Speech emotion recognition (SER) is a key research technology to realize the third generation of artificial intelligence, which is widely used in human-computer interaction, emotion diagnosis, interpersonal communication and other fields. However, the aliasing of language and semantic information in speech tends to distort the alignment of emotion features, which affects the performance of cross-corpus SER system. This paper proposes a cross-corpus SER model based on causal emotion information representation (CEIR). The model uses the reconstruction loss of the deep autoencoder network and the source domain label information to realize the preliminary separation of causal features. Then, the causal correlation matrix is constructed, and the local maximum mean difference (LMMD) feature alignment technology is combined to make the causal features of different dimensions jointly distributed independent. Finally, the supervised fine-tuning of labeled data is used to achieve effective extraction of causal emotion information. The experimental results show that the average unweighted average recall (UAR) of the proposed algorithm is increased by 3.4% to 7.01% compared with the latest partial algorithms in the field.

With the rapid advancement of graphics processing units (GPUs), Virtual Reality (VR) experiences have significantly improved, enhancing immersion and realism. However, these advancements also raise security concerns in VR. In this paper, I introduce a new attack leveraging known WebVR vulnerabilities to track the activities of VR users. The proposed attack leverages the user’s hand motion information exposed to web attackers, demonstrating the capability to identify consumed content, such as 3D images and videos, and pilfer private drawings created in a 3D drawing app. To achieve this, I employed a machine learning approach to process controller sensor data and devised techniques to extract sensitive activities during the use of target apps. The experimental results demonstrate that the viewed content in the targeted content viewer can be identified with 90% accuracy. Furthermore, I successfully obtained drawing outlines that precisely match the user’s original drawings without performance degradation, validating the effectiveness of the attack.

Data sparsity has always been a problem in document classification, for which semi-supervised learning and few-shot learning are studied. An even more extreme scenario is to classify documents without any annotated data, but using only category names. In this paper, we introduce a nearest neighbor search-based method Con2Class to tackle this tough task. We intend to produce embeddings for predefined categories and predict category embeddings for all the unlabeled documents in a unified embedding space, such that categories can be easily assigned by searching the nearest predefined category in the embedding space. To achieve this, we propose confidence-driven contrastive learning, in which prompt-based templates are designed and MLM-maintained contrastive loss is newly proposed to finetune a pretrained language model for embedding production. To deal with the issue that no annotated data is available to validate the classification model, we introduce confidence factor to estimate the classification ability by evaluating the prediction confidence. The language model having the highest confidence factor is used to produce embeddings for similarity evaluation. Pseudo labels are then assigned by searching the semantically closest category name, which are further used to train a separate classifier following a progressive self-training strategy for final prediction. Our experiments on five representative datasets demonstrate the superiority of our proposed method over the existing approaches.

At Crypto 2019, Gohr first adopted the neural distinguisher for differential cryptanalysis, and since then, this work received increasing attention. However, most of the existing work focuses on improving and applying the neural distinguisher, the studies delving into the intrinsic principles of neural distinguishers are finite. At Eurocrypt 2021, Benamira et al. conducted a study on Gohr’s neural distinguisher. But for the neural distinguishers proposed later, such as the r-round neural distinguishers trained with k ciphertext pairs or ciphertext differences, denoted as NDcpk_r (Gohr’s neural distinguisher is the special NDcpk_r with K = 1) and NDcdk_r , such research is lacking. In this work, we devote ourselves to study the intrinsic principles and relationship between NDcdk_r and NDcpk_r. Firstly, we explore the working principle of NDcd1_r through a series of experiments and find that it strongly relies on the probability distribution of ciphertext differences. Its operational mechanism bears a strong resemblance to that of NDcp1_r given by Benamira et al.. Therefore, we further compare them from the perspective of differential cryptanalysis and sample features, demonstrating the superior performance of NDcp1_r can be attributed to the relationships between certain ciphertext bits, especially the significant bits. We then extend our investigation to NDcpk_r, and show that its ability to recognize samples heavily relies on the average differential probability of k ciphertext pairs and some relationships in the ciphertext itself, but the reliance between k ciphertext pairs is very weak. Finally, in light of the findings of our research, we introduce a strategy to enhance the accuracy of the neural distinguisher by using a fixed difference to generate the negative samples instead of the random one. Through the implementation of this approach, we manage to improve the accuracy of the neural distinguishers by approximately 2% to 8% for 7-round Speck32/64 and 9-round Simon32/64.

Stack Overflow, a leading Q&A platform for developers, is a substantial reservoir of Python code snippets. Nevertheless, the incompatibility issues between Python versions, particularly Python 2 and Python 3, introduce substantial challenges that can potentially jeopardize the utility of these code snippets. This empirical study dives deep into the challenges of Python version inconsistencies on the interpretation and application of Python code snippets on Stack Overflow. Our empirical study exposes the prevalence of Python version compatibility issues on Stack Overflow. It further emphasizes an apparent deficiency in version-specific identification, a critical element that facilitates the identification and utilization of Python code snippets. These challenges, primarily arising from the lack of backward compatibility between Python’s major versions, pose significant hurdles for developers relying on Stack Overflow for code references and learning. This study, therefore, signifies the importance of proactively addressing these compatibility issues in Python code snippets. It advocates for enhanced tools and strategies to assist developers in efficiently navigating through the Python version complexities on platforms like Stack Overflow. By highlighting these concerns and providing a potential remedy, we aim to contribute to a more efficient and effective programming experience on Stack Overflow and similar platforms.

Image denoising is an indispensable process of manifold high level tasks in image processing and computer vision. However, the traditional low-rank minimization-based methods suffer from a biased problem since only the noisy observation is used to estimate the underlying clean matrix. To overcome this issue, a new low-rank minimization-based method, called nuclear norm minus Frobenius norm rank residual minimization (NFRRM), is proposed for image denoising. The propose method transforms the ill-posed image denoising problem to rank residual minimization problems through excavating the nonlocal self-similarity prior. The proposed NFRRM model can perform an accurate estimation to the underlying clean matrix through treating each rank residual component flexibly. More importantly, the global optimum of the proposed NFRRM model can be obtained in closed-form. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the proposed NFRRM method outperforms many state-of-the-art image denoising methods.

This study investigates a two/three-dimensional (2D/3D) symbol-mapping technique that evaluates data transmission quality based on a four-level pulse-amplitude modulation (PAM-4) symbol transition. Multi-dimensional symbol transition mapping facilitates the visualization of the degree of interference (ISI). The simulation and experimental results demonstrated that the 2D symbol mapping can evaluate the PAM-4 data transmission quality degraded by ISI and visualize the equalization effect. Furthermore, potential applications of 2D mapping and its extension to 3D mapping were explored.

In high-speed data communication systems, it is important to evaluate the quality of the transmitted signal at the receiver. At a high-speed data rate, the transmission line characteristics act as a high-frequency attenuator and contribute to the intersymbol interference (ISI) at the receiver. To evaluate ISI conditions, eye diagrams are widely used to analyze signal quality and visualize the ISI effect as an eye-opening rate. Various types of on-chip eye-opening monitors (EOM) have been proposed to adjust waveform-shaping circuits. However, the eye diagram evaluation of multi-valued signaling becomes more difficult than that of binary transmission because of the complicated signal transition patterns. Moreover, in severe ISI situations where the eye is completely closed, eye diagram evaluation does not work well. This paper presents a novel evaluation method using Two-dimensional(2D) symbol mapping and a linear mixture model (LMM) for multi-valued data transmission. In our proposed method, ISI evaluation can be realized by 2D symbol mapping, and an efficient quantitative analysis can be realized using the LMM. An experimental demonstration of four leveled pulse amplitude modulation(PAM-4) data transmission using a Cat5e cable 100 m is presented. The experimental results show that the proposed method can extract features of the ISI effect even though the eye is completely closed in the server condition.

We present a time-efficient lower bound κ on the number of gates in Toffoli-based reversible circuits that represent a given reversible logic function. For the characteristic vector s of a reversible logic function, κ(s) closely approximates σ-lb(s), which is known as a relatively efficient lower bound in respect of evaluation time and tightness. The primary contribution of this paper is that κ enables fast computation while maintaining a tightness of the lower bound, approximately equal to σ-lb. We prove that the discrepancy between κ(s) and σ-lb(s) is at most one only, by providing upper and lower bounds on σ-lb in terms of κ. Subsequently, we show that κ can be calculated more efficiently than σ-lb. An algorithm for κ(s) with a complexity of 𝓞(n) is presented, where n is the dimension of s. Experimental results comparing κ and σ-lb are also given. The results demonstrate that the two lower bounds are equal for most reversible functions, and that the calculation of κ is significantly faster than σ-lb by several orders of magnitude.

With the advent of gated quantum computers and the regular structures for qubit layout, methods for placement, routing, noise estimation, and logic to hardware mapping become imminently required. In this paper, we propose a method for quantum circuit layout that is intended to solve such problems when mapping a quantum circuit to a gated quantum computer. The proposed methodology starts by building a Circuit Interaction Graph (CIG) that represents the ideal hardware layout minimizing the distance and path length between the individual qubits. The CIG is also used to introduce a qubit noise model. Once constructed, the CIG is iteratively reduced to a given architecture (qubit coupling model) specifying the neighborhood, qubits, priority, and qubits noise. The introduced constraints allow us to additionally reduce the graph according to preferred weights of desired properties. We propose two different methods of reducing the CIG: iterative reduction or the iterative isomorphism search algorithm. The proposed method is verified and tested on a set of standard benchmarks with results showing improvement on certain functions while in average improving the cost of the implementation over the current state of the art methods.

This paper proposes a decomposition method for symmetric multiple-valued functions. It decomposes a given symmetric multiple-valued function into three parts. By using suitable decision diagrams for the three parts, we can represent symmetric multiple-valued functions compactly. By deriving theorems on sizes of the decision diagrams, this paper shows that space complexity of the proposed representation is low. This paper also presents algorithms to construct the decision diagrams for symmetric multiple-valued functions with low time complexity. Experimental results show that the proposed method represents randomly generated symmetric multiple-valued functions more compactly than the conventional representation method using standard multiple-valued decision diagrams. Symmetric multiple-valued functions are a basic class of functions, and thus, their compact representation benefits many applications where they appear.

This paper shows that sum-of-product expression (SOP) minimization produces the generalization ability. We show this in three steps. First, various classes of SOPs are generated. Second, minterms of SOP are randomly selected to generate partially defined functions. And, third, from the partially defined functions, original functions are reconstructed by SOP minimization. We consider Achilles heel functions, majority functions, monotone increasing cascade functions, functions generated from random SOPs, monotone increasing random SOPs, circle functions, and globe functions. As for the generalization ability, the presented method is compared with Naive Bayes, multi-level perceptron, support vector machine, JRIP, J48, and random forest. For these functions, in many cases, only 10% of the input combinations are sufficient to reconstruct more than 90% of the truth tables of the original functions.

This paper proposes a scatterer information estimation method using numerical data for the response waveform of a backward transient scattering field for both E- and H-polarizations when a two-dimensional (2-D) coated metal cylinder is selected as a scatterer. It is assumed that a line source and an observation point are placed at different locations. The four types of scatterer information covered in this paper are the relative permittivity of a surrounding medium, the relative permittivity of a coating medium layer and its thickness, and the radius of a coated metal cylinder. Specifically, a time-domain saddle-point technique (TD-SPT) is used to derive scatterer information estimation formulae from the amplitude intensity ratios (AIRs) of adjacent backward transient scattering field components. The estimates are obtained by substituting the numerical data of the response waveforms of the backward transient scattering field components into the estimation formulae and performing iterative calculations. Furthermore, a minimum thickness of a coating medium layer for which the estimation method is valid is derived, and two kinds of applicable conditions for the estimation method are proposed. The effectiveness of the scatterer information estimation method is verified by comparing the estimates with the set values. The noise tolerance and convergence characteristics of the estimation method and the method of controlling the estimation accuracy are also discussed.

This paper proposes a novel differential active self-interference canceller (DASIC) algorithm for asynchronous in-band full-duplex (IBFD) Gaussian filtered frequency shift keying (GFSK), which is designed for wireless Internet of Things (IoT). In IBFD communications, where two terminals simultaneously transmit and receive signals in the same frequency band, there is an extremely strong self-interference (SI). The SI can be mitigated by an active SI canceller (ASIC), which subtracts an interference replica based on channel state information (CSI) from the received signal. The challenging problem is the realization of asynchronous IBFD for wireless IoT in indoor environments. In the asynchronous mode, pilot contamination is induced by the non-orthogonality between asynchronous pilot sequences. In addition, the transceiver suffers from analog front-end (AFE) impairments, such as phase noise. Due to these impairments, the SI cannot be canceled entirely at the receiver, resulting in residual interference. To address the above issue, the DASIC incorporates the principle of the differential codec, which enables to suppress SI without the CSI estimation of SI owing to the differential structure. Also, on the premise of using an error correction technique, iterative detection and decoding (IDD) is applied to improve the detection capability while exchanging the extrinsic log-likelihood ratio (LLR) between the maximum a-posteriori probability (MAP) detector and the channel decoder. Finally, the validity of using the DASIC algorithm is evaluated by computer simulations in terms of the packet error rate (PER). The results clearly demonstrate the possibility of realizing asynchronous IBFD.

This study presents a novel waveguide slot array with a code-division multiplexing function for single RF chain digital beamforming. The proposed antenna is comprised of a rectangular metallic waveguide’s bottom part and a multilayer printed circuit board (PCB) with the rectangular waveguide’s top wall and slot apertures. Multiple pairs of two symmetric longitudinal slots are etched on the metal surface of the PCB, and a PIN diode is mounted across each slot. The received signals of each slot pair are multiplexed in a code-division multiplexing fashion by switching the diodes’ bias according to the Walsh Hadamard code, and the original signals are then recovered through a despreading process in the digital domain for digital beamforming. A prototype antenna with eight slot pairs has been fabricated and tested for proof of concept. The measured results show the feasibility of the proposed antenna.

Integrated Sensing and Communication at terahertz band (ISAC-THz) has been considered as one of the promising technologies for the future 6G. However, in the phase-shifters (PSs) based massive multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) hybrid precoding system, due to the ultra-large bandwidth of the terahertz frequency band, the subcarrier channels with different frequencies have different equivalent spatial directions. Therefore, the hybrid beamforming at the transmitter will cause serious beam split problems. In this letter, we propose a dual-function radar communication (DFRC) precoding method by considering recently proposed delay-phase precoding structure for THz massive MIMO. By adding delay phase components between the radio frequency chain and the frequency-independent PSs, the beam is aligned with the target physical direction over the entire bandwidth to reduce the loss caused by beam splitting effect. Furthermore, we employ a hardware structure by using true-time-delayers (TTDs) to realize the concept of frequency-dependent phase shifts. Theoretical analysis and simulation results have shown that it can increase communication performance and make up for the performance loss caused by the dual-function trade-off of communication radar to a certain extent.

In this letter, we study the dynamic antenna grouping and the hybrid beamforming for high altitude platform (HAP) massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. We first exploit the fact that the ergodic sum rate is only related to statistical channel state information (SCSI) in the large-scale array regime, and then we utilize it to perform the dynamic antenna grouping and design the RF beamformer. By applying the Gershgorin Circle Theorem, the dynamic antenna grouping is realized based on the novel statistical distance metric instead of the value of the instantaneous channels. The RF beamformer is designed according to the singular value decomposition of the statistical correlation matrix according to the obtained dynamic antenna group. Dynamic subarrays mean each RF chain is linked with a dynamic antenna sub-set. The baseband beamformer is derived by utilizing the zero forcing (ZF). Numerical results demonstrate the performance enhancement of our proposed dynamic hybrid precoding (DHP) algorithm.

Point cloud video contains not only color information but also spatial position information and usually has large volume of data. Typical rate distortion optimization algorithms based on Human Visual System only consider the color information, which limit the coding performance. In this paper, a Coding Tree Unit (CTU) level quantization parameter (QP) adjustment algorithm based on JND and spatial complexity is proposed to improve the subjective and objective quality of Video-Based Point Cloud Compression (V-PCC). Firstly, it is found that the JND model is degraded at CTU level for attribute video due to the pixel filling strategy of V-PCC, and an improved JND model is designed using the occupancy map. Secondly, a spatial complexity detection metric is designed to measure the visual importance of each CTU. Finally, a CTU-level QP adjustment scheme based on both JND levels and visual importance is proposed for geometry and attribute video. The experimental results show that, compared with the latest V-PCC (TMC2-18.0) anchors, the BD-rate is reduced by -2.8% and -3.2% for D1 and D2 metrics, respectively, and the subjective quality is improved significantly.

Mutually unbiased bases (MUBs) are widely used in quantum information processing and play an important role in quantum cryptography, quantum state tomography and communications. It’s difficult to construct MUBs and remains unknown whether complete MUBs exist for any non prime power. Therefore, researchers have proposed the solution to construct approximately mutually unbiased bases (AMUBs) by weakening the inner product conditions. This paper constructs q AMUBs of ℂq, (q + 1) AMUBs of ℂq-1 and q AMUBs of ℂq-1 by using character sums over Galois rings and finite fields, where q is a power of a prime. The first construction of q AMUBs of ℂq is new which illustrates K AMUBs of ℂK can be achieved. The second and third constructions in this paper include the partial results about AMUBs constructed by W. Wang et al. in [9].

Boolean functions play an important role in symmetric ciphers. One of important open problems on Boolean functions is determining the maximum possible resiliency order of n-variable Boolean functions with optimal algebraic immunity. In this letter, we search Boolean functions in the rotation symmetric class, and determine the maximum possible resiliency order of 9-variable Boolean functions with optimal algebraic immunity. Moreover, the maximum possible nonlinearity of 9-variable rotation symmetric Boolean functions with optimal algebraic immunity-resiliency trade-off is determined to be 224.