The objective of this paper is to give a comprehensive introduction to applied cryptography with an engineer or computer scientist in mind. The emphasis is on the knowledge needed to create practical systems which supports integrity, confidentiality, or authenticity. Topics covered includes an introduction to the concepts in cryptography, attacks against cryptographic systems, key use and handling, random bit generation, encryption modes, and message authentication codes. Recommendations on algorithms and further reading is given in the end of the paper. This paper should make the reader able to build, understand and evaluate system descriptions and designs based on the cryptographic components described in the paper.

[서평]「Applied Cryptography」

Developing efficient sensor materials with superior performance for selective, fast and sensitive detection of gases and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) is essential for human health and environmental protection, through monitoring indoor and outdoor air pollutions, managing industrial processes, controlling food quality and assisting early diagnosis of diseases. Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are a unique type of crystalline and porous solid material constructed from metal nodes (metal ions or clusters) and functional organic ligands. They have been investigated extensively for possible use as high performance sensors for the detection of many different gases and VOCs in recent years, due to their large surface area, tunable pore size, functionalizable sites and intriguing properties, such as electrical conductivity, magnetism, ferroelectricity, luminescence and chromism. The high porosity of MOFs allows them to interact strongly with various analytes, including gases and VOCs, thus resulting in easily measurable responses to different physicochemical parameters. Although much of the recent work on MOF-based luminescent sensors have been summarized in several excellent reviews (up to 2018), a comprehensive overview of these materials for sensing gases and VOCs based on chemiresistive, magnetic, ferroelectric, and colorimertic mechanisms is missing. In this review, we highlight the most recent progress in developing MOF sensing and switching materials with an emphasis on sensing mechanisms based on electricity, magnetism, ferroelectricity and chromism. We provide a comprehensive analysis on the MOF–analyte interactions in these processes, which play a key role in the sensing performance of the MOF-based sensors and switches. We discuss in detail possible applications of MOF-based sensing and switching materials in detecting oxygen, water vapor, toxic industrial gases (such as hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide, carbon oxides and carbon disulfide) and VOCs (such as aromatic and aliphatic hydrocarbons, ketones, alcohols, aldehydes, chlorinated hydrocarbons and N,N′-dimethylformamide). Overall, this review serves as a timely source of information and provides insight for the future development of advanced MOF materials as next-generation gas and VOC sensors.

Functional metal–organic frameworks as effective sensors of gases and volatile compounds

Carbon and graphene quantum dots (CQDs and GQDs), known as zero-dimensional (0D) nanomaterials, have been attracting increasing attention in sensing and bioimaging. Their unique electronic, fluores...

Review of Carbon and Graphene Quantum Dots for Sensing

Small carbon nanoparticles are an emerging member of the carbonaceous nanomaterial family and have been subsequently named as “carbon quantum dots” or “carbon nanodots”. Generally, carbon quantum dots are a type of spherical or sphere-like nanoparticles of less than 10 nm in size. Due to their unique properties, for example, size-dependent fluorescence, non-toxicity, biocompatibility, and easy accessibility, carbon quantum dots possess a great many potential applications in a range of fields from chemical sensing and imaging to catalysis and drug delivery, and thus are appealing to a number of researchers in nanoscience and nanotechnology. In this review, we give a brief introduction of the synthesis and fundamental properties of carbon quantum dots, then present their applications in metal ion sensing in detail along with illustrating the related mechanisms, and finally come up with some challenges currently faced and future outlooks for this fascinating carbon material. We hope this review could be helpful for readers who are preparing to join and/or have joined the research field of carbon quantum dots.

Carbon quantum dot-based nanoprobes for metal ion detection

Recent progress in the synthesis of graphene and derived materials for next generation electrodes of high performance lithium ion batteries

Although the number of Internet of Things devices increases every year, efforts to decrease hardware energy demands and to improve efficiencies of the energy-harvesting stages have reached an ultra-low power level. However, no current standard of wireless communication protocol (WCP) can fully address those scenarios. Our focus in this paper is to introduce treNch, a novel WCP implementing the cross-layer principle to use the power input for adapting its operation in a dynamic manner that goes from pure best-effort to nearly real time. Together with the energy-management algorithm, it operates with asynchronous transmissions, synchronous and optional receptions, short frame sizes and a light architecture that gives control to the nodes. These features make treNch an optimal option for wireless sensor networks with ultra-low power demands and severe energy fluctuations. We demonstrate through a comparison with different modes of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) a decrease of the power consumption in 1 to 2 orders of magnitude for different scenarios at equal quality of service. Moreover, we propose some security optimizations, such as shorter over-the-air counters, to reduce the packet overhead without decreasing the security level. Finally, we discuss other features aside of the energy needs, such as latency, reliability or topology, brought again against BLE.

treNch: Ultra-Low Power Wireless Communication Protocol for IoT and Energy Harvesting.

The requirements for the blocking voltage of the rectification devices on the secondary side of phase shift full bridge (PSFB) dc–dc converter topology are, by nature, higher than for other quasiresonant or fully resonant topologies (DAB, LLC). This is especially aggravated in wide range operation converters and further increased by the rectifiers’ drain voltage overshoot. Unlike other resonant topologies, the inductor at the output of the PSFB effectively decouples the capacitor bank from the rectification stage, which otherwise acts as a strong lossless snubber. Higher blocking voltage requirements for the rectification devices worsen their Figure of Merit, increasing their related losses and decreasing the overall efficiency of the converter. In this article, the main causes of the rectifiers drain voltage overshoots in PSFB are analyzed. Design guidelines for the mitigation of the different causes are introduced, as well as a novel modulation scheme for the overshoot reduction, while the output filter operates in discontinuous conduction mode, without penalties in performance, complexity, or cost. A prototype of PSFB DC-DC converter of 3300 W, with 400-V input to 54.5-V output nominal voltages, was designed and built to test the proposed solutions achieving a peak efficiency of 98.12% at 50% of load.

Synchronous Rectifiers Drain Voltage Overshoot Reduction in PSFB Converters

During the last course of grade studies the use of learning techniques encouraging the team-working and autonomy is the desirable paradigm Project-Based Learning (PBL) is the currently most-favored pedagogical model for achieving these objectives in electrical engineering studies In this context we proposed the PBL for an optional subject taught on the last course of Industrial Electronic Engineering degree, entitled “Circuits and electronic systems for biomedical applications” At the beginning of the course the instructor proposes different micro projects that the students have to develop during the course This approach allows carrying out an evaluation of the competences in a continuous and personalized way The experience of this pedagogical model shows that students can confront and solve unforeseen problems that enhance the expected skills for an electrical engineer

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel7/7383376/7388553/07388615.pdf

Towards Project-Based Learning applied to the Electronic Engineering studies

An important problem in modern therapeutics at the proteomic level remains to identify therapeutic targets in a plentitude of high-throughput data from experiments relevant to a variety of diseases. This paper presents the application of novel modern control concepts, such as pinning controllability and observability applied to the glioma cancer stem cells (GSCs) protein graph network with known and novel association to glioblastoma (GBM). The theoretical frameworks provides us with the minimal number of "driver nodes", which are necessary, and their location to determine the full control over the obtained graph network in order to provide a change in the network’s dynamics from an initial state (disease) to a desired state (non-disease). The achieved results will provide biochemists with techniques to identify more metabolic regions and biological pathways for complex diseases, to design and test novel therapeutic solutions.

Diego P. Morales

Papers

treNch: Ultra-Low Power Wireless Communication Protocol for IoT and Energy Harvesting.

Synchronous Rectifiers Drain Voltage Overshoot Reduction in PSFB Converters

Towards Project-Based Learning applied to the Electronic Engineering studies

The driving regulators of the connectivity protein network of brain malignancies

Digital and Analog Reconfiguration Techniques for Rapid Smart Sensor System Prototyping