Unified Point Research Articles

A Low-Complexity Edward-Curve Point Multiplication Architecture

The Binary Edwards Curves (BEC) are becoming more and more important, as compared to other forms of elliptic curves, thanks to their faster operations and resistance against side channel attacks. This work provides a low-complexity architecture for point multiplication computations using BEC over GF(2233). There are three major contributions in this article. The first contribution is the reduction of instruction-level complexity for unified point addition and point doubling laws by eliminating multiple operations in a single instruction format. The second contribution is the optimization of hardware resources by minimizing the number of required storage elements. Finally, the third contribution is to reduce the number of required clock cycles by incorporating a 32-bit finite field digit-parallel multiplier in the datapath. As a result, the achieved throughput over area ratio over GF(2233) on Virtex-4, Virtex-5, Virtex-6 and Virtex-7 Xilinx FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) devices are 2.29, 19.49, 21.5 and 20.82, respectively. Furthermore, on the Virtex-7 device, the required computation time for one point multiplication operation is 18 µs, while the power consumption is 266 mW. This reveals that the proposed architecture is best suited for those applications where the optimization of both area and throughput parameters are required at the same time.

A survey on single server private information retrieval in a coding theory perspective

In this paper, we present a new perspective of single server private information retrieval (PIR) schemes by using the notion of linear error-correcting codes. Many of the known single server schemes are based on taking linear combinations between database elements and the query elements. Using the theory of linear codes, we develop a generic framework that formalizes all such PIR schemes. This generic framework provides an appropriate setup to analyze the security of such PIR schemes. In fact, we describe some known PIR schemes with respect to this code-based framework, and present the weaknesses of the broken PIR schemes in a unified point of view.

Revisiting the gaze in films by two women directors

ABSTRACT This article is an intervention in a debate within film studies over the concept of the “gaze”. Under the influence of 1960s and 1970s “apparatus” theory and particularly feminist thinkers of film like Laura Mulvey, the gaze has long been considered a key element in the consolidation of dominant ideology, particularly regarding the construction of gender identities. However, since the 1990s certain thinkers – namely Joan Copjec and Todd McGowan – have argued that this notion of the gaze relies upon a misinterpretation of Lacan. This essay – the first to take up this revision of gaze theory in Spanish film studies – offers a close reading of two experimental films directed by female directors from different generations, historical moments and countries. It proposes a gaze that, rather than focusing a unified point of view as in traditional perspective, is more subversive when considered as an incidental element within the frame, as a spectatorial side-on glance that disrupts the workings of ideology, leading to a fragmentation of the subject. It argues that particular attention should be paid to the organization of the filmic frame, to mise-en-scène, in preference to the kind of defamiliarization favored by Mulvey.

Cultivating Healthy Governance in Rural Programs.

Cultivating Healthy Governance in Rural Programs.

АНАЛИЗ ОСВЕДОМЛЕННОСТИ НАСЕЛЕНИЯ В ВОПРОСАХ ПОСМЕРТНОГО ДОНОРСТВА И ПЕРЕСАДКИ РОГОВИЦЫ

Aim. The study of public opinion, analysis of population’s attitude towards a number of issues concerning both transplantation in general and corneal transplantation in particular for development of the optimal tactics of approach to still unresolved issues in this area. Materials and Methods. Specially designed questionnaire has been used for the survey, consisting of 14 questions, that allows to evaluate opinion of the population on a number of issues related to transplantation, postmortem donation, monetary compensations, etc. The study population was 384 people. Results. Most respondents were aware of keratoplasty. Approximately every seventh respondent (15.4%) of the survey had relatives or close acquaintances with a corneal pathology. Most of the respondents have a positive attitude both to the living and postmortem donation. At the same time, almost all the respondents know about the existence of waiting lists for organ transplantations and also support the opinion about the need for informational popularization of postmortem donation. As to the issue of commercialization of donation, no unified point of view was reached, the opinions differ practically equally. The prevailing number of respondents consider the existence of informed consent to be obligatory, but a part of respondents think that in some cases the surgery can be made without it. Conclusion. Nowadays, despite a significant progress in the field of transplantology, there still remains a number of issues requiring detailed and comprehensive examination. They are related to the legislative regulation, informational popularization, monetary compensation, as well as the waiting lists for the transplantation.

IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON SALES FUNNELS IN B2C AND B2B SEGMENTS IN THE REPUBLIC OF NORTH MACEDONIA

The research focuses on introducing social media platforms as either a complementary or main channel in the company sales funnel. Internet technologies and Web 2.0 continue to provide innovations in digital marketing, with the latest iteration being lead generation services through social media. Data shows that almost half of the world population is active on social media, with the new Generation Alpha being projected to be entirely online dependent and proficient in the use of new technologies. The paper provides an overview of the digitalization of sales funnels, as well as the benefits that social media platforms can offer if implemented correctly. Secondary data provides the basis for transforming sales funnels with social media, where previous research provides limited data on the effectiveness of these types of efforts. Primary data demonstrates that introducing social media platforms can provide improvements of up to 3 to 4 times in analyzed case studies, as well as the shorter time when deciding about purchase in use case scenarios. Social media advertising can also be utilized to shorten the sales funnel process and serve as a unified point of entrance and exit in the first few stages.

Search, access, and explore life science nanopublications on the Web.

Nanopublications are Resource Description Framework (RDF) graphs encoding scientific facts extracted from the literature and enriched with provenance and attribution information. There are millions of nanopublications currently available on the Web, especially in the life science domain. Nanopublications are thought to facilitate the discovery, exploration, and re-use of scientific facts. Nevertheless, they are still not widely used by scientists outside specific circles; they are hard to find and rarely cited. We believe this is due to the lack of services to seek, find and understand nanopublications’ content. To this end, we present the NanoWeb application to seamlessly search, access, explore, and re-use the nanopublications publicly available on the Web. For the time being, NanoWeb focuses on the life science domain where the vastest amount of nanopublications are available. It is a unified access point to the world of nanopublications enabling search over graph data, direct connections to evidence papers, and scientific curated databases, and visual and intuitive exploration of the relation network created by the encoded scientific facts.

THE SOCIAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS OF YOUTH’S SUICIDAL BEHAVIOUR

The article highlights the current view on social and psychological determinants of youth’s suicidal behaviour. The modern science still does not have a unified point of view on suicidal behaviour. The corresponding terminology is amorphousness and its concept is uncertain. It is generally accepted that suicidal behaviour depends on many factors, has different motives and goals and exists in certain and extreme conditions. The authors present their own model of suicidal behaviour that includes the following main factors leading to suicidal behaviour: social and psychological maladaptation, deviant behaviour and unresolved intrapersonal conflicts. We have identified four groups of factors affecting young people’s social and psychological maladaptation: General psychological features of a suicider having non-pathological situational intentions, as well as people having borderline states; Personal factors; Family factors; Other life factors: a changed place of residence, study or work; negative influence of mass-media, modern literature, Internet sites with certain content, etc. A set of standardized and tested methods was selected to examine social-psychological factors of young people’s pre-suicidal and suicidal behaviour: 3 methods studying susceptibility to suicidal reactions, suicidal behaviour and the diagnosis of suicidal behaviour before its manifestation. The sample consisted of 120 young people (89 girls and 31 boys). Their families were also taken into account: 89 respondents had both parents, 31 had only one of parents. The sample was divided into three groups for comparative analysis of suicidal behaviour. The division criterion of was the suicide indicator from the Suicide Behaviour Questionnaire that was compared with the results of the Suicide Risk Test (SR-45, P.I. Yunatskevich) and the method determining propensity to suicidal behaviour (M.V. Gorskaya). The statistical methods were used to process the obtained data: Pearson's correlation coefficient was used to analyze relations between individual psychological characteristics with suicidal behaviour; a multiple regression analysis was performed for data grouping; statistical significance was checked by the F-Fisher test. The performed empirical study has revealed that suicidal behaviour can appear because of deteriorated personal psychological health - anxiety, frustration, aggression and changes in attitudes toward life and death under environmental influences or because of overestimated self-concept. The respondents having suicidal intentions were characterized by severe anxiety and high frustration as the consequences of personal disappointment, inability to overcome real or imagined obstacles preventing goal achievement. Aggression was almost the same for all three examined groups, thus this indicator showed rather increased psychological activity. The highest rigidity was observed at the respondents having suicidal intentions; such rigidity was associated with complications existing during implementation of significant activities.

Cascade Brillouin scattering as a mechanism for photoluminescence from rough surfaces of noble metals

In surface-enhanced Raman scattering experiments that use plasmonic nanostructures as substrates, the scattering spectrum contains a broad background usually associated with photoluminescence. This background exists above and below the frequency of the incident wave. The low-frequency part of this background is similar to the scattering spectrum of a plasmon nanoparticle, while the high-frequency part follows the Gibbs distribution. We develop a theory that explains experimentally observed features in both the high- and low-frequency parts of the photoluminescence spectrum from a unified point of view. We show that photoluminescence is attributed to the cascade Brillouin scattering of the incident wave by metal phonons under the plasmon resonance conditions. The theory is in good agreement with our measurements over the entire frequency range of the background.

Towards the Unified Principles for Level 5 Autonomous Vehicles

• Developing high-level AVs could from a systematic, unified and balanced view. • The “brain-cerebellum organ” coordination and balance framework is proposed. • “Crow inference and parrot imitation” support high-level hybrid intelligence. The rapid advance of autonomous vehicles (AVs) has motivated new perspectives and potential challenges for existing modes of transportation. Currently, driving assistance systems of Level 3 and below have been widely produced, and several applications of Level 4 systems to specific situations have also been gradually developed. By improving the automation level and vehicle intelligence, these systems can be further advanced towards fully autonomous driving. However, general development concepts for Level 5 AVs remain unclear, and the existing methods employed in the development processes of Levels 0–4 have been mainly based on task-driven function development related to specific scenarios. Therefore, it is difficult to identify the problems encountered by high-level AVs. The essential logical and physical mechanisms of vehicles have hindered further progression towards Level 5 systems. By exploring the physical mechanisms behind high-level autonomous driving systems and analyzing the essence of driving, we put forward a coordinated and balanced framework based on the brain–cerebellum–organ concept through reasoning and deduction. Based on a mixed mode relying on the crow inference and parrot imitation approach, we explore the research paradigm of autonomous learning and prior knowledge to realize the characteristics of self-learning, self-adaptation, and self-transcendence for AVs. From a systematic, unified, and balanced point of view and based on least action principles and unified safety field concepts, we aim to provide a novel research concept and develop an effective approach for the research and development of high-level AVs, specifically at Level 5.

ДЕЯТЕЛЬНОСТНЫЙ ПОДХОД КАК ПРАКТИКО- ОРИЕНТИРОВАННАЯ ОСНОВА ФОРМИРОВАНИЯ ПРОФЕССИОНАЛЬНЫХ КАЧЕСТВ КУРСАНТОВ-ШТУРМАНОВ

The article discusses the issue of the formation of professionally important qualities (PIQ) in future military aviation navigators in the educational environment of a military university. The goal is to substantiate the activity approach as a practice-oriented basis for the formation of professional qualities in cadets-navigators. A review and analysis of scientific research, publications is carried out, allowing to discover the significance of the activity approach as a methodological direction of research. The methodological basis of the research is the provisions of the activity approach, which are used as the basis for the development and formation of the PIQ among cadets-navigators in the process of a practice-oriented educational process. The description of the results is associated with the characteristics of the content and organization of the professional activity of cadets-navigators in the process of implementation of industrial practice in the form of flight training. Using the activity approach, the main components of the activities of flight instructors, teachers and cadets-navigators are considered, from a unified methodological point of view, and thus the nature of their interaction is revealed. Emphasis have been determined that need to be paid attention to in the course of pedagogical activity on the formation of professional qualities among cadets-navigators. A definition is given and pedagogical technologies are proposed for the formation of professional experience and professional qualities in a future specialist in the context of a practice-oriented pedagogical process. The relationship between the experience gained by the trainee in the practice-oriented pedagogical process and the formation of professionally important personality traits of a specialist is considered. The main goals and objectives for the formation of the necessary professional qualities of cadetsnavigators during flight training have been determined. At the entrance of each stage of flight training, technologies are determined aimed at rational and purposeful impact on the student in order to develop competencies and personal qualities. Recommendations are offered to teachers and instructors to improve the efficiency of development and formation among cadets-navigators of the PIQ.

An Optimized Architecture for Binary Huff Curves With Improved Security

In order to compute the elliptic curve point addition and doubling, the unified point addition law provides better protection against side channel attacks. One of the elliptic curve models, providing the unified point addition, is Binary Huff Curves (BHC). Recently, a new unified method for BHC with improved security against side channel attacks, has been proposed. Therefore, an optimized hardware architecture in terms of higher clock frequency and throughput for the new unified point addition method is required. Consequently, this article has three major contributions: The first contribution is to modify the unified addition law from hardware implementation point of view, resulting 31% decrease in memory requirements. The second contribution is the analysis of memory optimized unified law in the context of pipelining. In this regard, this article proposes an instruction scheduling policy for a 2-stage pipelined architecture which provides 36% reduction in the number of required clock cycles, 14.3% improvement in clock frequency, 53.2% decrease in computation time and 54.5% improvement in throughput/area. Finally, the third contribution is to propose a 4-stage pipelined architecture. The proposed 4-stage pipelined architecture provides an additional 19% improvement in clock frequency and 10% increase in throughput, as compared to the 2-stage pipelined architecture.

Structured eigenvalue problems in electronic structure methods from a unified perspective

In (relativistic) electronic structure methods, the quaternion matrix eigenvalue problem and the linear response (Bethe-Salpeter) eigenvalue problem for excitation energies are two frequently encountered structured eigenvalue problems. While the former problem was thoroughly studied, the later problem in its most general form, namely, the complex case without assuming the positive definiteness of the electronic Hessian, was not fully understood. In view of their very similar mathematical structures, we examined these two problems from a unified point of view. We showed that the identification of Lie group structures for their eigenvectors provides a framework to design diagonalization algorithms as well as numerical optimizations techniques on the corresponding manifolds. By using the same reduction algorithm for the quaternion matrix eigenvalue problem, we provided a necessary and sufficient condition to characterize the different scenarios, where the eigenvalues of the original linear response eigenvalue problem are real, purely imaginary, or complex. The result can be viewed as a natural generalization of the well-known condition for the real matrix case.

Pattern Recognition and Related Topics of Olympiad Tasks

In most of tasks proposed for olympiads in informatics inital data are taken arbitrary from any ranges such that a “brute force” solution (close to immediate translation of condition of the task into an algorithmical one) can pass tests with initial data from narrow ranges, and the task itself is to improve that solution. We make a survey of types of tasks where inital data are too vast to use a “brute force” but they are announced to be connected and the task itself is to extract necessary information in an optimal way. We consider tasks on recognition and on restoration of data from a unified point of view. We also make an attempt to describe various types of tasks formally.

Quantum $$ SL _2$$, infinite curvature and Pitman’s 2M-X theorem

The classical theorem by Pitman states that a Brownian motion minus twice its running infimum enjoys the Markov property. On the one hand, Biane understood that Pitman's theorem is intimately related to the representation theory of the quantum group $\mathcal{U}_q\left( \mathfrak{sl}_2 \right)$, in the so-called crystal regime $q \rightarrow 0$. On the other hand, Bougerol and Jeulin showed the appearance of exactly the same Pitman transform in the infinite curvature limit $r \rightarrow \infty$ of a Brownian motion on the hyperbolic space $\mathbb{H}^3 = SL_2(\mathbb{C})/SU_2$. This paper aims at understanding this phenomenon by giving a unifying point of view. In order to do so, we exhibit a presentation $\mathcal{U}_q^\hbar\left( \mathfrak{sl}_2 \right)$ of the Jimbo-Drinfeld quantum group which isolates the role of curvature $r$ and that of the Planck constant $\hbar$. The simple relationship between parameters is $q=e^{-r}$. The semi-classical limits $\hbar \rightarrow 0$ are the Poisson-Lie groups dual to $SL_2(\mathbb{C})$ with varying curvatures $r \in \mathbb{R}_+$. We also construct classical and quantum random walks, drawing a full picture which includes Biane's quantum walks and the construction of Bougerol-Jeulin. Taking the curvature parameter $r$ to infinity leads indeed to the crystal regime at the level of representation theory ($\hbar>0$) and to the Bougerol-Jeulin construction in the classical world ($\hbar=0$). All these results are neatly in accordance with the philosophy of Kirillov's orbit method.

Query answering DL-lite knowledge bases from hidden datasets

Unifying access to data using structured knowledge is the main problem studied in ontology-based data access (OBDA). Data are often provided by several information sources, and this has led to a number of methods that merge them in order to get a unified point of view. Existing merging approaches assume that the content of datasets is known and available. However, in several applications, it might be impossible to know the full content of datasets beforehand. This paper investigates several query answering strategies from multiple datasets without knowing their content in advance. We study those strategies from different points of view: productivity, logical properties and computational complexity.

NEUROSCIENCE: INTERDISCIPLINARY INTEGRATION OR EXPANSION?

Aim. The paper aims to study the differentiation and integration of scientific disciplines in the natural sciences and humanities research areas of neuroscience based on a review of Russian scientific works and to propose a structural and functional model of neuroscience as an interdisciplinary system of knowledge about brain features that ensure human activity in various professional spheres. Methods. A theoretical analysis of scientific publications on the topic over the last ten years has been used along with such methods as comparison, generalization, and modelling. Results. The paper presents various points of view on the subject field of separate disciplines within neuroscience, as well as on the relations between them. The interdisciplinarity of neuroscience is considered by a number of authors (philosophers) as a form of disciplinary colonization, epistemic expansion or intervention. Another group of authors considers neuroscience as a systemic level of science that unites multidisciplinary research activities related to the study of the brain. The third position is represented by authors who consider neuroscience as an extension of the problem field of neurobiology or as its synonym. A number of authors pay special attention to the popularity of neuroscience among politicians, military structures, pharmacological companies and other professionals with their disciplinary totality: neurophilosophy, neuropsychology, neuroinformatics, neurogenetics, neurobiology, neurosociology, neuropedagogy, etc. The paper demonstrates that there is no unified point of view on psychophysiology as a part of neuroscience, which also has interdisciplinary connections with many sciences that study individual psychological characteristics and behavior. Conclusion. Based on the analysis of the discussion, the authors emphasize the need to logically build the structural and functional relationships of individual disciplines within a unified neuroscience and determine its subject field on the basis of a systemic evolutionary approach.

A Hierarchical Coordinative Control Strategy for Solid State Transformer Based DC Microgrids

A solid state transformer (SST), as a kind of energy router in the Energy Internet, provides a unified access point for AC or DC distributed power subjects. However, the DC-link capacitors inside the SST will suffer huge voltage fluctuations when the output power of the microgrid changes dramatically. With respect to this problem, caused by the random and intermittent characteristics of distributed generation (DG), a hierarchical coordinative control strategy is proposed. Compared with the common independent control, the proposed method not only makes full use of the regulation capacity of super capacitors, but also enhances the dynamic power tracking speed and reduces the speed difference between different stages of an SST. The dynamic voltage response under the proposed method is analyzed in frequency domain and compared with the independent control. To validate the effectiveness of the coordinative control strategy, a simulation model of an SST-based grid-connected DC microgrid system is established, and the topology of the SST is improved. The voltage stability of the DC bus is compared under different control strategies, and the coordinative control strategy is also verified, effectively under transition conditions.

Forming a conceptual understanding of mathematics at students of technical universities

The global challenges that humanity is facing today pose the task of higher education to prepare a specialist with fundamental training and the ability to learn throughout life. Fundamentalization of education is not possible without the formation of students' conceptual understanding of the material studied. This problem is quite relevant in the study of mathematics due to the specific nature of this science. The researchers' lack of a unified point of view in determining the essence of the conceptual understanding of mathematics does not allow practitioners to develop tools for assessing the level of conceptual understanding among university students. The purpose the article is to identify and formulate the essential characteristics and pedagogical conditions for the formation of a conceptual understanding of mathematics, as well as to explore the possibilities and effectiveness of the integration of computer modeling as an instrument of forming a conceptual understanding in the process of teaching probability theory to students of technical universities. The study showed that a computer workshop, developed based on identified pedagogical conditions and taking into account the didactic capabilities of ICT in the educational process, is an effective means of developing conceptual understanding when studying a course in probability theory. Students whose curriculum included a workshop with elements of computer modeling have a more excellent knowledge of methodologically significant knowledge and the ability to relate previously learned material to new problems.

Design and Implementation of High-Performance ECC Processor with Unified Point Addition on Twisted Edwards Curve

With the swift evolution of wireless technologies, the demand for the Internet of Things (IoT) security is rising immensely. Elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) provides an attractive solution to fulfill this demand. In recent years, Edwards curves have gained widespread acceptance in digital signatures and ECC due to their faster group operations and higher resistance against side-channel attacks (SCAs) than that of the Weierstrass form of elliptic curves. In this paper, we propose a high-speed, low-area, simple power analysis (SPA)-resistant field-programmable gate array (FPGA) implementation of ECC processor with unified point addition on a twisted Edwards curve, namely Edwards25519. Efficient hardware architectures for modular multiplication, modular inversion, unified point addition, and elliptic curve point multiplication (ECPM) are proposed. To reduce the computational complexity of ECPM, the ECPM scheme is designed in projective coordinates instead of affine coordinates. The proposed ECC processor performs 256-bit point multiplication over a prime field in 198,715 clock cycles and takes 1.9 ms with a throughput of 134.5 kbps, occupying only 6543 slices on Xilinx Virtex-7 FPGA platform. It supports high-speed public-key generation using fewer hardware resources without compromising the security level, which is a challenging requirement for IoT security.