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In the era of generative artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things, while there is explosive growth in the volume of data and the associated need for processing, analysis, and storage, several new challenges are faced in identifying spurious and fake information and protecting the privacy of sensitive data. This has led to an increasing demand for more robust and resilient schemes for authentication, integrity protection, encryption, non-repudiation, and privacy-preservation of data. The chapters in this book present some of the state-of-the-art research works in the field of cryptography and security in computing and communications., Comment: Published by IntechOpen, London Uk in Nov 2023, the book contains 8 chapters spanning over 131 pages. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2307.02055, arXiv:2304.00258

The rise of Machine Learning as a Service (MLaaS) has led to the widespread deployment of machine learning models trained on diverse datasets. These models are employed for predictive services through APIs, raising concerns about the security and confidentiality of the models due to emerging vulnerabilities in prediction APIs. Of particular concern are model cloning attacks, where individuals with limited data and no knowledge of the training dataset manage to replicate a victim model's functionality through black-box query access. This commonly entails generating adversarial queries to query the victim model, thereby creating a labeled dataset. This paper proposes "MisGUIDE", a two-step defense framework for Deep Learning models that disrupts the adversarial sample generation process by providing a probabilistic response when the query is deemed OOD. The first step employs a Vision Transformer-based framework to identify OOD queries, while the second step perturbs the response for such queries, introducing a probabilistic loss function to MisGUIDE the attackers. The aim of the proposed defense method is to reduce the accuracy of the cloned model while maintaining accuracy on authentic queries. Extensive experiments conducted on two benchmark datasets demonstrate that the proposed framework significantly enhances the resistance against state-of-the-art data-free model extraction in black-box settings., Comment: Under Review

Large Language Models (LLMs) currently struggle with tool invocation and chaining, as they often hallucinate or miss essential steps in a sequence. We propose RE-GAINS and EnChAnT, two novel frameworks that empower LLMs to tackle complex user queries by making API calls to external tools based on tool descriptions and argument lists. Tools are chained based on the expected output, without receiving the actual results from each individual call. EnChAnT, an open-source solution, leverages an LLM format enforcer, OpenChat 3.5 (an LLM), and ToolBench's API Retriever. RE-GAINS utilizes OpenAI models and embeddings with a specialized prompt based on the $\underline{R}$easoning vi$\underline{a}$ $\underline{P}$lanning $(RAP)$ framework. Both frameworks are low cost (0.01\$ per query). Our key contribution is enabling LLMs for tool invocation and chaining using modifiable, externally described tools.

We employ an agent-based contact network model to study the relationship between vaccine uptake and disease dynamics in a hypothetical country town from New South Wales, Australia, undergoing a COVID-19 epidemic, over a period of three years. We model the contact network in this hypothetical township of N = 10000 people as a scale-free network, and simulate the spread of COVID-19 and vaccination program using disease and vaccination uptake parameters typically observed in such a NSW town. We simulate the spread of the ancestral variant of COVID-19 in this town, and study the disease dynamics while the town maintains limited but non-negligible contact with the rest of the country which is assumed to be undergoing a severe COVID-19 epidemic. We also simulate a maximum three doses of Pfizer Comirnaty vaccine being administered in this town, with limited vaccine supply at first which gradually increases, and analyse how the vaccination uptake affects the disease dynamics in this town, which is captured using an extended compartmental model with epidemic parameters typical for a COVID-19 epidemic in Australia. Our results show that, in such a township, three vaccination doses are sufficient to contain but not eradicate COVID-19, and the disease essentially becomes endemic. We also show that the average degree of infected nodes (the average number of contacts for infected people) predicts the proportion of infected people. Therefore, if the hubs (people with a relatively high number of contacts) are disproportionately infected, this indicates an oncoming peak of the infection, though the lag time thereof depends on the maximum number of vaccines administered to the populace. Overall, our analysis provides interesting insights in understanding the interplay between network topology, vaccination levels, and COVID-19 disease dynamics in a typical remote NSW country town., Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures

Many companies use large language models (LLMs) offered as a service, like OpenAI's GPT-4, to create AI-enabled product experiences. Along with the benefits of ease-of-use and shortened time-to-solution, this reliance on proprietary services has downsides in model control, performance reliability, uptime predictability, and cost. At the same time, a flurry of open-source small language models (SLMs) has been made available for commercial use. However, their readiness to replace existing capabilities remains unclear, and a systematic approach to holistically evaluate these SLMs is not readily available. This paper presents a systematic evaluation methodology and a characterization of modern open-source SLMs and their trade-offs when replacing proprietary LLMs for a real-world product feature. We have designed SLaM, an open-source automated analysis tool that enables the quantitative and qualitative testing of product features utilizing arbitrary SLMs. Using SLaM, we examine the quality and performance characteristics of modern SLMs relative to an existing customer-facing implementation using the OpenAI GPT-4 API. Across 9 SLMs and their 29 variants, we observe that SLMs provide competitive results, significant performance consistency improvements, and a cost reduction of 5x~29x when compared to GPT-4., Comment: Updated title, Revised content

Let $D$ be a quaternion division algebra over a non-archimedean local field $K$ of characteristic zero, and let $Sp_n(D)$ be the unique non-split inner form of the symplectic group $Sp_{2n}(K)$. This paper classifies the irreducible admissible representations of $GL_{n}(D)$ with a symplectic period for $n = 3$ and $4$, i.e., those irreducible admissible representations $(\pi, V)$ of $GL_{n}(D)$ which have a linear functional $l$ on $V$ such that $l(\pi(h)v) = l(v)$ for all $v \in V$ and $h \in Sp_n(D)$. Our results also contain all unitary representations having a symplectic period, as stated in Prasad's conjecture., Comment: 26 pages, comments are welcome

In this letter, using energy transfers, we demonstrate a route to thermalization in an isolated ensemble of realistic gas particles. We performed a grid-free classical molecular dynamics simulation of two-dimensional Lenard-Jones gas. We start our simulation with a large-scale vortex akin to a hydrodynamic flow and study its non-equilibrium behavior till it attains thermal equilibrium. In the intermediate phases, small wavenumbers ($k$) exhibit $E(k) \propto k^{-3}$ kinetic energy spectrum whereas large wavenumbers exhibit $E(k) \propto k$ spectrum. Asymptotically, $E(k) \propto k$ for the whole range of $k$, thus indicating thermalization. These results are akin to those of Euler turbulence despite complex collisions and interactions among the particles., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures

The development of spin-orbitronic devices, such as magneto-electric spin-orbit logic devices, calls for materials with a high resistivity and a high spin-charge interconversion efficiency. One of the most promising candidates in this regard is sputtered Bi$_x$Se$_{1-x}$. Although there are several techniques to quantify spin-charge interconversion, to date reported values for sputtered Bi$_x$Se$_{1-x}$ have often been overestimated due to spurious effects related to local currents combined with a lack of understanding of the effect of the interfaces and the use of approximations for unknown parameters, such as the spin diffusion length. In the present study, non-local spin valves are used to inject pure spin currents into Bi$_x$Se$_{1-x}$, allowing us to directly obtain its spin diffusion length as well as its spin Hall angle, from 10 K up to 300 K. These values, which are more accurate than those previously reported in sputtered Bi$_x$Se$_{1-x}$, evidence that the efficiency of this material is not exceptional. Indeed, the figure of merit for spin-charge interconversion, given by the product of these two parameters, is slightly under 1 nm. Our work demonstrates the importance of considering all material parameters and interfaces when quantifying the spin transport properties of materials with strong spin-orbit coupling., Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, 1 table, and Supplemental Material