Category Physics

Imperial privacy experts have created an AI algorithm that automatically tests privacy-preserving systems for potential data leaks.

This is the first time AI has been used to automatically discover vulnerabilities in this type of system, examples of which are used by Google Maps and Facebook.

The experts, from Imperial’s Computational Privacy Group, looked at attacks on query-based systems (QBS)—controlled interfaces through which analysts can query data to extract useful aggregate information about the world. They then developed a new AI-enabled method called QuerySnout to detect attacks on QBS.

QBS give analysts access to collections of statistics gathered from individual-level data like location and demographics...

Yanliang Zhang, associate professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering at the University of Notre Dame, and collaborators Alexander Dowling and Tengfei Luo have developed a machine-learning assisted superfast new way to create high-performance, energy-saving thermoelectric devices.

The novel process uses intense pulsed light to sinter thermoelectric material in less than a second (conventional sintering in thermal ovens can take hours). The team sped up this method of turning nanoparticle inks into flexible devices by using machine learning to determine the optimum conditions for the ultrafast but complex sintering process.

The achievement was just published in the journal Energy and Environmental Scie...

First artificial synapse that reproduces learning during sleep. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona researchers have developed a magnetic material capable of imitating the way the brain stores information. The material makes it possible to emulate the synapses of neurons and mimic, for the first time, the learning that occurs during deep sleep.

Neuromorphic computing is a new computing paradigm in which the behavior of the brain is emulated by mimicking the main synaptic functions of neurons. Among these functions is neuronal plasticity: the ability to store information or forget it depending on the duration and repetition of the electrical impulses that stimulate neurons, a plasticity that would be linked to learning and memory.

Among the materials that mimic neuron synapses, me...