Kenyatta National Hospital

KIPPRA Public Policy Repository (PPR)
Not a member yet
    25353 research outputs found

    Interacting topological quantum aspects with light and geometrical functions

    No full text
    International audienceI review my recent progress and develop a geometrical approach in the quantum with light as a guide, from the vector potential in classical physics, revealing that topological properties can be equivalently measured from the poles of a sphere. The topological state is induced on the Bloch sphere of a spin-1/2 particle from a radial magnetic field related to the physics of Skyrmions. This shows a relation between the global topological response being measured at the poles, the response to a circularly polarized field and the quantum metric. I show how this approach is helpful for the classification of matter with the detection of the global topological invariant at specific points in the Brillouin zone, e.g. the Dirac points, from the responses to electromagnetic waves such as circularly polarized light and from new geometrical functions associated to the quantum metric measuring the quantum Hall and spin Hall conductivities. The M point associated to the Brillouin zone of the honeycomb lattice also reveals the topological signature. Interactions are included in momentum space within a stochastic variational approach. In a realistic quantum model of interacting spins, this leads to fractional topological entangled aspects with a correspondence between a pair of half invariants and a Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen (EPR) pair or Bell state at one pole. I also formulate a correspondence between fractional topological numbers and resonating valence bond states. This approach gives further insight on the characterization of topological matter linked to superconductivity, protected topological semimetals in two dimensions and on the search of Majorana fermions for topologically protected quantum information. We also address a correspondence with the fractional quantum Hall effect and surface states of three-dimensional topological insulators

    Self-Defense: Optimal QIF Solutions and Application to Website Fingerprinting

    No full text
    International audienceQuantitative Information Flow (QIF) provides a robust information-theoretical framework for designing secure systems with minimal information leakage. While previous research has addressed the design of such systems under hard constraints (e.g. application limitations) and soft constraints (e.g. utility), scenarios often arise where the core system's behavior is considered fixed. In such cases, the challenge is to design a new component for the existing system that minimizes leakage without altering the original system. In this work we address this problem by proposing optimal solutions for constructing a new row, in a known and unmodifiable information-theoretic channel, aiming at minimizing the leakage. We first model two types of adversaries: an exact-guessing adversary, aiming to guess the secret in one try, and a s-distinguishing one, which tries to distinguish the secret s from all the other secrets.Then, we discuss design strategies for both fixed and unknown priors by offering, for each adversary, an optimal solution under linear constraints, using Linear Programming.We apply our approach to the problem of website fingerprinting defense, considering a scenario where a site administrator can modify their own site but not others. We experimentally evaluate our proposed solutions against other natural approaches. First, we sample real-world news websites and then, for both adversaries, we demonstrate that the proposed solutions are effective in achieving the least leakage. Finally, we simulate an actual attack by training an ML classifier for the s-distinguishing adversary and show that our approach decreases the accuracy of the attacker

    Search for B(s)0μ+μB_{(s)}^{*0}\to\mu^+\mu^- in Bc+π+μ+μB_c^+\to\pi^+\mu^+\mu^- decays

    No full text
    International audienceA search for the very rare B0μ+μB^{*0}\to\mu^+\mu^- and Bs0μ+μB_{s}^{*0}\to\mu^+\mu^- decays is conducted by analysing the Bc+π+μ+μB_c^+\to \pi^+\mu^+\mu^- process. The analysis uses proton-proton collision data collected with the LHCb detector between 2011 and 2018, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 9fb1\text{\,fb}^{-1}. The signal signatures correspond to simultaneous peaks in the μ+μ\mu^+\mu^- and π+μ+μ\pi^+\mu^+\mu^- invariant masses. No evidence for an excess of events over background is observed for either signal decay mode. Upper limits at the 90%90\% confidence level are set on the branching fractions relative to that for Bc+J ⁣/ψπ+B_c^+\to J\mskip -3mu/\mskip -2mu\psi\pi^+ decays, \begin{align*} {\cal R}_{B^{*0}(\mu^+\mu^-)\pi^+/J\mskip -3mu/\mskip -2mu\psi\pi^+} &< 3.8\times 10^{-5}\ \text{ and } {\cal R}_{B_{s}^{*0}(\mu^+\mu^-)\pi^+/J\mskip -3mu/\mskip -2mu\psi\pi^+} &< 5.0\times 10^{-5}\,. \end{align*

    Search for bottom quark associated production of the standard model Higgs boson in final states with leptons in proton-proton collisions at s\sqrt{s} = 13 TeV

    No full text
    International audienceThis Letter presents the first search for bottom quark associated production of the standard model Higgs boson, in final states with leptons. Higgs boson decays to pairs of tau leptons and pairs of leptonically decaying W bosons are considered. The search is performed using data collected from 2016 to 2018 by the CMS experiment in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb1{-1}. Upper limits at the 95% confidence level are placed on the signal strength for Higgs boson production in association with bottom quarks; the observed (expected) upper limit is 3.7 (6.1) times the standard model prediction

    Search for resonant pair production of Higgs bosons in the bbˉbbˉ\mathrm{b\bar{b}b\bar{b}} final state using large-area jets in proton-proton collisions at s\sqrt{s} = 13 TeV

    No full text
    International audienceA search is presented for the resonant production of a pair of standard model-like Higgs bosons using data from proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, collected by the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC in 2016-2018, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb1^{-1}. The final state consists of two b quark-antiquark pairs. The search is conducted in the region of phase space where at least one of the pairs is highly Lorentz-boosted and is reconstructed as a single large-area jet. The other pair may be either similarly merged or resolved, the latter reconstructed using two b-tagged jets. The data are found to be consistent with standard model processes and are interpreted as 95% confidence level upper limits on the product of the cross sections and the branching fractions of the spin-0 radion and the spin-2 bulk graviton that arise in warped extradimensional models. The limits set are in the range 9.74-0.29 fb and 4.94-0.19 fb for a narrow radion and a graviton, respectively, with masses between 1 and 3 TeV. For a radion and for a bulk graviton with widths 10% of their masses, the limits are in the range 12.5-0.35 fb and 8.23-0.23 fb, respectively, for the same masses. These limits result in the exclusion of a narrow-width graviton with a mass below 1.2 TeV, and of narrow and 10%-width radions with masses below 2.6, and 2.9 TeV, respectively

    Individual cell fate and population dynamics revealed by a mathematical model linking telomere length and replicative senescence

    No full text
    International audienceProgressive shortening of telomeres ultimately causes replicative senescence and is linked with aging and tumor suppression. Studying the intricate link between telomere shortening and senescence at the molecular level and its population-scale effects over time is challenging with current approaches but crucial for understanding behavior at the organ or tissue level. In this study, we developed a mathematical model for telomere shortening and the onset of replicative senescence using data from Saccharomyces cerevisiae without telomerase. Our model tracks individual cell states, their telomere length dynamics, and lifespan over time, revealing selection forces within a population. We discovered that both cell genealogy and global telomere length distribution are key to determine the population proliferation capacity. We also discovered that cell growth defects unrelated to telomeres also affect subsequent proliferation and may act as confounding variables in replicative senescence assays. Overall, while there is a deterministic limit for the shortest telomere length, the stochastic occurrence of non-terminal arrests drive cells into a totally different regime, which may promote genome instability and senescence escape. Our results offer a comprehensive framework for investigating the implications of telomere length on human diseases

    Review of searches for vector-like quarks, vector-like leptons, and heavy neutral leptons in proton-proton collisions at s\sqrt{s} = 13 TeV at the CMS experiment

    No full text
    International audienceThe LHC has provided an unprecedented amount of proton-proton collision data, bringing forth exciting opportunities to address fundamental open questions in particle physics. These questions can potentially be answered by performing searches for very rare processes predicted by models that attempt to extend the standard model of particle physics. The data collected by the CMS experiment in 2015-2018 at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV help to test the standard model at the highest precision ever and potentially discover new physics. An interesting opportunity is presented by the possibility of new fermions with masses ranging from the MeV to the TeV scale. Such new particles appear in many possible extensions of the standard model and are well motivated theoretically. They may explain the appearance of three generations of leptons and quarks, the mass hierarchy across the generations, and the nonzero neutrino masses. In this report, the status of searches targeting vector-like quarks, vector-like leptons, and heavy neutral leptons at the CMS experiment is discussed. A complete overview of final states is provided together with their complementarity and partial combination. The discovery potential for several of these searches at the High-Luminosity LHC is also discussed

    Fourier-Laplace transforms in polynomial Ornstein-Uhlenbeck volatility models

    No full text
    International audienceWe consider the Fourier-Laplace transforms of a {broad} class of polynomial Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (OU) volatility models, including the well-known Stein-Stein, Schöbel-Zhu, one-factor Bergomi, and the recently introduced Quintic OU models motivated by the SPX-VIX joint calibration problem. We show the connection between the joint {Fourier-Laplace} functional of the log-price and the integrated variance, and the solution of an infinite dimensional Riccati equation. Next, under some non-vanishing conditions of the Fourier-Laplace transforms, we establish an existence result for such Riccati equation and we provide a discretized approximation of the joint characteristic functional that is exponentially entire. On the practical side, we develop a numerical scheme to solve the stiff infinite dimensional Riccati equations and demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the scheme for pricing SPX options and volatility swaps using Fourier and Laplace inversions, with specific examples of the Quintic OU and the one-factor Bergomi models and their calibration to real market data

    Long time behavior of a degenerate stochastic system modeling the response of a population face to environmental impacts

    No full text
    International audienceWe study the asymptotics of a two-dimensional stochastic differential system with a degenerate diffusion matrix. This system describes the dynamics of a population where individuals contribute to the degradation of their environment through two different behaviors. We exploit the almost one-dimensional form of the dynamical system to compute explicitly the Freidlin-Wentzell action functional. That allows to give conditions under which the small noise regime of the invariant measure is concentrated around the equilibrium of the dynamical system having the smallest diffusion coefficient

    A Zonotopic Dempster-Shafer Approach to the Quantitative Verification of Neural Networks

    No full text
    International audienceThe reliability and usefulness of verification depend on the ability to represent appropriately the uncertainty. Most existing work on neural network verification relies on the hypothesis of either set-based or probabilistic information on the inputs. In this work, we rely on the framework of imprecise probabilities, specifically p-boxes, to propose a quantitative verification of ReLU neural networks, which can account for both probabilistic information and epistemic uncertainty on inputs. On classical benchmarks, including the ACAS Xu examples, we demonstrate that our approach improves the tradeoff between tightness and efficiency compared to related work on probabilistic network verification, while handling much more general classes of uncertainties on the inputs and providing fully guaranteed results

    1,623

    full texts

    25,353

    metadata records
    Updated in last 30 days.
    KIPPRA Public Policy Repository (PPR)
    Access Repository Dashboard
    Do you manage Open Research Online? Become a CORE Member to access insider analytics, issue reports and manage access to outputs from your repository in the CORE Repository Dashboard! 👇