To improve the direction-of-arrival estimation performance of the small-aperture array, we propose a source localization method inspired by the Ormia fly’s coupled ears and MUSIC-like algorithm. The Ormia can local its host cricket’s sound precisely despite the tremendous incompatibility between the spacing of its ear and the sound wavelength. In this paper, we first implement a biologically inspired coupled system based on the coupled model of the Ormia’s ears and solve its responses by the modal decomposition method. Then, we analyze the effect of the system on the received signals of the array. Research shows that the system amplifies the amplitude ratio and phase difference between the signals, equivalent to creating a virtual array with a larger aperture. Finally, we apply the MUSIC-like algorithm for DOA estimation to suppress the colored noise caused by the system. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed method can improve the localization precision and resolution of the array.

Devices presenting audiovisual information are widespread, but few ones presenting olfactory information. We have developed a device called an olfactory display that presents odors to users by mixing multiple fragrances. Previously developed olfactory displays had the problem that the ejection volume of liquid perfume droplets was large and the dynamic range of the blending ratio was small. In this study, we used an inkjet device that ejects small droplets in order to expand the dynamic range of blending ratios to present a variety of scents. By finely controlling the back pressure using an electro-osmotic pump (EO pump) and adjusting the timing of EO pump and inkjet device, we succeeded in stabilizing the ejection of the inkjet device and we can have large dynamic range.

Existing weakly-supervised segmentation approaches based on image-level annotations may focus on the most activated region in the image and tend to identify only part of the target object. Intuitively, high-level semantics among objects of the same category in different images could help to recognize corresponding activated regions of the query. In this study, a scheme called Cycle-Consistency of Semantics Network (CyCSNet) is proposed, which can enhance the activation of the potential inactive regions of the target object by utilizing the cycle-consistent semantics from images of the same category in the training set. Moreover, a Dynamic Correlation Feature Selection (DCFS) algorithm is derived to reduce the noise from pixel-wise samples of low relevance for better training. Experiments on the PASCAL VOC 2012 dataset show that the proposed CyCSNet achieves competitive results compared with state-of-the-art weakly-supervised segmentation approaches.

Diagnosis at an early stage is clinically important for the cure of skin cancer. However, since some skin cancers have similar intuitive characteristics, and dermatologists rely on subjective experience to distinguish skin cancer types, the accuracy is often suboptimal. Recently, the introduction of computer methods in the medical field has better assisted physicians to improve the recognition rate but some challenges still exist. In the face of massive dermoscopic image data, residual network (ResNet) is more suitable for learning feature relationships inside big data because of its deeper network depth. Aiming at the deficiency of ResNet, this paper proposes a multi-region feature extraction and raising dimension matching method, which further improves the utilization rate of medical image features. This method firstly extracted rich and diverse features from multiple regions of the feature map, avoiding the deficiency of traditional residual modules repeatedly extracting features in a few fixed regions. Then, the fused features are strengthened by up-dimensioning the branch path information and stacking it with the main path, which solves the problem that the information of two paths is not ideal after fusion due to different dimensionality. The proposed method is experimented on the International Skin Imaging Collaboration (ISIC) Archive dataset, which contains more than 40,000 images. The results of this work on this dataset and other datasets are evaluated to be improved over networks containing traditional residual modules and some popular networks.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, a robust system for masked face recognition has been required. Most existing solutions used many samples per identity for the model to recognize, but the processes involved are very laborious in a real-life scenario. Therefore, we propose “CPNet” as a suitable and reliable way of recognizing masked faces from only a few samples per identity. The prototype classifier uses a few-shot learning paradigm to perform the recognition process. To handle complex and occluded facial features, we incorporated the covariance structure of the classes to refine the class distance calculation. We also used sharpness-aware minimization (SAM) to improve the classifier. Extensive in-depth experiments on a variety of datasets show that our method achieves remarkable results with accuracy as high as 95.3%, which is 3.4% higher than that of the baseline prototype network used for comparison.

Edge devices with strict safety and reliability requirements, such as autonomous driving cars, industrial robots, and drones, necessitate software verification on such devices before operation. The human cost and time required for this analysis constitute a barrier in the cycle of software development and updating. In particular, the final verification at the edge device should at least strictly confirm that the updated software is not degraded from the current it. Since the edge device does not have the correct data, it is necessary for a human to judge whether the difference between the updated software and the operating it is due to degradation or improvement. Therefore, this verification is very costly. This paper proposes a novel automated method for efficient verification on edge devices of an object detection AI, which has found practical use in various applications. In the proposed method, a target object existence detector (TOED) (a simple binary classifier) judges whether an object in the recognition target class exists in the region of a prediction difference between the AI’s operating and updated versions. Using the results of this TOED judgement and the predicted difference, an automated verification system for the updated AI was constructed. TOED was designed as a simple binary classifier with four convolutional layers, and the accuracy of object existence judgment was evaluated for the difference between the predictions of the YOLOv5 L and X models using the Cityscapes dataset. The results showed judgement with more than 99.5% accuracy and 8.6% over detection, thus indicating that a verification system adopting this method would be more efficient than simple analysis of the prediction differences.

With the increase of the number of Mobile User Equipments (MUEs), numerous tasks that with high requirements of resources are generated. However, the MUEs have limited computational resources, computing power and storage space. In this paper, a joint coverage constrained task offloading and resource allocation method based on deep reinforcement learning is proposed. The aim is offloading the tasks that cannot be processed locally to the edge servers to alleviate the conflict between the resource constraints of MUEs and the high performance task processing. The studied problem considers the dynamic variability and complexity of the system model, coverage, offloading decisions, communication relationships and resource constraints. An entropy weight method is used to optimize the resource allocation process and balance the energy consumption and execution time. The results of the study show that the number of tasks and MUEs affects the execution time and energy consumption of the task offloading and resource allocation processes in the interest of the service provider, and enhances the user experience.

We consider Feistel ciphers instantiated with tweakable block ciphers (TBCs) and ideal ciphers (ICs). The indistinguishability security of the TBC-based Feistel cipher is known, and the indifferentiability security of the IC-based Feistel cipher is also known, where independently keyed TBCs and independent ICs are assumed. In this paper, we analyze the security of a single-keyed TBC-based Feistel cipher and a single IC-based Feistel cipher. We characterize the security depending on the number of rounds. More precisely, we cover the case of contracting Feistel ciphers that have d ≥ 2 lines, and the results on Feistel ciphers are obtained as a special case by setting d = 2. Our indistinguishability security analysis shows that it is provably secure with d + 1 rounds. Our indifferentiability result shows that, regardless of the number of rounds, it cannot be secure. Our attacks are a type of a slide attack, and we consider a structure that uses a round constant, which is a well-known countermeasure against slide attacks. We show an indifferentiability attack for the case d = 2 and 3 rounds.

In this study, we focus on evaluating the false-positive probability of the Demirci-Selçuk meet-in-the-middle attack, particularly within the context of configuring precomputed tables with multisets. During the attack, the adversary effectively reduces the size of the key space by filtering out the wrong keys, subsequently recovering the master key from the reduced key space. The false-positive probability is defined as the probability that a wrong key will pass through the filtering process. Due to its direct impact on the post-filtering key space size, the false-positive probability is an important factor that influences the complexity and feasibility of the attack. However, despite its significance, the false-positive probability of the multiset-based Demirci-Selçuk meet-in-the-middle attack has not been thoroughly discussed, to the best of our knowledge. We generalize the Demirci-Selçuk meet-in-the-middle attack and present a sophisticated method for accurately calculating the false-positive probability. We validate our methodology through toy experiments, demonstrating its high precision. Additionally, we propose a method to optimize an attack by determining the optimal format of precomputed data, which requires the precise false-positive probability. Applying our approach to previous attacks on AES and ARIA, we have achieved modest improvements. Specifically, we enhance the memory complexity and time complexity of the offline phase of previous attacks on 7-round AES-128/192/256, 7-round ARIA-192/256, and 8-round ARIA-256 by factors ranging from 20.56 to 23. Additionally, we have improved the overall time complexity of attacks on 7-round ARIA-192/256 by factors of 20.13 and 20.42, respectively.

At CT-RSA 2022, Bossert et al. proposed Pholkos family, an efficient large-state tweakable block cipher. In order to evaluate the security of differential attacks on Pholkos, they obtained the lower bounds for the number of active S-boxes for Pholkos using MILP (Mixed Integer Linear Programming) tools. Based on it, they claimed that Pholkos family is secure against differential attacks. However, they only gave rough security bounds in both of related-tweak and related-tweakey settings. To be more precise, they estimated the lower bounds of the number of active S-boxes for relatively-large number of steps by just summing those in the small number of steps. In this paper, we utilize efficient search methods based on MILP to obtain tighter lower bounds for the number of active S-boxes in a larger number of steps. For the first time, we derive the exact minimum number of active S-boxes of each variant up to the steps where the security against differential attacks can be ensured in related-tweak and related-tweakey settings. Our results indicate that Pholkos-256-128/256-256/512/1024 is secure after 4/5/3/4 steps in the related-tweak setting, and after 5/6/3/4 steps in the related-tweakey setting, respectively. Our results enable reducing the required number of steps to be secure against differential attacks of Pholkos-256-256 in related-tweak setting, and Pholkos-256-128/256 and Pholkos-1024 in the related-tweakey setting by one step, respectively.

Lightweight block ciphers have gained attention in recent years due to the increasing demand for sensor nodes, RFID tags, and various applications. In such a situation, lightweight block ciphers Piccolo and TWINE have been proposed. Both Piccolo and TWINE are designed based on the Generalized Feistel Structure. However, it is crucial to address the potential vulnerability of these structures to the impossible differential attack. Therefore, detailed security evaluations against this attack are essential. This paper focuses on conducting bit-level evaluations of Piccolo and TWINE against related-key impossible differential attacks by leveraging SAT-aided approaches. We search for the longest distinguishers under the condition that the Hamming weight of the active bits of the input, which includes plaintext and master key differences, and output differences is set to 1, respectively. Additionally, for Tweakable TWINE, we search for the longest distinguishers under the related-tweak and related-tweak-key settings. The result for Piccolo with a 128-bit key, we identify the longest 16-round distinguishers for the first time. In addition, we also demonstrate the ability to extend these distinguishers to 17 rounds by taking into account the cancellation of the round key and plaintext difference. Regarding evaluations of TWINE with a 128-bit key, we search for the first time and reveal the distinguishers up to 19 rounds. For the search for Tweakable TWINE, we evaluate under the related-tweak-key setting for the first time and reveal the distinguishers up to 18 rounds for 80-bit key and 19 rounds for 128-bit key.

Homomorphic encryption (HE) is a promising approach for privacy-preserving applications, enabling a third party to assess functions on encrypted data. However, problems persist in implementing privacy-preserving applications through HE, including 1) long function evaluation latency and 2) limited HE primitives only allowing us to perform additions and multiplications. A homomorphic lookup-table (LUT) method has emerged to solve the above problems and enhance function evaluation efficiency. By leveraging homomorphic LUTs, intricate operations can be substituted. Previously proposed LUTs use bit-wise HE, such as TFHE, to evaluate single-input functions. However, the latency increases with the bit-length of the function’s input(s) and output. Additionally, an efficient implementation of multi-input functions remains an open question. This paper proposes a novel LUT-based privacy-preserving function evaluation method to handle multi-input functions while reducing the latency by adopting word-wise HE. Our optimization strategy adjusts table sizes to minimize the latency while preserving function output accuracy, especially for common machine-learning functions. Through our experimental evaluation utilizing the BFV scheme of the Microsoft SEAL library, we confirmed the runtime of arbitrary functions whose LUTs consist of all input-output combinations represented by given input bits: 1) single-input 12-bit functions in 0.14 s, 2) single-input 18-bit functions in 2.53 s, 3) two-input 6-bit functions in 0.17 s, and 4) three-input 4-bit functions in 0.20 s, employing four threads. Besides, we confirmed that our proposed table size optimization strategy worked well, achieving 1.2 times speed up with the same absolute error of order of magnitude of -4 (a × 10-4 where 1/$\sqrt{10}$ ≤ a < $\sqrt{10})$ for Swish and 1.9 times speed up for ReLU while decreasing the absolute error from order -2 to -4 compared to the baseline, i.e., polynomial approximation.

We study the mixed-integer optimization (MIO) approach to feature subset selection in nonlinear kernel support vector machines (SVMs) for binary classification. To measure the performance of subset selection, we use the distance between two classes (DBTC) in a high-dimensional feature space based on the Gaussian kernel function. However, DBTC to be maximized as an objective function is nonlinear, nonconvex and nonconcave. Despite the difficulty of linearizing such a nonlinear function in general, our major contribution is to propose a mixed-integer linear optimization (MILO) formulation to maximize DBTC for feature subset selection, and this MILO problem can be solved to optimality using optimization software. We also derive a reduced version of the MILO problem to accelerate our MILO computations. Experimental results show good computational efficiency for our MILO formulation with the reduced problem. Moreover, our method can often outperform the linear-SVM-based MILO formulation and recursive feature elimination in prediction performance, especially when there are relatively few data instances.

Stochastic resonance is a representative phenomenon in which the degree of synchronization with a weak input signal is enhanced using additive stochastic noise. In systems with multiple chaotic attractors, the chaos-chaos intermittent behavior in attractor-merging bifurcation induces chaotic resonance, which is similar to the stochastic resonance and has high sensitivity. However, controlling chaotic resonance is difficult because it requires adjusting the internal parameters from the outside. The reduced-region-of-orbit (RRO) method, which controls the attractor-merging bifurcation using an external feedback signal, is employed to overcome this issue. However, the lower perturbation of the feedback signal requires further improvement for engineering applications. This study proposed an RRO method with more sophisticated and less perturbed feedback signals, called the double-Gaussian-filtered RRO (DG-RRO) method. The inverse sign of the map function and double Gaussian filters were used to improve the local specification, i.e., the concentration around the local maximum/minimum in the feedback signals, called the DG-RRO feedback signals. Owing to their fine local specification, these signals achieved the attractor-merging bifurcation with significantly smaller feedback perturbation than that in the conventional RRO method. Consequently, chaotic resonance was induced through weak feedback perturbation. It exhibited greater synchronization against weak input signals than that induced by the conventional RRO feedback signal and sustained the same level of response frequency range as that of the conventional RRO method. These advantages may pave the way for utilizing chaotic resonance in engineering scenarios where the stochastic resonance has been applied.

Power line communication (PLC) provides a flexible-access, wide-distribution, and low-cost communication solution for distribution network services. However, the PLC self-organizing networking in distribution network faces several challenges such as diversified data transmission requirements guarantee, the contradiction between long-term constraints and short-term optimization, and the uncertainty of global information. To address these challenges, we propose a backpressure learning-based data transmission reliability-aware self-organizing networking algorithm to minimize the weighted sum of node data backlogs under the long-term transmission reliability constraint. Specifically, the minimization problem is transformed by the Lyapunov optimization and backpressure algorithm. Finally, we propose a backpressure and data transmission reliability-aware state-action-reward-state-action (SARSA)-based self-organizing networking strategy to realize the PLC networking optimization. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm has superior performances of data backlogs and transmission reliability.

In recent years, the increasing complexity of deep network structures has hindered their application in small resource constrained hardware. Therefore, we urgently need to compress and accelerate deep network models. Channel pruning is an effective method to compress deep neural networks. However, most existing channel pruning methods are prone to falling into local optima. In this paper, we propose a channel pruning method via Improved Grey Wolf Optimizer Pruner which called IGWO-Pruner to prune redundant channels of convolutional neural networks. It identifies pruning ratio of each layer by using Improved Grey Wolf algorithm, and then fine-tuning the new pruned network model. In experimental section, we evaluate the proposed method in CIFAR datasets and ILSVRC-2012 with several classical networks, including VGGNet, GoogLeNet and ResNet-18/34/56/152, and experimental results demonstrate the proposed method is able to prune a large number of redundant channels and parameters with rare performance loss.

Currently, the most advanced knowledge distillation models use a metric learning approach based on probability distributions. However, the correlation between supervised probability distributions is typically geometric and implicit, causing inefficiency and an inability to capture structural feature representations among different tasks. To overcome this problem, we propose a knowledge distillation loss using the robust sliced Wasserstein distance with geometric median (GMSW) to estimate the differences between the teacher and student representations. Due to the intuitive geometric properties of GMSW, the student model can effectively learn to align its produced hidden states from the teacher model, thereby establishing a robust correlation among implicit features. In experiment, our method outperforms state-of-the-art models in both high-resource and low-resource settings.

Wearing a mask correctly is an effective method to prevent respiratory infectious diseases. Correct mask use is a reliable approach for preventing contagious respiratory infections. However, when dealing with mask-wearing in some complex settings, the detection accuracy still needs to be enhanced. The technique for mask-wearing detection based on YOLOv7-Tiny is enhanced in this research. Distribution Shifting Convolutions (DSConv) based on YOLOv7-tiny are used instead of the 3×3 convolution in the original model to simplify computation and increase detection precision. To decrease the loss of coordinate regression and enhance the detection performance, we adopt the loss function Intersection over Union with Minimum Points Distance (MPDIoU) instead of Complete Intersection over Union (CIoU) in the original model. The model is introduced with the GSConv and VoVGSCSP modules, recognizing the model’s mobility. The P6 detection layer has been designed to increase detection precision for tiny targets in challenging environments and decrease missed and false positive detection rates. The robustness of the model is increased further by creating and marking a mask-wearing data set in a multi environment that uses Mixup and Mosaic technologies for data augmentation. The efficiency of the model is validated in this research using comparison and ablation experiments on the mask dataset. The results demonstrate that when compared to YOLOv7-tiny, the precision of the enhanced detection algorithm is improved by 5.4%, Recall by 1.8%, mAP@.5 by 3%, mAP@.5:.95 by 1.7%, while the FLOPs is decreased by 8.5G. Therefore, the improved detection algorithm realizes more real-time and accurate mask-wearing detection tasks.

Human action recognition (HAR) exhibits limited accuracy in video surveillance due to the 2D information captured with monocular cameras. To address the problem, a depth estimation-based human skeleton action recognition method (SARDE) is proposed in this study, with the aim of transforming 2D human action data into 3D format to dig hidden action clues in the 2D data. SARDE comprises two tasks, i.e., human skeleton action recognition and monocular depth estimation. The two tasks are integrated in a multi-task manner in end-to-end training to comprehensively utilize the correlation between action recognition and depth estimation by sharing parameters to learn the depth features effectively for human action recognition. In this study, graph-structured networks with inception blocks and skip connections are investigated for depth estimation. The experimental results verify the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method in skeleton action recognition that the method reaches state-of-the-art on the datasets.

The prediction of peak power load is a critical factor directly impacting the stability of power supply, characterized significantly by its time series nature and intricate ties to the seasonal patterns in electricity usage. Despite its crucial importance, the current landscape of power peak load forecasting remains a multifaceted challenge in the field. This study aims to contribute to this domain by proposing a method that leverages a combination of three primary models - the GRU model, self-attention mechanism, and Transformer mechanism - to forecast peak power load. To contextualize this research within the ongoing discourse, it’s essential to consider the evolving methodologies and advancements in power peak load forecasting. By delving into additional references addressing the complexities and current state of the power peak load forecasting problem, this study aims to build upon the existing knowledge base and offer insights into contemporary challenges and strategies adopted within the field. Data preprocessing in this study involves comprehensive cleaning, standardization, and the design of relevant functions to ensure robustness in the predictive modeling process. Additionally, recognizing the necessity to capture temporal changes effectively, this research incorporates features such as “Weekly Moving Average” and “Monthly Moving Average” into the dataset. To evaluate the proposed methodologies comprehensively, this study conducts comparative analyses with established models such as LSTM, Self-attention network, Transformer, ARIMA, and SVR. The outcomes reveal that the models proposed in this study exhibit superior predictive performance compared to these established models, showcasing their effectiveness in accurately forecasting electricity consumption. The significance of this research lies in two primary contributions. Firstly, it introduces an innovative prediction method combining the GRU model, self-attention mechanism, and Transformer mechanism, aligning with the contemporary evolution of predictive modeling techniques in the field. Secondly, it introduces and emphasizes the utility of “Weekly Moving Average” and “Monthly Moving Average” methodologies, crucial in effectively capturing and interpreting seasonal variations within the dataset. By incorporating these features, this study enhances the model’s ability to account for seasonal influencing factors, thereby significantly improving the accuracy of peak power load forecasting. This contribution aligns with the ongoing efforts to refine forecasting methodologies and addresses the pertinent challenges within power peak load forecasting.