. J. Quant. Inf. 3 (2005) 225]. In particular, we point out that the proposed primitive is not secure when used in a generic protocol, and needs additional authenticating properties of the surrounding quantum-cryptographic protocol.

Unconditionally secure message authentication is an important part of Quantum Cryptography (QC). We analyze security effects of using a key obtained from QC for authentication purposes in later rounds of QC. In particular, the eavesdropper gains partial knowledge on the key in QC that may have an effect on the security of the authentication in the later round. Our initial analysis indicates that this partial knowledge has little effect on the authentication part of the system, in agreement with previous results on the issue. However, when taking the full QC protocol into account, the picture is different. By accessing the quantum channel used in QC, the attacker can change the message to be authenticated. This together with partial knowledge of the key does incur a security weakness of the authentication. The underlying reason for this is that the authentication used, which is insensitive to such message changes when the key is unknown, becomes sensitive when used with a partially known key. We suggest a simple solution to this problem, and stress usage of this or an equivalent extra security measure in QC.

New strategies to improve neuron coupling to neuroelectronic implants are needed. In particular, tomaintain functional coupling between implant and neurons, foreign body response like encapsulation must meminimized. Apart from modifying materials to mitigate encapsulation it has been shown that with extremely thinstructures, encapsulation will be less pronounced. We here utilize wire electrochemical transistors (WECTs) usingconducting polymer coated fibers. Monofilaments down to 10 μm can be successfully coated and weaved intocomplex networks with built in logic functions, so called textile logic. Such systems can control signal patterns at alarge number of electrode terminals from a few addressing fibres. Not only is fibre size in the range where lessencapsulation is expected but textiles are known to make successful implants because of their soft and flexiblemechanical properties. Further, textile fabrication provides versatility and even three dimensional networks arepossible. Three possible architectures for neuroelectronic systems are discussed. WECTs are sensitive to dehydrationand materials for better durability or improved encapsulation is needed for stable performance in biologicalenvironments.

De Raedt et al. [Eur. Phys. J. B 53, 139 (2006)] have claimed to provide a local realist model for correlations of the singlet state in the familiar Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-Bohm (EPRB) experiment when time-coincidence is used to decide which detection events should count in the analysis, and furthermore that this suggests that it is possible to construct local realistic models that can reproduce the quantum mechanical expectation values. In this letter we show that these conclusions cannot be upheld since their model exploits the so-called coincidence-time loophole. When this is properly taken into account no startling conclusions can be drawn about local realist modelling of quantum mechanics.

The use of organic polymers for electronic functions is mainly motivated by the low-end applications, where low cost rather than advanced performance is a driving force. Materials and processing methods must allow for cheap production. Printing of electronics using inkjets¹ or classical printing methods has considerable potential to deliver this. Another technology that has been around for millennia is weaving using fibres. Integration of electronic functions within fabrics, with production methods fully compatible with textiles, is therefore of current interest, to enhance performance and extend functions of textiles². Standard polymer field-effect transistors require well defined insulator thickness and high voltage³, so they have limited suitability for electronic textiles. Here we report a novel approach through the construction of wire electrochemical transistor (WECT) devices, and show that textile monofilaments with 10–100 µm diameters can be coated with continuous thin films of the conducting polythiophene poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene), and used to create micro-scale WECTs on single fibres. We also demonstrate inverters and multiplexers for digital logic. This opens an avenue for three-dimensional polymer micro-electronics, where large-scale circuits can be designed and integrated directly into the three-dimensional structure of woven fibres.

In this paper, we address the 3D tracking of pose and animation of the human face in monocular image sequences using deformable 3D models. The main contributions of this paper are as follows. First, we show how the robustness and stability of the Active Appearance Algorithm can be improved through the inclusion of a simple motion compensation based on feature correspondence. Second, we develop a new method able to adapt a deformable 3D model to a face in the input image. Central to this method is the decoupling of global head movements and local non-rigid deformations/animations. This decoupling is achieved by, first, estimating the global (rigid) motion using robust statistics and a statistical model for face texture, and then, adapting the 3D model to possible local animations using the concept of the Active Appearance Algorithm. This proposed method constitutes a significant step towards reliable model-based face trackers since the strengths of complementary tracking methodologies are combined.

Experiments evaluating the effectiveness of the methods are reported. Adaptation and tracking examples demonstrate the feasibility and robustness of the developed methods.

The use of entanglement by quantum-cryptographic protocol to transfer the data was discussed. The detection of individual eavesdropping attack on each qubit was detected by the security test where the qubits provides the key, and there exists a coherent attack internal to these groups, which goes unnoticed in security tests. The result shows that the level of the individual qubits also detect the coherent attack by testing equality for the measurements. A modified test was proposed to ensure security against a coherent attack.

We present an automatization of Barnsley's manual algorithm for the solution of the inverse problem of iterated function systems (IFSs). The problem is to retrieve the number of mappings and the parameters of an IFS from a digital binary image approximating the attractor induced by the IFS. Barnsley et al. described a way to manually solve the inverse problem by identifying the fragments, of which the collage is composed, and then computing the parameters of the mappings. The automatic algorithm searches through a finite set of points in the parameter space determining a set of affine mappings. The algorithm uses the collage theorem and the Hausdorff metric. The inverse problem of IFSs is related to image coding of binary images. If the number of mappings and the parameters of an IFS, with not too many mappings, could be obtained from a binary image, then this would give an efficient representation of the image. It is shown that the inverse problem solved by the automatic algorithm has a solution and some experiments show that the automatic algorithm is able to retrieve an IFS, including the number of mappings, from a digital binary image approximating the attractor induced by the IFS.

We present a system for finding and tracking a face and extract global and local animation parameters from a video sequence. The system uses an initial colour processing step for finding a rough estimate of the position, size, and inplane rotation of the face, followed by a refinement step drived by an active model. The latter step refines the previous estimate, and also extracts local animation parameters. The system is able to track the face and some facial features in near real-time, and can compress the result to a bitstream compliant to MPEG-4 face and body animation.

By probabilistic means, the concept of contextuality is extended so that it can be used in non-ideal situations. An inequality is presented, which at least in principle enables a test to discard non-contextual hidden-variable models at low error rates, in the spirit of the Kochen-Specker theorem. Assuming that the errors are independent, an explicit error bound of 1.42% is derived, below which a Kochen-Specker contradiction occurs.

A Reply to the Comment by Carlos Luiz Ryff.

It is well-known in the physics community that the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics is very different from the Bohm interpretation. Usually, a local realistic model is thought to be even further from these two, as in its purest form it cannot even yield the probabilities from quantum mechanics by the Bell theorem. Nevertheless, by utilizing the “efficiency loophole” such a model can mimic the quantum probabilities, and more importantly, in this paper it is shown that it is possible to interpret this latter kind of local realistic model such that it contains elements of reality as found in the Bohm interpretation, while retaining the complementarity present in the Copenhagen interpretation.

A local-variable model yielding the statistics from the singlet state is presented for the case of inefficient detectors and/or lowered visibility. It has independent errors and the highest efficiency at perfect visibility is 77.80%, while the highest visibility at perfect detector-efficiency is 63.66%. The model cannot be refuted by measurements made to date.

The two-photon interferometric experiment proposed by J. D. Franson [Phys. Rev. Lett. 62, 2205 (1989)] is often treated as a “Bell test of local realism.” However, it has been suggested that this is incorrect due to the 50% postselection performed even in the ideal gedanken version of the experiment. Here we present a simple local hidden variable model of the experiment that successfully explains the results obtained in usual realizations of the experiment, even with perfect detectors. Furthermore, we also show that there is no such model if the switching of the local phase settings is done at a rate determined by the internal geometry of the interferometers.

In this paper detector efficiency conditions are derived for the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) paradox. The conditions will be necessary and sufficient, i.e., the GHZ paradox is explicable in terms of a local-variable model if the efficiency is below the bounds, and the GHZ prerequisites are inconsistent at higher efficiencies. The derivation does not make use of any of the symmetry assumptions usually made in the literature, most notably the assumption of independent errors. The errors in local-hidden-variable models are governed by the “hidden variable” and, therefore, one cannot in general assume that the errors are independent. It will be shown that this assumption is not necessary. Moreover, bounds are presented that do not need the emission rate of particle triples to be known. An example of such a bound is the ratio of the triple coincidence rate and the double coincidence rate at two detectors, which needs to be higher than 75% to yield a contradiction.

This book is a broad introduction to GPU computing, covering several different technologies for programming GPUs for general purpose computing, including CUDA, OpenCL, Compute Shaders and more.

This book is not about the most advanced topics of computer graphics. It does not stop at the mere basics, but a range of advanced topics (advanced shaders, shadows, game physics) are covered by volume 2.

The topics that are covered include

• 2D and 3D transformations
• 3D viewing • Light models and shading
• Visible surface detection
• Surface detail (texture mapping etc)
• Collision detection and handling
• Large world management (high level VSD, LOD, scene graphs)
• Shader programming (GLSL)
• Ray-tracing and radiosity
• Low-level algorithms (Bresenham, flood fill, scan conversion)
• Anti-aliasing

OpenGL 3.2 is used for real-life examples, but this is not an OpenGL book, it is a computer graphics book. For learning OpenGL as such, there are other books.

We propose a conjugate logic that can capture the behavior of quantum and quantum-like systems. The proposal is similar to the more generic concept of epistemic logic: it encodes knowledge or perhaps more correctly, predictions about outcomes of future observations on some systems. For a quantum system, these predictions are statements about future outcomes of measurements performed on specific degrees of freedom of the system. The proposed logic will include propositions and their relations, including connectives, but importantly also transformations between propositions on conjugate degrees of freedom of the systems. A key point is the addition of a transformation that allows to convert propositions about single systems into propositions about correlations between systems. We will see that subtle choices of the properties of the transformations lead to drastically different underlying mathematical models; one choice gives stabilizer quantum mechanics, while another choice gives Spekkens’ toy theory. This points to a crucial basic property of quantum and quantum-like systems that can be handled within the present conjugate logic by adjusting the mentioned choice. It also enables a discussion on what behaviors are properly quantum or only quantum-like, relating to that choice and how it manifests in the system under scrutiny. 

"Risks in Technological Systems" is an interdisciplinary university textbook and a book for the educated reader on the risks of today’s society. In order to understand and analyze risks associated with the engineering systems on which modern society relies, other concerns have to be addressed, besides technical aspects. In contrast to many academic textbooks dealing with technological risks, this book has a unique interdisciplinary character that presents technological risks in their own context. Twenty-four scientists have come together to present their views on risks in technological systems. Their scientific disciplines cover not only engineering, economics and medicine, but also history, psychology, literature and philosophy. Taken together these contributions provide a broad, but accurate, interdisciplinary introduction to a field of increasing global interest, as well as rich opportunities to achieve in-depth knowledge of the subject.

An experimeotally observed violation of Bell's inequality i.s suppooed to show the failuro of local realism to deal with quantum roality. However, finite statistics and the Lime sequential nature of real experiments still allows a loophole for local roalism. We show that the raodomised design of the Aspect experiment closes this loophole. Our main tool is van de Geer's (1995, 2000) martingale version of the classical Bernstein (1924) incquality guaranteeing, at the  root n scale, a not-beavier-than-Gaussian tail of the distribution of a sum of bouoded supermartingale dilferences. The results are used to specify a protocol for a public bet between the author and L. Accardi, who in recont papers (Aocardi and Regal.i, 2000a, b, 2001; Accardi, lmafuku and Regoli, 2002) has claimed to have produced a suite of computer programmes, to be run on a network of computers, wbich will simulate a violation of Bell's inequalites. At a sarnple size of twenty five thousand, botb error probabilities are guaranteed smaller than about one in a million, provided we adhere to tho sequential randomized design while Accardi aims for tbe greatest possible violation allowed by quantum mechanics.

Homomorphic encryption (HE) allows computations on encrypted data, leaking neither the input nor the computational output. While the method has historically been infeasible to use in practice, due to recent advancements, HE has started to be applied in real-world applications. Motivated by the possibility of outsourcing heavy computations to the cloud and still maintaining end-to-end security, in this paper, we use HE to design a basic audio conferencing application and demonstrate that our design approach (including some advanced features) is both practical and scalable. First, by homomorphically mixing encrypted audio in an untrusted, honest-but-curious server, we demonstrate the practical use of HE in audio communication. Second, by using multiplication operations, we go beyond the purely additive audio mixing and implement advanced example features capable of handling server-side mute and breakout rooms without the cloud server being able to extract sensitive user-specific metadata. Whereas the encryption and decryption times are shown to be magnitudes slower than generic AES encryption and roughly ten times slower than Signal's AES implementation, our solution approach is scalable and achieves end-to-end encryption while keeping performance well within the bounds of practical use. Third, besides studying the performance aspects, we also objectively evaluate the perceived audio quality, demonstrating that this approach also achieves excellent audio quality. Finally, our comprehensive evaluation and empirical findings provide valuable insights into the tradeoffs between HE schemes, their security configurations, and audio parameters. Combined, our results demonstrate that audio mixing using HE (including advanced features) now can be made both practical and scalable.

Providing authenticated interactions is a key responsibility of most cryptographic protocols. When designing new protocols with strict security requirements it is therefore essential to formally verify that they fulfil appropriate authentication properties. We identify a gap in the case of protocols with unilateral (one-way) authentication, where existing properties are poorly adapted. In existing work, there is a preference for defining strong authentication properties, which is good in many cases but not universally applicable. In this work we make the case for weaker authentication properties. In particular, we investigate one-way authentication and extend Lowe's authentication hierarchy with two such properties. We formally prove the relationship between the added and existing properties. Moreover, we demonstrate the usefulness of the added properties in a case study on remote attestation protocols. This work complements earlier work with additional generic properties that support formal verification of a wider set of protocol types.

A quantum random number generator based on few-mode fiber technology is presented. The randomness originates from measurements of spatial modal quantum superpositions of the LP11a and LP11b modes. The generated sequences have passed NIST tests.

The problem of secure source coding with multiple terminals is extended by considering a remote source whose noisy measurements are the correlated random variables used for secure source reconstruction. The main additions to the problem include 1) all terminals noncausally observe a noisy measurement of the remote source; 2) a private key is available to all legitimate terminals; 3) the public communication link between the encoder and decoder is rate-limited; and 4) the secrecy leakage to the eavesdropper is measured with respect to the encoder input, whereas the privacy leakage is measured with respect to the remote source. Exact rate regions are characterized for a lossy source coding problem with a private key, remote source, and decoder side information under security, privacy, communication, and distortion constraints. By replacing the distortion constraint with a reliability constraint, we obtain the exact rate region also for the lossless case. Furthermore, the lossy rate region for scalar discrete-time Gaussian sources and measurement channels is established.

We demonstrate an all-fiber platform for the generation and detection of spatial photonic states where combinations of LP₀₁, LP_11a and LP_11b modes are used. This scheme can be employed for quantum communication applications.

Cellulose-based helices retrieved from the plant celery with a conductive poly(4-(2,3-dihydrothieno [3,4-b]-[1,4]dioxin-2-yl-methoxy)-1-butanesulfonate (PEDOT-S). A resonance close to 1 THz and a broad shoulder that extends to 3.5 THz was obtained, consistent with electromagnetic models. As helical antennas, it was shown that both axial and normal modes are present, which are correlated to the orientation and antenna electrical lengths of the coated helices. This work opens the possibility of designing tunable terahertz antennas through simple control of their dimensions and orientation. © 2019 IEEE.

Spline interpolation is widely used in many different applications like computer graphics, animations and robotics. Many of these applications are run in real-time with constraints on computational complexity, thus fueling the need for computational inexpensive, real-time, continuous and loop-free data interpolation techniques. Often Catmull- Rom splines are used, which use four control-points: the two points between which to interpolate as well as the point directly before and the one directly after. If interpolating over time, this last point will ly in the future. However, in real-time applications future values may not be known in advance, meaning that Catmull-Rom splines are not applicable. In this paper we introduce another family of interpolation splines (dubbed Three-Point-Splines) which show the same characteristics as Catmull-Rom, but which use only three control-points, omitting the one “in the future”. Therefore they can generate smooth interpolation curves even in applications which do not have knowledge of future points, without the need for more computational complex methods. The generated curves are more rigid than Catmull-Rom, and because of that the Three-Point-Splines will not generate self-intersections within an interpolated curve segment, a property that has to be introduced to Catmull-Rom by careful parameterization. Thus, the Three-Point-Splines allow for greater freedom in parameterization, and can therefore be adapted to the application at hand, e.g. to a requested curvature or limitations on acceleration/deceleration. We will also show a method that allows to change the control-points during an ongoing interpolation, both with Thee-Point-Splines as well as with Catmull-Rom splines.

The digital currency Bitcoin has had remarkable growth since it was first proposed in 2008. Its distributed nature allows currency transactions without a central authority by using cryptographic methods and a data structure called the blockchain. Imagine that you could run the Bitcoin protocol on a quantum computer. What advantages can be had over classical Bitcoin? This is the question we answer here by introducing Quantum Bitcoin which, among other features, has immediate local verification of transactions. This is a major improvement over classical Bitcoin since we no longer need the computationally-intensive and time-consuming method of recording all transactions in the blockchain. Quantum Bitcoin is the first distributed quantum currency, and this paper introduces the necessary tools including a novel two-stage quantum mining process. In addition, we have counterfeiting resistance, fully anonymous and free transactions, and a smaller footprint than classical Bitcoin.

In this talk, we discuss integrating the quantum key distribution (QKD) with the spatial division multiplexing (SDM) enabled optical communication network for the cyber security.

This paper presents a hierarchical interconnect architecture for optical data center networks composed of specially designed couplers allowing for significant reduction of required spectral resources. © OSA 2017.

With depth sensors becoming more and more common, and applications with varying viewpoints (like e.g. virtual reality) becoming more and more popular, there is a growing demand for real-time depth-image-based-rendering algorithms that reach a high quality. Starting from a quality-wise top performing depth-image-based-renderer, we develop a real-time version. Despite reaching a high quality as well, the new OpenGL-based renderer decreases runtime by (at least) 2 magnitudes. This was made possible by discovering similarities between forward-based and mesh-based rendering, which enable us to remove the common parallelization bottleneck of competing memory access, and facilitated by the implementation of accurate yet fast algorithms for the different parts of the rendering pipeline. We evaluated the proposed renderer using a publicly available dataset with ground-truth depth and camera data, that contains both rapid camera movements and rotations as well as complex scenes and is therefore challenging to project accurately.

It has been a challenging task for organic electronic devices to control and convert electric power due to their vulnerability when exposed to high voltages. In this work, the design, fabrication, and applications of AC-DC and DC-AC organic power converters based on high-voltage organic thin-film transistors are presented. The organic AC-DC converters, comprising diode-configured high voltage organic thin-film transistors as the rectifying unit, is capable of transforming a high AC input voltage to a selectable DC voltage. On the contrary, the organic DC-AC converter, using an astable multivibrator as oscillation generator, is capable of converting a high DC voltage to a high AC voltage as a power inverter. The functionality of the organic AC-DC power converter is demonstrated through charging supercapacitors as a quasi-constant current supply and, in addition, the successful driving of organic light-emitting devices to high luminescence and efficiency. Expanding the application of organic thin-film transistors into power conversion paves the road towards organic power electronics for cost-efficient and Eco-friendly power electronics in the future.

Many of the latest smart phones and tablets come with integrated depth sensors, that make depth-maps freely available, thus enabling new forms of applications like rendering from different view points. However, efficient compression exploiting the characteristics of depth-maps as well as the requirements of these new applications is still an open issue. In this paper, we evaluate different depth-map compression algorithms, with a focus on tree-based methods and view projection as application.

The contributions of this paper are the following: 1. extensions of existing geometric compression trees, 2. a comparison of a number of different trees, 3. a comparison of them to a state-of-the-art video coder, 4. an evaluation using ground-truth data that considers both depth-maps and predicted frames with arbitrary camera translation and rotation.

Despite our best efforts, and contrary to earlier results, current video depth-map compression outperforms tree-based methods in most cases. The reason for this is likely that previous evaluations focused on low-quality, low-resolution depth maps, while high-resolution depth (as needed in the DIBR setting) has been ignored up until now. We also demonstrate that PSNR on depth-maps is not always a good measure of their utility.

Distance Transformations are usually defined for binary images, and therefore subject to sampling noise. This paper presents a distance correction that can be applied to any existing distance transform algorithm to achieve sub-pixel accuracy, and evaluates the result. Measurements display a significant improvement in precision.

We present a current supply, comprising a single organic thin-film transistor (OTFT), for the charging of supercapacitors. The current supply takes power from the electric grid (115 V AC, US standard), converts the AC voltage to a quasi-constant DC current (similar to 0.1 mA) regardless of the impedance of the load, and charges the supercapacitor. Solution-processed OTFTs based on the popular polymeric semiconductor poly(3-hexylthiophene- 2,5-diyl) have been developed to rectify the 115 V AC voltage. A diodeconfigured OTFT was used as a half-wave rectifier. The single OTFT current supply was demonstrated to charge a 220 mF supercapacitor to 1 V directly using 115 V AC voltage as the input. This work paves the road towards all-printable supercapacitor energy-storage systems with integrated chargers, which enable direct charging from a power outlet.

In this paper, we investigate using OECTs in differential amplifiers and cell voltage equalizers for supercapacitor balancing circuits. The differential amplifier based on OECTs can sense voltage difference and the voltage equalizer consisting of a microcontroller and OECTs can be used to charge supercapacitors to desired voltages.

Color interpolation is still the most used method for image upsampling, since it offers the simplest and therefore fastest algorithms. However, in recent years research concentrated on other techniques to counter the shortcomings of interpolation techniques (like color artifacts or the fact that interpolation does not take statistics into account), while interpolation itself has ceased to be an active research topic. Still, current interpolation techniques can be improved. Especially it should be possible to avoid color artifacts by carefully choosing the correct interpolation schemes. In this paper we derive mathematical constraints which need to be fulfilled to reach an artifact-free interpolation, and use these to develop an interpolation method which is basically a self-configuring cubic spline.

Architecture on demand (AoD) node offers considerable flexibility against traditional ROADMs. The paper presents a cost-efficient network planning strategy that exploits the flexibility inherent in AoD. Results show that AoD can save significantly in node modules through a proper network design.

Survivable synthetic ROADMs are equipped with redundant switching modules to support failure recovery. The paper proposes a dynamic connection provisioning strategy which exploits these idle redundant modules to provision regular traffic resulting in a substantial improvement in the blocking performance.

District heating pipes are known to degenerate with time and in some cities the pipes have been used for several decades. Due to bad insulation or cracks, energy or media leakages might appear. This paper presents a complete system for large-scale monitoring of district heating networks, including methods for detection, classification and temporal characterization of (potential) leakages. The system analyses thermal infrared images acquired by an aircraft-mounted camera, detecting the areas for which the pixel intensity is higher than normal. Unfortunately, the system also finds many false detections, i.e., warm areas that are not caused by media or energy leakages. Thus, in order to reduce the number of false detections we describe a machine learning method to classify the detections. The results, based on data from three district heating networks show that we can remove more than half of the false detections. Moreover, we also propose a method to characterize leakages over time, that is, repeating the image acquisition one or a few years later and indicate areas that suffer from an increased energy loss.

Space division multiplexing (SDM) over multi-core fiber (MCF) is advocated as a promising technology to overcome the capacity limit of the current single-core optical networks. However, employing the MCF for flexgrid networks necessitates the development of new concepts, such as routing, spectrum and core allocation (RSCA) for traffic demands. The introduction of MCF in the networks mitigates the spectrum continuity constraint of the routing and spectrum assignment (RSA) problem. In fact cores can be switched freely on different links during routing of the network traffic. Similarly, the route disjointness for demands with same allocated spectrum diminishes to core disjointness at the link level. On the other hand, some new issues such as the inter-core crosstalk should be taken into account while solving the RSCA problem. This paper formulates the RSCA network planning problem using the integer linear programming (ILP) formulation. The aim is to optimally minimize the maximum number of spectrum slices required on any core of MCF of a flexgrid SDM network. Furthermore, a scalable and effective heuristic is proposed for the same problem and its performance is compared with the optimal solution. The results show that the proposed algorithm is able to well approximate the optimal solution based on ILP model.

We discuss how the GLUT library can be modified to suit the needs of modern OpenGL, what parts can be excluded or need redesigning. Based on these results, we present a new cross-platform user interface framework for OpenGL, called MicroGlut, which covers the most vital features. We also draft how interesting features currently excluded from MicroGlut could be added.

We propose a connection provisioning strategy in dynamic all-optical networks, which exploit the possibility to allow a tolerable signal quality degradation during a small fraction of holding-time resulting in a significant improvement of blocking performance.

A terminal charge and capacitance model is developed for transient behavior simulation of electrolyte-gated organic field effect transistors (EGOFETs). Based on the Ward-Dutton partition scheme, the charge and capacitance model is derived from our drain current model reported previously. The transient drain current is expressed as the sum of the initial drain current and the charging current, which is written as the product of the partial differential of the terminal charges with respect to the terminal voltages and the differential of the terminal voltages upon time. The validity for this model is verified by experimental measurements.

The discussion on noncontextual hidden variable models as an underlying description for the quantum-mechanical predictions started in ernest with 1967 paper by Kochen and Specker. There, it was shown that no noncontextual hidden-variable model can give these predictions. The proof used in that paper is complicated, but recently, a paper by Yu and Oh [PRL, 2012] proposes a simpler statistical proof that can also be the basis of an experimental test. Here we report on a sharper version of that statistical proof, and also explain why the algebraic upper bound to the expressions used are not reachable, even with a reasonable contextual hidden variable model. Specifically, we show that the quantum mechanical predictions reach the maximal possible value for a contextual model that keeps the expectation value of the measurement outcomes constant.

Universal hash function based multiple authentication was originally proposed by Wegman and Carter in 1981. In this authentication, a series of messages are authenticated by first hashing each message by a fixed (almost) strongly universal$_2$ hash function and then encrypting the hash value with a preshared one-time pad. This authentication is unconditionally secure. In this paper, we show that the unconditional security cannot be guaranteed if the hash function output for the first message is not encrypted, as remarked in [Atici and Stinson, CRYPTO '96. LNCS, vol. 1109]. This means that it is not only sufficient, but also necessary, to encrypt the hash of every message to be authenticated in order to have unconditional security. The security loss is demonstrated by a simple existential forgery attack.

With the emergence of bandwidth intensive applications new methodologies need to be developed for improvement of network blocking performance, without supplying extra resources in dynamic wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) networks. Rerouting is one among the viable and cost-effective solutions to reduce the blocking probability (BP) of optical WDM networks. Similarly, set-up delay tolerance, a metric of service level agreement (SLA) has been exploited in [1]-[3] for improvement in network BP. In this paper, we study the rerouting in dynamic WDM network and analyze two different lightpath rerouting strategies. Moreover, we investigate further improvement in network BP by exploiting these rerouting techniques for network provisioned with set-up delay tolerance. Through extensive simulation studies, we confirm that the rerouting strategies decrease the BP substantially for network provisioned with set-up delay tolerance, even for smaller set-up delay tolerance value i.e. when the connection requests are impatient to wait for provisioning in the network. However, it also reduce BP significantly even when the network is not provisioned with set-up delay tolerance.

strategies. First we analyze a strategy which effectively utilizes two Service Level Agreement (SLA) metrics i.e. holding-time combined with set-up delay tolerance, for connection provisioning. We investigate its performance improvement compared to the scheme proposed in [4] and with the strategy which exploits only the set-up delay tolerance for connection provisioning. Secondly, we evaluate the performance of the various approaches for network blocking reduction over a wide range of network loads. Our aim is to obtain an insight information, that can be useful for selection of an optimal strategy for designing a network, with specific network parameters and performance requirements.

In this paper, we present a model-based video coding method that uses input from colour and depth cameras, such as the Microsoft Kinect. The model-based approach uses a 3D representation of the scene, enabling several other applications besides video playback. Some of these applications are stereoscopic viewing, object insertion for augmented reality and free viewpoint viewing. The video encoding step uses computer vision to estimate the camera motion. The scene geometry is represented by keyframes, which are encoded as 3D quadsusing a quadtree, allowing good compression rates. Camera motion in-between keyframes is approximated to be linear. The relative camera positions at keyframes and the scene geometry are then compressed and transmitted to the decoder. Our experiments demonstrate that the model-based approach delivers a high level of detail at competitively low bitrates.

We present a methodology to extract parameters for an electrolyte-gated organic field effect transistor DC model. The model is based on charge drift/diffusion transport under electric field and covers all regimes. Voltage dependent capacitance, mobility, contact resistance and threshold voltage shift are taken into account in this model. The feature parameters in the model are simply extracted from the transfer or output characteristics of electrolyte-gated organic field effect transistors. The extracted parameters are verified by good agreements between experimental and simulated results.

More embedded systems gain increasing multimedia capabilities, including computer graphics. Although this is mainly due to their increasing computational capability, optimizations of algorithms and data structures are important as well, since these systems have to fulfill a variety of constraints and cannot be geared solely towards performance. In this paper, the two most popular texture compression methods (DXT1 and PVRTC) are compared in both image quality and decoding performance aspects. For this, both have been ported to the ePUMA platform which is used as an example of energy consumption optimized embedded systems. Furthermore, a new DXT1 encoder has been developed which reaches higher image quality than existing encoders.

We derive a Gaussian approximation of the LLR distribution  conditioned on the transmitted signal and the channel matrix for the  soft-output via partial marginalization MIMO detector. This detector  performs exact ML as a special case. Our main results consist of  discussing the operational meaning of this approximation and a proof  that, in the limit of high SNR, the LLR distribution of interest  converges in probability towards a Gaussian distribution.

The ePUMA architecture is a novel parallel architecture being developed as a platform for low-power computing,

typically for embedded or hand-held devices. It was originally designed for radio baseband processors for hand-held

devices and for radio base stations. It has also been adapted for executing high definition video CODECs. In this paper,

we investigate the possibilities and limitations of the platform for real-time graphics, with focus on hand-held gaming.

We compare the performance of two real-time multimedia communication systems for quality versus end-to-end delay. We develop an analytical framework for comparison when the systems use a deterministic time-varying channel. Moreover, we assess their performance for the Gilbert-Elliott channel model which alternates between a good and a bad state with time durations that are exponentially distributed. The goal of the paper is to select the best system with low average distortion while obeying a real-time constraint.

This year in Växjö we thought we would try an experiment—it felt high timefor a new result. Much of the foundations discussion ofprevious years has focussed on EPR-style arguments and the meaningand experimental validity of various Bell inequality violations. Yet, thereis another pillar of the quantum foundations puzzle that hashardly received any attention in our great series of meetings:It is the phenomenon first demonstrated by Kochen and Specker,quantum contextuality. Recently there has been a rapid growth ofactivity aimed toward better understanding this aspect of quantum mechanics,which Asher Peres sloganized by the phrase, “unperformed experiments haveno results.” Below is a sampling of some important paperson the topic for the reader not yet familiar withthe subject. What is the source of this phenomenon? Doesit depend only on high level features of quantum mechanics,or is it deep in the conceptual framework on whichthe theory rests? Might it, for instance, arise from theway quantum mechanics amends the classic laws of probability? Whatare the mathematically simplest ways contextuality can be demonstrated? Howmight the known results be made amenable to experimental tests?These were the sorts of discussions we hoped the sessionwould foster.

This paper considers approximations of marginalization sums thatarise in Bayesian inference problems. Optimal approximations ofsuch marginalization sums, using a fixed number of terms, are analyzedfor a simple model. The model under study is motivated byrecent studies of linear regression problems with sparse parametervectors, and of the problem of discriminating signal-plus-noise samplesfrom noise-only samples. It is shown that for the model understudy, if only one term is retained in the marginalization sum, thenthis term should be the one with the largest a posteriori probability.By contrast, if more than one (but not all) terms are to be retained,then these should generally not be the ones corresponding tothe components with largest a posteriori probabilities.

Secure message authentication is an important part of Quantum Key Distribution. In this paper we analyze special properties of a Strongly Universal2 hash function family, an understanding of which is important in the security analysis of the authentication used in Quantum Cryptography. We answer the following question: How much of Alices message does Eve need to influence so that the message along with its tag will give her enough information to create the correct tag for her message?

Point-of-interest detection is a way of reducing the amount of data that needs to be processed in a certain application and is widely used in 2D image analysis. In 2D image analysis, point-of-interest detection is usually related to extraction of local descriptors for object recognition, classification, registration or pose estimation. In analysis of range data however, some local descriptors have been published in the last decade or so, but most of them do not mention any kind of point-of-interest detection. We here show how to use an extended Harris detector on range data and discuss variants of the Harris measure. All described variants of the Harris detector for 3D should also be usable in medical image analysis, but we focus on the range data case. We do present a performance evaluation of the described variants of the Harris detector on range data.

This is an account of an attempt to improve students- communicative skills, with a focus on mathematics. The intent is to give the students skill and experience in communicating in an environment where precision is important, both in mathematics and science in general, but also in engineering. The first part of the course is intended to improve the students- ability to follow alogical argument, especially long (even infinite) chains of logical arguments. Later parts of the course focus more on the practice of presentation of, discussion of, and writing mathematics. Examination is not by a written exam, the examination consists of students' participation in oralpresentations and the ensuing discussions, a one-pagehandwritten hand-in at the start of the course, and finally a short typed piece on a suitable mathematical topic. Experiences from this first attempt are discussed, and the most striking effect is the visibly improving oral communication skills of the students as the course proceeds. There are also indications that participation in thiscourse is beneficial to later mathematics courses, but only for the able students. We do expect an improved overall performance of the students but there is no clear effect as yet, partly because there has not passed enough (read -any-) time after the finished course, but perhaps also because thesample is small.

The electrochemical transistor is presented from a functional point-of-view. It is shown that this transistor has characteristics that are similar to p-channel depletion-mode MOSFET devices. Electrical design rules for proper operation are given. Based on these rules, we show how logical circuits such as inverters and gates can be constructed.

A new approach to low redundancy coding for reducing power dissipation in parallel on-chip, deep sub-micron buses is presented. It is shown that the new approach allows lower power dissipation than previous solutions in the given model, yielding reductions of 24% to 41% compared to uncoded transmission for the considered bus widths. Finally some important open problems are given.

In this paper weconsider the subset difference scheme for broadcast encryption andcount the number of required broadcast transmissions when usingthis scheme. The subset difference scheme organizes receivers in atree structure and we note that isomorphic trees yield the samenumber of required broadcast transmissions. Based on theisomorphism the trees can be partitioned into classes. We suggestto use the vast amount of tools available from the theory of groupsto analyze the subset difference scheme and therefore we formulatethe mappings between isomorphic trees using concepts from grouptheory. Finally we identify some research issues for further studyof the performance of the subset difference scheme using grouptheory.

Using a newly introduced alternative to a conventional SRAM cell a binary zero can be written with a much lower power consumption than a binary one. Such a solution reduces power consumption, especially if there are few ones in the data, that is, if the data has a low Hamming weight. If the data is not inherently of low weight, this can beachieved by encoding the data. In the paper such coding isdiscussed and in small cases energy efficient encoding and decodingrealizations are presented.

We discuss codingfor deep sub-micron buses with highly sequential data, the typicalapplication being address buses, and we note that coding techniquesspecifically targetted at this application are considerably betterthan general techniques. Previously proposed coding schemes aredescribed and a new, non-redundant coding technique with a verysmall realization and more than 50% reduction of power dissipationis presented.

We consider theproblem of choosing the rate for a source coder when transmittinglossy-compressed data in real-time over a channel with time-varyingrate. The goal for the rate selection is to obtain a low averagedistortion while obeying a real-time constraint. We formulate thereal-time constraint in terms of a limited buffer size. A fewstrategies for rate-control are suggested and evaluated for aGilbert-Elliott type channel model. The results are also comparedto a theoretical upper bound on performance for a rate-controlalgorithm working with constraints on buffer size.

In this paper we present a simplified model for deep sub-micron, on-chip, parallel data buses. Using this model a coding technique similar to Bus Invert Coding is presented, but with a better performance in the proposed model. The coding technique can be realized using low-complexity encoding and decoding circuitry, and with a complexity that scales linearly with the bus width. Simulation results show that the energy dissipation decreases with approximately 20% for buses with up to 16 wires.

In this paper, we consider the potentialities of adapting a 3D deformable face model to video sequences. Two adaptation methods are proposed. The first method computes the adaptation using a locally exhaustive and directed search in the parameter space. The second method decouples the estimation of head and facial feature motion. It computes the 3D head pose by combining: (i) a robust feature-based pose estimator, and (ii) a global featureless criterion. The facial animation parameters are then estimated with a combined exhaustive and directed search. Tracking experiments and performance evaluation demonstrate the feasibility and usefulness of the developed methods. These experiments also show that the proposed methods can outperform the adaptation based on a directed continuous search.

A probabilistic version of the Kochen-Specker paradox is presented. The paradox is restated in the form of an inequality relating probabilities from a non-contextual hidden-variable model, by formulating the concept of "probabilistic contextuality." This enables an experimental test for contextuality at low experimental error rates. Using the assumption of independent errors, an explicit error bound of 0.71% is derived, below which a Kochen-Specker contradiction occurs.

The protection of confidential data is a fundamental need in the society in which we live. This task becomes more relevant when observing that every day, data traffic increases exponentially, as well as the number of attacks on the telecommunication infra-structure. From the natural sciences, it has been strongly argued that quantum communication has great potential to solve this problem, to such an extent that various governmental and industrial entities believe the protection provided by quantum communications will be an important layer in the field of information security in the next decades. However, integrating quantum technologies both in current optical networks and in industrial systems is not a trivial task, taking into account that a large part of current quantum optical systems are based on bulk optical devices, which could become an important limitation. Throughout this thesis we present an all-in-fiber optical platform that allows a wide range of tasks that aim to take a step forward in terms of generation and detection of photonic states. Among the main features, the generation and detection of photonic quantum states carrying orbital angular momentum stand out.   

The platform can also be configured for the generation of random numbers from quantum mechanical measurements, a central aspect in future information tasks.  

Our scheme is based on the use of new space-division-multiplexing (SDM) technologies such as few-mode-fibers and photonic lanterns. Furthermore, our platform can also be scaled to high dimensions, it operates in 1550 nm (telecommunications band) and all the components used for its implementation are commercially available. The results presented in this thesis can be a solid alternative to guarantee the compatibility of new SDM technologies in emerging experiments on optical networks and open up new possibilities for quantum communication. 

In this thesis we address the question, what is the resource, or property, that enables the advantage of quantum computers? The theory of quantum computers dates back to the eighties, so one would think there already is an answer to this question. There are several proposed solutions, but to this date, there is no consensus on an answer. 

Primarily, the advantage of quantum computers is characterized by a speedup for certain computational problems. This speedup is measured by comparing quantum algorithms with the best-known classical algorithms. For some algorithms we assume access to an object called oracle. The oracle computes a function, and the complexity of the oracle is of no concern. Instead, we count the number of queries to the oracle needed to solve the problem. Informally, the question we ask using an oracle is: if we can compute this function efficiently, what else could we then compute. However, using oracles while measuring a quantum speedup, we assume access to vastly different oracles residing in different models of computation.

For our investigation of the speedup, we introduce a classical simulation framework that imitates quantum algorithms. The simulation suggests that the property enabling the potential quantum speedup is the ability to store, process, and retrieve information in an additional degree of freedom. We then theoretically verified that this is true for all problems that can be efficiently solved with a quantum computer.

In parallel to this, we also see that quantum oracles sharply specify the information we can retrieve from the additional degree of freedom, while regular oracles do not. A regular oracle does not even allow for an extra degree of freedom. We conclude that comparing quantum with classical oracle query complexity bounds does not provide conclusive evidence for a quantum advantage.  

Quantum computation solve some computational problems faster than the best-known alternative in classical computation. The evidence for this consists of examples where a quantum algorithm outperforms the best-known classical algorithm. A large body of these examples relies on oracle query complexity, where the performance (complexity) of the algorithms is measured by the number of times they need to access an oracle. Here, an oracle is usually considered to be a black box that computes a specific function at unit cost.

However, the quantum algorithm is given access to an oracle with more structure than the classical algorithm. This thesis argues that the two oracles are so vastly different that comparing quantum and classical query complexity should not be considered evidence, but merely hints for a quantum advantage.

The approach used is based on a model that can be seen as an approximation of quantum theory, but can be efficiently simulated on a classical computer. This model solves several oracular problems with the same performance as their quantum counterparts, showing that there is no genuine quantum advantage for these problems. This approach also clarifies the assumptions made in quantum computation, and which properties that can be seen as resources in these algorithms.

Optical communication networks are considered the main catalyst for the transformation of communication technology, and serve as the backbone of today's Internet. The inclusion of exciting technologies, such as, optical amplifiers, wavelength division multiplexing (WDM), and reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers (ROADM) in optical networks have made the cost of information transmission around the world negligible. However, to maintain the cost effectiveness for the growing bandwidth demand, facilitate faster provisioning, and provide richer sets of service functionality, optical networks must continue to evolve. With the proliferation of cloud computing the demand for a promptly responsive network has increased. Moreover, there are several applications, such as, real time multimedia services that can become realizable, depending on the achievable connection set-up time.

Given the high bandwidth requirements and strict service level specifications (SLSs) of such applications, dynamic on-demand WDM networks are advocated as a first step in this evolution. SLSs are metrics of a service level agreement (SLA), which is a contract between a customer and network operator. Apart from the other candidate parameters, the set-up delay tolerance, and connection holding-time have been defined as metrics of SLA. Exploiting these SLA parameters for on-line provisioning strategies exhibits a good potential in improving the overall network blocking performance. However, in a scenario where connection requests are grouped in different service classes, the provisioning success rate might be unbalanced towards those connection requests with less stringent requirements, i.e., not all the connection requests are treated in a fair way.

The first part of this thesis focuses on different scheduling strategies for promoting the requests belonging to smaller set-up delay tolerance service classes. The first part also addresses the problem of how to guarantee the signal quality and the fair provisioning of different service classes, where each class corresponds to a specified target of quality of transmission. Furthermore, for delay impatient applications the thesis proposes a provisioning approach, which employs the possibility to tolerate a slight degradation in quality of transmission during a small fraction of the holding-time.

The next essential phase for scaling system capacity and satisfying the diverse customer demands is the introduction of flexibility in the underlying technology. In this context, the new optical transport networks, namely elastic optical networks (EON) are considered as a worthwhile solution to efficiently utilize the available spectrum resources. Similarly, space division multiplexing (SDM) is envisaged as a promising technology for the capacity expansion of future networks. Among the alternative for flexible nodes, the architecture on demand (AoD) node has the capability to dynamically adapt its composition according to the switching and processing needs of the network traffic.

The second part of this thesis investigates the benefits of set-up delay tolerance for EON by proposing an optimization model for dynamic and concurrent connection provisioning. Furthermore, it also examines the planning aspect for flexible networks by presenting strategies that employ the adaptability inherent in AoD. Significant reduction in switching devices is attainable by proper planning schemes that synthesized the network by allocating switching device where and when needed while maximizing fiber switching operation. In addition, such a design approach also reduces the power consumption of the network. However, cost-efficient techniques in dynamic networks can deteriorate the network blocking probability owing to insufficient number of switching modules. For dynamic networks, the thesis proposes an effective synthesis provisioning scheme along with a technique for optimal placement of switching devices in the network nodes.

The network planning problem is further extended to multi-core-fiber (MCF) based SDM networks. The proposed strategies for SDM networks aim to establish the connections through proper allocation of spectrum and core while efficiently utilizing the spectrum resources. Finally, the optimal planning strategy for SDM networks is tailored to fit synthetic AoD based networks with the goal to optimally build each node and synthesize the whole network with minimum possible switching resources.

Automatic synthesis of facial animation in Computer Graphics is a challenging task and although the problem is three decades old by now, there is still not a unified method to solve it. This is mainly due to the complex mathematical model required to reproduce the visual meanings of facial expressions coupled with the computational speed needed to run interactive applications.In this thesis, there are two different proposed methods to address the problem of the realistic animation of 3D virtual faces at interactive rate.

The first method is an integrated physically-based method which mimics the facial movements by reproducing the musculoskeletal structure of a human head and the interaction among the bony structure, the facial muscles and the skin. Differently from previously proposed approaches in the literature, the muscles are organized in a layered, interweaving structure laying on the skull; their shape is affected both by the simulation of active contraction and by the motion of the underlying anatomical parts. A design tool has been developed in order to assist the user in defining the muscles in a natural manner by sketching their shape directly on top of the already existing bones and other muscles. The dynamics ofthe face motion is computed through a position-based schema ensuring real-time performance, control and robustness. Experiments demonstrate that through this model it is possible to effectively synthesize realistic expressive facial ani-mation on different input face models in real-time on consumer class platforms.

The second method for automatically achieving animation consists of a novel facial motion cloning technique. This is a purely geometric algorithm and it is able to transfer the motion from an animated source face to a different target face mesh, initially static, allowing to reuse facial motion from already animated virtual heads. Its robustness and flexibility are assessed over several input datasets.

The size, complexity, and the amount of traffic generation of optical communication networks have dramatically increased over the last decades. Exciting technologies, namely, optical amplifiers, wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) and optical filters have been included in optical networks, in order to fulfill end users appetite for bandwidth. However, the users high bandwidth demand will further increase with time, as emerging on-demand bandwidth intensive applications are starting to dominate the networks. Applications such as interactive video, ultra-high definition TV, backup storage, grid computing, e-science, e-health to mention a few, are becoming increasingly attractive and important for the community. Given the high bandwidth requirements and strict service level specifications (SLSs) of such applications, WDM networks equipped with agile devices, such as reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers and tunable transceivers integrated with G-MPLS/ASON control-plane technology are advocated as a natural choice for their implementation. SLSs are metrics of a service level agreement (SLA), which is a contract between a customer and network operator. Apart from other candidate parameters, the set-up delay tolerance and connection holding-time have been defined as metrics of SLA.

This work addresses the network connections provisioning problem for the above mentioned demanding applications, by exploiting the time dimension of connections request. The problem is investigated for dynamic networks comprising ideal and nonideal components in their physical layer, and for applications with differentiated set-up delay tolerance and quality of signal requirements. Various strategies for different scenarios are proposed, each strategy combining in a different way the concept of both set-up delay tolerance and connection holding-time awareness. The objectives of all these strategies are to enhance the network connections provisioning capability and to fulfill customers demand, by utilizing the network resources efficiently.

The need for broadcast encryption arises when a sender wishes to securely distribute messages to varying subsets of receivers, using a broadcast channel, for instance in a pay-TV scenario. This is done by selecting subsets of users and giving all users in the same subset a common decryption key. The subsets will in general be overlapping so that each user belongs to many subsets and has several different decryption keys. When the sender wants to send a message to some users, the message is encrypted using keys that those users have. In this thesis we describe some broadcast encryption schemes that have been proposed in the literature. We focus on stateless schemes which do not require receivers to update their decryption keys after the initial keys have been received; particularly we concentrate on the Subset Difference (SD) scheme.

We consider the effects that the logical placement of the receivers in the tree structure used by the SD scheme has on the number of required transmissions for each message. Bounds for the number of required transmissions are derived based on the adjacency of receivers in the tree structure. The tree structure itself is also studied, also resulting in bounds on the number of required transmissions based on the placement of the users in the tree structure.

By allowing a slight discrepancy between the set of receivers that the sender intends to send to and the set of receivers that actually can decrypt the message, we can reduce the cost in number of transmissions per message. We use the concept of distortion to quantify the discrepancy and develop three simple algorithms to illustrate how the cost and distortion are related.

Cryptographic operations are normally carried out by a single machine. Sometimes, however, this machine cannot be trusted completely. Threshold cryptography offers an alternative where the cryptographic operation is distributed to a group of machines in such a way that the key used in the cryptographic operation is not revealed to anyone. The tool used to achieve this is threshold secret sharing, by which a secret can be distributed among a group so that subsets (of the members of the group) that are larger than some threshold can cooperate to recover the secret, while subsets smaller than this threshold cannot.

This thesis concerns distributed stream ciphers which is a generalisation of threshold cryptography in the sence that the suggested scheme is not restricted to the use of threshold secret sharing schemes. We describe how to do distributed decryption of a ciphertext encrypted by an additive stream cipher. The system works for any secret sharing scheme that is linear under addition.

We present a modification of how secret sharing of sequences is done. Due to this modification we can generate shares locally using linear feedback shift registers instead of transmitting shares of each symbol in a sequence. A distributed decryption scheme where the keystream is distributed in this modified way is constructed.