  This study seeks to identify and quantify biases in simulating political
samples with Large Language Models, specifically focusing on vote choice and
public opinion. Using the GPT-3.5-Turbo model, we leverage data from the
American National Election Studies, German Longitudinal Election Study, Zuobiao
Dataset, and China Family Panel Studies to simulate voting behaviors and public
opinions. This methodology enables us to examine three types of representation
bias: disparities based on the the country's language, demographic groups, and
political regime types. The findings reveal that simulation performance is
generally better for vote choice than for public opinions, more accurate in
English-speaking countries, more effective in bipartisan systems than in
multi-partisan systems, and stronger in democratic settings than in
authoritarian regimes. These results contribute to enhancing our understanding
and developing strategies to mitigate biases in AI applications within the
field of computational social science.


  We present the exact bright one-soliton and two-soliton solutions of the
integrable three coupled nonlinear Schroedinger equations (3-CNLS) by using the
Hirota method, and then obtain them for the general $N$-coupled nonlinear
Schroedinger equations (N-CNLS). It is pointed out that the underlying solitons
undergo inelastic (shape changing) collisions due to intensity redistribution
among the modes. We also analyse the various possibilities and conditions for
such collisions to occur. Further, we report the significant fact that the
various partial coherent solitons (PCS) discussed in the literature are special
cases of the higher order bright soliton solutions of the N-CNLS equations.


  In this paper we study $I = 0$ bottomonium in $S$, $P$, $D$ and $F$ waves
considering five coupled channels, one confined quarkonium and four open
$B^{(*)} \bar B^{(*)}$ and $B_s^{(*)} \bar B_s^{(*)}$ meson-meson channels. To
this end we use and extend a recently developed novel approach utilizing
lattice QCD string breaking potentials for the study of quarkonium bound states
and resonances. This approach is based on the Born Oppenheimer approximation
and the unitary emergent wave method and allows to compute the poles of the
$\mbox{T}$ matrix. We compare our results to existing experimental results for
$I = 0$ bottomonium and discuss masses, decay widths and the assignment of
angular momentum quantum numbers. Moreover, we determine the quarkonium and
meson-meson composition of these states to clarify, which of them are ordinary
quarkonium, and which of them should rather be interpreted as tetraquarks.


  An implementation of the Hartree-Fock (HF) method capable of robust
convergence for well-behaved arbitrary central potentials is presented. The
Hartree-Fock equations are converted to a generalized eigenvalue problem by
employing a B-spline basis in a finite-size box. Convergence of the
self-consistency iterations for the occupied electron orbitals is achieved by
increasing the magnitude of the electron-electron Coulomb interaction gradually
to its true value. For the Coulomb central potential, convergence patterns and
energies are presented for a selection of atoms and negative ions, and are
benchmarked against existing calculations. The present approach is also tested
by calculating the ground states for an electron gas confined by a harmonic
potential and also by that of uniformly charged sphere (the jellium model of
alkali-metal clusters). For the harmonically confined electron-gas problem,
comparisons are made with the Thomas-Fermi method and its accurate asymptotic
analytical solution, with close agreement found for the electron energy and
density for large electron numbers. We test the accuracy and effective
completeness of the excited state manifolds by calculating the static dipole
polarizabilities at the HF level and using the Random-Phase Approximation.
Using the latter is crucial for the electron-gas and cluster models, where the
effect of electron screening is very important. Comparisons are made for with
experimental data for sodium clusters of up to $\sim $100 atoms.


  We consider a set of primary channels that operate in an unslotted fashion,
switching activity at random times. A secondary user senses the primary
channels searching for transmission opportunities. If a channel is sensed to be
free, the secondary terminal transmits, and if sensed to be busy, the secondary
transmitter remains silent.We solve the problem of determining the optimal time
after which a primary channel needs to be sensed again depending on the sensing
outcome. The objective is to find the inter-sensing times such that the mean
secondary throughput is maximized while imposing a constraint over the maximum
tolerable interference inflicted on the primary network. Our numerical results
show that by optimizing the sensing-dependent inter-sensing times, our proposed
scheme reduces the impact of sensing errors caused by false alarm and
misdetection and outperforms the case of a single sensing period.


  Gap opening remains elusive in copper chalcogenides (Cu$_{2}X$, $X$ = S, Se
and Te), not least because Hubbard + $U$, hybrid functional and ${GW}$ methods
have also failed. In this work, we elucidate that their failure originates from
a severe underestimation of the 4$s$-3$d$ orbital splitting of the Cu atom,
which leads to a band-order inversion in the presence of an anionic crystal
field. As a result, the Fermi energy is pinned due to symmetry, yielding an
invariant zero gap. Utilizing the hybrid pseudopotentials to correct the
underestimation on the atomic side opens up gaps of experimental magnitude in
Cu$_{2}X$, suggesting their predominantly electronic nature. Our work not only
clarifies the debate about the Cu$_{2}X$ gap, but also provides a way to
identify which of the different methods really captures the physical essence
and which is the result of error cancellation.


  We have measured the Pancharatnam relative phase for spin-1/2 states. In a
neutron polarimetry experiment the minima and maxima of intensity modulations,
giving the Pancharatnam phase, were determined. We have also considered general
SU(2) evolution for mixed states. The results are in good agreement with
theory.


  By considering singular gauge transformations of the five-dimensional
Hedge-Hog monopole, we obtain a class of multi-charged Tchrakian monopoles. The
charge is classified by the fourth homotopy group of SU(4)/U(1)xSU(2)xSU(2).


  High energy particles are produced by the annihilation of dark matter
particles in our galaxy. These are presently searched for using balloon-borne
antiproton and positron detectors and large area, deep underground neutrino
telescopes. Dark matter particles, trapped inside the sun, are an abundant
source of such neutrinos.
  From both the cosmological and particle physics points of view the lightest,
stable supersymmetric particle or neutralino is arguably the leading dark
matter candidate. Its mass is bracketed by a minimum value of order a few tens
of GeV, determined from unsuccessful accelerator searches, and a maximum value
of order 1~TeV imposed by particle physics as well as cosmological constraints.
Back-of-the-envelope calculations are sufficient to demonstrate how present
neutrino telescopes are competitive with existing and future particle colliders
such as the LHC in the search for supersymmetry. We emphasize that a $1\,\rm
km^2$ area is the natural scale for a future instrument capable of probing the
full GeV--TeV neutralino mass range by searching for high energy neutrinos
produced by their annihilation in the sun.


  In this note we review some of the uses of framed quivers to study BPS
invariants of Donaldson-Thomas type. We will mostly focus on non-compact
Calabi-Yau threefolds. In certain cases the study of these invariants can be
approached as a generalized instanton problem in a six dimensional
cohomological Yang-Mills theory. One can construct a quantum mechanics model
based on a certain framed quiver which locally describes the theory around a
generalized instanton solution. The problem is then reduced to the study of the
moduli spaces of representations of these quivers. Examples include the affine
space and noncommutative crepant resolutions of orbifold singularities. In the
second part of the survey we introduce the concepts of defects in physics and
argue with a few examples that they give rise to a modified Donaldson-Thomas
problem. We mostly focus on divisor defects in six dimensional Yang-Mills
theory and their relation with the moduli spaces of parabolic sheaves. In
certain cases also this problem can be reformulated in terms of framed quivers.


  In this paper, we discuss the results of a new particle pusher in realistic
ultra-strong electromagnetic fields as those encountered around rotating
neutron stars. After presenting results of this algorithm in simple fields and
comparing them to expected exact analytical solutions, we present new
simulations for a rotating magnetic dipole in vacuum for a millisecond pulsar
by using Deutsch solution. Particles are injected within the magnetosphere,
neglecting radiation reaction, interaction among them and their feedback on the
fields. Our simulations are therefore not yet fully self-consistent because
Maxwell equations are not solved according to the current produced by these
particles. The code highlights the symmetrical behaviour of particles of
opposite charge to mass ratio $q/m$ with respect to the north and south
hemispheres. The relativistic Lorentz factor of the accelerated particles is
proportional to this ratio $q/m$: protons reach up to $\gamma_p \simeq
10^{10.7}$, whereas electrons reach up to $\gamma_e \simeq 10^{14}$.
  Our simulations show that particles could be either captured by the neutron
star, trapped around it, or ejected far from it, well outside the
light-cylinder. Actually, for a given charge to mass ratio, particles follow
similar trajectories. These particle orbits show some depleted directions,
especially at high magnetic inclination with respect to the rotation axis for
positive charges and at low inclination for negative charges because of
symmetry. Other directions are preferred and loaded with a high density of
particles, some directions concentrating the highest or lowest acceleration
efficiencies.


  It has been suggested that tidal interaction is important for shaping the
orbital configurations of close orbiting giant planets. The excitation of
propagating waves and normal modes (dynamical tide) will be important for
estimating time scales for orbital evolution. We consider the tidal interaction
of a Jupiter mass planet orbiting a solar type primary. Tidal and rotational
frequencies are assumed comparable making the effect of rotation important.
Although centrifugal distortion is neglected, Coriolis forces are fully taken
into account. We focus in detail on the potentially resonant excitation of $r$
modes associated with spherical harmonics of degrees three and five. These are
mostly sited in the radiative core but with a significant response in the
convective envelope where dissipation occurs. Away from resonance significant
orbital evolution over the system lifetime is unlikely. However, tidal
interaction is enhanced near resonances and the orbital evolution accelerated
as they are passed through. This speed up may be sustained if near resonance
can be maintained. For close orbits with primaries rotating sufficiently
rapidly, this could arise from angular momentum loss and stellar spin down
through a stellar wind bringing about significant orbital evolution over the
system lifetime.


  We investigate toy models for spatial and temporal instabilities in
collective neutrino oscillations induced by neutrino self-interactions, with
special emphasis on inhomogeneous systems with densities following a profile.
Simulations are based on a mathematica program that solves the Liouville
equation with or without vacuum terms, refractive terms from a background
medium, and neutrino-neutrino forward scattering, in one space dimension and in
time. A discrete number of momentum modes are characterized by the neutrino
velocity projection on the spatial direction. We also consider the effects of
charged current interaction source terms and neutral current scattering
contributions. We find that refractive effects from the medium, in particular
for density distributions with a profile, and neutral current non-forward
scattering off the background medium can strongly influence fast collective
flavor transformations. Specifically we find that if both are present, fast
flavor conversions can be strongly suppressed or at least delayed.


  We study the properties of a previously found family of thick brane
configurations in a pure geometric Weyl integrable 5D space time, a
non-Riemannian generalization of Kaluza-Klein (KK) theory involving a geometric
scalar field. Thus the 5D theory describes gravity coupled to a
self-interacting scalar field which gives rise to the structure of the thick
branes. Analyzing the graviton spectrum for this class of models, we find that
a particularly interesting situation arises for a special case in which the 4D
graviton is separated from the KK gravitons by a mass gap. The corresponding
effective Schroedinger equation has a modified Poeschl-Teller potential and can
be solved exactly. Apart from the massless 4D graviton, it contains one massive
KK bound state, and the continuum spectrum of delocalized KK modes. We discuss
the mass hierarchy problem, and explicitly compute the corrections to Newton's
law in the thin brane limit.


  The automatic analysis of ultrasound sequences can substantially improve the
efficiency of clinical diagnosis. In this work we present our attempt to
automate the challenging task of measuring the vascular diameter of the fetal
abdominal aorta from ultrasound images. We propose a neural network
architecture consisting of three blocks: a convolutional layer for the
extraction of imaging features, a Convolution Gated Recurrent Unit (C-GRU) for
enforcing the temporal coherence across video frames and exploiting the
temporal redundancy of a signal, and a regularized loss function, called
\textit{CyclicLoss}, to impose our prior knowledge about the periodicity of the
observed signal. We present experimental evidence suggesting that the proposed
architecture can reach an accuracy substantially superior to previously
proposed methods, providing an average reduction of the mean squared error from
$0.31 mm^2$ (state-of-art) to $0.09 mm^2$, and a relative error reduction from
$8.1\%$ to $5.3\%$. The mean execution speed of the proposed approach of 289
frames per second makes it suitable for real time clinical use.


  This paper evaluates some generalised Euler sums involving the digamma
function.


  The structure, dynamics and stability of Fe-Pt nanoparticles have been
investigated using DFT-based techniques: total energy calculations and DFT
molecular dynamics. The investigated systems included multi-shell and
disordered nanoparticles of iron and platinum. The study is concerned with
icosahedral particles with magic number of atoms (55): iron-terminated
Fe$_{43}$Pt$_{12}$, platinum-terminated Fe$_{12}$Pt$_{43}$, and disordered
Fe$_{27}$Pt$_{28}$. Additionally, the Fe$_6$Pt$_7$ cluster has been
investigated to probe behaviour of extremely small Fe-Pt particles. Molecular
dynamics simulations have been performed for a few temperatures between
$T=150-1000$ K. The calculations revealed high structural instability of the
Fe-terminated nanoparticles and a strong stabilising effect of the
Pt-termination in the shell-type icosahedral particles. The platinum
termination prevented disordering of the particle even at $T=1000$ K indicating
very high melting temperatures of these Fe-Pt icosahedral structures. The
analysis of evolution of the radial distribution function has shown significant
tendency of Pt atoms to move to the outside layer of the particles -- even in
the platinum deficient cases.


  Most man-made environments, such as urban and indoor scenes, consist of a set
of parallel and orthogonal planar structures. These structures are approximated
by the Manhattan world assumption, in which notion can be represented as a
Manhattan frame (MF). Given a set of inputs such as surface normals or
vanishing points, we pose an MF estimation problem as a consensus set
maximization that maximizes the number of inliers over the rotation search
space. Conventionally, this problem can be solved by a branch-and-bound
framework, which mathematically guarantees global optimality. However, the
computational time of the conventional branch-and-bound algorithms is rather
far from real-time. In this paper, we propose a novel bound computation method
on an efficient measurement domain for MF estimation, i.e., the extended
Gaussian image (EGI). By relaxing the original problem, we can compute the
bound with a constant complexity, while preserving global optimality.
Furthermore, we quantitatively and qualitatively demonstrate the performance of
the proposed method for various synthetic and real-world data. We also show the
versatility of our approach through three different applications: extension to
multiple MF estimation, 3D rotation based video stabilization, and vanishing
point estimation (line clustering).


  A deterministic and scalable array of single photon nonlinearities in the
solid state holds great potential for both fundamental physics and
technological applications, but its realization has proved extremely
challenging. Despite significant advances, leading candidates such as quantum
dots and group III-V quantum wells have yet to overcome their respective
bottlenecks in random positioning and weak nonlinearity. Here we consider a
hybrid light-matter platform, marrying an atomically thin two-dimensional
material to a photonic crystal cavity, and analyze its second-order coherence
function. We identify several mechanisms for photon antibunching under
different system parameters, including one characterized by large dissipation
and weak nonlinearity. Finally, we show that by patterning the two-dimensional
material into different sizes, we can drive our system dynamics from a coherent
state into a regime of strong antibunching with $g^{(2)}(0) \sim 10^{-3}$,
opening a possible route to building scalable, on-chip quantum simulators.


  Collaborative perception can substantially boost each agent's perception
ability by facilitating communication among multiple agents. However, temporal
asynchrony among agents is inevitable in the real world due to communication
delays, interruptions, and clock misalignments. This issue causes information
mismatch during multi-agent fusion, seriously shaking the foundation of
collaboration. To address this issue, we propose CoBEVFlow, an
asynchrony-robust collaborative perception system based on bird's eye view
(BEV) flow. The key intuition of CoBEVFlow is to compensate motions to align
asynchronous collaboration messages sent by multiple agents. To model the
motion in a scene, we propose BEV flow, which is a collection of the motion
vector corresponding to each spatial location. Based on BEV flow, asynchronous
perceptual features can be reassigned to appropriate positions, mitigating the
impact of asynchrony. CoBEVFlow has two advantages: (i) CoBEVFlow can handle
asynchronous collaboration messages sent at irregular, continuous time stamps
without discretization; and (ii) with BEV flow, CoBEVFlow only transports the
original perceptual features, instead of generating new perceptual features,
avoiding additional noises. To validate CoBEVFlow's efficacy, we create
IRregular V2V(IRV2V), the first synthetic collaborative perception dataset with
various temporal asynchronies that simulate different real-world scenarios.
Extensive experiments conducted on both IRV2V and the real-world dataset
DAIR-V2X show that CoBEVFlow consistently outperforms other baselines and is
robust in extremely asynchronous settings. The code is available at
https://github.com/MediaBrain-SJTU/CoBEVFlow.


  Photoelectric properties of metamaterials containing non-centrosymmetric,
similarly oriented metallic nanoparticles embedded in a homogeneous
semiconductor matrix are theoretically studied. Due to the asymmetric shape of
the nanoparticle boundary, photoelectron emission acquires a preferred
direction, resulting in a photocurrent flow in that direction when
nanoparticles are uniformly illuminated by a homogeneous plane wave. This
effect is a direct analogy of the photogalvanic (or bulk photovoltaic) effect
known to exist in media with non-centrosymmetric crystal structure, such as
doped lithium niobate or bismuth ferrite, but is several orders of magnitude
stronger. Termed the giant plasmonic photogalvanic effect, the reported
phenomenon is valuable for characterizing photoemission and photoconductive
properties of plasmonic nanostructures, and can find many uses for
photodetection and photovoltaic applications.


  It is well known that the minimal renormalizable $SU(5)$ grand unified theory
is ruled out: it predicts same masses of down quarks and charged leptons, the
gauge couplings do not unify and neutrinos are massless. We show here that all
this can be cured simultaneously by the addition of higher-dimensional
effective operators. However, the theory lives on the edge since the
unification scale turns out as low as roughly $10^{14}\,$GeV, threatening
proton longevity. If the lower bound on the proton lifetime was to be increased
by an order of magnitude, the usual desert in energies between the weak and
unification scales would be populated. We also revisit two minimal extensions
of this theory that offer a dynamical seesaw origin of neutrino mass, and
discuss the resulting consequences.


  We develop techniques to study the temperature dependent localization,
thermalization, and the effects of phonon scattering on the excitons in halide
perovskites from the analysis of the emission spectra. The excitonic Urbach
edge, when inferred from the low energy tails of the temperature dependent
luminescence spectra, is shown to be sensitive to the electron distribution and
thermalization. A method to observe the Urbach focus is devised for halide
perovskites where the temperature dependence of the excitonic gap is anomalous.
The value of the zero-point bandgap renormalization is inferred to be about 33
meV. This small value of the bandgap renormalization rules out the formation of
small polarons and points to weak electron-phonon coupling. The experiments are
performed on the nanosheets of the archetypal halide perovskite, CsPbBr$_3$.


  We demonstrate that the proper calculation of the linear response for
finite-size systems can only be performed if the coupling to the leads/baths is
explicitly taken into consideration. We exemplify this by obtaining a Kubo-type
formula for heat transport in a finite-size system coupled to two thermal
baths, kept at different temperatures. We show that the proper calculation
results in a well-behaved response, without the singular contributions from
degenerate states encountered when Kubo formulae for infinite-size systems are
inappropriately used for finite-size systems.


  We examine hypergeometric functions in the finite field, p-adic and classical
settings. In each setting, we prove a formula which splits the hypergeometric
function into a sum of lower order functions whose arguments differ by roots of
unity. We provide multiple applications of these results, including new
reduction and summation formulas for finite field hypergeometric functions,
along with classical analogues; evaluations of special values of these
functions which apply in both the finite field and p-adic settings; and new
relations to Fourier coefficients of modular forms.


  We introduce a family of parsimonious network models that are intended to
generalize the configuration model to temporal settings. We present consistent
estimators for the model parameters and perform numerical simulations to
illustrate the properties of the estimators on finite samples. We also develop
analytical solutions for basic and effective reproductive numbers for the early
stage of discrete-time SIR spreading process. We apply three distinct temporal
configuration models to empirical student proximity networks and compare their
performance.


  Applying the AdS/CFT correspondence, the expansion of the heavy-quark
potential of the ${\cal N}=4$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory at large $N_c$
is carried out to the sub-leading term in the large 't Hooft coupling at zero
temperature. The strong coupling corresponds to the semi-classical expansion of
the string-sigma model, the gravity dual of the Wilson loop operator, with the
sub-leading term expressed in terms of functional determinants of fluctuations.
The singularities of these determinants are examined and their contributions
are evaluated numerically.


  We compute the electric dipole polarizability of 48Ca with an increased
precision by including more correlations than in previous studies. Employing
the coupled-cluster method we go beyond singles and doubles excitations and
include leading-order three-particle-three-hole (3p-3h) excitations for the
ground state, excited states, and the similarity transformed operator. We study
electromagnetic sum rules, such as the bremsstrahlung sum rule m_0 and the
polarizability sum rule alpha_D using interactions from chiral effective field
theory. To gauge the quality of our coupled-cluster approximations we perform
several benchmarks with the effective interaction hyperspherical harmonics
approach in 4He and with self consistent Green's function in 16O. We compute
the dipole polarizability of 48Ca employing the chiral interaction N2LOsat
[Ekstroem et al., Phys. Rev. C 91, 051301 (2015)] and the 1.8/2.0 (EM) [Hebeler
et al., Phys. Rev. C 83, 031301 (2011)]. We find that the effect of 3p-3h
excitations in the ground state is small for 1.8/2.0 (EM) but non-negligible
for N2LOsat. The addition of these new correlations allows us to improve the
precision of our 48Ca calculations and reconcile the recently reported
discrepancy between coupled-cluster results based on these interactions and the
experimentally determined alpha_D from proton inelastic scattering in 48Ca
[Birkhan et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 252501 (2017)]. For the computation of
electromagnetic and polarizability sum rules, the inclusion of leading-order
3p-3h excitations in the ground state is important, while less so for the
excited states and the similarity-transformed dipole operator.


  State and input constraints are ubiquitous in all engineering systems. In
this article, we derive adaptive controllers for uncertain linear systems under
pre-specified state and input constraints. Several modifications of the model
reference adaptive control (MRAC) framework have been proposed to address input
constraints in uncertain linear systems. Considering the infeasibility of
arbitrary reference trajectories, reference modification has been implemented
in the case of input constraints in literature. The resulting conditions on the
reference and input signals are difficult to verify online. Similar results on
state and input constraints together have also been proposed, albeit resulting
in more complex and unverifiable conditions on the control. The primary
objective of this article is therefore to account for state and input
constraints in uncertain linear systems by providing easily verifiable
conditions on the control and reference. A combination of reference
modification and barrier Lyapunov methods in adaptive control are employed to
arrive at these results.


  We provide a complete classification of all the possible categoricity
spectra, in terms of internal size, that can appear in a large accessible
category with directed colimits, assuming the Singular Cardinal Hypothesis
($SCH$), and providing as well explicit threshold cardinals for eventual
categoricity. This includes as a particular case the first complete
classification of categoricity spectra of abstract elementary classes (AEC's)
entirely in $ZFC$. More specifically, we have the following theorem:
  Let $\mathcal{K}$ be a large $\kappa$-accessible category with directed
colimits. Assume the Singular Cardinal Hypothesis $SCH$ (only if the
restriction to monomorphisms is not an AEC). Then the categoricity spectrum
$\mathcal{C}at(\mathcal{K})=\{\lambda\geq \kappa: \mathcal{K} \text{ is
$\lambda$-categorical}\}$ is one of the following:
  1) $\mathcal{C}at(\mathcal{K})=\emptyset$.
  2) $\mathcal{C}at(\mathcal{K})=[\alpha, \beta]$ for some $\alpha, \beta \in
[\kappa, \beth_{\omega}(\kappa))$.
  3) $\mathcal{C}at(\mathcal{K})=[\chi, \infty)$ for some $\chi \in [\kappa,
\beth_{(2^{\kappa})^+})$.
  This solves in particular Shelah categoricity conjecture for AEC's. There are
examples of each of the three cases of the classification, showing that they
indeed occur.


  We detail the continued fraction expansion of the square root of monic sextic
polynomials. We note in passing that each line of the expansion corresponds to
addition of the divisor at infinity, and interpret the data yielded by the
general expansion. In particular we obtain an associated Somos sequence defined
by a three-term recurrence relation of gap~6.


  The delay time distribution of Type Ia supernovae (the time-dependent rate of
supernovae resulting from a burst of star formation) has been measured using
different techniques and in different environments. Here, we study in detail
the distribution for field galaxies, using the SDSS DR7 Stripe 82 supernova
sample. We improve a technique we introduced earlier, which is based on galaxy
color and luminosity, and is insensitive to details of the star formation
history, to include the normalization. Assuming a power-law dependence of the
supernova rate with time, ${\rm DTD}(t)=A(t/{\rm 1\,Gyr})^{s}$, we find a
power-law index $s= -1.34 ^{+0.19} _{-0.17}$ and a normalization $\rm{log}\ A=
-12.15 ^{+0.10} _{-0.13}\, {\rm dex}(M_\odot ^{-1}\, \rm{yr}^{-1})$,
corresponding to a number of type Ia supernovae integrated over a Hubble time
of $PE = 0.004^{+0.002} _{-0.001}\, M_\odot ^{-1}$. We also implement a method
used by Maoz and collaborators, which is based on star formation history
reconstruction, and find that this gives a consistent result for the slope, but
a lower, marginally inconsistent normalization. With our normalization, the
distribution for field galaxies is made consistent with that derived for
cluster galaxies. Comparing the inferred distribution with predictions from
different evolutionary scenarios for type Ia supernovae, we find that our
results are intermediate between the various predictions and do not yet
constraint the evolutionary path leading to SNe~Ia.


  One of the greatest discoveries of modern times is that of the expanding
Universe, almost invariably attributed to Hubble (1929). What is not widely
known is that the original treatise by Lemaitre (1927) contained a rich fusion
of both theory and of observation. Stiglers law of eponymy is yet again
affirmed: no scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer
(Merton, 1957). An appeal is made for a Lemaitre Telescope, to honour the
discoverer of the expanding universe.


  Given a polynomial $f(x_1,x_2,\ldots, x_t)$ in $t$ variables with integer
coefficients and a positive integer $n$, let $\alpha(n)$ be the number of
integers $0\leq a<n$ such that the polynomial congruence $f(x_1, x_2, \ldots,
x_t)\equiv a\ (mod\ n)$ is solvable. We describe a method that allows to
determine the function $\alpha$ associated to polynomials of the form
$c_1x_1^k+c_2x_2^k+\cdots+c_tx_t^k$. Then we apply this method to polynomials
that involve sums and differences of squares, mainly to the polynomials
$x^2+y^2, x^2-y^2$ and $x^2+y^2+z^2$.


  Bell tests---the experimental demonstration of a Bell inequality
violation---are central to understanding the foundations of quantum mechanics,
underpin quantum technologies, and are a powerful diagnostic tool for
technological developments in these areas. To date, Bell tests have relied on
careful calibration of the measurement devices and alignment of a shared
reference frame between the two parties---both technically demanding tasks in
general. Surprisingly, we show that neither of these operations are necessary,
violating Bell inequalities with near certainty with (i) unaligned, but
calibrated, measurement devices, and (ii) uncalibrated and unaligned devices.
We demonstrate generic quantum nonlocality with randomly chosen local
measurements on a singlet state of two photons implemented with reconfigurable
integrated optical waveguide circuits based on voltage-controlled phase
shifters. The observed results demonstrate the robustness of our schemes to
imperfections and statistical noise. This new approach is likely to have
important applications in both fundamental science and in quantum technologies,
including device independent quantum key distribution.


  We consider the uplink of a cloud radio access network (C-RAN), where massive
MIMO remote radio heads (RRHs) serve as relays between users and a centralized
baseband unit (BBU). Although employing massive MIMO at RRHs can improve the
spectral efficiency, it also significantly increases the amount of data
transported over the fronthaul links between RRHs and BBU, which becomes a
performance bottleneck. Existing fronthaul compression methods for conventional
C-RAN are not suitable for the massive MIMO regime because they require
fully-digital processing and/or real-time full channel state information (CSI),
incurring high implementation cost for massive MIMO RRHs. To overcome this
challenge, we propose to perform a two-timescale hybrid analog-and-digital
spatial filtering at each RRH to reduce the fronthaul consumption.
Specifically, the analog filter is adaptive to the channel statistics to
achieve massive MIMO array gain, and the digital filter is adaptive to the
instantaneous effective CSI to achieve spatial multiplexing gain. Such a design
can alleviate the performance bottleneck of limited fronthaul with reduced
hardware cost and power consumption, and is more robust to the CSI delay. We
propose an online algorithm for the two-timescale non-convex optimization of
analog and digital filters, and establish its convergence to stationary
solutions. Finally, simulations verify the advantages of the proposed scheme.


  We construct model category structures for monoids and modules in symmetric
monoidal model categories which satisfy an extra axiom, the monoidal axiom,
with applications to symmetric spectra and $\Gamma$-spaces.


  Near Horizon Geometries with multiply degenerate Killing horizons
$\mathcal{H}$ are considered, and their degenerate Killing vector fields
identified. We prove that they all arise from hypersurface-orthogonal Killing
vectors of any cut of $\mathcal{H}$ with the inherited metric -- cuts are
spacelike co-dimension two submanifolds contained in $\mathcal{H}$. For each of
these Killing vectors on a given cut, there are three different possibilities
for the Near Horizon metric which are presented explicitly. The structure of
the metric for Near Horizon Geometries with multiple Killing horizons of order
$m\geq 3$ is thereby completely determined, and in particular we prove that the
cuts on $\mathcal{H}$ must be warped products with maximally symmetric fibers
(ergo of constant curvature). The question whether multiple degenerate Killing
horizons may lead to inequivalent Near Horizon Geometries by using different
degenerate Killings is addressed, and answered on the negative: all Near
Horizon geometries built from a given multiple degenerate Killing horizon
(using different degenerate Killings) are isometric.


  Achieving practical quantum advantage requires a classical decoding algorithm
to identify and correct faults during computation. This classical decoding
algorithm must deliver both accuracy and speed, but in what combination? When
is a decoder "fast enough" or "accurate enough"?
  In the case of surface codes, tens of decoding algorithms have been proposed,
with different accuracies and speeds. However, it has been unclear how to
choose the best decoder for a given quantum architecture. Should a faster
decoder be used at the price of reduced accuracy? Or should a decoder sacrifice
accuracy to fit within a given time constraint? If a decoder is too slow, it
may be stopped upon reaching a time bound, at the price of some time-out
failures and an increased failure rate. What then is the optimal stopping time
of the decoder?
  By analyzing the speed vs. accuracy tradeoff, we propose strategies to select
the optimal stopping time for a decoder for different tasks. We design a
protocol to select the decoder that minimizes the spacetime cost per logical
gate, for logical computation of a given depth. Our protocol enables comparison
of different decoders, and the selection of an appropriate decoder for a given
fault-tolerant quantum computing architecture. We illustrate our protocol for
the surface code equipped with a desktop implementation of the PyMatching
decoder. We estimate PyMatching is fast enough to implement thousands of
logical gates with a better accuracy than physical qubits. However, we find it
is not sufficiently fast to reach 10^5 logical gates, under certain
assumptions, due to the decoding delay which forces qubits to idle and
accumulate errors while idling. We expect further improvements to PyMatching
are possible by running it on a better machine or by reducing the OS
interference.


  We explore submersions introduced by reducible holonomy representations of
connections with parallel skew torsion. A submersion theorem extending previous
less general results is given. As our main application we show that parallel
3-$(\alpha,\delta)$-Sasaki manifolds admit 1-dimensional submersions onto
nearly K\"ahler orbifolds. As a secondary application we reprove that a certain
class of nearly K\"ahler manifolds submerges onto quaternionic K\"ahler
manifolds. This new proof gives an direct expression for the quaternionic
structure on the base.


  We used the N-body code of Hernquist and Ostriker (1992) to build a dozen
cuspy ({\gamma}\approx 1) triaxial models of stellar systems through
dissipationless collapses of initially spherical distributions of 10^6
particles. We chose four sets of initial conditions that resulted in models
morphologically resembling E2, E3, E4 and E5 galaxies, respectively. Within
each set, three different seed numbers were selected for the random number
generator used to create the initial conditions, so that the three models of
each set are statistically equivalent. We checked the stability of our models
using the values of their central densities and of their moments of inertia,
which turned out to be very constant indeed. The changes of those values were
all less than 3 per cent over one Hubble time and, moreover, we show that the
most likely cause of those changes are relaxation effects in the numerical
code. We computed the six Lyapunov exponents of nearly 5,000 orbits in each
model in order to recognize regular, partially and fully chaotic orbits. All
the models turned out to be highly chaotic, with less than 25 per cent of their
orbits being regular. We conclude that it is quite possible to obtain cuspy
triaxial stellar models that contain large fractions of chaotic orbits and are
highly stable. The difficulty to build such models with the method of
Schwarzschild (1979) should be attributed to the method itself and not to
physical causes.


  Conversational tones -- the manners and attitudes in which speakers
communicate -- are essential to effective communication. Amidst the increasing
popularization of Large Language Models (LLMs) over recent years, it becomes
necessary to characterize the divergences in their conversational tones
relative to humans. However, existing investigations of conversational
modalities rely on pre-existing taxonomies or text corpora, which suffer from
experimenter bias and may not be representative of real-world distributions for
the studies' psycholinguistic domains. Inspired by methods from cognitive
science, we propose an iterative method for simultaneously eliciting
conversational tones and sentences, where participants alternate between two
tasks: (1) one participant identifies the tone of a given sentence and (2) a
different participant generates a sentence based on that tone. We run 100
iterations of this process with human participants and GPT-4, then obtain a
dataset of sentences and frequent conversational tones. In an additional
experiment, humans and GPT-4 annotated all sentences with all tones. With data
from 1,339 human participants, 33,370 human judgments, and 29,900 GPT-4
queries, we show how our approach can be used to create an interpretable
geometric representation of relations between conversational tones in humans
and GPT-4. This work demonstrates how combining ideas from machine learning and
cognitive science can address challenges in human-computer interactions.


  In this article, we consider a magnetohydrodynamics system for incompressible
flow in a three-dimensional bounded domain. Firstly, we give the stability
results for our inverse coefficients problem. Secondly, we establish and prove
two Carleman estimates for both direct problem and inverse problem. Finally, we
complete the proof of stability result in terms of the above Carleman
estimates.


  Stacked denoising auto encoders (DAEs) are well known to learn useful deep
representations, which can be used to improve supervised training by
initializing a deep network. We investigate a training scheme of a deep DAE,
where DAE layers are gradually added and keep adapting as additional layers are
added. We show that in the regime of mid-sized datasets, this gradual training
provides a small but consistent improvement over stacked training in both
reconstruction quality and classification error over stacked training on MNIST
and CIFAR datasets.


  Recently colossal Seebeck coefficient ($S$) has found in the several
thermoelectric (TE) materials. We present colossal $S$ and large thermal
electron motivate force (EMF) reproduced by space charge (SC) model,
introducing multi-Debye lengths within grain boundaries (GBs) of TE materials
with phonon drag (PD) effect accompanying with electron by electron-phonon
interaction. In addition to $S$, the polarity reversal was also reproduced by
transfer process with inner bias around SP generated from thermal EMF. Colossal
$S$ and EMF for TE material were reproduced by inner SC model as a functions of
averaged multi-Debye length within GBs.


  Deciding whether the results of two different mining algorithms provide
significantly different information is an important, yet understudied, open
problem in exploratory data mining. Whether the goal is to select the most
informative result for analysis, or to decide which mining approach will most
likely provide the most novel insight, it is essential that we can tell how
different the information is that different results by possibly different
methods provide.
  In this paper we take a first step towards comparing exploratory data mining
results on binary data. We propose to meaningfully convert results into sets of
noisy tiles, and compare between these sets by Maximum Entropy modelling and
Kullback-Leibler divergence, well-founded notions from Information Theory. We
so construct a measure that is highly flexible, and allows us to naturally
include background knowledge, such that differences in results can be measured
from the perspective of what a user already knows. Furthermore, adding to its
interpretability, it coincides with Jaccard dissimilarity when we only consider
exact tiles.
  Our approach provides a means to study and tell differences between results
of different exploratory data mining methods. As an application, we show that
our measure can also be used to identify which parts of results best redescribe
other results. Furthermore, we study its use for iterative data mining, where
one iteratively wants to find that result that will provide maximal novel
information. Experimental evaluation shows our measure gives meaningful
results, correctly identifies methods that are similar in nature, automatically
provides sound redescriptions of results, and is highly applicable for
iterative data mining.


  In this paper, we propose a new metric to measure goodness-of-fit for
classifiers, the Real World Cost function. This metric factors in information
about a real world problem, such as financial impact, that other measures like
accuracy or F1 do not. This metric is also more directly interpretable for
users. To optimize for this metric, we introduce the Real-World- Weight
Crossentropy loss function, in both binary and single-label classification
variants. Both variants allow direct input of real world costs as weights. For
single-label, multicategory classification, our loss function also allows
direct penalization of probabilistic false positives, weighted by label, during
the training of a machine learning model. We compare the design of our loss
function to the binary crossentropy and categorical crossentropy functions, as
well as their weighted variants, to discuss the potential for improvement in
handling a variety of known shortcomings of machine learning, ranging from
imbalanced classes to medical diagnostic error to reinforcement of social bias.
We create scenarios that emulate those issues using the MNIST data set and
demonstrate empirical results of our new loss function. Finally, we sketch a
proof of this function based on Maximum Likelihood Estimation and discuss
future directions.


  After the discovery of magnetism in monolayer CrI3, the magnetic properties
of different 2D materials from the chromium-trihalide family are intuitively
assumed to be similar, yielding magnetic anisotropy from the spin-orbit
coupling on halide ligands. Here we reveal significant differences between the
CrI3 and CrBr3 magnetic monolayers in their magnetic anisotropy, resulting
Curie temperature, hysteresis in external magnetic field, and evolution of
magnetism with strain, all predominantly attributed to distinctly different
interplay of atomic contributions to spin-orbit coupling in two materials.


  We consider Backus's problem in geophysics. This consists in reconstructing a
harmonic potential outside the Earth when the intensity of the related field is
measured on the Earth's surface. Thus, the boundary condition is (severely)
nonlinear. The gravitational case is quite understood. It consists in the local
resolution near a monopole, i.e. the potential generated by a point mass. In
this paper, we consider the geomagnetic case. This consists in linearizing the
field's intensity near the so-called dipole, a harmonic function which models
the solenoidal potential of a magnet. The problem is quite difficult, because
the resolving operator related to the linearized problem is generally
unbounded. Indeed, existence results for Backus's problem in this framework are
not present in the literature. In this work, we locally solve the geomagnetic
version of Backus's problem in the axially symmetric case. In mathematical
terms, we show the existence of harmonic functions in the exterior of a sphere,
with given (boundary) field's intensity sufficiently close to that of a dipole
and which have the same axial symmetry of a dipole. We also show that unique
solutions can be selected by prescribing the average of the potential on the
equatorial circle of the sphere. We obtain those solutions as series of
spherical harmonics. The functional framework entails the use of fractional
Sobolev Hilbert spaces on the sphere, endowed with a spectral norm. A crucial
ingredient is the algebra structure of suitable subspaces.


  The aim of the present letter is to find the holographic entanglement entropy
(HEE) in 2D holographic superconductors (HSC). Indeed, it is possible to
compute the exact form of this entropy due to an advantage of approximate
solutions inside normal and superconducting phases with backreactions. By
making the UV and IR limits applied to the integrals, an approximate expression
for HEE is obtained. In case the software cannot calculate minimal surface
integrals analytically, it offers the possibility to proceed with a numerical
evaluation of the corresponding terms. We'll understand how the area formula
incorporates the structure of the domain wall approximation. We see that HEE
changes linearly with belt angle. It's due to the extensivity of this type of
entropy and the emergent of an entropic force. We find that the wider belt
angle corresponds to a larger holographic surface. Another remarkable
observation is that no "confinement/deconfinement" phase transition point
exists in our $2D$ dual field theory. Furthermore we observe that the slope of
the HEE with respect to the temperature freedom(s) in low temperature system. A
first order phase transition is detected near the critical point.


  Quantum reservoir computing provides a framework for exploiting the natural
dynamics of quantum systems as a computational resource. It can implement
real-time signal processing and solve temporal machine learning problems in
general, which requires memory and nonlinear mapping of the recent input stream
using the quantum dynamics in computational supremacy region, where the
classical simulation of the system is intractable. A nuclear magnetic resonance
spin-ensemble system is one of the realistic candidates for such physical
implementations, which is currently available in laboratories. In this paper,
considering these realistic experimental constraints for implementing the
framework, we introduce a scheme, which we call a spatial multiplexing
technique, to effectively boost the computational power of the platform. This
technique exploits disjoint dynamics, which originate from multiple different
quantum systems driven by common input streams in parallel. Accordingly, unlike
designing a single large quantum system to increase the number of qubits for
computational nodes, it is possible to prepare a huge number of qubits from
multiple but small quantum systems, which are operationally easy to handle in
laboratory experiments. We numerically demonstrate the effectiveness of the
technique using several benchmark tasks and quantitatively investigate its
specifications, range of validity, and limitations in detail.


  We report experimental control of chaos in an electronic circuit at 43.9 MHz,
which is the fastest chaos control reported in the literature to date. Limiter
control is used to stabilize a periodic orbit in a tuned collector transistor
oscillator modified to exhibit simply folded band chaos. The limiter is
implemented using a transistor to enable monitoring the relative magnitude of
the control perturbation. A plot of the relative control magnitude vs. limiter
level shows a local minimum at period-1 control, thereby providing strong
evidence that the controlled state is an unstable periodic orbit (UPO) of the
uncontrolled system.


  We present a global analysis of the semileptonic and purely Leptonic
nonuniversal and flavor-changing nonstandard neutrino interactions in all the
known short-baseline neutrino- and antineutrino-electron scattering
experiments. The nonstandard effects at the source and at the detector can be
more transparent in these experiments because of the negligibly small ratio
between the baselines and the neutrino energies, which is not enough for the
neutrinos to oscillate, and thus can be sensitive to the new physics at the
both ends. We use data from two electron-neutrino electron scattering
experiments and six electron-antineutrino electron scattering experiments and
combine them to find the best fits on the nonstandard parameters using the
source-only, detector-only analyses, and then find the interplay between the
two cases. The bounds obtained in some cases are stronger and new, in some
cases comparable to the current ones, and in the other cases weaker. For
instance, the bound obtained from the interplay between the source and detector
nonstandard physics on the nonstandard parameter {\epsilon}_{ee}^{udL} at the
source is much stronger and is comparable with the indirect bound, but the
bounds on the parameters {\epsilon}_{{\mu}e}^{udL} and
{\epsilon}_{{\tau}e}^{udL} are weaker in this study in comparison with the
indirect bounds. We also find a global fit on the standard weak mixing angle
sin{\theta}_{W}=0.249+-0.020 with 2% improvement in its precision in comparison
with the previous studies.


  High frequency quasiperiodic oscillations (HF QPOs) detected in the power
spectra of low mass x-ray binaries (LMXBs) could unveil the fingerprints of
gravitation in strong field regime. Using the energy-momentum relation we
calculate the energy a clump of plasma orbiting in the accretion disk releases
during circularization of its slightly eccentric relativistic orbit. Following
previous works, we highlight the strong tidal force as mechanism to dissipate
such energy. We show that tides acting on the clump are able to reproduce the
observed coherence of the upper HF QPO seen in LMXBs with a neutron star (NS).
The quantity of energy released by the clump and relativistic boosting might
give a modulation amplitude in agreement with that observed in the upper HF
QPO. Both the amplitude and coherence of the upper HF QPO in NS LMXBs could
allow us to disclose, for the first time, the tidal circularization of
relativistic orbits occurring around a neutron star.


  We present two improved algorithms for weighted discrete $p$-center problem
for tree networks with $n$ vertices. One of our proposed algorithms runs in
$O(n \log n + p \log^2 n \log(n/p))$ time. For all values of $p$, our algorithm
thus runs as fast as or faster than the most efficient $O(n\log^2 n)$ time
algorithm obtained by applying Cole's speed-up technique [cole1987] to the
algorithm due to Megiddo and Tamir [megiddo1983], which has remained
unchallenged for nearly 30 years. Our other algorithm, which is more practical,
runs in $O(n \log n + p^2 \log^2(n/p))$ time, and when $p=O(\sqrt{n})$ it is
faster than Megiddo and Tamir's $O(n \log^2n \log\log n)$ time algorithm
[megiddo1983].


  We study jamming in model freely rotating polymers as a function of chain
length $N$ and bond angle $\theta_0$. The volume fraction at jamming,
$\phi_J(\theta_0)$, is minimal for rigid-rod-like chains ($\theta_0 = 0$), and
increases monotonically with increasing $\theta_0 \leq \pi/2$. In contrast to
flexible polymers, marginally jammed states of freely rotating polymers are
highly hypostatic, even when bond and angle constraints are accounted for.
Large aspect ratio (small $\theta_0$) chains behave comparably to stiff fibers:
resistance to large-scale bending plays a major role in their jamming
phenomenology. Low aspect ratio (large $\theta_0$) chains behave more like
flexible polymers, but still jam at much lower densities due to the presence of
frozen-in 3-body correlations corresponding to the fixed bond angles.
Long-chain systems jam at lower $\phi$ and are more hypostatic at jamming than
short-chain systems. Implications of these findings for polymer solidification
are discussed.


  We study, from both a theoretical and observational perspective, the physical
origin and spectroscopic impact of extreme nebular emission in high-redshift
galaxies. The nebular continuum, which can appear during extreme starbursts, is
of particular importance as it tends to redden UV slopes and has a significant
contribution to the UV luminosities of galaxies. Furthermore, its shape can be
used to infer the gas density and temperature of the ISM. First, we provide a
theoretical background, showing how different stellar populations (SPS models,
IMFs, and stellar temperatures) and nebular conditions impact observed galaxy
spectra. We demonstrate that, for systems with strong nebular continuum
emission, 1) UV fluxes can increase by up to 0.7~magnitudes (or more in the
case of hot/massive stars) above the stellar continuum, which may help
reconcile the surprising abundance of bright high-redshift galaxies and the
elevated UV luminosity density at $z>10$, 2) at high gas densities, UV slopes
can redden from $\beta\lesssim-2.5$ to $\beta\sim-1$, 3) observational
measurements of $\xi_{ion}$ are grossly underestimated, and 4) UV downturns
from two-photon emission can masquerade as DLAs. Second, we present a dataset
of 58 galaxies observed with NIRSpec on JWST at $2.5<z<9.0$ that are selected
to have strong nebular continuum emission via the detection of the Balmer jump.
Five of the 58 spectra are consistent with being dominated by nebular emission,
exhibiting both a Balmer jump and a UV downturn consistent with two-photon
emission. For some galaxies, this may imply the presence of hot massive stars
and a top-heavy IMF. We conclude by exploring the properties of
spectroscopically confirmed $z>10$ galaxies, finding that UV slopes and UV
downturns are in some cases redder or steeper than expected from SPS models,
which may hint at more exotic (e.g. hotter/more massive stars or AGN) ionizing
sources.


  This paper addresses the task of explaining anomalous predictions of a
black-box regression model. When using a black-box model, such as one to
predict building energy consumption from many sensor measurements, we often
have a situation where some observed samples may significantly deviate from
their prediction. It may be due to a sub-optimal black-box model, or simply
because those samples are outliers. In either case, one would ideally want to
compute a ``responsibility score'' indicative of the extent to which an input
variable is responsible for the anomalous output. In this work, we formalize
this task as a statistical inverse problem: Given model deviation from the
expected value, infer the responsibility score of each of the input variables.
We propose a new method called likelihood compensation (LC), which is founded
on the likelihood principle and computes a correction to each input variable.
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first principled framework that
computes a responsibility score for real valued anomalous model deviations. We
apply our approach to a real-world building energy prediction task and confirm
its utility based on expert feedback.


  We investigate the dynamic evolution of the radiation forces produced by the
pulsed Gaussian beams acting on a Rayleigh dielectric sphere. We derive the
analytical expressions for the scattering force and all components of the
ponderomotive force induced by the pulsed Gaussian beams. Our analysis shows
that the radiation force, for both the transverse and longitudinal components,
can be greatly enhanced as the pulse duration decreases. It is further found
that for the pulse with long pulse duration, it can be used for the stable
trapping and manipulating the particle, while for the pulse with short pulse
duration it may be used for guiding and moving the small dielectric particle.
Finally we discuss the stability conditions of the effective manipulating the
particle by the pulsed beam.


  The theory of magnetoresistance of the edge state of a two-dimensional
topological insulator is developed. The magnetic field violates the
time-reversal invariance. Magnetoresistance arises due to the energy gap opened
by a magnetic field parallel to the sample surface. The combined action of
impurities and the magnetic field causes backscattering of edge electrons.
Although impurities are necessary for scattering, sufficiently strong
interaction with impurities leads to the suppression of backscattering.


  This paper presents a novel place recognition approach to autonomous vehicles
by using low-cost, single-chip automotive radar. Aimed at improving recognition
robustness and fully exploiting the rich information provided by this emerging
automotive radar, our approach follows a principled pipeline that comprises (1)
dynamic points removal from instant Doppler measurement, (2) spatial-temporal
feature embedding on radar point clouds, and (3) retrieved candidates
refinement from Radar Cross Section measurement. Extensive experimental results
on the public nuScenes dataset demonstrate that existing visual/LiDAR/spinning
radar place recognition approaches are less suitable for single-chip automotive
radar. In contrast, our purpose-built approach for automotive radar
consistently outperforms a variety of baseline methods via a comprehensive set
of metrics, providing insights into the efficacy when used in a realistic
system.


  I briefly describe a few important scientific issues that could be addressed
effectively via the combination of data from JDEM and X-ray missions. The
topics covered are largely focused on active galactic nuclei (AGN) and include
(1) the selection of AGN via X-ray emission and optical variability, (2)
nuclear outbursts in galaxies due to transient fueling of their supermassive
black holes, (3) moderate-luminosity AGN at high redshift (z > 4) found via
application of "dropout" techniques to X-ray sources, and (4) the host-galaxy
morphologies of X-ray selected AGN. I also describe the substantial challenges
to obtaining wide-field X-ray data with sufficient sensitivity to complement
JDEM properly.


  We report numerical evidence that an epidemic-like model, which can be
interpreted as the propagation of a rumor, exhibits critical behavior at a
finite randomness of the underlying small-world network. The transition occurs
between a regime where the rumor "dies" in a small neighborhood of its origin,
and a regime where it spreads over a finite fraction of the whole population.
Critical exponents are evaluated, and the dependence of the critical randomness
with the network connectivity is studied. The behavior of this system as a
function of the small-network randomness bears noticeable similarities with an
epidemiological model reported recently [M. Kuperman and G. Abramson, Phys.
Rev. Lett. 86, 2909 (2001)], in spite of substantial differences in the
respective dynamical rules.


  We formulate the unitary rational orbifold conformal field theories in the
algebraic quantum field theory framework. Under general conditions, we show
that the orbifold of a given unitary rational conformal field theories
generates a unitary modular category. Many new unitary modular categories are
obtained. We also show that the irreducible representations of orbifolds of
rank one lattice vertex operator algebras give rise to unitary modular
categories and determine the corresponding modular matrices, which has been
conjectured for some time.


  We present the results of our search for high-redshift Lyman-break galaxies
over the GOODS-South field. We use HST-ACS data in B, V, i' & z', VLT-ISAAC J
and Ks, Spitzer-IRAC 3.6, 4.5, 5.8 and 8.0 micron data in conjunction with the
new HAWK-I Y-band science verification data to search for dropout galaxies in
the redshift range 6<z<9. We survey ~119 arcmin^2 to Y_AB=25.7 (5sigma), of
which 37.5 arcmin^2 reaches Y_AB=25.9. Candidate z' and Y drop-outs were
selected on the basis of a colour cut of (Y-J)_{AB}>0.75 mag and
(z'-Y)_{AB}>1.0 mag respectively. We find no robust Y-drops (z~9) brighter than
J_{AB}<25.4. In our search for z'-band dropouts (z~6.5-7.5), we identify four
possible candidates, two with z'-drop colours and clear Spitzer-IRAC detections
and two less likely candidates. We also identify two previously-known Galactic
T-dwarf stellar contaminants with these colours, and two likely transient
objects seen in the Y-band data. The implications if all or none of our
candidates are real on the Ultra-Violet galaxy luminosity functions at z>6.5
are explored. We find our number of z'-drop candidates to be insufficient based
on the expected number of z' drops in a simple no-evolution scenario from the
z=3 Lyman-break galaxy luminosity function but we are consistent with the
observed luminosity function at z~6 (if all our candidates are real). However,
if one or both of our best z'-drop candidates are not z>6.5 galaxies, this
would demand evolution of the luminosity function at early epochs. We show that
the future surveys to be conducted with the ESO VISTA telescope over the next
five years will be able to measure the bulk of the luminosity function for both
z' and Y drop-outs.


  The demand for a particular product or service is typically associated with
different uncertainties that can make them volatile and challenging to predict.
Demand unpredictability is one of the managers' concerns in the supply chain
that can cause large forecasting errors, issues in the upstream supply chain
and impose unnecessary costs. We investigate 843 real demand time series with
different values of coefficient of variations (CoV) where promotion causes
volatility over the entire demand series. In such a case, forecasting demand
for different CoV require different models to capture the underlying behavior
of demand series and pose significant challenges due to very different and
diverse demand behavior. We decompose demand into baseline and promotional
demand and propose a hybrid model to forecast demand. Our results indicate that
our proposed hybrid model generates robust and accurate forecast across series
with different levels of volatilities. We stress the necessity of decomposition
for volatile demand series. We also model demand series with a number of well
known statistical and machine learning (ML) models to investigate their
performance empirically. We found that ARIMA with covariate (ARIMAX) works well
to forecast volatile demand series, but exponential smoothing with covariate
(ETSX) has a poor performance. Support vector regression (SVR) and dynamic
linear regression (DLR) models generate robust forecasts across different
categories of demands with different CoV values.


  In some solar energetic particle (SEP) events, a counter-streaming particle
beam with a deep depression of flux near 90 degrees pitch angle during the
beginning phase is observed. Two different interpretations exist in the
community to explain this interesting phenomenon. One explanation invokes the
hypothesis of an outer reflecting boundary or a magnetic mirror beyond the
observer. The other one considers the effect of the perpendicular diffusion on
the transport process of SEPs in the interplanetary space. In this work, we
revisit the problem of the counter-streaming particle beams observed in SEP
events and discuss the possible mechanisms responsible for the formation of
this phenomenon. We clarify some results in previous works.


  The SOUL project is upgrading the 4 SCAO systems of LBT, pushing the current
guide star limits of about 2 magnitudes fainter thanks to Electron Multiplied
CCD detector. This improvement will open the NGS SCAO correction to a wider
number of scientific cases from high contrast imaging in the visible to
extra-galactic source in the NIR. The SOUL systems are today the unique case
where pyramid WFS, adaptive secondary and EMCCD are used together. This makes
SOUL a pathfinder for most of the ELT SCAO systems like the one of GMT, MICADO
and HARMONI of E-ELT, where the same key technologies will be employed. Today
we have 3 SOUL systems installed on the telescope in commissioning phase. The
4th system will be installed in a few months. We will present here the results
achieved during daytime testing and commissioning nights up to the present
date.


  Dihadron Fragmentation Functions (DFF) provide a vast amount of information
on the intricate details of the parton hadronization process. Moreover, they
provide a unique access to the "clean" extraction of nucleon transversity
parton distribution functions in semi inclusive deep inelastic two hadron
production process with a transversely polarised target. The NJL-jet model has
been extended for calculations of light and strange quark unpolarised DFFs to
pions, kaons and several vector mesons. This is accomplished by using the
probabilistic interpretation of the DFFs, and employing the NJL-jet
hadronization model in the Monte Carlo simulations that includes the transverse
momentum of the produced hadrons. The strong decays of the vector mesons and
the subsequent modification of the pseudoscalar meson DFFs are also considered.
The resulting pseudoscalar meson DFFs are strongly influenced by the decays of
the relevant vector mesons. This is because of the large combinatorial factors
involved in counting the number of the hadron pairs that include the decay
products. The evolution of the DFFs from the model scale to a typical
experimental scale has also been performed.


  The equation of state is investigated for an Ising-like model in the
framework of collective variables method. The peculiar feature of the theory is
that a non-classical van der Waals loop is extracted. The results are compared
with the ones of a trigonometric parametric model in terms of normalized
magnetization, \tilde{M}, and field, \tilde{H}.


  High-fidelity 3D assets with materials composed of fibers (including hair),
complex layered material shaders, or fine scattering geometry are ubiquitous in
high-end realistic rendering applications. Rendering such models is
computationally expensive due to heavy shaders and long scattering paths.
Moreover, implementing the shading and scattering models is non-trivial and has
to be done not only in the 3D content authoring software (which is necessarily
complex), but also in all downstream rendering solutions. For example, web and
mobile viewers for complex 3D assets are desirable, but frequently cannot
support the full shading complexity allowed by the authoring application. Our
goal is to design a neural representation for 3D assets with complex shading
that supports full relightability and full integration into existing renderers.
We provide an end-to-end shading solution at the first intersection of a ray
with the underlying geometry. All shading and scattering is precomputed and
included in the neural asset; no multiple scattering paths need to be traced,
and no complex shading models need to be implemented to render our assets,
beyond a single neural architecture. We combine an MLP decoder with a feature
grid. Shading consists of querying a feature vector, followed by an MLP
evaluation producing the final reflectance value. Our method provides
high-fidelity shading, close to the ground-truth Monte Carlo estimate even at
close-up views. We believe our neural assets could be used in practical
renderers, providing significant speed-ups and simplifying renderer
implementations.


  We apply a machine learning technique for identifying the topological charge
of quantum gauge configurations in four-dimensional SU(3) Yang-Mills theory.
The topological charge density measured on the original and smoothed gauge
configurations with and without dimensional reduction is used as inputs for the
neural networks (NN) with and without convolutional layers. The gradient flow
is used for the smoothing of the gauge field. We find that the topological
charge determined at a large flow time can be predicted with high accuracy from
the data at small flow times by the trained NN; for example, the accuracy
exceeds $99\%$ with the data at $t/a^2\le0.3$. High robustness against the
change of simulation parameters is also confirmed with a fixed physical volume.
We find that the best performance is obtained when the spatial coordinates of
the topological charge density are fully integrated out in preprocessing, which
implies that our convolutional NN does not find characteristic structures in
multi-dimensional space relevant for the determination of the topological
charge.


  We show in this paper that the correspondence between $2$-term
representations up to homotopy and $\mathcal{VB}$-algebroids, established by
Gracia-Saz and Mehta, holds also at the level of morphisms. This correspondence
is hence an equivalence of categories. As an application, we study foliations
and distributions on a Lie algebroid, that are compatible both with the linear
structure and the Lie algebroid structure. In particular, we show how
infinitesimal ideal systems in a Lie algebroid $A$ are related with
subrepresentations of the adjoint representation of $A$.


  Motivated by the irregular and little-understood morphologies of z ~ 2 - 3
galaxies, we use non-parametric coefficents to quantify the morphologies of 216
galaxies which have been spectroscopically confirmed to lie at redshifts z =
1.8 - 3.4 in the GOODS-N field. Using measurements of ultraviolet (UV) and
optical spectral lines, multi-band photometric data, and stellar population
models we statistically assess possible correlations between galaxy morphology
and physical observables such as stellar mass, star formation rate, and the
strength of galaxy-scale outflows. We find evidence that dustier galaxies have
more nebulous UV morphologies and that larger, more luminous galaxies may drive
stronger outflows, but otherwise conclude that UV morphology is either
statistically decoupled from the majority of physical observables or determined
by too complex a combination of physical processes to provide characterizations
with predictive power. Given the absence of strong correlations between UV
morphology and physical parameters such as star formation rates, we are
therefore unable to support the hypothesis that morphologically irregular
galaxies predominantly represent major galaxy mergers. Comparing galaxy
samples, we find that IR-selected BzK galaxies and radio-selected submillimeter
galaxies (SMGs) have UV morphologies similar to the optically selected sample,
while distant red galaxies (DRGs) are more nebulous.


  We report on the energy spectrum of electrons in twisted bilayer graphene
(tBLG) obtained by the band-unfolding method in the tight-binding model. We
find the band-gap opening at particular points in the reciprocal space, that
elucidates the drastic reduction of the Fermi-level velocity with the tiny
twisted angles in tBLGs. We find that Moir\`e pattern caused by the twist of
the two graphene layers generates interactions among Dirac cones, otherwise
absent, and the resultant cone-cone interactions peculiar to each point in the
reciprocal space causes the energy gap and thus reduced the Fermi-level
velocity.


  We present a simple method to efficiently compute a lower limit of the
topological entropy and its spatial distribution for two-dimensional mappings.
These mappings could represent either two-dimensional time-periodic fluid flows
or three-dimensional magnetic fields, which are periodic in one direction. This
method is based on measuring the length of a material line in the flow.
Depending on the nature of the flow, the fluid can be mixed very efficiently
which causes the line to stretch. Here we study a method that adaptively
increases the resolution at locations along the line where folds lead to high
curvature. This reduces the computational cost greatly which allows us to study
unprecedented parameter regimes. We demonstrate how this efficient
implementation allows the computation of the variation of the finite-time
topological entropy in the mapping. This measure quantifies spatial variations
of the braiding efficiency, important in many practical applications.


  In this paper we argue that there is a trade-off between generativity and
originality in online communities that support open collaboration. We build on
foundational theoretical work in peer production to formulate and test a series
of hypotheses suggesting that the generativity of creative works is associated
with moderate complexity, prominent authors, and cumulativeness. We also
formulate and test three hypotheses that these qualities are associated with
decreased originality in resulting derivatives. Our analysis uses a rich data
set from the Scratch Online Community --a large web-site where young people
openly share and remix animations and video games. We discuss the implications
of this trade-off for the design of peer production systems that support
amateur creativity.


  Universal scaling laws only apply asymptotically near critical phase
transitions. We propose a general scheme, based on normal form theory of
renormalization group flows, for incorporating corrections to scaling that
quantitatively describe the entire neighboring phases. Expanding Onsager's
exact solution of the 2D Ising model about the critical point, we identify a
special coordinate with radius of convergence covering the entire physical
temperature range, $0<T<\infty$. Without an exact solution, we demonstrate that
using solely the critical singularity with low- and high-temperature expansions
leads to exponentially converging approximations across all temperatures for
both the 2D and 3D Ising free energies and the 3D magnetization. We discuss
challenges and opportunities for future work.


  The coupling of nanostructures with emitters opens ways for the realization
of man-made subwavelength light emitting elements. In this article, we
investigate the modification of fluorescence when an emitter is placed close to
a nanostructure. In order to control the wealth of parameters that contribute
to this process, we have combined scanning probe technology with single
molecule microscopy and spectroscopy. We discuss the enhancement and reduction
of molecular excitation and emission rates in the presence of a dielectric or
metallic nanoparticle and emphasize the role of plasmon resonances in the
latter. Furthermore, we examine the spectral and angular emission
characteristics of the molecule-particle system. Our experimental findings are
in excellent semi-quantitative agreement with the outcome of theoretical
calculations. We express our results in the framework of optical nanoantennae
and propose arrangements that could lead to the modification of spontaneous
emission by more than 1000 times.


  To construct a no-arbitrage defaultable bond market, we work on the state
price density framework. Using the heat kernel approach (HKA for short) with
the killing of a Markov process, we construct a single defaultable bond market
that enables an explicit expression of a defaultable bond and credit spread
under quadratic Gaussian settings. Some simulation results show that the model
is not only tractable but realistic.


  Electronic excited states of molecules are central to many physical and
chemical processes, and yet they are typically more difficult to compute than
ground states. In this paper we leverage the advantages of quantum computers to
develop an algorithm for the highly accurate calculation of excited states. We
solve a contracted Schr\"odinger equation (CSE) -- a contraction (projection)
of the Schr\"odinger equation onto the space of two electrons -- whose
solutions correspond identically to the ground and excited states of the
Schr\"odinger equation. While recent quantum algorithms for solving the CSE,
known as contracted quantum eigensolvers (CQE), have focused on ground states,
we develop a CQE based on the variance that is designed to optimize rapidly to
a ground or excited state. We apply the algorithm in a classical simulation
without noise to computing the ground and excited states of H$_{4}$ and BH.


  Parallel processing is considered as todays and future trend for improving
performance of computers. Computing devices ranging from small embedded systems
to big clusters of computers rely on parallelizing applications to reduce
execution time. Many of current computing systems rely on Non-Uniform Memory
Access (NUMA) based processors architectures. In these architectures, analyzing
and considering the non-uniformity is of high importance for improving
scalability of systems. In this paper, we analyze and develop a NUMA based
approach for the OpenMP parallel programming model. Our technique applies a
smart threads allocation method and an advanced tasks scheduling strategy for
reducing remote memory accesses and consequently their extra time consumption.
We implemented our approach within the NANOS runtime system. A set of tests was
conducted using the BOTS benchmarks and results showed the capacity of our
technique in improving the performance of OpenMP applications especially those
dealing with a large amount of data.


  We study the Bergman space interpolation problem of open Riemann surfaces
obtained from a compact Riemann surface by removing a finite number of points.
We equip such a surface with what we call an asymptotically flat conformal
metric, i.e., a complete metric with zero curvature outside a compact subset.
We then establish necessary and sufficient conditions for interpolation in
weighted Bergman spaces over asymptotically flat Riemann surfaces.


  We discuss the finiteness of (two-term) silting objects. First, we
investigate new triangulated categories without silting object. Second, one
studies two classes of $\tau$-tilting-finite algebras and give the numbers of
their two-term silting objects. Finally, we explore when
$\tau$-tilting-finiteness implies representatoin-finiteness, and obtain several
classes of algebras in which a $\tau$-tilting-finite algebra is
representation-finite.


  We develop a framework for solving the action of a three-channel passive
optical interferometer on single-photon pulse inputs to each channel using
SU(3) group-theoretic methods, which can be readily generalized to higher-order
photon-coincidence experiments. We show that features of the coincidence plots
vs relative time delays of photons yield information about permanents,
immanants, and determinants of the interferometer SU(3) matrix.


  We prove a general formula that relates the parity of the Langlands parameter
of a conjugate self-dual discrete series representation of $\mathrm{GL}_n$ to
the parity of its Jacquet-Langlands image. It gives a generalization of a
partial result by Mieda concerning the case of invariant $1/n$ and
supercuspidal representations. It also gives a variation of the result on the
self-dual case by Prasad and Ramakrishnan.


  We give a capacity formula for the classical communication over a noisy
quantum channel, when local operations and global permutations allowed in the
encoding and bipartite states preshared between the sender and the receiver.
The two endpoints of this formula are the Holevo capacity (without entanglement
assistance) and the entanglement-assisted capacity (with unlimited entanglement
assistance). What's more, we show that the capacity satisfies the strong
converse property and thus the formula serves as a sharp dividing line between
achievable and unachievable rates of communication. We prove that the
difference between the assisted capacity and the Holevo capacity is upper
bounded by the discord of formation of the preshared state. As examples, we
derive analytically the classical capacity of various quantum channels of
interests. Our result witnesses the power of random permutation in classical
communication, whenever entanglement assistance is available.


  The Metaverse is driving the next wave of innovation for new opportunities by
replacing the digital world (Internet) with the virtual world through a single,
shared, immersive, persistent 3D virtual space. In this paper, we present
requirements, architecture, standards, challenges, and solutions for Metaverse.
Specifically, we provide Metaverse architecture and requirements, and different
standards for Metaverse which serve as the basis for the development and
deployment. Moreover, we present recent status, challenges such as integration
of AI and Metaverse, security and privacy in Metaverse, etc., and perspectives
and solutions.


  The abundance of observed data in recent years has increased the number of
statistical augmentations to complex models across science and engineering. By
augmentation we mean coherent statistical methods that incorporate measurements
upon arrival and adjust the model accordingly. However, in this research area
methodological developments tend to be central, with important assessments of
model fidelity often taking second place. Recently, the statistical finite
element method (statFEM) has been posited as a potential solution to the
problem of model misspecification when the data are believed to be generated
from an underlying partial differential equation system. Bayes nonlinear
filtering permits data driven finite element discretised solutions that are
updated to give a posterior distribution which quantifies the uncertainty over
model solutions. The statFEM has shown great promise in systems subject to mild
misspecification but its ability to handle scenarios of severe model
misspecification has not yet been presented. In this paper we fill this gap,
studying statFEM in the context of shallow water equations chosen for their
oceanographic relevance. By deliberately misspecifying the governing equations,
via linearisation, viscosity, and bathymetry, we systematically analyse
misspecification through studying how the resultant approximate posterior
distribution is affected, under additional regimes of decreasing spatiotemporal
observational frequency. Results show that statFEM performs well with
reasonable accuracy, as measured by theoretically sound proper scoring rules.


  The modular form $(azy)_5$ notably appears in one of Igusa's classic
structure theorems as a generator of the ring of full modular forms in genus 2,
being exhibited by means of a complicated algebraic expression. In this work a
different description for this modular form is provided by resorting to a
peculiar geometrical approach.


  In this paper, we first analyze the strong and weak convergence of projective
integration methods for multiscale stochastic dynamical systems driven by
$\alpha$-stable processes, which are used to estimate the effect that the fast
components have on slow ones. Then we obtain the $p$th moment error bounds
between the solution of slow component produced by projective integration
method and the solution of effective system with $p \in \left(1,
\alpha\right)$. Finally, we corroborate our analytical results through a
specific numerical example.


  We report on the design and characterization of a cold atom source for
strontium (Sr) based on a two-dimensional magneto-optical trap (MOT) that is
directly loaded from the atom jet of a dispenser. We characterize the atom flux
of the source by measuring the loading rate of a three-dimensional MOT. We find
loading rates of up to $10^{8}$ atoms per second. The setup is compact, easy to
construct, and has low power consumption. It addresses the long standing
challenge of reducing the complexity of cold beam sources for Sr, which is
relevant for optical atomic clocks and quantum simulation and computing devices
based on ultracold Sr.


  The cyclic deformation behavior of extruded Mg-8.5wt.%Al alloy with a
conventional extrusion texture and a modified texture is systematically
investigated by in-situ neutron diffraction and elastic viscoplastic
self-consistent (EVPSC) modeling incorporating a twinning/de-twinning (TDT)
scheme. The role of twinning and de-twinning on the deformation behavior of
Mg-8.5wt.% Al alloy is investigated in terms of the macroscopic stress-strain
response, the evolution of the activities of various deformation mechanisms,
the texture evolution, the evolution of the internal elastic strains, and the
evolution of the diffraction peak intensities. The alloy with the conventional
extrusion texture undergoes twinning during initial compression and de-twinning
during reverse tension. The same alloy does not favor twinning during initial
tension, but rather during reverse compression. The alloy with a modified
texture undergoes twinning during initial tension followed by detwinning during
reverse compression. The results provide insights into the effect of initial
texture, loading path, slip, twinning, de-twinning on the cyclic behavior of
magnesium.


  In modern neural networks like Transformers, linear layers require
significant memory to store activations during backward pass. This study
proposes a memory reduction approach to perform backpropagation through linear
layers. Since the gradients of linear layers are computed by matrix
multiplications, we consider methods for randomized matrix multiplications and
demonstrate that they require less memory with a moderate decrease of the test
accuracy. Also, we investigate the variance of the gradient estimate induced by
the randomized matrix multiplication. We compare this variance with the
variance coming from gradient estimation based on the batch of samples. We
demonstrate the benefits of the proposed method on the fine-tuning of the
pre-trained RoBERTa model on GLUE tasks.


  Hands-On Universe (HOU) is an educational program that enables students to
investigate the Universe while applying tools and concepts from science, math,
and technology. Using the Internet, HOU participants around the world request
observations from an automated telescope, download images from a large image
archive, and analyze them with the aid of user-friendly image processing
software. This program is developing now in many countries, including the USA,
France, Germany, Sweden, Japan, Australia, and others. A network of telescopes
has been established among these countries, many of them remotely operated, as
shown in the accompanying demo. Using this feature, students in the classroom
are able to make night observations during the day, using a telescope placed in
another country. An archive of images taken on large telescopes is also
accessible, as well as resources for teachers. Students are also dealing with
real research projects, e.g. the search for asteroids, which resulted in the
discovery of a Kuiper Belt object by high-school students. Not only Hands-On
Universe gives the general public an access to professional astronomy, but it
is also a more general tool to demonstrate the use of a complex automated
system, the techniques of data processing and automation. Last but not least,
through the use of telescopes located in many countries over the globe, a form
of powerful and genuine cooperation between teachers and children from various
countries is promoted, with a clear educational goal.


  A new parafermionic algebra associated with the homogeneous space
$A^{(2)}_2/U(1)$ and its corresponding $Z$-algebra have been recently proposed.
In this paper, we give a free boson representation of the $A^{(2)}_2$
parafermion algebra in terms of seven free fields. Free field realizations of
the parafermionic energy-momentum tensor and screening currents are also
obtained. A new algebraic structure is discovered, which contains a $W$-algebra
type primary field with spin two.


  Synthetic data generation has been widely adopted in software testing, data
privacy, imbalanced learning, and artificial intelligence explanation. In all
such contexts, it is crucial to generate plausible data samples. A common
assumption of approaches widely used for data generation is the independence of
the features. However, typically, the variables of a dataset depend on one
another, and these dependencies are not considered in data generation leading
to the creation of implausible records. The main problem is that dependencies
among variables are typically unknown. In this paper, we design a synthetic
dataset generator for tabular data that can discover nonlinear causalities
among the variables and use them at generation time. State-of-the-art methods
for nonlinear causal discovery are typically inefficient. We boost them by
restricting the causal discovery among the features appearing in the frequent
patterns efficiently retrieved by a pattern mining algorithm. We design a
framework for generating synthetic datasets with known causalities to validate
our proposal. Broad experimentation on many synthetic and real datasets with
known causalities shows the effectiveness of the proposed method.


  Usually, a left-moving fermion in d=1+1 dimensions reflects off a boundary to
become a right-moving fermion. This means that, while overall fermion parity
$(-1)^F$ is conserved, chiral fermion parity for left- and right-movers
individually is not. Remarkably, there are boundary conditions that do preserve
chiral fermion parity, but only when the number of Majorana fermions is a
multiple of 8. In this paper we classify all such boundary states for $2N$
Majorana fermions when a $U(1)^N$ symmetry is also preserved. The fact that
chiral-parity-preserving boundary conditions only exist when $2N$ is divisible
by 8 translates to an interesting property of charge lattices. We also classify
the enhanced continuous symmetry preserved by such boundary states. The state
with the maximum such symmetry is the $SO(8)$ boundary state, first constructed
by Maldacena and Ludwig to describe the scattering of fermions off a monopole


  Solar active regions contain electric currents. Information on the
distribution of currents is important for understanding the processes of energy
release on the surface of the Sun and in the overlying layers. The paper
presents an analysis of the probability density function (PDF) of the absolute
value of the photospheric vertical electric current density ($|j_z|$) in 48
active regions before and after flares in 2010--2017. Calculation of $|j_z|$ is
performed by applying the differential form of Ampere's circuital law to
photospheric vector magnetograms obtained from observations of the Helioseismic
and Magnetic Imager (HMI) instrument onboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory
(SDO). It has been established that for the studied active regions PDF($|j_z|$)
is described by the Gauss function in the low-$|j_z|$ region ($|j_z| < 10110
\pm 1321$ statampere/cm$^2$) and the decaying power-law function in the region
of higher $|j_z|$ values. Also, for some active regions PDF($|j_z|$) can be
described by the special kappa-function. The distributions of the parameters of
the approximating functions are obtained using the least squares method. The
average absolute value of the power-law function index is $3.69 \pm 0.51$, and
$3.99 \pm 0.51$ of the kappa-function. No systematic changes in parameters
during the flares are detected. An explicit connection between the parameters
and the flare X-ray class, as well as with the Hale magnetic class of the
active regions, is not found. Arguments are presented in favor of the
suggestion that the Gaussian distribution in the low-value region of
PDF($|j_z|$) represents noise in the data, while the power-law "tail" reflects
the nature of electric currents in the solar active regions.


  Estrogen receptors (ERs) are a group of proteins activated by
17$\beta$-estradiol. The endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) mimic estrogen
action by bind directly to the ligand binding domain of ER. From this
perspective, ER represent a good model for identifying and assessing the health
risk of potential EDCs. This ability is best reflected by the ligand-ER binding
energy. Multilayer fragment molecular orbital (MFMO) calculations were
performed which allowed us to obtain the binding energy using a calculation
scheme that considers the molecular interactions that occur on the following
model systems: the bound and free receptor, 17$\beta$-estradiol and a water
cluster. The bound and free receptor and 17$\beta$-estradiol were surrounded by
a water shell containing the same number of molecules as the water cluster. The
structures required for MFMO calculations were obtained from molecular dynamics
simulations and cluster analysis. Attractive dispersion interactions were
observed between 17$\beta$-estradiol and the binding site hydrophobic residues.
In addition, strong electrostatic interactions were found between
17$\beta$-estradiol and the following charged/polarized residues: Glu 353, His
524 and Arg 394. The FMO2-RHF/STO-3G:MP2/6-31G(d) weighted binding energy was
of -67.2 kcal/mol. We hope that the model developed in this study can be useful
for identifying and assessing the health risk of potential EDCs.


  Constantly locating moving objects, i.e., geospatial tracking, is essential
for autonomous building infrastructure. Accurate and robust geospatial tracking
often leverages multimodal sensor fusion algorithms, which require large
datasets with time-aligned, synchronized data from various sensor types.
However, such datasets are not readily available. Hence, we propose GDTM, a
nine-hour dataset for multimodal object tracking with distributed multimodal
sensors and reconfigurable sensor node placements. Our dataset enables the
exploration of several research problems, such as optimizing architectures for
processing multimodal data, and investigating models' robustness to adverse
sensing conditions and sensor placement variances. A GitHub repository
containing the code, sample data, and checkpoints of this work is available at
https://github.com/nesl/GDTM.


  We study the effects of an annular gap induced by an embedded proto-planet on
disk scattered light images and the infrared spectral energy distribution. We
find that the outer edge of a gap is brighter in the scattered light images
than a similar location in a gap-free disk. The stellar radiation that would
have been scattered by material within in the gap is instead scattered by the
disk wall at the outer edge of the gap, producing a bright ring surrounding the
dark gap in the images. Given sufficient resolution, such gaps can be detected
by the presence of this bright ring in scattered light images. A gap in a disk
also changes the shape of the SED. Radiation that would have been absorbed by
material in the gap is instead reprocessed by the outer gap wall. This leads to
a decrease in the SED at wavelengths corresponding to the temperature at the
radius of the missing gap material and a corresponding flux increase at longer
wavelengths corresponding to the temperature of the outer wall. We note that,
unlike an inner hole in the disk, the presence of an annular gap does not
change the bolometric IR flux; it simply redistributes the radiation,
previously produced by material within the gap, to longer wavelengths. This
implies that the changes in the SED generally will be smaller for gaps than
holes. Although it will be difficult on the basis of the SED alone to
distinguish between the presence of a gap and other physical effects, the level
of changes can be sufficiently large to be measurable with current instruments
(e.g., Spitzer).