A method and apparatus are disclosed for approving a transaction request between an electronic transaction system and a portable electronic authorization device (PEAD) carried by a user using an electronic service authorization token The method includes the steps of receiving at the PEAD first digital data representing the transaction request The PEAD provides information to the user regarding an ability to approve the transaction request When the transaction request is approved by the user, the PEAD receives second digital data representing the electronic service authorization token In one aspect of the invention, the method and apparatus include a remote agent server that provides a bridge between the electronic transaction system and the PEAD In an embodiment providing a further level of security, the private key is stored on the portable device, encrypted The decryption key is stored outside of the device, at a trusted 3rd party location When the user attempts to make a signature the software sends a request for the decryption key, along with the user's password or pass phrase keyed in at the keyboard of the PDA, smart phone, or cell phone, to a server belonging to the trusted 3rd party This password is usually, but not always, different than the password stored in the PEAD The server checks the password or pass phrase and, if it is correct sends the decryption key to the portable device, where it is used once and immediately discarded In yet another aspect of the invention, the user's password is securely encoded in the method and apparatus and are used at a point-of-sale location Advantages of the invention include the ability to securely and conveniently perform transactions in a portable device

Electronic transaction systems and methods therefor

PROTRACED COUNTERINSURGENCY: CHINESE COIN STRATEGY IN XINJIANG by MAJ J. Scott LaRonde, USA, 95 pages. In 1949, following the conclusion of its revolutionary war against the Chinese Nationalist forces, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) peacefully occupied China’s western most province of Xinjiang. For nearly sixty years, the PLA has conducted a counterinsurgency against several, mostly Uyghur-led, separatist movements. Despite periods of significant violence, particularly in the early 1950s and again in the 1990s, the separatist forces have not gained momentum and remained at a level one insurgency. Mao ZeDeng is revered as a master insurgent and the father of Fourth Generation Warfare. Strategists in armies worldwide study his writings on revolutionary and guerilla warfare. This monograph concludes that Mao, as well as the communist leaders who followed him, was also successful at waging protracted counterinsurgency. For nearly sixty years, separatist movements in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Taiwan have all failed. This monograph analyzes the conflict in Xinjiang and concludes that the Chinese continue to defeat the separatist movement in Xinjiang through a strategy that counters Mao’s seven fundamentals of revolutionary warfare.

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Approved for Public Release; Distribution is Unlimited

An active noise control system is capable of canceling out noise in the passenger compartment of a vehicle based on low-frequency road noise. The active noise control system has a feed-forward control unit for being supplied with reference signals highly correlated to noise from a noise source and generating a noise cancellation signal which is out of phase to noise in the passenger compartment of the vehicle, and a canceling sound generating unit disposed in the passenger compartment for generating a noise canceling sound in response to the noise cancellation signal from said feed-forward control unit. The active noise control system also has microphones for generating reference signals which are positioned respectively near the base of the front seat, near the center of a roof, and within a trunk compartment, i.e., respectively at vibrational antinodes of a primary or secondary acoustic normal mode of the passenger compartment in the longitudinal direction thereof. Output signals from the microphones are supplied as the reference signals.

Active noise control system

A privacy apparatus adds a privacy sound into the environment, thereby confusing listeners as to which of the sounds is the real source. The privacy sound may be based on the speaker's own voice or may be based on another voice. At least one characteristic of the speaker (such as a characteristic of the speaker's speech) may be identified. The characteristic may then be used to access a database of the speaker's own voice or another's voice, and to form one or more voice streams to form the privacy sound. The privacy sound may thus permit disruption of the ability to understand the source speech of the user by eliminating segregation cues that the auditory system uses to interpret speech.

Disruption of speech understanding by adding a privacy sound thereto

http://oro.open.ac.uk/42364/1/journalpaper_greennoisereducingdevices_revised.pdf

Using natural means to reduce surface transport noise during propagation outdoors

The computational tools available for prediction of sound propagation through the atmosphere have increased dramatically during the past decade. The numerical techniques include analytical solutions for selected index of refraction profiles, ray trace techniques which include interaction with a complex impedance boundary, a Gaussian beam ray trace algorithm, and more sophisticated approximate solutions to the full wave equation; the fast field program (FFP) and the parabolic equation (PE) solutions. This large aray of computational approaches raises questions concerning under what conditions the various approaches are reliable and concerns about possible errors in specific implementations. This paper presents comparisons of predictions from the several models assuming a complex impedance ground and four atmospheric conditions. For the cases studied, it was found that the FFP and PE algorithms agree to within numerical accuracy over the full range of conditions and agree with the analytical solutions where available. Comparisons to ray solutions define regimes where ray approaches can be used. There is no attempt to compare calculated transmission losses to measurements,

Benchmark cases for outdoor sound propagation models

Heuristic model for outdoor sound propagation based on an extension of the geometrical ray theory in the case of a linear sound speed profile

This paper presents a method for calculating the insertion loss (IL) of a thin barrier covered with absorbent material, either on the source side, on the receiver side, or on both sides. The method used combines a classical theory for the propagation of sound over ground with an approximate solution for diffraction around an absorbent barrier, which can take into account the specific impedance of each side of the barrier. The validity of the method was confirmed by comparing theoretical results with experimental measurements for various geometrical configurations and screen boundary conditions. The results show that, when the angles of diffraction are significant, the insertion loss (IL) of a hard barrier can be substantially increased by covering one of its surfaces with an absorbent material. This absorbent layer must be placed on the surface of the barrier associated with the greatest angle of the diffracted rays paths (source top‐edge or receiver top‐edge). When these angles are about the same on each side of the barrier, the increase will be the same if the absorbent material is placed on the source or on the receiver side. In this case, by covering both sides of the barrier, the increase of the IL due to the absorbent will double compared to a single covering.

Insertion loss of absorbent barriers on ground

The Gaussian beam approach solves the wave equation in the neighborhood of the conventional rays using the parabolic approximation. The solution associates with each ray a beam having a Gaussian amplitude profile normal to the ray. The approximate overall solution for a given source is then constructed by a superposition of Gaussian beams along nearby rays. The solution removes ray‐tracing artifacts such as perfect shadows and infinite energy at caustics without the computational difficulties of numerical solutions to the wave equation. In this paper, the Gaussian beam approach is applied to atmospheric sound propagation in the presence of refraction above a ground surface. A brief overview of the method is presented. Calculations obtained from Gaussian beam tracing are compared to those obtained from the fast field program (FFP) and to experimental measurements. The experiments were made above a concave surface indoors that simulates propagation under downward refraction (inversion or downwind) in the cases of a hard and finite impedance surface. These experiments include measurements in the presence of a barrier. Measurements were also made in a wind tunnel in the presence of wind and temperature gradients. The results suggest that beam tracing can be applied to complex atmospheric sound propagation problems with advantages over conventional ray tracing and full‐wave solutions.

André L'Espérance

Papers

Benchmark cases for outdoor sound propagation models

Heuristic model for outdoor sound propagation based on an extension of the geometrical ray theory in the case of a linear sound speed profile

Insertion loss of absorbent barriers on ground

Application of the Gaussian beam approach to sound propagation in the atmosphere: Theory and experiments

Sound propagation in the atmospheric surface layer: Comparison of experiment with FFP predictions