Eindhoven University of Technology

About: Eindhoven University of Technology is a education organization based out in Eindhoven, Noord-Brabant, Netherlands. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Catalysis & Computer science. The organization has 22309 authors who have published 52936 publications receiving 1584164 citations. The organization is also known as: Technische Hogeschool Eindhoven & TU/e.

Can homomorphic encryption be practical

Abstract: The prospect of outsourcing an increasing amount of data storage and management to cloud services raises many new privacy concerns for individuals and businesses alike. The privacy concerns can be satisfactorily addressed if users encrypt the data they send to the cloud. If the encryption scheme is homomorphic, the cloud can still perform meaningful computations on the data, even though it is encrypted.In fact, we now know a number of constructions of fully homomorphic encryption schemes that allow arbitrary computation on encrypted data. In the last two years, solutions for fully homomorphic encryption have been proposed and improved upon, but it is hard to ignore the elephant in the room, namely efficiency -- can homomorphic encryption ever be efficient enough to be practical? Certainly, it seems that all known fully homomorphic encryption schemes have a long way to go before they can be used in practice. Given this state of affairs, our contribution is two-fold.First, we exhibit a number of real-world applications, in the medical, financial, and the advertising domains, which require only that the encryption scheme is "somewhat" homomorphic. Somewhat homomorphic encryption schemes, which support a limited number of homomorphic operations, can be much faster, and more compact than fully homomorphic encryption schemes.Secondly, we show a proof-of-concept implementation of the recent somewhat homomorphic encryption scheme of Brakerski and Vaikuntanathan, whose security relies on the "ring learning with errors" (Ring LWE) problem. The scheme is very efficient, and has reasonably short ciphertexts. Our unoptimized implementation in magma enjoys comparable efficiency to even optimized pairing-based schemes with the same level of security and homomorphic capacity. We also show a number of application-specific optimizations to the encryption scheme, most notably the ability to convert between different message encodings in a ciphertext.

Chapter 3: MHD stability, operational limits and disruptions

Abstract: Progress in the area of MHD stability and disruptions, since the publication of the 1999 ITER Physics Basis document (1999 Nucl. Fusion 39 2137-2664), is reviewed. Recent theoretical and experimental research has made important advances in both understanding and control of MHD stability in tokamak plasmas. Sawteeth are anticipated in the ITER baseline ELMy H-mode scenario, but the tools exist to avoid or control them through localized current drive or fast ion generation. Active control of other MHD instabilities will most likely be also required in ITER. Extrapolation from existing experiments indicates that stabilization of neoclassical tearing modes by highly localized feedback-controlled current drive should be possible in ITER. Resistive wall modes are a key issue for advanced scenarios, but again, existing experiments indicate that these modes can be stabilized by a combination of plasma rotation and direct feedback control with non-axisymmetric coils. Reduction of error fields is a requirement for avoiding non-rotating magnetic island formation and for maintaining plasma rotation to help stabilize resistive wall modes. Recent experiments have shown the feasibility of reducing error fields to an acceptable level by means of non-axisymmetric coils, possibly controlled by feedback. The MHD stability limits associated with advanced scenarios are becoming well understood theoretically, and can be extended by tailoring of the pressure and current density profiles as well as by other techniques mentioned here. There have been significant advances also in the control of disruptions, most notably by injection of massive quantities of gas, leading to reduced halo current fractions and a larger fraction of the total thermal and magnetic energy dissipated by radiation. These advances in disruption control are supported by the development of means to predict impending disruption, most notably using neural networks. In addition to these advances in means to control or ameliorate the consequences of MHD instabilities, there has been significant progress in improving physics understanding and modelling. This progress has been in areas including the mechanisms governing NTM growth and seeding, in understanding the damping controlling RWM stability and in modelling RWM feedback schemes. For disruptions there has been continued progress on the instability mechanisms that underlie various classes of disruption, on the detailed modelling of halo currents and forces and in refining predictions of quench rates and disruption power loads. Overall the studies reviewed in this chapter demonstrate that MHD instabilities can be controlled, avoided or ameliorated to the extent that they should not compromise ITER operation, though they will necessarily impose a range of constraints.

Applications of Continuous-Flow Photochemistry in Organic Synthesis, Material Science, and Water Treatment

Abstract: Continuous-flow photochemistry in microreactors receives a lot of attention from researchers in academia and industry as this technology provides reduced reaction times, higher selectivities, straightforward scalability, and the possibility to safely use hazardous intermediates and gaseous reactants. In this review, an up-to-date overview is given of photochemical transformations in continuous-flow reactors, including applications in organic synthesis, material science, and water treatment. In addition, the advantages of continuous-flow photochemistry are pointed out and a thorough comparison with batch processing is presented.

Equivalence tests : a practical primer for t tests, correlations, and meta-analyses

Abstract: Scientists should be able to provide support for the absence of a meaningful effect. Currently, researchers often incorrectly conclude an effect is absent based a nonsignificant result. A widely recommended approach within a frequentist framework is to test for equivalence. In equivalence tests, such as the two one-sided tests (TOST) procedure discussed in this article, an upper and lower equivalence bound is specified based on the smallest effect size of interest. The TOST procedure can be used to statistically reject the presence of effects large enough to be considered worthwhile. This practical primer with accompanying spreadsheet and R package enables psychologists to easily perform equivalence tests (and power analyses) by setting equivalence bounds based on standardized effect sizes and provides recommendations to prespecify equivalence bounds. Extending your statistical tool kit with equivalence tests is an easy way to improve your statistical and theoretical inferences.

Periodic event-triggered control for nonlinear systems

Abstract: Event-triggered control (ETC) is a control strategy that is especially suited for applications where communication resources are scarce. By updating and communicating sensor and actuator data only when needed for stability or performance purposes, ETC is capable of reducing the amount of communications, while still retaining a satisfactory closed-loop performance. In this paper, an ETC strategy is proposed by striking a balance between conventional periodic sampled-data control and ETC, leading to so-called periodic event-triggered control (PETC). In PETC, the event-triggering condition is verified periodically and at every sampling time it is decided whether or not to compute and to transmit new measurements and new control signals. The periodic character of the triggering conditions leads to various implementation benefits, including a minimum inter-event time of (at least) the sampling interval of the event-triggering condition. The PETC strategies developed in this paper apply to both static state-feedback and dynamical output-based controllers, as well as to both centralized and decentralized (periodic) event-triggering conditions. To analyze the stability and the L2-gain properties of the resulting PETC systems, three different approaches will be presented based on 1) impulsive systems, 2) piecewise linear systems, and 3) perturbed linear systems. Moreover, the advantages and disadvantages of each of the three approaches will be discussed and the developed theory will be illustrated using a numerical example.