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  1. null (Ed.)
    Context. The carbon monoxide (CO) molecular line at around 46655 Å in solar infrared spectra is often used to investigate the dynamic behavior of the cold heart of the solar atmosphere, i.e., sunspot oscillation, especially at the sunspot umbra. Aims. We investigated sunspot oscillation at Doppler velocities of the CO 7-6 R67 and 3-2 R14 lines that were measured by the Cryogenic Infrared Spectrograph (CYRA), as well as the line profile of Mg  II k line that was detected by the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS). Methods. A single Gaussian function is applied to each CO line profile to extract the line shift, while the moment analysis method is used for the Mg  II k line. Then the sunspot oscillation can be found in the time–distance image of Doppler velocities, and the quasi-periodicity at the sunspot umbra are determined from the wavelet power spectrum. Finally, the cross-correlation method is used to analyze the phase relation between different atmospheric levels. Results. At the sunspot umbra, a periodicity of roughly 5 min is detected at the Doppler velocity range of the CO 7-6 R67 line that formed in the photosphere, while a periodicity of around 3 min is discovered at the Doppler velocities of CO 3-2 R14 and Mg  II k lines that formed in the upper photosphere or the temperature minimum region and the chromosphere. A time delay of about 2 min is measured between the strong CO 3-2 R14 line and the Mg  II k line. Conclusions. Based on the spectroscopic observations from the CYRA and IRIS, the 3 min sunspot oscillation can be spatially resolved in the Doppler shifts. It may come from the upper photosphere or the temperature minimum region and then propagate to the chromosphere, which might be regarded as a propagating slow magnetoacoustic wave. 
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  2. Processors nowadays are consistently equipped with debugging features to facilitate the program analysis. Specifically, the ARM debugging architecture involves a series of CoreSight components and debug registers to aid the system debugging, and a group of debug authentication signals are designed to restrict the usage of these components and registers. Meantime, the security of the debugging features is under-examined since it normally requires physical access to use these features in the traditional debugging model. However, ARM introduces a new debugging model that requires no physical access since ARMv7, which exacerbates our concern on the security of the debugging features. In this paper, we perform a comprehensive security analysis of the ARM debugging features, and summarize the security and vulnerability implications. To understand the impact of the implications, we also investigate a series of ARM-based platforms in different product domains (i.e., development boards, IoT devices, cloud servers, and mobile devices). We consider the analysis and investigation expose a new attacking surface that universally exists in ARM-based platforms. To verify our concern, we further craft Nailgun attack, which obtains sensitive information (e.g., AES encryption key and fingerprint image) and achieves arbitrary payload execution in a high-privilege mode from a low-privilege mode via misusing the debugging features. This attack does not rely on software bugs, and our experiments show that almost all the platforms we investigated are vulnerable to the attack. The potential mitigations are discussed from different perspectives in the ARM ecosystem. 
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  3. With the proliferation of using smart and connected devices in the transportation domain, these systems inevitably face security threats from the real world. In this work, we analyze the security of the existing traffic signal systems and summarize the security implications exposed in our analysis. Our research shows that the deployed traffic signal systems can be easily manipulated with physical/remote access and are vulnerable to an array of real-world attacks such as a diversionary tactic. By setting up a standard traffic signal system locally in our lab and partnering with a municipality, we demonstrate that not only can traffic intersections be manipulated to show deadly traffic patterns such as all-direction green lights, but traffic control systems are also susceptible to ransomware and disruption attacks. Through testing and studying these attacks, we provide our security recommendations and mitigations to these threats. 
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  4. Abstract We study a possible calibration technique for the nEXO experiment using a 127 Xe electron capture source. nEXO is a next-generation search for neutrinoless double beta decay (0 νββ ) that will use a 5-tonne, monolithic liquid xenon time projection chamber (TPC). The xenon, used both as source and detection medium, will be enriched to 90% in 136 Xe. To optimize the event reconstruction and energy resolution, calibrations are needed to map the position- and time-dependent detector response. The 36.3 day half-life of 127 Xe and its small Q-value compared to that of 136 Xe 0 νββ would allow a small activity to be maintained continuously in the detector during normal operations without introducing additional backgrounds, thereby enabling in-situ calibration and monitoring of the detector response. In this work we describe a process for producing the source and preliminary experimental tests. We then use simulations to project the precision with which such a source could calibrate spatial corrections to the light and charge response of the nEXO TPC. 
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