Key-binding mechanisms allow to use one’s biometric features as a universal digital key without having them ever stored anywhere. Security, ease of use and privacy concerns are addressed in one stroke. The best known proposal for such a mechanism, the Fingerprint Vault, treats biometric data as projections of a polynomial encoding the key. Its security is based on the difficulty of polynomial r...

We present a detailed study of simple 'tree' models for off equilibrium dynamics and aging in glassy systems. The simplest tree describes the landscape of a random energy model, whereas multifurcating trees occur in the solution of the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model. An important ingredient taken from these models is the exponential distribution of deep free-energies, which translate into a powe...

A novel algorithm is proposed for robust step detection irrespective of step mode and device pose in smartphone usage environments. The dynamics of smartphones are decoupled into a peak-valley relationship with adaptive magnitude and temporal thresholds. For extracted peaks and valleys in the magnitude of acceleration, a step is defined as consisting of a peak and its adjacent valley. Adaptive ...

Most research into the diet of stoats in New Zealand has been in low altitude valleys such as the Eglinton and Hollyford Valleys. Yet much of New Zealand’s national parks (e.g. Fiordland National Park) consist of many small montane valleys and alpine areas. This research identified the key prey species of stoats inhabiting such small montane valleys and alpine grasslands. Stoats were collected ...