Do We Really Need TSN in Next-Generation Helicopters? Insights From a Case-Study

in 2021 AIAA/IEEE 40th Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC) (2021, October)

As Ethernet rapidly replaces legacy networks as the core high-speed network in helicopter’s avionics and mission systems, we ask in this paper the question of the technical benefits of migrating to ... [more ▼]

As Ethernet rapidly replaces legacy networks as the core high-speed network in helicopter’s avionics and mission systems, we ask in this paper the question of the technical benefits of migrating to Ethernet Time-Sensitive-Networking (TSN). Indeed, TSN has become a rich toolbox of mechanisms and protocols to address Quality-of-Service (QoS) requirements pertaining to timing and reliability. TSN is quickly becoming the prominent technology for wired high-speed communications in a variety of application domains like automotive, industry 4.0 and telecom. In this context, this work explores the use of TSN timing QoS mechanisms for helicopter’s avionics and mission systems on a case-study representative of the communication requirements of next-generation systems. This study aims to provide quantified insights into what can be expected from TSN in terms of timing, memory usage and extensibility. [less ▲]

Provably Improving Election Verifiability in Belenios

in Electronic Voting 6th International Joint Conference, E-Vote-ID 2021 Virtual Event, October 5–8, 2021, Proceedings (2021, October)

Belenios is an online voting system that provides a strong notion of election verifiability, where no single party has to be trusted, and security holds as soon as either the voting registrar or the ... [more ▼]

Belenios is an online voting system that provides a strong notion of election verifiability, where no single party has to be trusted, and security holds as soon as either the voting registrar or the voting server is honest. It was formally proved to be secure, making the assump- tion that no further ballots are cast on the bulletin board after voters verified their ballots. In practice, however, revoting is allowed and voters can verify their ballots anytime. This gap between formal proofs and use in practice leaves open space for attacks, as has been shown recently. In this paper we make two simple additions to Belenios and we formally prove that the new version satisfies the expected verifiability properties. Our proofs are automatically performed with the Tamarin prover, under the assumption that voters are allowed to vote at most four times. [less ▲]

"Just for the sake of transparency": Exploring Voter Mental Models Of Verifiability

in Electronic Voting, Sixth International Joint Conference, E-Vote-ID 2021, Bregenz, Austria, October 5-8 (2021, October)

Verifiable voting schemes allow voters to verify their individual votes and the election outcome. The voting protocol Selene offers verification of plaintext votes while preserving privacy. Misconceptions ... [more ▼]

Verifiable voting schemes allow voters to verify their individual votes and the election outcome. The voting protocol Selene offers verification of plaintext votes while preserving privacy. Misconceptions of verification mechanisms might result in voters mistrust of the system or abstaining from using it. In this paper, we interviewed 24 participants and invited them to illustrate their mental models of Selene. The drawings demonstrated different levels of sophistication and four mental models: 1) technology understanding, 2) meaning of the verification phase, 3) security concerns, and 4) unnecessary steps. We highlight the misconceptions expressed regarding Internet voting technologies and the system design. Based on our findings, we conclude with recommendations for future implementations of Selene as well as for the design of Internet voting systems in general. [less ▲]

The role of economic complexity on the formation of gender roles

E-print/Working paper (2021)

Uncovering Digital History’s forgotten roots: the work of the Association for History and Computing

Presentation (2021, October)

This talk has two parts. It will first attempt to frame what a history of digital history might look like, by focusing on hybridity as a key characteristic of historical research, seen as some form of ... [more ▼]

This talk has two parts. It will first attempt to frame what a history of digital history might look like, by focusing on hybridity as a key characteristic of historical research, seen as some form of integrating newly emerging tools, technologies, materials, and/or practices in historical research, and mapped and qualified according to the main phases of historical research. My main argument here is that, in order to ground our current ‘digital’ practices and learn from past experiences and expertise, we need an answer to the question: what were, and are, the continuities and ruptures in the use and uptake of new technologies in historical research, and in the debates that accompanied them? The paper will then proceed to outline what groundwork is necessary to explore digital history’s forgotten roots: a basic overview of the field’s different spatio-temporal trajectories and the networks of computing historians in the pre-PC and early PC period. A key focal point for such a reconstruction are the DH conferences that took place in the 1960s and 1970s, either as singular events or strands of bigger conferences such as the International Congress of Historical Sciences in Moscow in 1970, and later those that were organised under the aegis of the Association for History and Computing (AHC, 1987-2001) and its national member organisations. By studying which scholars attended and where they came from, and by linking that to the topics and methods that were discussed, it will be possible to chart, over time, shifting geographical, topical and methodological developments. In the second part of my paper, I will provide the first results of a concrete case study which is part of this broader endeavour, namely a web archaeology of the old AHC website and H-NET Discussion List for History and Computing (now: H-Digital History). [less ▲]

Housing Exclusion and Social Work Strategies in Luxembourg

Scientific Conference (2021, September 24)

In the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg, the demand for affordable housing is significantly higher than the existing offer (Reuter, 2017). For financially disadvantaged households, the housing costs around 40 ... [more ▼]

In the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg, the demand for affordable housing is significantly higher than the existing offer (Reuter, 2017). For financially disadvantaged households, the housing costs around 40% of the available budget represent a very high expenditure. Ametepe (2019) observed an exacerbation of the risk of poverty in relation to housing costs. The SOHOME (SOcial housing and HOMElessness) project pursues research questions related to individuals who are experiencing housing difficulties in Luxembourg, thereby drawing the current state-of-affairs as well as exploring potential solutions. Main questions are: (1) “What characterizes the concerned population in Luxembourg?”, (2) “How do social policies and social work respond to the identified issues?” and (3) “What are the main challenges of the social work in the field of homelessness and housing exclusion?” Through the qualitative design, several focus groups and interviews with social workers provide important insights to answer the research questions. Probably the largest proportion of homelessness services across Europe consists of low-threshold services that provide basic support outside of the housing sector or emergency/temporary accommodation. In contrast, services that immediately provide homeless people with a permanent home are only present to a certain extent in most countries (Pleace, Baptista, Benjaminsen & Busch-Geertsema, 2018). The SOHOME project targets various social services, from the emergency accommodation to the municipal social welfare office. The results from the discussions with social workers acting in the municipal social welfare offices show how great the demand for social and affordable living room is and how present forms of housing exclusion as well as solution-focused strategies are. [less ▲]

Gene-by-environment modulation of lifespan and weight gain in the murine BXD family

in Nature Metabolism (2021)

Experimental evaluation of RF waveform designs for Wireless Power Transfer using Software Defined Radio

in IEEE Access (2021), 9

The possibility to harvest energy from ambient radio-frequency (RF) sources has intrigued humankind for the past several decades. In this context, there has been a tremendously growing research interest ... [more ▼]

The possibility to harvest energy from ambient radio-frequency (RF) sources has intrigued humankind for the past several decades. In this context, there has been a tremendously growing research interest in the field of wireless power transfer (WPT) using the RF range of the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum. In this paper, we experimentally investigate the aspect of real-time energy harvesting (EH) via different types of waveform designs such as orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), square, triangular, sinusoidal, and sawtooth. We make use of a Software Defined Radio (SDR) and a Powercast P21XXCSR-EVB EH module to carry out the experiments on a practical device to assess performance. Specifically, we are interested in obtaining some insights based on the comparison between the aforementioned waveform designs from the perspectives of the separation distance between the USRP and P21XXCSR-EVB EH module, and power emission via USRP. In this vein, we perform additional subsequent experiments after reporting the practical effectiveness of the OFDM waveform, which also follows our intuitive analysis. Correspondingly, we study the effect on WPT with variable USRP transmit power, the separation distance between the USRP and EH antennas, number of OFDM sub-carriers, and multipath setting. As an application of OFDM, the effectiveness of fifth generation-new radio (5G-NR) and long-term evolution (LTE) waveforms are also tested for the WPT mechanism. The demonstration of the EH is provided in terms of the above-mentioned investigation metrics while seeking the best waveform to support WPT. [less ▲]

Quantum transport in topological condensed matter systems

Doctoral thesis (2021)

Topology in condensed matter physics is a field that has exploded in the last two decades. With the realization of its importance, some previously unexplained observations can now be explained. With the ... [more ▼]

Topology in condensed matter physics is a field that has exploded in the last two decades. With the realization of its importance, some previously unexplained observations can now be explained. With the progress of time, many new topological phases of matter have been discovered, and topological materials have been shown to be fairly common in nature. Topological materials have further been shown to have properties that may be extremely useful for new technologies, such as spintronics and fault-tolerant quantum computation. The field is however, still evolving, and many properties of these materials are still unknown. In this thesis, we investigate how some of these types of materials react to applied external fields and the theories that can explain these observations. First, we investigate systems of coupled Majorana bound states. More specifically, we focus on the transport properties of the Majorana box and the T-junction in the presence of charging effects, overlap between the Majorana bound states, and multiple terminals connected to the system. To obtain the transport properties, we apply a master equation and calculate the current through the systems as biases are applied to the different terminals. By tuning the gate voltage, the transport is investigated in both the regime where sequential tunneling is dominating as well as the Coulomb blockaded regime, where cotunneling is the leading transport process. When sequential tunneling is dominating, the transport is mediated by both single electrons tunneling as well as processes that involve the creation and annihilation of Cooper pairs. In the Coulomb blockaded regime, transport is driven by cotunneling processes by transitions via virtual states. The results here show that four-terminal measurements can be a useful tool to characterize the properties of Majorana bound states with finite overlap and charging energy. Secondly, we study the optical activity of tilted nodal loop semimetals. The inherent Hall conductivity of topological materials makes the Kerr effect an excellent tool for investigating their properties. Here we first calculate the full conductivity tensor for a tilted nodal loop semimetal, where the tilt is in the $ k_{x} - k_{y} $ plane. The conductivity tensor allows us to calculate the Kerr effect. We study this both for a thin film and a bulk material and we fin, in general, that the Kerr effect is large, similar to other topological materials. Finally, we investigate electronic hydrodynamics in anomalous Hall insulators. First we derive the Navier-Stokes equations for topological materials and show that they are modified due to the Berry curvature. Secondly, we consider the flow in a narrow channel and the application of a small electric field. In this case, the Hall current can be neglected since it is much smaller than the longitudinal current. Flow in narrow channels conventionally leads to Poiseuille flow. However, as shown, the Berry curvature modifies the flow profile and shifts the maximum of the current profile towards one of the edges. Thirdly, we study the flow in an infinite geometry. In this case, it is shown that the Berry curvature induces whirlpools as well as causing an asymmetry in the profile of the electrical potential. Experimentally this can be observed by measuring the non-local resistance. [less ▲]

Exploring the History of Digital History

Scientific Conference (2021, September 20)

As long as new preservation technologies and computing machines have been developed, the question of their utility and uptake in historical research practices has been debated. Yet, the very fact that ... [more ▼]

As long as new preservation technologies and computing machines have been developed, the question of their utility and uptake in historical research practices has been debated. Yet, the very fact that historical knowledge production has always been affected by new and emerging technologies is often forgotten. Similarly, the fact that key epistemological and methodological questions in what we now call ‘digital history’ were already debated decades ago by earlier generations of computing historians (analog and digital) is often overlooked. There is a lack of transmission of accumulated knowledge from the past and it sometimes seems as if every new generation of historians rediscovers the promise of ‘digital history’, with all of its attending hopes, visions and ambitions for reinventing and reshaping historical research. To fill this gap, this paper will explore what a history of digital history might look like. It will do so by focusing on hybridity as a key characteristic of historical research. Hybridity, seen as some form of integrating newly emerging tools, technologies, materials, and/or practices in historical research, has a long history that predates the advent of computers. In my paper I will map and qualify that history according to the main phases of historical research. The paper will conclude by outlining what groundwork is necessary to explore digital history’s forgotten roots: a basic overview of the field’s different spatio-temporal and ideological trajectories and recreation of the networks of computing historians in the pre-PC and early PC period. [less ▲]