A recently proposed class of multivariate Public-Key Cryptosystems, the Rainbow-Like Digital Signature Schemes, in which successive sets of central variables are obtained from previous ones by solving linear equations, seem to lead to efficient schemes (TTS, TRMS, and Rainbow) that perform well on systems of low computational resources. Recently SFLASH (C^{∗−}) was broken by Dubois, Fouque, Shamir, and Stern via a differential attack. In this paper, we exhibit similar algebraic and diffential attacks, that will reduce published Rainbow-like schemes below their security levels. We will also discuss how parameters for Rainbow and TTS schemes should be chosen for practical applications.

This note briefly reviews the {\it Mirror Principle} as developed in the series of papers \LLYI\LLYII\LLYIII\LLYIV\LCHY. We illustrate this theory with a few new examples. One of them gives an intriguing connection to a problem of counting holomorphic disks and annuli. This note has been submitted for the proceedings of the Workshop on Strings, Duality and Geometry the C.R.M. in Montreal of March 2000.

We prove an approximation result showing how operators of the type (x ) in L^ 2 ({\bb R}^ 2), where is a graph, can be modelled in the strong resolvent sense by point-interaction Hamiltonians with an appropriate arrangement of the potentials. The result is illustrated on finding the spectral properties in cases when is a ring or a star. Furthermore, we use this method to indicate that scattering on an infinite curve which is locally close to a loop shape or has multiple bends may exhibit resonances due to quantum tunnelling or repeated reflections.

We describe the potential functions for N= 4B supersymmetric quantum mechanics with D (2, 1; ) symmetry.

We prove that the first Chern form of the moduli space of polarized Calabi-Yau manifolds, with the Hodge metric or the Weil-Petersson metric, represent the first Chern class of the canonical extensions of the tangent bundle to the compactification of the moduli space with normal crossing divisors.