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Reading has been at the forefront of early-grade educational interventions, but addressing the educational needs of students in math early on is also critical given that early gaps in math skills widen further over the course of schooling. In this study, we examine the effects of Kentucky's Math Achievement Fund -- a unique state-level program that combines targeted interventions, peer-coaching, and close collaboration among teachers to improve math achievement in grades K-3 -- on student outcomes and the costs associated with this policy. We find significant positive effects of the program not only on math achievement, but also on test scores in reading and non-test outcomes including student attendance and disciplinary incidents. The benefits exist across racial/ethnic groups and students from different socioeconomic statuses, and they are slightly higher for racial minorities. These findings, along with the cost estimate of the program, suggest that this program could provide a cost-effective blueprint to address the educational needs of students in math in early grades.

NAND flash memory-based IoT devices inherently suffer from data retention issues. In IoT security, these retention issues are significant and require a robust solution for secure deletion. Secure deletion methods can be categorized into off-chip and on-chip schemes. Off-chip secure deletion schemes, based on block-level erasure operations, are unable to perform real-time trim operations. Consequently, they are vulnerable to hacking threats. On the other hand, on-chip secure deletion schemes enable real-time trim operations by performing deletion on a page-by-page basis. However, the on-chip scheme introduces a challenge of program disturbance for neighboring page data. The proposed on-chip deletion scheme tackles this problem by utilizing ECC code modulation through a partial program operation. This approach significantly reduces the program disturbance issue associated with neighboring page data. Moreover, the proposed code modulation secure deletion scheme allows for real-time verification of the deletion of original data., Comment: Available online 2 August 2023

This paper proposes Mutual Information Regularized Assignment (MIRA), a pseudo-labeling algorithm for unsupervised representation learning inspired by information maximization. We formulate online pseudo-labeling as an optimization problem to find pseudo-labels that maximize the mutual information between the label and data while being close to a given model probability. We derive a fixed-point iteration method and prove its convergence to the optimal solution. In contrast to baselines, MIRA combined with pseudo-label prediction enables a simple yet effective clustering-based representation learning without incorporating extra training techniques or artificial constraints such as sampling strategy, equipartition constraints, etc. With relatively small training epochs, representation learned by MIRA achieves state-of-the-art performance on various downstream tasks, including the linear/k-NN evaluation and transfer learning. Especially, with only 400 epochs, our method applied to ImageNet dataset with ResNet-50 architecture achieves 75.6% linear evaluation accuracy., Comment: NeurIPS 2022

NAND flash memory-based IoT device can potentially still leave behind original personal data in an invalid area even if the data has been deleted. In this paper, we raise the forensic issue of original data remaining in unmanaged blocks caused by NAND flash memory and introduce methods for secure deletion of such data in the invalid area. We also propose a verification technique for secure deletion that is performed based on cell count information, which refers to the difference in bits between personal data and data stored in the block. The pass/fail of the verification technique according to the cell count information is determined in consideration of error correction capabilities. With the forensic issue of de-identification being a vital theme in the big data industry, the threat of serious privacy breaches coupled with our proposal to prevent these attacks will prove to be critical technological necessities in the future., Comment: IEEE Access, early published by July 14, 2022

Over-provisioning technology is typically introduced as a means to improve the performance of storage systems, such as databases. The over-provisioning area is both hidden and difficult for normal users to access. This paper focuses on attack models for such hidden areas. Malicious hackers use advanced over-provisioning techniques that vary capacity according to workload, and as such, our focus is on attack models that use variable over-provisioning technology. According to these attack models, it is possible to scan for invalid blocks containing original data or malware code that is hidden in the over-provisioning area. In this paper, we outline the different forensic processes performed for each memory cell type of the over-provisioning area and disclose security enhancement techniques that increase immunity to these attack models. This leads to a discussion of forensic possibilities and countermeasures for SSDs that can change the over-provisioning area. We also present information-hiding attacks and information-exposing attacks on the invalidation area of the SSD. Our research provides a good foundation upon which the performance and security of SSD-based databases can be further improved., Comment: resubmitted(Nov. 25, 2021) and accepted(Dec. 15, 2021)in IEEE ACCESS(Access-2021-39427)

We propose unsupervised embedding adaptation for the downstream few-shot classification task. Based on findings that deep neural networks learn to generalize before memorizing, we develop Early-Stage Feature Reconstruction (ESFR) -- a novel adaptation scheme with feature reconstruction and dimensionality-driven early stopping that finds generalizable features. Incorporating ESFR consistently improves the performance of baseline methods on all standard settings, including the recently proposed transductive method. ESFR used in conjunction with the transductive method further achieves state-of-the-art performance on mini-ImageNet, tiered-ImageNet, and CUB; especially with 1.2%~2.0% improvements in accuracy over the previous best performing method on 1-shot setting., Comment: Accepted to ICML 2021

A single photon source with high repeatability and low uncertainties is the key element for few-photon metrology based on photon numbers. While low photon number fluctuations and high repeatability are important figures for qualification as a standard light source, these characteristics are limited in single photon emitters by some malicious phenomena like blinking or internal relaxations to varying degrees in different materials. This study seeks to characterize photon number fluctuations and repeatability for radiometry applications at room temperature. For generality in this study, we collected photon statistics data with various single photon emitters of $g^{(2)}(0) < 1$ at low excitation power and room temperature in three material platforms: silicon vacancy in diamond, defects in GaN, and vacancy in hBN. We found common factors related with the relaxation times of the internal states that indirectly affect photon number stability. We observed a high stability of photon number with defects in GaN due to faster relaxations compared with vacancies in hBN, which on the other hand produced high rates ($> 10^6$) of photons per second. Finally, we demonstrate repeatable radiant flux measurements of a bright hBN single photon emitter for a wide radiant flux range from a few tens of femtowatts to one picowatt., Comment: Submitted to: Materials for Quantum Technology (IOP)

There has been vigorous debate on how different countries responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. To secure public safety, South Korea actively used personal information at the risk of personal privacy whereas France encouraged voluntary cooperation at the risk of public safety. In this article, after a brief comparison of contextual differences with France, we focus on South Korea's approaches to epidemiological investigations. To evaluate the issues pertaining to personal privacy and public health, we examine the usage patterns of original data, de-identification data, and encrypted data. Our specific proposal discusses the COVID index, which considers collective infection, outbreak intensity, availability of medical infrastructure, and the death rate. Finally, we summarize the findings and lessons for future research and the policy implications., Comment: 11pages

Recently, the traditional way to unlock car doors has been replaced with a keyless entry system which proves more convenient for automobile owners. When a driver with a key fob is in the vicinity of the vehicle, doors automatically unlock on user command. However, unfortunately, it has been shown that these keyless entry systems are vulnerable to signal relaying attacks. While it is evident that automobile manufacturers incorporate preventative methods to secure these keyless entry systems, they continue to be vulnerable to a range of attacks. Relayed signals result in valid packets that are verified as legitimate, and this makes it is difficult to distinguish a legitimate door unlock request from a malicious signal. In response to this vulnerability, this paper presents an RF fingerprinting method (coined HOld the DOoR, HODOR) to detect attacks on keyless entry systems the first attempt to exploit the RF fingerprint technique in the automotive domain. HODOR is designed as a sub authentication method that supports existing authentication systems for keyless entry systems and does not require any modification of the main system to perform. Through a series of experiments, the results demonstrate that HODOR competently and reliably detects attacks on keyless entry systems. HODOR achieves both an average false positive rate (FPR) of 0.27 percent with a false negative rate (FNR) of 0 percent for the detection of simulated attacks, corresponding to current research on keyless entry car theft., Comment: Published in NDSS 2020 proceeding

We introduce a hash chain-based secure cluster. Here, secure cluster refers to a set of vehicles having vehicular secrecy capacity of more than a reference value. Since vehicle communication is performed in such a secure cluster, basically secure vehicle communication can be expected. Secure hash clusters can also be expected by sharing hash chains derived from vehicle identification numbers. We are also convinced that our paper is essential for future autonomous vehicles by providing secure clustering services using MEC. In the near term, autonomous driving, our paper makes it possible to expect strong and practically safe vehicle communications., Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, submitted on Aug, 2019 in Scientific Reports

We propose schemes for efficiently destroying privacy data in a NAND flash memory. Generally, even if privcy data is discarded from NAND flash memories, there is a high probability that the data will remain in an invalid block. This is a management problem that arises from the specificity of a program operation and an erase operation of NAND flash memories. When updating pages or performing a garbage collection, there is a problem that valid data remains in at least one unmapped memory block. Is it possible to apply the obligation to delete privacy data from existing NAND flash memory? This paper is the answer to this question. We propose a partial overwriting scheme, a SLC programming scheme, and a deletion duty pulse application scheme for invalid pages to effectively solve privacy data destruction issues due to the remaining data. Such privacy data destruction schemes basically utilize at least one state in which data can be written to the programmed cells based on a multi-level cell program operation. Our privacy data destruction schemes have advantages in terms of block management as compared with conventional erase schemes, and are very economical in terms of time and cost. The proposed privacy data destruction schemes can be easily applied to many storage devices and data centers using NAND flash memories., Comment: Pages 181305 - 181313

We suggest secure Vehicle-to-Vehicle communications in a secure cluster. Here, the security cluster refers to a group of vehicles having a certain level or more of secrecy capacity. Usually, there are many difficulties in defining secrecy capacity, but we define vehicular secrecy capacity for the vehicle defined only by SNR values. Defined vehicular secrecy capacity is practical and efficient in achieving physical layer security in V2V. Typically, secrecy capacity may be changed by antenna related parameters, path related parameters, and noise related parameters. In addition to these conventional parameters, we address unique vehicle-related parameters, such as vehicle speed, safety distance, speed limit, response time, etc. in connection with autonomous driving. We confirm the relationship between vehicle-related secrecy parameters and secrecy capacity through modeling in highway and urban traffic situations. These vehicular secrecy parameters enable real-time control of vehicle secrecy capacity of V2V communications. We can use vehicular secrecy capacity to achieve secure vehicle communications from attackers such as quantum computers. Our research enables economic, effective and efficient physical layer security in autonomous driving., Comment: Ad Hoc & Sensor Wireless Networks; accepted on Nov. 21, 2019