The design of lightweight block ciphers has been a very active research topic over the last years. However, the lack of comparative source codes generally makes it hard to evaluate the extent to which different ciphers actually reach their low-cost goals, on different platforms. This paper reports on an initiative aimed to partially relax this issue. First, we implemented 11 block ciphers on an...

CubeHash is one of the round 2 candidates of the public SHA-3 competition hosted by NIST. It was designed by Bernstein. In this paper we find a new distinguisher to distinguish CubeHash compression function from a random function. This distinguisher principle is based on rotational analysis that formally introduced by Khovratovich and Nikolic. In order to use this technique, we need to compute ...

Internal competition may motivate worker effort, yet the benefits of competition may depend critically on workers’ relative abilities: large skill differences may reduce efforts. I use panel data from professional golf tournaments and find that the presence of a superstar is associated with lower performance. On average, golfers’ first-round scores are approximately 0.2 strokes worse when Tiger...

Security and privacy are going to be the key factors for the deployment of new applications, since people will only accept these deployments if these are based on secure, trustworthy and privacy-preserving infra-structures. Cryptography plays a major role in the security of data transmission and the development of computing technology imposes stronger requirements on the cryptography schemes. L...

Technological advancements in the semiconductor industry over the last few decades made the mass production of very small-scale computing devices possible. Thanks to the compactness and mobility of these devices, they can be deployed “pervasively”, in other words, everywhere and anywhere – such as in smart homes, logistics, e-commerce, and medical technology. Embedding the small-scale devices i...

A public competition organized by the NIST recently started, with the aim of identifying a new standard for cryptographic hashing (SHA-3). Besides a high security level, candidate algorithms should show good performance on various platforms. While an average performance on highend processors is generally not critical, implementability and flexibility in hardware is crucial, because the new stan...

The NIST competition for developing the new cryptographic hash algorithm SHA-3 has entered its third round. One evaluation criterion is the ability of the candidate algorithm to be implemented on resource-constrained platforms. This includes FPGAs for embedded and hand-held devices. In this paper we present two sets of lightweight implementations of all SHA-3 finalists and SHA-2, one using only...

This paper compares Bertrand and Cournot equilibria in a differentiated duopoly with R6D (research and development) competition. It shows that Cournot competition induces more R6D effort than Bertrand competition. However, the price is lower and output is larger in Bertrand than in Cournot competition. Furthermore, the Bertrand equilibrium is more efficient than the Cournot equilibrium if eithe...

Background A synergy exists between investment liberalisation and the effective application of competition policy. An effective competition policy does not only remove obstacles to entry, but can also facilitate foreign investment flows by providing a predictable legal and regulatory environment that reduces the scope of arbitrary decision-making. Regulation of the business practices of investo...

The purpose of this study was to monitor ovarian hormone function response to intense exercise and body weight changes in female athletes. Ovarian hormone function was evaluated in 12 female lightweight rowers and 10 age-height-weight matched sedentary controls. Ovarian hormone function was assessed during consecutive competition season and oV season, by measurement of peak and average alternat...