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Stateful logic is a digital processing-in-memory technique that could address von Neumann memory bottleneck challenges while maintaining backward compatibility with standard von Neumann architectures. In stateful logic, memory cells are used to perform the logic operations without reading or moving any data outside the memory array. Stateful logic has been previously demonstrated using several resistive memory types, mostly by resistive RAM (RRAM). Here we present a new method to design stateful logic using a different resistive memory - phase change memory (PCM). We propose and experimentally demonstrate four logic gate types (NOR, IMPLY, OR, NIMP) using commonly used PCM materials. Our stateful logic circuits are different than previously proposed circuits due to the different switching mechanism and functionality of PCM compared to RRAM. Since the proposed stateful logic form a functionally complete set, these gates enable sequential execution of any logic function within the memory, paving the way to PCM-based digital processing-in-memory systems.

Based on a case study of non-citizen Palestinian workers in the Israeli construction sector, this article explores the dynamic relationship between the exclusionary imperative of ethnonationalism and the inclusionary imperative of neoliberalism. The authors argue that these imperatives together constitute a heuristically useful framework that can help to explain the choices of social actors and the constraints on these choices, as well as the apparently contradictory developments that affect industrial relations institutions and the employment relationship more broadly. While neoliberalism generally weakens organized labor, the study shows how the dynamic between these two imperatives can open space for the inclusion of disenfranchised ethnonational groups within collective labor relations—a first step to political empowerment. The study thus re-asserts the importance of organized labor as a powerful actor able to engender progressive change, even for the “ethnonational other” under rigidly ethnonationalistic regimes.

Inscriptions on medieval buildings provide information such as the date or circumstances of the structuresʼ foundation. At the same time, we suggest, they may reveal their founders’ ideals and priorities. This article looks at a lengthy Hebrew inscription from the city of Worms, commemorating the foundation of the town’smikve (ritual bath). The inscription, from 1185/6, was situated on a wall perpendicular to the entrance of the medieval synagogue and adjacent to an older inscription commemorating the foundation of the synagogue in 1034. A close analysis of the biblical references in both inscriptions, we propose, yields insights about the hopes and values of the Jewish community. These inscriptions are studded with biblical quotations that invite many layers of reading, depending on the readers’ erudition. At a basic level, they provide chronological information about donations to the Worms mikve and synagogue. Through their intentional use of speci􏰀c biblical contexts and quotes, the authors of the inscriptions also added ideological content such as symbolic connections between the Worms community buildings and the Jerusalem Temple. Other quotations underscore the community’s hope for its salvation in the End of Days, as well as its wish to see the wicked receive their due. While the inscriptions commemorating the synagogue may be understood without reference to the biblical contexts of the quotations, the mikve inscription is extremely enigmatic. By delving into the biblical contexts, our reading demonstrates the ways in which the inscribers connected the architecture of the buildings in Worms, the community’s self-identi􏰀cation as a holy congregation, and the encoded name of the mikve’s donor.

We initiate a study of a new model of property testing that is a hybrid of testing properties of distributions and testing properties of strings. Specifically, the new model refers to testing properties of distributions, but these are distributions over huge objects (i.e., very long strings). Accordingly, the model accounts for the total number of local probes into these objects (resp., queries to the strings) as well as for the distance between objects (resp., strings). Specifically, the distance between distributions is defined as the earth mover���s distance with respect to the relative Hamming distance between strings. We study the query complexity of testing in this new model, focusing on three directions. First, we try to relate the query complexity of testing properties in the new model to the sample complexity of testing these properties in the standard distribution testing model. Second, we consider the complexity of testing properties that arise naturally in the new model (e.g., distributions that capture random variations of fixed strings). Third, we consider the complexity of testing properties that were extensively studied in the standard distribution testing model: Two such cases are uniform distributions and pairs of identical distributions, where we obtain the following results. - Testing whether a distribution over n-bit long strings is uniform on some set of size m can be done with query complexity ��(m/����), where �� > (log���m)/n is the proximity parameter. - Testing whether two distribution over n-bit long strings that have support size at most m are identical can be done with query complexity ��(m^{2/3}/����). Both upper bounds are quite tight; that is, for �� = ��(1), the first task requires ��(m^c) queries for any c < 1 and n = ��(log m), whereas the second task requires ��(m^{2/3}) queries. Note that the query complexity of the first task is higher than the sample complexity of the corresponding task in the standard distribution testing model, whereas in the case of the second task the bounds almost match. LIPIcs, Vol. 215, 13th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2022), pages 78:1-78:19

Opto-electronic oscillators are sources of microwave-frequency tones that may reach very low noise levels. Much effort is being dedicated to the realization of oscillators based on photonic integrated devices. In this work, we propose and demonstrate a thermo-elastic opto-electronic oscillator at 2.213 GHz frequency based on a standard silicon-photonic integrated circuit. A microwave-frequency electrical signal modulates an optical pump wave carrier. The modulated waveform launches surface acoustic waves in a silicon-on-insulator substrate, through absorption in a metallic grating and thermo-elastic actuation. The waveform is reconverted to the optical domain through photoelastic modulation of an optical probe wave carrier in a standard racetrack resonator waveguide. Both the thermo-elastic actuation and the photoelastic modulation are radio-frequency selective. The output probe wave is detected, and the receiver voltage is amplified and fed back to modulate the optical pump input. Sufficient gain drives the loop into oscillations. The oscillator does not involve piezoelectricity and can be realized on any substrate. Long acoustic delays may be implemented in compact devices. The frequency of operation is scalable to tens of GHz. The principle may be useful in integrated microwave-photonic signal processing and in the elastic analysis of surfaces and thin layers.

A graph G is called self-ordered (a.k.a asymmetric) if the identity permutation is its only automorphism. Equivalently, there is a unique isomorphism from G to any graph that is isomorphic to G. We say that G = (V,E) is robustly self-ordered if the size of the symmetric difference between E and the edge-set of the graph obtained by permuting V using any permutation π:V → V is proportional to the number of non-fixed-points of π. In this work, we initiate the study of the structure, construction and utility of robustly self-ordered graphs. We show that robustly self-ordered bounded-degree graphs exist (in abundance), and that they can be constructed efficiently, in a strong sense. Specifically, given the index of a vertex in such a graph, it is possible to find all its neighbors in polynomial-time (i.e., in time that is poly-logarithmic in the size of the graph). We provide two very different constructions, in tools and structure. The first, a direct construction, is based on proving a sufficient condition for robust self-ordering, which requires that an auxiliary graph is expanding. The second construction is iterative, boosting the property of robust self-ordering from smaller to larger graphs. Structuraly, the first construction always yields expanding graphs, while the second construction may produce graphs that have many tiny (sub-logarithmic) connected components. We also consider graphs of unbounded degree, seeking correspondingly unbounded robustness parameters. We again demonstrate that such graphs (of linear degree) exist (in abundance), and that they can be constructed efficiently, in a strong sense. This turns out to require very different tools. Specifically, we show that the construction of such graphs reduces to the construction of non-malleable two-source extractors (with very weak parameters but with some additional natural features). We demonstrate that robustly self-ordered bounded-degree graphs are useful towards obtaining lower bounds on the query complexity of testing graph properties both in the bounded-degree and the dense graph models. Indeed, their robustness offers efficient, local and distance preserving reductions from testing problems on ordered structures (like sequences) to the unordered (effectively unlabeled) graphs. One of the results that we obtain, via such a reduction, is a subexponential separation between the query complexities of testing and tolerant testing of graph properties in the bounded-degree graph model. LIPIcs, Vol. 200, 36th Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2021), pages 12:1-12:74

A program obfuscator takes a program and outputs a "scrambled" version of it, where the goal is that the obfuscated program will not reveal much about its structure beyond what is apparent from executing it. There are several ways of formalizing this goal. Specifically, in indistinguishability obfuscation, first defined by Barak et al. (CRYPTO 2001), the requirement is that the results of obfuscating any two functionally equivalent programs (circuits) will be computationally indistinguishable. Recently, a fascinating candidate construction for indistinguishability obfuscation was proposed by Garg et al. (FOCS 2013). This has led to a flurry of discovery of intriguing constructions of primitives and protocols whose existence was not previously known (for instance, fully deniable encryption by Sahai and Waters, STOC 2014). Most of them explicitly rely on additional hardness assumptions, such as one-way functions. Our goal is to get rid of this extra assumption. We cannot argue that indistinguishability obfuscation of all polynomial-time circuits implies the existence of one-way functions, since if P = NP, then program obfuscation (under the indistinguishability notion) is possible. Instead, the ultimate goal is to argue that if P ≠ NP and program obfuscation is possible, then one-way functions exist. Our main result is that if NP ⊄ ioBPP and there is an efficient (even imperfect) indistinguishability obfuscator, then there are one-way functions. In addition, we show that the existence of an indistinguishability obfuscator implies (unconditionally) the existence of SZK-arguments for NP. This, in turn, provides an alternative version of our main result, based on the assumption of hard-on-the average NP problems. To get some of our results we need obfuscators for simple programs such as 3CNF formulas.

Topological superconductivity in one dimension requires time-reversal symmetry breaking, but at the same time it is hindered by external magnetic fields. We offer a general prescription for inducing topological superconductivity in planar superconductor-normal-superconductor-normal-superconductor (SNSNS) Josephson junctions without applying any magnetic fields on the junctions. Our platform relies on two key ingredients: the three parallel superconductors form two SNS junctions with phase winding, and the Fermi velocities for the two spin branches transverse to the junction must be different from one another. The two phase differences between the three superconductors define a parameter plane which includes large topological regions. We analytically derive the critical curves where the topological phase transitions occur, and corroborate the result with a numerical calculation based on a tight-binding model. We further propose material platforms with unequal Fermi velocities, establishing the experimental feasibility of our approach. 5+10 pages, 3+8 figures

ABSTRACT Dopamine, a cardioexcitor in decapod crustaceans, increased the frequency and/or duration of bursts of action potentials in the semi-isolated cardiac ganglia of two species of crabs. The number of motoneurone action potentials in each burst was increased, which in the intact heart would increase the force and amplitude of heart contraction. The effects were concentration-dependent, with a threshold concentration of 10−8M or lower when dopamine was applied by continuous perfusion. At 5 × 10−6M, dopamine increased burst frequency by 200%. The main site of dopamine action was the group of four posterior small interneurones which normally function as the pacemaker for the cardiac ganglion system. Effects on the five large motoneurones occurred at higher concentrations. This regional difference in sensitivity was demonstrated by selective applications of dopamine to different parts of the cardiac ganglion and by the use of preparations in which the two ends of the ganglion had been functionally separated by a ligature around the ganglionic trunk. In the small neurones, dopamine was found to stimulate the slow tetrodotoxin-resistant regenerative depolarizations known as driver potentials. The effects on driver potential frequency and train duration were concentration dependent. In one of the two species of crabs, in which electrotonic connections between small and large neurones are strong, large neurone driver potentials were indirectly induced by dopamine. In the tetrodotoxin-treated large motoneurones, dopamine, at a concentration about ten-fold higher than needed to activate the small neurones, decreased the threshold for current-induced driver potentials, and slightly reduced membrane resistance. We suggest that the excitatory action of dopamine on the untreated cardiac ganglion can in large part be accounted for by its action on driver potential production in the small neurones.