Quantum-Resistance in Blockchain Networks

This paper describes the work carried out by the Inter-American Development Bank, the IDB Lab, LACChain, Cambridge Quantum Computing (CQC), and Tecnológico de Monterrey to identify and eliminate quantum threats in blockchain networks. The advent of quantum computing threatens internet protocols and blockchain networks because they utilize non-quantum resistant cryptographic algorithms. When quantum computers become robust enough to run Shor's algorithm on a large scale, the most used asymmetric algorithms, utilized for digital signatures and message encryption, such as RSA, (EC)DSA, and (EC)DH, will be no longer secure. Quantum computers will be able to break them within a short period of time. Similarly, Grover's algorithm concedes a quadratic advantage for mining blocks in certain consensus protocols such as proof of work. Today, there are hundreds of billions of dollars denominated in cryptocurrencies that rely on blockchain ledgers as well as the thousands of blockchain-based applications storing value in blockchain networks. Cryptocurrencies and blockchain-based applications require solutions that guarantee quantum resistance in order to preserve the integrity of data and assets in their public and immutable ledgers. We have designed and developed a layer-two solution to secure the exchange of information between blockchain nodes over the internet and introduced a second signature in transactions using post-quantum keys. Our versatile solution can be applied to any blockchain network. In our implementation, quantum entropy was provided via the IronBridge Platform from CQC and we used LACChain Besu as the blockchain network.

Segmentation of epithelial human type 2 cell images for the indirect immune fluorescence based on modified quantum entropy

The autoimmune disorders such as rheumatoid, arthritis, and scleroderma are connective tissue diseases (CTD). Autoimmune diseases are generally diagnosed using the antinuclear antibody (ANA) blood test. This test uses indirect immune fluorescence (IIf) image analysis to detect the presence of liquid substance antibodies at intervals the blood, which is responsible for CTDs. Typically human alveolar epithelial cells type 2 (HEp2) are utilized as the substrate for the microscope slides. The various fluorescence antibody patterns on HEp-2 cells permits the differential designation-diagnosis. The segmentation of HEp-2 cells of IIf images is therefore a crucial step in the ANA test. However, not only this task is extremely challenging, but physicians also often have a considerable number of IIf images to examine.In this study, we propose a new methodology for HEp2 segmentation from IIf images by maximum modified quantum entropy. Besides, we have used a new criterion with a flexible representation of the quantum image(FRQI). The proposed methodology determines the optimum threshold based on the quantum entropy measure, by maximizing the measure of class separability for the obtained classes over all the gray levels. We tested the suggested algorithm over all images of the MIVIA HEp 2 image data set.To objectively assess the proposed methodology, segmentation accuracy (SA), Jaccard similarity (JS), the F1-measure,the Matthews correlation coefficient(MCC), and the peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) were used to evaluate performance. We have compared the proposed methodology with quantum entropy, Kapur and Otsu algorithms, respectively.The results show that the proposed algorithm is better than quantum entropy and Kapur methods. In addition, it overcomes the limitations of the Otsu method concerning the images which has positive skew histogram.This study can contribute to create a computer-aided decision (CAD) framework for the diagnosis of immune system diseases

Geometry of entropy functions in the extended parastatistics of non-extensive systems

The group of functions of parametric quantum entropy in extended parastatistics of nonextensive systems is determined. The metric function of Finsler geometry in the two-dimensional space of entropy functions is introduced.