The demand for single photon sources in quantum key distribution (QKD) systems has necessitated the use of weak coherent pulses (WCPs) characterized by a Poissonian distribution. Ensuring security against eavesdropping attacks requires keeping the mean photon number (µ) small and known to legitimate partners. However, accurately determining µ poses challenges due to discrepancies between theoretical calculations and practical implementation. This paper introduces two experiments. The first experiment involves theoretical calculations of µ using several filters to generate the WCPs. The second experiment utilizes a variable attenuator to generate the WCPs, and the value of µ was estimated from the photons detected by the BB84 detection setup. The second experiment represents an accurate method for estimating the value of µ because of using single photon detectors with high timing resolution and low dark counts, in addition to using a Time-to-digital convertor with a bin size of 81 ps.
Since the introduction of the HTTP/3, research has focused on evaluating its influences on the existing adaptive streaming over HTTP (HAS). Among these research, due to irrelevant transport protocols, the cross-protocol unfairness between the HAS over HTTP/3 (HAS/3) and HAS over HTTP/2 (HAS/2) has caught considerable attention. It has been found that the HAS/3 clients tend to request higher bitrates than the HAS/2 clients because the transport QUIC obtains higher bandwidth for its HAS/3 clients than the TCP for its HAS/2 clients. As the problem originates from the transport layer, it is likely that the server-based unfairness solutions can help the clients overcome such a problem. Therefore, in this paper, an experimental study of the se
... Show MoreThis paper presents a new algorithm in an important research field which is the semantic word similarity estimation. A new feature-based algorithm is proposed for measuring the word semantic similarity for the Arabic language. It is a highly systematic language where its words exhibit elegant and rigorous logic. The score of sematic similarity between two Arabic words is calculated as a function of their common and total taxonomical features. An Arabic knowledge source is employed for extracting the taxonomical features as a set of all concepts that subsumed the concepts containing the compared words. The previously developed Arabic word benchmark datasets are used for optimizing and evaluating the proposed algorithm. In this paper,
... Show MoreImproving students’ use of argumentation is front and center in the increasing emphasis on scientific practice in K-12 Science and STEM programs. We explore the construct validity of scenario-based assessments of claim-evidence-reasoning (CER) and the structure of the CER construct with respect to a learning progression framework. We also seek to understand how middle school students progress. Establishing the purpose of an argument is a competency that a majority of middle school students meet, whereas quantitative reasoning is the most difficult, and the Rasch model indicates that the competencies form a unidimensional hierarchy of skills. We also find no evidence of differential item functioning between different scenarios, suggesting
... Show MoreThis paper presents the Extended State Observer (ESO) based repetitive control (RC) for piezoelectric actuator (PEA) based nano-positioning systems. The system stability is proved using Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMIs), which guarantees the asymptotic stability of the system. The ESObased RC used in this paper has the ability to eliminate periodic disturbances, aperiodic disturbances and model uncertainties. Moreover, ESO can be tuned using only two parameters and the model free approach of ESO-based RC, makes it an ideal solution to overcome the challenges of nano-positioning system control. Different types of periodic and aperiodic disturbances are used in simulation to demonstrate the effectiveness of the algorithm. The comparison studi
... Show MoreThis article presents a new cascaded extended state observer (CESO)-based sliding-mode control (SMC) for an underactuated flexible joint robot (FJR). The control of the FJR has many challenges, including coupling, underactuation, nonlinearity, uncertainties and external disturbances, and the noise amplification especially in the high-order systems. The proposed control integrates the CESO and SMC, in which the CESO estimates the states and disturbances, and the SMC provides the system robustness to the uncertainty and disturbance estimation errors. First, a dynamic model of the FJR is derived and converted from an underactuated form to a canonical form via the Olfati transformation and a flatness approach, which reduces the complexity of th
... Show MoreAerial Robot Arms (ARAs) enable aerial drones to interact and influence objects in various environments. Traditional ARA controllers need the availability of a high-precision model to avoid high control chattering. Furthermore, in practical applications of aerial object manipulation, the payloads that ARAs can handle vary, depending on the nature of the task. The high uncertainties due to modeling errors and an unknown payload are inversely proportional to the stability of ARAs. To address the issue of stability, a new adaptive robust controller, based on the Radial Basis Function (RBF) neural network, is proposed. A three-tier approach is also followed. Firstly, a detailed new model for the ARA is derived using the Lagrange–d’A
... Show MoreCancer is in general not a result of an abnormality of a single gene but a consequence of changes in many genes, it is therefore of great importance to understand the roles of different oncogenic and tumor suppressor pathways in tumorigenesis. In recent years, there have been many computational models developed to study the genetic alterations of different pathways in the evolutionary process of cancer. However, most of the methods are knowledge-based enrichment analyses and inflexible to analyze user-defined pathways or gene sets. In this paper, we develop a nonparametric and data-driven approach to testing for the dynamic changes of pathways over the cancer progression. Our method is based on an expansion and refinement of the pathway bei
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