We discuss a pair of isoperimetric problems which at a glance seem to be unrelated. The first one is classical: one places N identical point charges at a closed curve T at the same arc-length distances and asks about the energy minimum, ie which shape does the loop take if left by itself. The second problem comes from quantum mechanics: we take a Schrdinger operator in

We propose the idea of building a secure hash using quadratic or higher degree multivariate polynomials over a finite field as the compression function. We analyze some security properties and potential feasibility, where the compression functions are randomly chosen high-degree polynomials, and show that under some plausible assumptions, high-degree polynomials as compression functions has good properties. Next, we propose to improve on the efficiency of the system by using some specially designed polynomials generated by a small number of random parameters, where the security of the system would then relies on stronger assumptions, and we give empirical evidence for the validity of using such polynomials.

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Quantum networks are often modelled using Schrdinger operators on metric graphs. To give meaning to such models one has to know how to interpret the boundary conditions which match the wave functions at the graph vertices. In this article we give a survey, technically not too heavy, of several recent results which serve this purpose. Specifically, we consider approximations by means of fat graphsin other words, suitable families of shrinking manifoldsand discuss convergence of the spectra and resonances in such a setting.

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