  We prove that the anomaly term appearing in the ratio between Reidemeister
torsion and analytic torsion for a space with a conical singularity vanishes in
the smooth case. Moreover, we show that such anomaly term is non trivial for
the cone over a torus.


  We present a technique which utilizes unitarity and collinear limits to
construct ansatze for one-loop amplitudes in gauge theory. As an example, we
obtain the one-loop contribution to amplitudes for $n$ gluon scattering in
$N=4$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory with the helicity configuration of the
Parke-Taylor tree amplitudes. We prove that our $N=4$ ansatz is correct using
general properties of the relevant one-loop $n$-point integrals. We also give
the ``splitting amplitudes'' which govern the collinear behavior of one-loop
helicity amplitudes in gauge theories.


  Many trial wavefunctions for fractional quantum Hall states in a single
Landau level are given by functions called conformal blocks, taken from some
conformal field theory. Also, wavefunctions for certain paired states of
fermions in two dimensions, such as p_x+ip_y states, reduce to such a form at
long distances. Here we investigate the adiabatic transport of such
many-particle trial wavefunctions using methods from two-dimensional field
theory. One context for this is to calculate the statistics of widely-separated
quasiholes, which has been predicted to be non-Abelian in a variety of cases.
The Berry phase or matrix (holonomy) resulting from adiabatic transport around
a closed loop in parameter space is the same as the effect of analytic
continuation around the same loop with the particle coordinates held fixed
(monodromy), provided the trial functions are orthonormal and holomorphic in
the parameters so that the Berry vector potential (or connection) vanishes. We
show that this is the case (up to a simple area term) for paired states
(including the Moore-Read quantum Hall state), and present general conditions
for it to hold for other trial states (such as the Read-Rezayi series). We
argue that trial states based on a non-unitary conformal field theory do not
describe a gapped topological phase, at least in many cases. By considering
adiabatic variation of the aspect ratio of the torus, we calculate the Hall
viscosity, a non-dissipative viscosity coefficient analogous to Hall
conductivity, for paired states, Laughlin states, and more general quantum Hall
states. Hall viscosity is an invariant within a topological phase, and is
generally proportional to the "conformal spin density" in the ground state.


  Using a construction due to C. Casagrande and further developed by the
author, we prove that the Picard number of a non-smooth Fano 3-fold with
isolated factorial canonical singularities, is at most 6.


  Two models with linear and nonlinear second class constraints are considered
and gauged by embedding in an extended phase space. These models are the free
non-relativistic particle on a hyperplane and hyper sphere in configuration
space. For the first model we construct its gauged corresponding by the
condition of converting second class system to first class one, directly. In
contrast the first class system related to the free particle on hyper sphere is
derived by the BFT embedding procedure, where its steps are infinite. We give a
practical formula for gauging linear and some of the nonlinear second class
systems, based on the simplified BFT method. As a result of the gauging two
models, we show that in the conversion of second class to the first class
constraints the minimum number of phase space degrees of freedom for both
systems is a pair of phase space coordinate. This pair for first system is a
coordinate and its momentum conjugate, but Poisson structure of embedded
non-relativistic particle on hyper sphere is a non-trivial one. We derive
infinite correction terms for the Hamiltonian of the nonlinear constraints. The
summation is done and constructs an interacting gauged Hamiltonian. We find an
open algebra for three first class objects of the embedded nonlinear system.


  The field of gravitational waves is rapidly progressing due to the noticeable
advancements in the sensitivity of gravitational-wave detectors that has
enabled the detection prospects of binary black hole mergers. Extreme mass
ratio inspiral (EMRI) is one of the most compelling and captivating binary
systems in this direction, with the detection possibility by the future
space-based gravitational wave detector. In this article, we consider an EMRI
system where the primary or the central object is a spherically symmetric
static braneworld black hole that carries a \textit{tidal charge} $Q$. We
estimate the effect of the tidal charge on total gravitational wave flux and
orbital phase due to a non-spinning secondary inspiralling the primary. We
further highlight the observational implications of the tidal charge in EMRI
waveforms. We show that LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) observations
can put a much stronger constraint on this parameter than black hole shadow and
ground-based gravitational wave observations, which can potentially probe the
existence of extra dimensions.


  Recent image generation models show remarkable generation performance.
However, they mirror strong location preference in datasets, which we call
spatial bias. Therefore, generators render poor samples at unseen locations and
scales. We argue that the generators rely on their implicit positional encoding
to render spatial content. From our observations, the generator's implicit
positional encoding is translation-variant, making the generator spatially
biased. To address this issue, we propose injecting explicit positional
encoding at each scale of the generator. By learning the spatially unbiased
generator, we facilitate the robust use of generators in multiple tasks, such
as GAN inversion, multi-scale generation, generation of arbitrary sizes and
aspect ratios. Furthermore, we show that our method can also be applied to
denoising diffusion probabilistic models.


  We construct a global conservative weak solution to the Cauchy problem for
the non-linear variational wave equation $v_{tt} - c(v)(c(v)v_x)_x +
\frac{1}{2}(v+v^3)= 0$ where $c(\cdot)$ is any smooth function with uniformly
positive bounded value. This wave equation is derived from a wave system
modelling nematic liquid crystals in a constant electric field.


  In this work we study by numerical methods the phase dynamics in ballistic
graphene-based short Josephson junctions. The supercurrent through a graphene
junction shows a non-sinusoidal phase-dependence, unlike a conventional
junction ruled by the well-known d.c. Josephson relation. A
superconductor-graphene-superconductor system exhibits superconductive quantum
metastable states similar to those present in normal current-biased JJs. We
explore the effects of thermal and correlated fluctuations on the escape time
from these metastable states, when the system is stimulated by an oscillating
bias current. As a first step, the analysis is carried out in the presence of
an external Gaussian white noise source, which mimics the random fluctuations
of the bias current. Varying the noise intensity, it is possible to analyze the
behavior of the escape time from a superconductive metastable state in
different temperature regimes. Noise induced phenomena, such as resonant
activation and noise induced stability, are observed. The study is extended to
the case of a coloured Gaussian noise source, analyzing how the escape time
from the metastable state is affected by correlated random fluctuations for
different values of the noise correlation time.


  The square of the four momentum of a photon in vacuum is zero. However, in an
unmagnetized plasma it is equal to the square of the plasma frequency. Further,
the electron-photon coupling vertex is modified in a plasma to include the
effect of the plasma medium. I calculate the cross sections of the three
processes - the Compton scattering, electron-positron pair annihilation and
production in a plasma. At high plasma densities, the cross sections are found
to change significantly. Such high plasma densities exist in several
astrophysical sources.


  On the basis of the Bethe-Salpeter Equation we developed a covariant
constituent quark model, with confinement implemented by a linear potential and
an instanton induced interaction explaining mass splittings and mixing of
pseudoscalar mesons. In addition this interaction yields a scalar (essentially)
flavour singlet state at approximately 1 GeV, considerably lower in mass than
the corresponding octet states calculated around 1.4 GeV. The validity of the
present approach was checked through various electroweak observables. The
puzzling properties of scalar mesons is briefly discussed.


  The discrete Fr\'echet distance is a popular measure for comparing polygonal
curves. An important variant is the discrete Fr\'echet distance under
translation, which enables detection of similar movement patterns in different
spatial domains. For polygonal curves of length $n$ in the plane, the fastest
known algorithm runs in time $\tilde{\cal O}(n^{5})$ [Ben Avraham, Kaplan,
Sharir '15]. This is achieved by constructing an arrangement of disks of size
${\cal O}(n^{4})$, and then traversing its faces while updating reachability in
a directed grid graph of size $N := {\cal O}(n^2)$, which can be done in time
$\tilde{\cal O}(\sqrt{N})$ per update [Diks, Sankowski '07]. The contribution
of this paper is two-fold.
  First, although it is an open problem to solve dynamic reachability in
directed grid graphs faster than $\tilde{\cal O}(\sqrt{N})$, we improve this
part of the algorithm: We observe that an offline variant of dynamic
$s$-$t$-reachability in directed grid graphs suffices, and we solve this
variant in amortized time $\tilde{\cal O}(N^{1/3})$ per update, resulting in an
improved running time of $\tilde{\cal O}(n^{4.66...})$ for the discrete
Fr\'echet distance under translation. Second, we provide evidence that
constructing the arrangement of size ${\cal O}(n^{4})$ is necessary in the
worst case, by proving a conditional lower bound of $n^{4 - o(1)}$ on the
running time for the discrete Fr\'echet distance under translation, assuming
the Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis.


  The main objective of this study is to conduct a bibliometric analysis of
scholarly publications of Authorship Pattern. The present study covers 1723
research papers published in the area of authorship pattern and indexed in
Scopus database from the year 2013 to 2022. These research publications
considered for the present study have been analysed based on their year wise
growth, pattern of authorship, times citations, type of publication, most
productive publication source as well as countries and institutions. The study
shows the positive growth of the literatures with collaborative authorship
pattern and good citation status. This original research paper will be helpful
to the researchers of library and information science, especially who are
working in the area of bibliometrics studies.


  Quantum instruments derived from composite systems allow greater measurement
precision than their classical counterparts due to coherences maintained
between N components; spins, atoms or photons. Decoherence that plagues
real-world devices can be particle loss, or thermal excitation and relaxation,
or dephasing due to external noise sources -- and also due to prior parameter
uncertainty. All these adversely affect precision estimation of time, phase or
frequency. We develop a novel technique uncovering the uniquely optimal probe
states of the N `qubits' alongside new tight bounds on precision under local
and collective mechanisms of these noise types above. For large quantum
ensembles where numerical techniques fail, the problem reduces by analogy to
finding the ground state of a 1-D particle in a potential well; the shape of
the well is dictated by the type and strength of decoherence. The formalism is
applied to prototypical Mach-Zehnder and Ramsey interferometers to discover the
ultimate performance of real-world instruments.


  Vine copulas are flexible dependence models using bivariate copulas as
building blocks. If the parameters of the bivariate copulas in the vine copula
depend on covariates, one obtains a conditional vine copula. We propose an
extension for the estimation of continuous conditional vine copulas, where the
parameters of continuous conditional bivariate copulas are estimated
sequentially and separately via gradient-boosting. For this purpose, we link
covariates via generalized linear models (GLMs) to Kendall's $\tau$ correlation
coefficient from which the corresponding copula parameter can be obtained.
Consequently, the gradient-boosting algorithm estimates the copula parameters
providing a natural covariate selection. In a second step, an additional
covariate deselection procedure is applied. The performance of the
gradient-boosted conditional vine copulas is illustrated in a simulation study.
Linear covariate effects in low- and high-dimensional settings are investigated
for the conditional bivariate copulas separately and for conditional vine
copulas. Moreover, the gradient-boosted conditional vine copulas are applied to
the temporal postprocessing of ensemble weather forecasts in a low-dimensional
setting. The results show, that our suggested method is able to outperform the
benchmark methods and identifies temporal correlations better. Eventually, we
provide an R-package called boostCopula for this method.


  In this article, we study an initial-boundary-value problem of a coupled
KdV-KdV system on the half line $ \mathbb{R}^+ $ with non-homogeneous boundary
conditions: \begin{equation*} \left\{ \begin{array}{l}
  u_t+v_x+u u_x+v_{xxx}=0, \quad
  v_t+u_x+(vu)_x+u_{xxx}=0, \quad
  u(x,0)=\phi (x),\quad v(x,0)=\psi (x), \quad
  u(0,t)=h_1(t),\quad v(0,t)=h_2(t),\quad v_x(0,t)=h_3(t), \end{array} \right.
\qquad x,\,t>0. \end{equation*} It is shown that the problem is locally
unconditionally well-posed in $H^s(\mathbb{R}^+)\times H^s(\mathbb{R}^+)$ for
$s> -\frac34 $ with initial data $(\phi,\psi)$ in $H^s(\mathbb{R}^+)\times
H^{s}(\mathbb{R}^+)$ and boundary data $(h_1,h_2,h_3) $ in
$H^{\frac{s+1}{3}}(\mathbb{R}^+)\times H^{\frac{s+1}{3}}(\mathbb{R}^+)\times
H^{\frac{s}{3}}(\mathbb{R}^+)$. The approach developed in this paper can also
be applied to study more general KdV-KdV systems posed on the half line.


  Information about action costs is critical for real-world AI planning
applications. Rather than rely solely on declarative action models, recent
approaches also use black-box external action cost estimators, often learned
from data, that are applied during the planning phase. These, however, can be
computationally expensive, and produce uncertain values. In this paper we
suggest a generalization of deterministic planning with action costs that
allows selecting between multiple estimators for action cost, to balance
computation time against bounded estimation uncertainty. This enables a much
richer -- and correspondingly more realistic -- problem representation.
Importantly, it allows planners to bound plan accuracy, thereby increasing
reliability, while reducing unnecessary computational burden, which is critical
for scaling to large problems. We introduce a search algorithm, generalizing
$A^*$, that solves such planning problems, and additional algorithmic
extensions. In addition to theoretical guarantees, extensive experiments show
considerable savings in runtime compared to alternatives.


  The Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov approximation is very useful for treating both
long- and short-range correlations in finite quantum fermion systems, but it
must be extended in order to describe detailed spectroscopic properties. One
problem is the symmetry-breaking character of the HFB approximation. We present
a general and systematic way to restore symmetries and to extend the
configuration space using pfaffian formulas for the many-body matrix elements.
The advantage of those formulas is that the sign of the matrix elements is
unambiguously determined. It is also helpful to extend the space of
configurations by constraining the HFB solutions in some way. A powerful method
for finding these constrained solutions is the gradient method, based on the
generalized Thouless transformation. The gradient method also preserves the
number parity of the Bogoliubov transformation, which facilitates the
application of the theory to systems with odd particle number.


  In this paper, we consider wireless powered communication networks which
could operate perpetually, as the base station (BS) broadcasts energy to the
multiple energy harvesting (EH) information transmitters. These employ "harvest
then transmit" mechanism, as they spend all of their energy harvested during
the previous BS energy broadcast to transmit the information towards the BS.
Assuming time division multiple access (TDMA), we propose a novel transmission
scheme for jointly optimal allocation of the BS broadcasting power and time
sharing among the wireless nodes, which maximizes the overall network
throughput, under the constraint of average transmit power and maximum transmit
power at the BS. The proposed scheme significantly outperforms "state of the
art" schemes that employ only the optimal time allocation. If a single EH
transmitter is considered, we generalize the optimal solutions for the case of
fixed circuit power consumption, which refers to a much more practical
scenario.


  We compute the spectral density in the normal phase of an interacting
homogenous Fermi gas using a T-matrix approximation. We fit the quasiparticle
peaks of the spectral density to BCS-like dispersion relations, and extract
estimates of a "pseudo-gap" energy scale and an effective Fermi-wavevector as a
function of interaction strength. We find that the effective Fermi-wavevector
of the quasiparticles vanishes when the inverse scattering length exceeds some
positive threshold. We also find that near unitarity the quasiparticle
lifetimes, estimated from the widths of the peaks in the spectral density,
approach values on the order of the inverse Fermi-energy. These results are
consistent with the "breakdown of Fermi liquid theory" observed in recent
experiments.


  Given integers $k\geq1$ and $n\geq0$, there is a unique way of writing $n$ as
$n=\binom{n_{k}}{k}+\binom{n_{k-1}}{k-1}+...+\binom{n_{1}}{1}$ so that $0\leq
n_{1}<...<n_{k-1}<n_{k}$. Using this representation, the \emph{Kruskal-Macaulay
function of}$n$ is defined as $\partial^{k}(n)
=\binom{n_{k}-1}{k-1}+\binom{n_{k-1}-1}{k-2}+...+\binom{n_{1}-1}% {0}.$ We show
that if $a\geq0$ and $a<\partial^{k+1}(n) $, then $\partial^{k}(a)
+\partial^{k+1}(n-a) \geq \partial^{k+1}(n) .$ As a corollary, we obtain a
short proof of Macaulay's Theorem. Other previously known results are obtained
as direct consequences.


  Investigating better ways to reuse the released pre-trained language models
(PLMs) can significantly reduce the computational cost and the potential
environmental side-effects. This paper explores a novel PLM reuse paradigm,
Knowledge Integration (KI). Without human annotations available, KI aims to
merge the knowledge from different teacher-PLMs, each of which specializes in a
different classification problem, into a versatile student model. To achieve
this, we first derive the correlation between virtual golden supervision and
teacher predictions. We then design a Model Uncertainty--aware Knowledge
Integration (MUKI) framework to recover the golden supervision for the student.
Specifically, MUKI adopts Monte-Carlo Dropout to estimate model uncertainty for
the supervision integration. An instance-wise re-weighting mechanism based on
the margin of uncertainty scores is further incorporated, to deal with the
potential conflicting supervision from teachers. Experimental results
demonstrate that MUKI achieves substantial improvements over baselines on
benchmark datasets. Further analysis shows that MUKI can generalize well for
merging teacher models with heterogeneous architectures, and even teachers
major in cross-lingual datasets.


  A new measurement of the inclusive production cross section for pp to t t-bar
is performed at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV using data collected by the
CMS experiment at the LHC. The analysis uses a data sample corresponding to an
integrated luminosity of 36 inverse picobarns, and is based on the final state
with one isolated, high transverse momentum muon or electron, missing
transverse energy, and hadronic jets. The ttbar content of the selected events
is enhanced by requiring the presence of at least one jet consistent with
b-quark hadronization. The measured cross section is 150 +/- 9 (stat.) +/- 17
syst.) +/- 6 (lumi.) pb and is in agreement with higher-order QCD calculations.
The combination of this measurement with a previous CMS result based on
dileptons gives 154 +/- 17 (stat.+syst.) +/- 6 (lumi.) pb.


  The three-phase contact line formed by the intersection of a liquid-vapor
interface of an electrolyte solution with a charged planar substrate is studied
in terms of classical density functional theory applied to a lattice model. The
influence of the substrate charge density and of the ionic strength of the
solution on the intrinsic structure of the three-phase contact line and on the
corresponding line tension is analyzed. We find a negative line tension for all
values of the surface charge density and of the ionic strength considered. The
strength of the line tension decreases upon decreasing the contact angle via
varying either the temperature or the substrate charge density.


  This paper presents a three-dimensional simulation of chromospheric jets with
twisted magnetic field lines. Detailed treatments of the photospheric radiative
transfer and the equation of states allow us to model realistic thermal
convection near the solar surface, which excites various MHD waves and produces
chromospheric jets in the simulation. A tall chromospheric jet with a maximum
height of 10--11 Mm and lifetime of 8--10 min is formed above a strong magnetic
field concentration. The magnetic field lines are strongly entangled in the
chromosphere, which helps the chromospheric jet to be driven by the Lorentz
force. The jet exhibits oscillatory motion as a natural consequence of its
generation mechanism. We also find that the produced chromospheric jet forms a
cluster with a diameter of several Mm with finer strands. These results imply a
close relationship between the simulated jet and solar spicules.


  Customer retention campaigns increasingly rely on predictive models to detect
potential churners in a vast customer base. From the perspective of machine
learning, the task of predicting customer churn can be presented as a binary
classification problem. Using data on historic behavior, classification
algorithms are built with the purpose of accurately predicting the probability
of a customer defecting. The predictive churn models are then commonly selected
based on accuracy related performance measures such as the area under the ROC
curve (AUC). However, these models are often not well aligned with the core
business requirement of profit maximization, in the sense that, the models fail
to take into account not only misclassification costs, but also the benefits
originating from a correct classification. Therefore, the aim is to construct
churn prediction models that are profitable and preferably interpretable too.
The recently developed expected maximum profit measure for customer churn
(EMPC) has been proposed in order to select the most profitable churn model. We
present a new classifier that integrates the EMPC metric directly into the
model construction. Our technique, called ProfTree, uses an evolutionary
algorithm for learning profit driven decision trees. In a benchmark study with
real-life data sets from various telecommunication service providers, we show
that ProfTree achieves significant profit improvements compared to classic
accuracy driven tree-based methods.


  The intrinsically relativistic problem of neutral fermions subject to
kink--like potentials ($\sim \mathrm{tanh} \gamma x$) is investigated and the
exact bound-state solutions are found. Apart from the lonely hump solutions for
$E=\pm mc^{2}$, the problem is mapped into the exactly solvable Surm-Liouville
problem with a modified P\"{o}schl-Teller potential. An apparent paradox
concerning the uncertainty principle is solved by resorting to the concepts of
effective mass and effective Compton wavelength.


  We study the index of the Ginsparg-Wilson Dirac operator on a noncommutative
torus numerically. To do this, we first formulate an admissibility condition
which suppresses the fluctuation of gauge fields sufficiently small. Assuming
this condition, we generate gauge configurations randomly, and find various
configurations with nontrivial indices. We show one example of configurations
with index 1 explicitly. This result provides the first evidence that
nontrivial indices can be naturally defined on the noncommutative torus by
utilizing the Ginsparg-Wilson relation and the admissibility condition.


  The old nova V728 Sco has been recently recovered via photometric and
spectroscopic observations, 150 years after the nova eruption. The spectral
properties pointed to a high-inclination system with a comparatively low
mass-transfer rate. In this paper we show that the object is an eclipsing
system with an orbital period of 3.32 h. It has enhanced long-term variability
that can be interpreted as 'stunted' dwarf-nova-type outbursts. Using the
ingress and egress times of the eclipsed components we calculate the radius of
the central object. The latter turns out to be significantly larger than a
white dwarf and we identify it with a hot inner disc. The implications for
models on the behaviour of post-novae are discussed.


  In this paper, we establish an equivalence between force-free fields and
conformally geodesic fields, and between harmonic fields and conformally
eikonal fields in the context of conformal geometry. In contrast to previous
work, our approach and equivalence results generalize to arbitrary dimensions.
In accordance with three-dimensional theory, our defining equations emerge as
the Euler-Lagrange equations of hierarchies of variational principles -
distinguished by the topological constraints they impose - and retain the known
inclusions of the special cases from each other. Specifically, we relate
stationary points of hierarchies of $L^2$ resp. $L^1$-optimization problems by
a conformal change of metric, provide an explicit construction of the conformal
factors relating the relevant metrics and identify the field lines of physical
vector fields fields as conformal geodesics. Despite the allowed topological
complexity of the fields under consideration, these observations reveal
geometric order which is obtained by merely pointwise rescaling of the metric.


  In this article, we provide further asymptotic analysis to the higher-order
statistics (HOS) of the channel capacity over generalized fading channels,
especially by proposing simple and closed-form expressions each of which can be
easily computed as a tight-bound revealing the existence of constant gap
between the actual and asymptotic HOS of the channel capacity in the limit of
both high- and low-signal to noise ratios (SNRs). As such, we show that these
closed-form asymptotic expressions are insightful enough to comprehend the
diversity gains. The mathematical formalism we followed in this article is
illustrated with some selected numerical examples that validate the correctness
of our newly derived asymptotic results.


  A popular recent approach to answering open-domain questions is to first
search for question-related passages and then apply reading comprehension
models to extract answers. Existing methods usually extract answers from single
passages independently. But some questions require a combination of evidence
from across different sources to answer correctly. In this paper, we propose
two models which make use of multiple passages to generate their answers. Both
use an answer-reranking approach which reorders the answer candidates generated
by an existing state-of-the-art QA model. We propose two methods, namely,
strength-based re-ranking and coverage-based re-ranking, to make use of the
aggregated evidence from different passages to better determine the answer. Our
models have achieved state-of-the-art results on three public open-domain QA
datasets: Quasar-T, SearchQA and the open-domain version of TriviaQA, with
about 8 percentage points of improvement over the former two datasets.


  Tsirelson's space $T$ is known to be distortable but it is open as to whether
or not $T$ is arbitrarily distortable. For $n\in {\Bbb N}$ the norm
$\|\cdot\|_n$ of the Tsirelson space $T(S_n,2^{-n})$ is equivalent to the
standard norm on $T$. We prove there exists $K<\infty$ so that for all $n$,
$\|\cdot\|_n$ does not $K$ distort any subspace $Y$ of $T$.


  Motivated by recent observations of the star formation rate density function
out to z~7, we describe a simple model for the star formation rate density
function at high redshift based on the extended Press-Schechter formalism. This
model postulates a starburst following each major merger, lasting for a time
t_SF and converting at most f_star of galactic gas into stars. We include a
simple physical prescription for supernovae feedback that suppresses star
formation in low mass galaxies. Constraining t_SF and f_star to describe the
observed star formation rate density at high redshifts, we find that individual
starbursts were terminated after a time t_SF~10^7 years. This is comparable to
the main-sequence lifetimes of supernova progenitors, indicating that high
redshift starbursts are quenched once supernovae feedback had time to develop.
High redshift galaxies convert ~10% of their mass into stars for galaxies with
star formation rates above ~1 solar mass per year, but a smaller fraction for
lower luminosity galaxies. Our best fit model successfully predicts the
observed relation between star formation rate and stellar mass at z>~4, while
our deduced relation between stellar mass and halo mass is also consistent with
data on the dwarf satellites of the Milky Way. We find that supernovae feedback
lowers the efficiency of star formation in the lowest mass galaxies and makes
their contribution to reionization small. As a result, photo-ionization
feedback on low mass galaxy formation does not significantly affect the
reionization history. Using a semi-analytic model for the reionization history,
we infer that approximately half of the ionizing photons needed to complete
reionization have already been observed in star-forming galaxies.


  Evidence of physics beyond the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics might
be revealed through CP violation. Experimental results from BaBar, Belle, and
most recently from LHCb are very interesting in this respect. It is important
to calculate various CP violation parameters within the SM. In this Letter, the
final state interaction (FSI) phases with the CKM matrix are calculated using
the recent experimental results from LHCb on CP violation in B0 and Bs0 meson
decays. To obtain the allowed regions of the FSI phases, a simplified form of
the Jarlskog determinant of the CKM matrix is used and the CP phase delta close
to the maximal value of pi/2 is found. Then, the asymmetry data on B0 and Bs0
from LHCb is used to explore graphically the allowed regions of the FSI phases.


  The RESIK instrument on {\em CORONAS-F} spacecraft observed several sulphur
X-ray lines in three of its four channels covering the wavelength range 3.8-6.1
\AA\ during solar flares. The fluxes are analyzed to give the sulphur
abundance. Data are chosen for when the instrument parameters were optimized.
The measured fluxes of the \ion{S}{15} $1s^2-1s4p$ ($w4$) line at 4.089 \AA\
gives $A({\rm S}) = 7.16 \pm 0.17$ (abundances on a logarithmic scale with
$A({\rm H}) = 12$) which we consider to be the most reliable. Estimates from
other lines range from 7.13 to 7.24. The preferred S abundance estimate is very
close to recent photospheric abundance estimates and to quiet-Sun solar wind
and meteoritic abundances. This implies no fractionation of sulphur by
processes tending to enhance the coronal abundance from the photospheric that
depend on the first ionization potential (FIP), or that sulphur, though its FIP
has an intermediate value of 10.36 eV, acts like a "high-FIP" element.


  Underlying any theory of physics is a layer of conceptual frames. They
connect the mathematical structures used in theoretical models with physical
phenomena, but they also constitute our fundamental assumptions about reality.
Many of the discrepancies between quantum physics and classical physics
(including Maxwell's electrodynamics and relativity) can be traced back to
these categorical foundations. We argue that classical physics corresponds to
the factual aspects of reality and requires a categorical framework which
consists of four interdependent components: boolean logic, the
linear-sequential notion of time, the principle of sufficient reason, and the
dichotomy between observer and observed. None of these can be dropped without
affecting the others. However, in quantum theory the reduction postulate also
addresses the "status nascendi" of facts, i.e., their coming into being.
Therefore, quantum phyics requires a different conceptual framework which will
be elaborated in this article. It is shown that many of its components are
already present in the standard formalisms of quantum physics, but in most
cases they are highlighted not so much from a conceptual perspective but more
from their mathematical structures. The categorical frame underlying quantum
physics includes a profoundly different notion of time which encompasses a
crucial role for the present.


  We study diffusion on a substrate with permanent traps distributed with
critical positional correlation, modeled by their placement on the perimeters
of a critical percolation cluster. We perform a numerical analysis of the
vibrational density of states and the largest eigenvalue of the equivalent
scalar elasticity problem using the method of Arnoldi and Saad. We show that
the critical trap correlation increases the exponent appearing in the stretched
exponential behavior of the low frequency density of states by approximately a
factor of two as compared to the case of no correlations. A finite size scaling
hypothesis of the largest eigenvalue is proposed and its relation to the
density of states is given. The numerical analysis of this scaling postulate
leads to the estimation of the stretch exponent in good agreement with the
density of states result.


  We present a protocol for collaborative error-immune information through
atmospheric turbulence. The protocol allows transferring of information in a
network of three participants.


  This paper reviews standard oversampling strategies as performed in the
Multiscale Finite Element Method (MsFEM). Common to those approaches is that
the oversampling is performed in the full space restricted to a patch but
including coarse finite element functions. We suggest, by contrast, to perform
local computations with the additional constraint that trial and test functions
are linear independent from coarse finite element functions. This approach
re-interprets the Variational Multiscale Method in the context of computational
homogenization. This connection gives rise to a general fully discrete error
analysis for the proposed multiscale method with constrained oversampling
without any resonance effects. In particular, we are able to give the first
rigorous proof of convergence for a MsFEM with oversampling.


  We give a concise introduction to the theory of continuants and show how
Perron used them in his proof of Tietze theorem on the convergence of infinite
semi-regular continued fractions, as well as for the study of the convergence
of purely periodic continued fractions.


  We present a detailed study of different exchange-correlation (xc)
functionals in describing the dynamical properties of finite systems. For that
purpose, we calculated the static polarizabilities, ionization potentials and
optical absorption spectrum of four small clusters, Na_2, Na_4, SiH_4 and
Si_2H_6, using a real-space, real-time technique. The computed static
polarizabilities and ionization potentials seem to be in rather good agreement
with the available experimental data, once the proper asymptotics of the
potential are taken into account. The same conclusion holds for the absorption
spectra, although the xc kernels in use do not provide a sufficiently strong
attractive interaction between electrons and holes, leading to spectra slightly
shifted towards higher energies. This deficiency is traced back to the
insufficient description of dynamical effects in the correlation functional.
Furthermore, it is shown that the xc potential used to obtain the ground state
is the key factor to get reasonable spectra, whereas the choice of the xc
kernel just amounts to small, although important, quantitative changes.


  The complex interplay of processes at the Galactic Center is at the heart of
numerous past, present, and (likely) future mysteries. We aim at a more
complete understanding of how spectra extending to >10 TeV result. We first
construct a simplified model to account for the peculiar energy and angular
dependence of the intense central parsec photon field. This allows for
calculating anisotropic inverse Compton scattering and mapping gamma-ray
extinction due to gamma gamma -> e^+ e^- attenuation. Coupling these with a
method for evolving electron spectra, we examine several clear and present
excesses, including the diffuse hard X-rays seen by NuSTAR and GeV gamma rays
by Fermi. We address further applications to cosmic rays, dark matter,
neutrinos, and gamma rays from the Center and beyond.


  In recent years there has been increased use of machine learning (ML)
techniques within mathematics, including symbolic computation where it may be
applied safely to optimise or select algorithms. This paper explores whether
using explainable AI (XAI) techniques on such ML models can offer new insight
for symbolic computation, inspiring new implementations within computer algebra
systems that do not directly call upon AI tools. We present a case study on the
use of ML to select the variable ordering for cylindrical algebraic
decomposition. It has already been demonstrated that ML can make the choice
well, but here we show how the SHAP tool for explainability can be used to
inform new heuristics of a size and complexity similar to those human-designed
heuristics currently commonly used in symbolic computation.


  We develop a microscopic theory for the multimode polariton dispersion in
materials coupled to cavity radiation modes. Starting from a microscopic
light-matter Hamiltonian, we devise a general strategy for obtaining simple
matrix models of polariton dispersion curves based on the structure and spatial
location of multi-layered 2D materials inside the optical cavity. Our theory
exposes the connections between seemingly distinct models that have been
employed in the literature and resolves an ambiguity that has arisen concerning
the experimental description of the polaritonic band structure. We demonstrate
the applicability of our theoretical formalism by fabricating various
geometries of multi-layered perovskite materials coupled to cavities and
demonstrating that our theoretical predictions agree with the experimental
results presented here.


  Many macroeconomic policy questions may be assessed in a case study
framework, where the time series of a treated unit is compared to a
counterfactual constructed from a large pool of control units. I provide a
general framework for this setting, tailored to predict the counterfactual by
minimizing a tradeoff between underfitting (bias) and overfitting (variance).
The framework nests recently proposed structural and reduced form machine
learning approaches as special cases. Furthermore, difference-in-differences
with matching and the original synthetic control are restrictive cases of the
framework, in general not minimizing the bias-variance objective. Using
simulation studies I find that machine learning methods outperform traditional
methods when the number of potential controls is large or the treated unit is
substantially different from the controls. Equipped with a toolbox of
approaches, I revisit a study on the effect of economic liberalisation on
economic growth. I find effects for several countries where no effect was found
in the original study. Furthermore, I inspect how a systematically important
bank respond to increasing capital requirements by using a large pool of banks
to estimate the counterfactual. Finally, I assess the effect of a changing
product price on product sales using a novel scanner dataset.


  Future wireless networks are expected to support diverse mobile services,
including artificial intelligence (AI) services and ubiquitous data
transmissions. Federated learning (FL), as a revolutionary learning approach,
enables collaborative AI model training across distributed mobile edge devices.
By exploiting the superposition property of multiple-access channels,
over-the-air computation allows concurrent model uploading from massive devices
over the same radio resources, and thus significantly reduces the communication
cost of FL. In this paper, we study the coexistence of over-the-air FL and
traditional information transfer (IT) in a mobile edge network. We propose a
coexisting federated learning and information transfer (CFLIT) communication
framework, where the FL and IT devices share the wireless spectrum in an OFDM
system. Under this framework, we aim to maximize the IT data rate and guarantee
a given FL convergence performance by optimizing the long-term radio resource
allocation. A key challenge that limits the spectrum efficiency of the
coexisting system lies in the large overhead incurred by frequent communication
between the server and edge devices for FL model aggregation. To address the
challenge, we rigorously analyze the impact of the computation-to-communication
ratio on the convergence of over-the-air FL in wireless fading channels. The
analysis reveals the existence of an optimal computation-to-communication ratio
that minimizes the amount of radio resources needed for over-the-air FL to
converge to a given error tolerance. Based on the analysis, we propose a
low-complexity online algorithm to jointly optimize the radio resource
allocation for both the FL devices and IT devices. Extensive numerical
simulations verify the superior performance of the proposed design for the
coexistence of FL and IT devices in wireless cellular systems.


  In the presence of weak magnetic field ($B$), novel phenomena, similar to
Hall effect in condensed matter physics, emerge both in charge and heat
transport in a thermal QCD medium. Here, we have employed the kinetic theory
approach within a quasiparticle framework, wherein the effective masses for
left (L) and right-handed (R) chiral modes of quarks are seen different,
lifting the prevalent degeneracy. Another implication of weak $B$ is that the
coefficients assume a tensorial structure: The diagonal elements represent the
usual conductivities: $\sigma_{\text{Ohmic}}$ and $\kappa_0$ as the
coefficients of charge and heat transport, respectively and the off-diagonal
elements denote their Hall counterparts: $\sigma_{\text{Hall}}$ and $\kappa_1$,
respectively.
  Finally, we have derived some coefficients, namely, the Knudsen number and
Lorenz number in Wiedemann-Franz law. Lorenz number and Hall-Lorenz number for
L-mode increases and for R-mode decreases with a magnetic field. it does not
remain constant with $T$ hence violating the Wiedemann-Franz law.


  We study seven-brane SU(5) GUT models of string phenomenology which can be
consistently analyzed in a purely local framework. The requirement that gravity
can decouple constrains the form of four-dimensional physics as well as the
geometry of spacetime. We rule out a large family of candidate UV completions
of such models and derive a priori constraints on the local singularities of
compact elliptic Calabi-Yau fourfolds. These constraints are strong enough to
obstruct a wide class of brane constructions from UV completion in string
theory. It is demonstrated that consistent local models always have exotic
Yukawa coupling structures, and hidden sectors or interesting non-perturbative
superpotentials which merit further investigation.


  We describe the behavior of an Ising model with orthogonal dynamics, where
changes in energy and changes in alignment never occur during the same Monte
Carlo (MC) step. This orthogonal Ising model (OIM) allows conservation of
energy and conservation of momentum to proceed independently, on their own
preferred time scales. MC simulations of the OIM mimic more than twenty
distinctive characteristics that are commonly found above and below the glass
temperature, Tg. Examples include a specific heat that has hysteresis around
Tg, out-of-phase loss that exhibits primary and secondary peaks,
super-Arrhenius T dependence for the alpha response time, and fragilities that
increase with increasing system size (N). Mean-field theory for energy
fluctuations in the OIM yields a novel expression for the super-Arrhenius
divergence. Because this divergence is reminiscent of the Vogel-Fulcher-Tammann
(VFT) law squared, we call it the VFT2 law. A modified Stickel plot, which
linearizes the VFT2 law, gives qualitatively consistent agreement with
measurements of primary response (from the literature) on five glass-forming
liquids. Such agreement with the OIM suggests that several basic features
govern supercooled liquids. The freezing of a liquid into a glass involves an
underlying 2nd-order transition that is broadened by finite-size effects. The
VFT2 law comes from energy fluctuations that enhance the pathways through an
entropy bottleneck, not activation over an energy barrier. Primary response
times vary exponentially with inverse N, consistent with the distribution of
relaxation times deduced from measurements. System sizes found via the T
dependence of the primary response are similar to sizes of independently
relaxing regions measured by nuclear magnetic resonance for simple-molecule
glass-forming liquids. The OIM provides a broad foundation for more-detailed
models of liquid-glass behavior.


  In his recent paper [arXiv:1104.1938], Bedingham discussed a hybrid between a
theory of spontaneous wave function collapse and Bohmian mechanics. I offer a
simpler way of conveying the substance of Bedingham's paper.


  The largescale penetration of variable renewable energy (VRE) and their
generation uncertainties poses a major challenge for the distribution system
operator (DSO) to efficiently determine the day-ahead real and reactive power
distribution locational marginal prices (DLMPs) and their underlying
components. In this paper, we propose a DLMP-based transactive day-ahead market
(DAM) model, that in addition to energy and losses, determines prices for
creating congestions and voltage violations under peak-load and large-scale
stochastic VRE penetration conditions. To account for the VRE uncertainties and
the effect of their large-scale penetration on the DLMP components and
distributed energy resources' (DERs) schedules, we propose a novel data-driven
probability efficient point (PEP) method that computes the optimal total VRE
generation at different confidence (risk) levels to incorporate in the proposed
transactive DAM model. We perform a wide range of simulation studies on a
modified IEEE 69-node system to validate the proposed methods and demonstrate
the effect of peak load conditions, large-scale VRE penetration, and inclusion
of battery energy storage systems (BESS) on the resulting positive or negative
real and reactive power DLMPs and their components.


  A fermion model consisting of two chains with interchain tunneling is
formulated and solved exactly by the Bethe ansatz method. The interchain
tunneling leads to Cooper pair like bound states and a threshold energy is
required to overcome the binding energy. The correlation functions manifest
superconducting properties.


  The recent global analysis of helicity parton distributions, which takes into
account available data from inclusive and semi-inclusive polarized deep
inelastic scattering, as well as from polarized proton-proton scattering at
RHIC, appears to offer the first strong evidence that polarized sea-quark
distributions are flavor asymmetric, i.e. $\Delta \bar{u}(x) \ne \Delta
\bar{d}(x)$. We point out that the flavor symmetry breaking pattern indicated
by their analysis, i.e. $\Delta \bar{u}(x) > 0$ and $\Delta \bar{d}(x) < 0$
with the magnitude correlation $|\Delta \bar{u}(x)| < |\Delta \bar{d}(x)|$, is
just consistent with our theoretical predictions given several years ago on the
basis of the chiral quark soliton model. We also address ourselves to
understanding the physics behind this observation.


  In this letter it is proposed another generalization of the Verlinde's maps
for the case $\Lambda \neq 0$. Thermodynamical arguments combined with this
proposal conduce to a inverse square-law cosmological term behavior.


  We model the low energy dynamics of graphene in the continuum in terms of a
version of Reduced Quantum Electrodynamics restricting fermions to a
(2+1)-dimensional brane, whilst photons remain within the (3+1)-dimensional
bulk. For charge carriers, besides the Dirac mass gap, we consider a Haldane
mass term which is induced by parametrizing an effective parity $\mathcal{P}$
and time-reversal $\mathcal{T}$ symmetry breaking that occurs on the brane when
deformations of the honeycomb array are such that the equivalence between
sublattices is lost. We make use of the relativistic Kubo formula and carry out
an explicit calculation of the transverse conductivity. As expected, the
filling factor is a half (in natural units) for each fermion species.
Furthermore, assuming that a sample of this material is radiated
perpendicularly with polarized monochromatic light of frequency $\omega$, from
the modified Maxwell's equations we study the problem of light absorption in
graphene in terms of the said conductivity. We observe an analog effect to the
Faraday Rotation due the Induced Mass (FRIM)--and not to an external magnetic
field-- in which light penetrating the sample changes its angle of polarization
solely by effect of the induced mass. This effect might be relevant for the
development of optic filters based on mechanical stretching of graphene flakes.


  In this paper, we study the effect of non-local derivative on Bose-Einstein
condensation. Firstly, we consider the Caputo-Fabrizio derivative of fractional
order \alpha to derive the eigenvalues of non-local Schr\"odinger equation for
a free particle in a 3D box. Afterwards, we consider 3D Bose-Einstein
condensation of an ideal gas with the obtained energy spectrum. Interestingly,
in this approach the critical temperatures Tc of condensation for 1 < \alpha <
2 are greater than the standard one. Furthermore, the condensation in 2D is
shown to be possible. Second and for comparison, we presented, on the basis of
a spectrum established by N. Laskin, the critical transition temperature as a
function of the fractional parameter {\alpha} for a system of free bosons
governed by an Hamiltonian with power law on the moment (H~p\alpha). In this
case, we have demonstrated that the transition temperature is greater than the
standard one. By comparing the two transition temperatures (relative to
Caputo-Fabrizio and to Laskin), we have found for fixed \alpha and the density
\rho that the transition temperature relative to Caputo-fabrizio is greater
than relative to Laskin.


  We study scaling behavior of the geometric tensor
$\chi_{\alpha,\beta}(\lambda_1,\lambda_2)$ and the fidelity susceptibility
$(\chi_{\rm F})$ in the vicinity of a quantum multicritical point (MCP) using
the example of a transverse XY model. We show that the behavior of the
geometric tensor (and thus of $\chi_{\rm F}$) is drastically different from
that seen near a critical point. In particular, we find that is highly
non-monotonic function of $\lambda$ along the generic direction
$\lambda_1\sim\lambda_2 = \lambda$ when the system size $L$ is bounded between
the shorter and longer correlation lengths characterizing the MCP:
$1/|\lambda|^{\nu_1}\ll L\ll 1/|\lambda|^{\nu_2}$, where $\nu_1<\nu_2$ are the
two correlation length exponents characterizing the system. We find that the
scaling of the maxima of the components of $\chi_{\alpha\beta}$ is associated
with emergence of quasi-critical points at $\lambda\sim 1/L^{1/\nu_1}$, related
to the proximity to the critical line of finite momentum anisotropic
transition.
  This scaling is different from that in the thermodynamic limit $L\gg
1/|\lambda|^{\nu_2}$, which is determined by the conventional critical
exponents.
  We use our results to calculate the defect density following a rapid quench
starting from the MCP and show that it exerts a step-like behavior for small
quench amplitudes. Study of heat density and diagonal entropy density also show
signatures of quasi-critical points.


  Glassy, nonexponential relaxations in globular proteins are typically
attributed to conformational behaviors that are missing from intrinsically
disordered proteins. Yet, we show that single molecules of a disordered-protein
construct display two signatures of glassy dynamics, logarithmic relaxations
and a Kovacs memory effect, in response to changes in applied tension. We
attribute this to the presence of multiple independent local structures in the
chain, which we corroborate with a model that correctly predicts the force
dependence of the relaxation. The mechanism established here likely applies to
other disordered proteins.


  Given a graph $G$ and color set $\{1, \ldots, k\}$, a $\textit{proper
coloring}$ is an assignment of a color to each vertex of $G$ such that no two
vertices connected by an edge are given the same color. The problem of drawing
a proper coloring exactly uniformly from the set of proper colorings is
well-studied. Most recently, Bhandari and Chakraborty developed a polynomial
expected time randomized algorithm for obtaining such draws when $k > 3\Delta$,
where $\Delta$ is the maximum degree of the graph. Their approach used a
bounding chain together with the coupling from the past protocol. Here a new
randomized algorithm is presented based upon the randomness recycler protocol
introduced by the author and Fill at FOCS 2000. Given $n$ vertices, this method
takes $O(n \ln (n))$ expected steps when $k > 2.27(\Delta - 1)$ for all $\Delta
\geq 2$.


  In this paper we prove that the canonical seesaw mechanism can naturally be
implemented in a particular class of electro-weak SU(4)L x U(1)Y gauge models.
The resulting neutrino mass spectrum is determined by just tuning a unique free
parameter 'a' within the algebraical method of solving gauge models with high
symmetries. All the Standard Model phenomenology is preserved, being unaffected
by the new physics occuring at a high breaking scale m ~ 10^11GeV.


  We prove an effective form of Wilkie's conjecture in the structure generated
by restricted sub-Pfaffian functions: the number of rational points of height
$H$ lying in the transcendental part of such a set grows no faster than some
power of $\log H$. Our bounds depend only on the Pfaffian complexity of the
sets involved. As a corollary we deduce Wilkie's original conjecture for
$\mathbb{R}_{\mathrm{exp}}$ in full generality.


  Let $R$ be a commutative ring with identity. An element $r \in R$ is said to
be absolutely irreducible in $R$ if for all natural numbers $n>1$, $r^n$ has
essentially only one factorization namely $r^n = r \cdots r$. If $r \in R$ is
irreducible in $R$ but for some $n>1$, $r^n$ has other factorizations distinct
from $r^n = r \cdots r$, then $r$ is called non-absolutely irreducible. In this
paper, we construct non-absolutely irreducible elements in the ring
$\text{Int}(\mathbb{Z}) = \{f\in \mathbb{Q}[x] \mid f(\mathbb{Z}) \subseteq
\mathbb{Z}\}$ of integer-valued polynomials. We also give generalizations of
these constructions.


  The Robot Operating System (ROS) streamlines human processes, increasing the
efficiency of various production tasks. However, the security of data transfer
operations in ROS is still in its immaturity. Securing data exchange between
several robots is a significant problem. This paper proposes \textit{AuthROS},
an Ethereum blockchain-based secure data sharing method, for robot
communication. It is a ROS node authorization system capable of ensuring the
immutability and security of private data flow between ROS nodes of any size.
To ensure data security, AuthROS employs the smart contract for permission
granting and identification, SM2-based key exchange, and SM4-based plaintext
encryption techniques. In addition, we deploy a data digest upload technique to
optimize data query and upload performance. Finally, the experimental findings
reveal that AuthROS has strong security, time performance, and node forging in
cases where data should be recorded and robots need to remain immobile.


  In this paper, we give a systolic inequality for a quotient space of a Carnot
group $\Gamma\backslash G$ with Popp's volume. Namely we show the existence of
a positive constant $C$ such that the systole of $\Gamma\backslash G$ is less
than ${\rm Cvol}(\Gamma\backslash G)^{\frac{1}{Q}}$, where $Q$ is the Hausdorff
dimension. Moreover, the constant depends only on the dimension of the grading
of the Lie algebra $\mathfrak{g}=\bigoplus V_i$. To prove this fact, the scalar
product on $G$ introduced in the definition of Popp's volume plays a key role.


  Context: Stars with about 1$-$2 solar masses at the red giant branch (RGB)
represent an intriguing period of stellar evolution, i.e. when the convective
envelope interacts with the fast-rotating core. During these mixing episodes
freshly synthesized lithium can come up to the stellar surface along with high
angular momentum material. This high angular momentum may alter the surface
rotation pattern.
  Aims: The single rapidly rotating K-giant V1192 Ori is revisited to determine
its surface differential rotation, lithium abundance, and basic stellar
properties such as a precise rotation period. The aim is to independently
verify the antisolar differential rotation of the star and possibly find a
connection to the surface lithium abundance.
  Methods: We applied time-series Doppler imaging to a new multi-epoch data
set. Altogether we reconstructed 11 Doppler images from spectroscopic data
collected with the STELLA robotic telescope between 2007--2016. We used our
inversion code iMap to reconstruct all stellar surface maps. We extracted the
differential rotation from these images by tracing systematic spot migration as
a function of stellar latitude from consecutive image cross-correlations.
  Results: The position of V1192 Ori in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram
suggests that the star is in the helium core-burning phase just leaving the RGB
bump. We measure $A({\rm Li})_{\rm NLTE}=1.27$, i.e. a value close to the
anticipated transition value of 1.5 from Li-normal to Li-rich giants. Doppler
images reveal extended dark areas arranged quasi-evenly along an equatorial
belt. No cool polar spot is found during the investigated epoch. Spot
displacements clearly suggest antisolar surface differential rotation with
$\alpha=-0.11\pm0.02$ shear coefficient.
  Conclusions: The surface Li enrichment and the peculiar surface rotation
pattern may indicate a common origin.


  Heartbeat stars are eccentric binary stars in short period orbits whose light
curves are shaped by tidal distortion, reflection, and Doppler beaming. Some
heartbeat stars exhibit tidally excited oscillations and present new
opportunities for understanding the physics of tidal dissipation within stars.
We present detailed methods to compute the forced amplitudes, frequencies, and
phases of tidally excited oscillations in eccentric binary systems. Our methods
i) factor out the equilibrium tide for easier comparison with observations, ii)
account for rotation using the traditional approximation, iii) incorporate
non-adiabatic effects to reliably compute surface luminosity perturbations, iv)
allow for spin-orbit misalignment, and v) correctly sum over contributions from
many oscillation modes. We also discuss why tidally excited oscillations are
more visible in hot stars with surface temperatures $T \! \gtrsim \! 6500 \,
{\rm K}$, and we derive some basic probability theory that can be used to
compare models with data in a statistical manner. Application of this theory to
heartbeat systems can be used to determine whether observed tidally excited
oscillations can be explained by chance resonances with stellar oscillation
modes, or whether a resonance locking process is operating.


  In this work, we study the iteration complexity of gradient methods
minimizing the class of uniformly convex regularized quadratic functions. We
prove lower bounds on the functional residual of the form
$\Omega(N^{-2p/(p-2)})$, where $p > 2$ is the power of the regularization term,
and $N$ is the number of calls to a first-order oracle. A special case of our
problem class is $p=3$, which is the minimization of cubically regularized
convex quadratic functions. It naturally appears as a subproblem at each
iteration of the cubic Newton method. The corresponding lower bound for $p = 3$
becomes $\Omega(N^{-6})$. Our result matches the best-known upper bounds on
this problem class, rendering a sharp analysis of the minimization of uniformly
convex regularized quadratic functions. We also establish new lower bounds on
minimizing the gradient norm within our framework.


  Rational coefficients of special functions in scattering amplitudes are known
to simplify on singular surfaces, often diverging less strongly than the
na\"ive expectation. To systematically study these surfaces and rational
functions on them, we employ tools from algebraic geometry. We show how the
divergences of a rational function constrain its numerator to belong to
symbolic powers of ideals associated to the singular surfaces. To study the
divergences of the coefficients, we make use of $p$-adic numbers, closely
related to finite fields. These allow us to perform numerical evaluations close
to the singular surfaces in a stable manner and thereby characterize the
divergences of the coefficients. We then use this information to construct
low-dimensional Ans\"atze for the rational coefficients. As a proof-of-concept
application of our algorithm, we reconstruct the two-loop $0 \rightarrow q\bar
q\gamma\gamma\gamma$ pentagon-function coefficients with fewer than 1000
numerical evaluations.


  We present new observations of near-infrared molecular hydrogen (H2) line
emission in a sample of 18 Class I and flat-spectrum low mass protostars,
primarily in the Tau- Aur and {\rho} Oph dark clouds. The line emission is
extended by up to several arcseconds (several hundred AU) for most objects, and
there is little night-to-night variation in line strength coincident with the
continuum point source. Flux ratios of H2 v = 2 - 1 S(1) and v = 1 - 0 S(1)
lines are consistent with this emission arising in jets or winds in many
objects. However, most objects have only small offsets (under 10 km s-1)
between their H2 and photospheric radial velocities. No objects have line
ratios which are clearly caused solely by UV excitation, but the H2 emission of
several objects may be caused by UV or X-ray excitation in the presence of
circumstellar dust. There are several objects in the sample whose observed
velocities and line fluxes suggest quiescent, non-mechanical origins for their
molecular hydrogen emissions. Overall we find the H2 emission properties of
these protostars to be similar to the T Tauri stars studied in previous
surveys.


  We study the time until first occurrence, the first-passage time, of rare
density fluctuations in diffusive systems. We approach the problem using a
model consisting of many independent random walkers on a lattice. The existence
of spatial correlations makes this problem analytically intractable. However,
for a mean-field approximation in which the walkers can jump anywhere in the
system, we obtain a simple asymptotic form for the mean first-passage time to
have a given number k of particles at a distinguished site. We show
numerically, and argue heuristically, that for large enough k, the mean-field
results give a good approximation for first-passage times for systems with
nearest-neighbour dynamics, especially for two and higher spatial dimensions.
Finally, we show how the results change when density fluctuations anywhere in
the system, rather than at a specific distinguished site, are considered.


  Recent work suggests that some auto-encoder variants do a good job of
capturing the local manifold structure of the unknown data generating density.
This paper contributes to the mathematical understanding of this phenomenon and
helps define better justified sampling algorithms for deep learning based on
auto-encoder variants. We consider an MCMC where each step samples from a
Gaussian whose mean and covariance matrix depend on the previous state, defines
through its asymptotic distribution a target density. First, we show that good
choices (in the sense of consistency) for these mean and covariance functions
are the local expected value and local covariance under that target density.
Then we show that an auto-encoder with a contractive penalty captures
estimators of these local moments in its reconstruction function and its
Jacobian. A contribution of this work is thus a novel alternative to
maximum-likelihood density estimation, which we call local moment matching. It
also justifies a recently proposed sampling algorithm for the Contractive
Auto-Encoder and extends it to the Denoising Auto-Encoder.


  Alternative cassette exons are known to originate from two processes
exonization of intronic sequences and exon shuffling. Herein, we suggest an
additional mechanism by which constitutively spliced exons become alternative
cassette exons during evolution. We compiled a dataset of orthologous exons
from human and mouse that are constitutively spliced in one species but
alternatively spliced in the other. Examination of these exons suggests that
the common ancestors were constitutively spliced. We show that relaxation of
the 59 splice site during evolution is one of the molecular mechanisms by which
exons shift from constitutive to alternative splicing. This shift is associated
with the fixation of exonic splicing regulatory sequences (ESRs) that are
essential for exon definition and control the inclusion level only after the
transition to alternative splicing. The effect of each ESR on splicing and the
combinatorial effects between two ESRs are conserved from fish to human. Our
results uncover an evolutionary pathway that increases transcriptome diversity
by shifting exons from constitutive to alternative splicing


  Recent results from RIKEN/RIBF on the low-lying level structure of 29F are
interpreted within the Particle-Rotor Model. We show that the experimental data
can be understood in the Rotation-aligned Coupling Scheme, with the 5/2+ ground
state as the bandhead of a decoupled band. In this picture, the energy of the
observed 1/2+1 state correlates strongly with the rotational energy of the core
and provides an estimate of the 2+ energy in 28O. Our analysis suggest a
moderate deformation, epsilon_2 ~ 0.17, and places the 2+ in 28O at ~ 2.4 MeV.


  We illustrate the generative power of the lifting property (orthogonality of
morphisms in a category) as means of defining natural elementary mathematical
concepts by giving a number of examples in various categories, in particular
showing that many standard elementary notions of abstract topology can be
defined by applying the lifting property to simple morphisms of finite
topological spaces. Examples in topology include the notions of: compact,
discrete, connected, and totally disconnected spaces, dense image, induced
topology, and separation axioms. Examples in algebra include: finite groups
being nilpotent, solvable, torsion-free, p-groups, and prime-to-p groups;
injective and projective modules; injective, surjective, and split
homomorphisms.
  We include some speculations on the wider significance of this.


  Using methods developed by Robinson, we find a complete theory suitable for a
first order description of infintesimal neighborhoods. We use this to construct
a specialisation having universal properties and to find a recursively
enumerable model in which the algebraic version of Bezout's theorem is provable
by non-standard methods.


  We present a relationship between noncommutativity and higher order time
derivative theories using a method perturbative. We introduce a generalization
of the Chern-Simons Quantum Mechanics for higher order time derivatives. This
model presents noncommutativity in a natural way when we project to states of
low energy. Compared with the usual model, our system presents noncommutativity
without the necessity of taking the limit of strong field. We quantized the
theory using a Bopp's shift of the noncommutative variables and we obtain an
spectrum without negatives energies. In addition we extend the model to high
order derivatives and noncommutativity with variable dependent parameter.


  We investigate electron-positron pair production from vacuum for short laser
pulses with sub-cycle structure, in the nonperturbative regime (Schwinger pair
production). We use the non-equilibrium quantum kinetic approach, and show that
the momentum spectrum of the created electron-positron pairs is extremely
sensitive to the sub-cycle dynamics -- depending on the laser frequency
$\omega$, the pulse length $\tau$, and the carrier phase $\phi$ -- and shows
several distinctive new signatures. This observation could help not only in the
design of laser pulses to optimize the experimental signature of Schwinger pair
production, but also ultimately lead to new probes of light pulses at extremely
short time scales.


  Anti-de Sitter space with identified points give rise to black-hole
structures. This was first pointed out in three dimensions, and generalized to
higher dimensions by Aminneborg et al. In this paper, we analyse several
aspects of the five dimensional anti-de Sitter black hole including, its
relation to thermal anti-de Sitter space, its embedding in a Chern-Simons
supergravity theory, its global charges and holonomies, and the existence of
Killing spinors.


  We illustrate how the different kinds of constraints acting on an impulsive
mechanical system can be clearly described in the geometric setup given by the
configuration space--time bundle $\pi_t:\mathcal{M} \to \mathbb{E}$ and its
first jet extension $\pi: J_1 \to \mathcal{M}$ in a way that ensures total
compliance with axioms and invariance requirements of Classical Mechanics. We
specify the differences between geometric and constitutive characterizations of
a constraint. We point out the relevance of the role played by the concept of
frame of reference, underlining when the frame independence is mandatorily
required and when a choice of a frame is an inescapable need. The thorough
rationalization allows the introduction of unusual but meaningful kinds of
constraints, such as unilateral kinetic constraints or breakable constraints,
and of new theoretical aspects, such as the possible dependence of the
impulsive reaction by the active forces acting on the system.


  The cosmic star formation rate, AGN activity, galaxy growth, mass assembly
and morphological differentiation all culminate at redshift $\sim 2$. Yet, the
redshift interval $1.4\lsim z\lsim 3$ is harder to explore than the closer and
the more distant Universe. In spite of so much action taking place in this
spacetime portion of the Universe, it has been dubbed the ``Redshift Desert'',
as if very little was happening within its boundaries. The difficulties
encountered in properly mapping the galaxy populations inhabiting the Desert
are illustrated in this paper, along with some possible remedy.


  We explore the phenomenological quark-lepton mass matrices, which are devised
following the S$_3$ flavour symmetry principle, yet fully consistent with SU(5)
gauge models with the Higgs particles of {\bf 5}, {\bf 45} and their
conjugates. The model contains 10 free parameters altogether. When 6 parameters
are fixed by charge 2/3 quark and charged lepton masses, charge($-$1/3) quark
masses and all quark mixing matrix elements are predicted to be close to
experiment, leaving some narrow ranges still as freedom. Further specification
of 3 more parameters (using, $m_d$, Cabibbo angle and $|V_{cb}|$) suffices to
fix the quark mixing matrix nearly completely, and all elements come out to be
in accurate agreement with experiment. We obtain the CP violation phase as a
prediction.


  We compute the energy density at arbitrary temperature of the half plane
Ising lattice with a boundary magnetic field $H_b$ at a distance $M$ rows from
the boundary and compare limiting cases of the exact expression with recent
calculations at $T=T_c$ done by means of discrete complex analysis methods.


  In two-dimensional anomalous Floquet insulators, non-Hermitian boundary state
engineering can be used to completely separate chiral boundary states from bulk
bands in the quasienergy spectrum. The topological properties of such
spectrally separated boundary states are no longer restricted by the strict
bulk-boundary correspondence of Hermitian systems. We show that this additional
topological freedom enables one to faithfully transfer the topological
properties of a boundary attached to a Floquet insulator to a non-Hermitian
Floquet chain obtained by physically cutting off the boundary from the bulk. We
implement this scenario for a simple model of an anomalous Floquet insulator
with Hermitian and non-Hermitian boundaries, and discuss the relevance of our
construction for the experimental realization of non-Hermitian topological
phases that connect dimensions one and two.


  We study the long-time behaviour of a run and tumble model which is a
kinetic-transport equation describing bacterial movement under the effect of a
chemical stimulus. The experiments suggest that the non-uniform tumbling
kernels are physically relevant ones as opposed to the uniform tumbling kernel
which is widely considered in the literature to reduce the complexity of the
mathematical analysis. We consider two cases: (i) the tumbling kernel depends
on the angle between pre- and post-tumbling velocities, (ii) the velocity space
is unbounded and the post-tumbling velocities follow the Maxwellian velocity
distribution. We prove that the probability density distribution of bacteria
converges to an equilibrium distribution with explicit (exponential for (i) and
algebraic for (ii)) convergence rates, for any probability measure initial
data. To the best of our knowledge, our results are the first results
concerning the long-time behaviour of run and tumble equations with non-uniform
tumbling kernels.


  The aggregation of attractive colloids has been extensively studied from both
theoretical and experimental perspectives as the fraction of solid particles is
changed, and the range, type and strength of attractive or repulsive forces
between particles varies. The resulting gels consisting of disordered
assemblies of attractive colloidal particles, have also been investigated with
regards to percolation, phase separation, and the mechanical characteristics of
the resulting fractal networks. Despite tremendous progress in our
understanding of the gelation process, and the exploration of different routes
for arresting the dynamics of attractive colloids, the complex interplay
between convective transport processes and many-body effects in such systems
has limited our ability to drive the system towards a specific configuration.
Here we study a model attractive colloidal system over a wide range of particle
characteristics and flow conditions undergoing aggregation far from
equilibrium. The complex multiscale dynamics of the system can be understood
using a Time-Rate-Transformation diagram adapted from understanding of
materials processing in block copolymers, supercooled liquids and much stiffer
glassy metals to direct targeted assembly of attractive colloidal particles.


  We derive two formulas for the weighted sums of rooted spanning forests of
particular sequence of graphs by using the matrix tree theorem. We consider
cycle graphs with edges so called the pendant edges. One of our formula can be
described as a variable transformation of the Chebyshev polynomial. They have
particular algebraic properties.


  Computations show that the logic about a quantum factoring algorithm does not
hold in reality on a D-Wave quantum computer. We demonstrate this for the
integers 15 = 3 x 5, 91 = 7 x 13 and 899 = 29 x 31. The likely cause is the
D-Wave hardware that does not accept input terms that are a number, i.e., only
terms that contain a Boolean variable can be an input. Without terms that are
numbers, the relative magnitude of the coefficients in the factoring algorithm
is too great to differentiate values.


  Two fluid configurations along a flow are conjugate if there is a one
parameter family of geodesics (fluid flows) joining them to infinitesimal
order. Geometrically, they can be seen as a consequence of the (infinite
dimensional) group of volume preserving diffeomorphisms having sufficiently
strong positive curvatures which `pull' nearby flows together. Physically, they
indicate a form of (transient) stability in the configuration space of particle
positions: a family of flows starting with the same configuration deviate
initially and subsequently re-converge (resonate) with each other at some later
moment in time. Here, we first establish existence of conjugate points in an
infinite family of Kolmogorov flows - a class of stationary solutions of the
Euler equations - on the rectangular flat torus of any aspect ratio. The
analysis is facilitated by a general criterion for identifying conjugate points
in the group of volume preserving diffeomorphisms. Next, we show non-existence
of conjugate points along Arnold stable steady states on the annulus, disk and
channel. Finally, we discuss cut points, their relation to non-injectivity of
the exponential map (impossibility of determining a flow from a particle
configuration at a given instant) and show that the closest cut point to the
identity is either a conjugate point or the midpoint of a time periodic
Lagrangian fluid flow.


  We study the Kowalevski expansions near singularities of the swinging
Atwood's machine. We show that there is a infinite number of mass ratios $M/m$
where such expansions exist with the maximal number of arbitrary constants.
These expansions are of the so--called weak Painlev\'e type. However, in view
of these expansions, it is not possible to distinguish between integrable and
non integrable cases.


  We show the role that an important equation first studied by Fritz John plays
in mechanism design.


  We have demonstrated surface-plasmon induced change in spontaneous emission
rate in the ultraviolet regime at ~ 375-380 nm, using AlN/GaN quantum dots
(QD). Using time-resolved and continuous-wave photoluminescence measurements,
the recombination rate in AlN/GaN QD is shown to be enhanced when spontaneous
emission is resonantly coupled to a metal-surface plasmon mode. The exciton
recombination process via Ag-surface plasmon modes is observed to be as much as
3-7 times faster than in normal QD spontaneous emission and depends strongly on
the emission wavelength and silver thickness.


  We define a class of singularity on arbitrary pairs of a normal variety and
an effective $\mathbb{R}$-divisor on it, which we call pseudo-lc in this paper.
This is a generalization of the usual lc singularity of pairs and log canonical
singularity of normal varieties introduced by de Fernex and Hacon. By giving
examples of pseudo-lc pairs which are not lc or log canonical in the sense of
de Fernex--Hacon's paper, we show that pseudo-lc singularity is a strictly
extended notion of those singularities. We prove that pseudo-lc pairs admit a
small lc modification. We also discuss a criterion of log canonicity.


  We discuss some recent lattice results on a few selected hadronic quantities
relevant for heavy flavour phenomenology and present some recent theoretical
developments. We put the emphasis on the challenges, which have to be faced, on
the way to precise heavy flavour physics from the lattice. We also discuss the
importance in the search for New Physics of possible future lattice studies of
the form factors entering B --> K and B --> K* semileptonic decays.


  Environmental pollutants, such as colors from the textile industry, affect
water quality indicators like color, smell, and taste. These substances in the
water cause the obstruction of filters and membranes and thereby reduce the
efficiency of advanced water treatment processes. In addition, they are harmful
to human health because of reaction with disinfectants and production of
by-products. Iron oxide nanoparticles are considered effective absorbents for
the removal of pollutants from aqueous environments. In order to increase the
stability and dispersion, nanospheres with iron oxide core and titanium dioxide
coating were used in this research and their ability to absorb Congo red color
was evaluated. Iron oxide-titanium oxide nanospheres were prepared based on the
coprecipitation method and then their physical properties were determined using
a tunneling electron microscope (TEM) and an X-ray diffraction device.
Morphological investigation of the absorbent surface showed that iron
oxide-titanium oxide nanospheres sized about 5 to 10 nm. X-ray dispersion
survey also suggested the high purity of the sample. In addition, the
absorption rate was measured in the presence of ultrasound waves and the
results indicated that the capacity of the synthesized sample to absorb Congo
red is greatly dependent on the intensity power of ultrasound waves, as the
absorption rate reaches 100% at powers above 30 watts.


  We use duality theorems to obtain presentations of some categories of
modules. To derive these presentations we generalize a result of
Cautis-Kamnitzer-Morrison [arXiv:1210.6437v4]:
  Let $\mathfrak{g}$ be a reductive Lie algebra, and $A$ an algebra, both over
$\mathbb{C}$. Consider a $(\mathfrak{g} , A)$-bimodule $P$ in which
  (a) $P$ has a multiplicity free decomposition into irreducible $(\mathfrak{g}
, A)$-bimodules.
  (b) $P$ is "saturated" i.e. for any irreducible $\mathfrak{g}$-module $V$, if
every weight of $V$ is a weight of $P$, then $V$ is a submodule of $P$.
  We show that statements (a) and (b) are necessary and sufficient conditions
for the existence of an isomorphism of categories between the full subcategory
of $\mathcal{R}ep A$ whose objects are $\mathfrak{g}$-weight spaces of $P$, and
a quotient of the category version of Lusztig's idempotented form,
$\dot{{\mathcal{U}}} \mathfrak{g}$, formed by setting to zero all morphisms
factoring through a collection of objects in $\dot{{\mathcal{U}}} \mathfrak{g}$
depending on $P$. This is essentially a categorical version of the
identification of generalized Schur algebras with quotients of Lusztig's
idempotented forms given by Doty in [arXiv:math/0305208].
  Applied to Schur-Weyl Duality we obtain a diagrammatic presentation of the
full subcategory of $\mathcal{R}ep S_d$ whose objects are direct sums of
permutation modules, as well as an explicit description of the
$\otimes$-product of morphisms between permutation modules. Applied to
Brauer-Schur-Weyl Duality we obtain diagrammatic presentations of subcategories
of $\mathcal{R}ep \mathcal{B}_{d}^{(- 2n)}$ and $\mathcal{R}ep
\mathcal{B}_{r,s}^{(n)}$ whose Karoubi completion is the whole of
$\mathcal{R}ep \mathcal{B}_{d}^{(- 2n)}$ and $\mathcal{R}ep
\mathcal{B}_{r,s}^{(n)}$ respectively.


  We study fluctuations of the conductance of micron-sized graphene devices as
a function of the Fermi energy and magnetic field. The fluctuations are studied
in combination with analysis of weak localization which is determined by the
same scattering mechanisms. It is shown that the variance of conductance
fluctuations depends not only on inelastic scattering that controls dephasing
but also on elastic scattering. In particular, contrary to its effect on weak
localization, strong intervalley scattering suppresses conductance fluctuations
in graphene. The correlation energy, however, is independent of the details of
elastic scattering and can be used to determine the electron temperature of
graphene structures.


  We study the spectrum of SU(2) x SO(2) matrix supersymmetric quantum
mechanics. We use angular coordinates that allow us to find an explicit
solution of the Gauss law constraints and single out the quantum number n (the
Lorentz angular momentum). Energy levels are four-fold degenerate with respect
to n and are labeled by n_q, the largest n in a quartet. The Schr\"odinger
equation is reduced to two different systems of two-dimensional partial
differential equations. The choice of a system is governed by n_q. We present
the asymptotic solutions for the systems deriving thereby the asymptotic
formula for the spectrum. Odd n_q are forbidden, for even n_q the spectrum has
a continuous part as well as a discrete one, meanwhile for half-integer n_q the
spectrum is purely discrete. Taking half-integer n_q one can cure the model
from instability caused by the presence of continuous spectrum.


  We investigate the distribution of energy density in a stationary
self-reproducing inflationary universe. We show that the main fraction of
volume of the universe in a state with a given density at any given moment of
proper time t is concentrated near the centers of deep exponentially wide
spherically symmetric wells in the density distribution. Since this statement
is very surprising and counterintuitive, we perform our investigation by three
different analytical methods to verify our conclusions, and then confirm our
analytical results by computer simulations. If one assumes that we are typical
observers living in the universe at a given moment of time, then our results
may imply that we should live near the center of a deep and exponentially large
void, which we will call infloid. Validity of this particular interpretation of
our results is not quite clear since it depends on the as-yet unsolved problem
of measure in quantum cosmology. Therefore at the moment we would prefer to
consider our results simply as a demonstration of nontrivial properties of the
hypersurface of a given time in the fractal self-reproducing universe, without
making any far-reaching conclusions concerning the structure of our own part of
the universe. Still we believe that our results may be of some importance since
they demonstrate that nonperturbative effects in quantum cosmology, at least in
principle, may have significant observational consequences, including an
apparent violation of the Copernican principle.


  It is a long standing open problem to find search to decision reductions for
structured versions of the decoding problem of linear codes. Such results in
the lattice-based setting have been carried out using number fields:
Polynomial-LWE, Ring-LWE, Module-LWE and so on. We propose a function field
version of the LWE problem. This new framework leads to another point of view
on structured codes, e.g. quasi-cyclic codes, strengthening the connection
between lattice-based and code-based cryptography. In particular, we obtain the
first search to decision reduction for structured codes. Following the
historical constructions in lattice-based cryptography, we instantiate our
construction with function fields analogues of cyclotomic fields, namely
Carlitz extensions, leading to search to decision reductions on various
versions of Ring-LPN, which have applications to secure multi party computation
and to an authentication protocol.


  Gender bias in political discourse is a significant problem on today's social
media. Previous studies found that the gender of politicians indeed influences
the content directed towards them by the general public. However, these works
are particularly focused on the global north, which represents individualistic
culture. Furthermore, they did not address whether there is gender bias even
within the interaction between popular journalists and politicians in the
global south. These understudied journalist-politician interactions are
important (more so in collectivistic cultures like the global south) as they
can significantly affect public sentiment and help set gender-biased social
norms. In this work, using large-scale data from Indian Twitter we address this
research gap.
  We curated a gender-balanced set of 100 most-followed Indian journalists on
Twitter and 100 most-followed politicians. Then we collected 21,188 unique
tweets posted by these journalists that mentioned these politicians. Our
analysis revealed that there is a significant gender bias -- the frequency with
which journalists mention male politicians vs. how frequently they mention
female politicians is statistically significantly different ($p<<0.05$). In
fact, median tweets from female journalists mentioning female politicians
received ten times fewer likes than median tweets from female journalists
mentioning male politicians. However, when we analyzed tweet content, our
emotion score analysis and topic modeling analysis did not reveal any
significant gender-based difference within the journalists' tweets towards
politicians. Finally, we found a potential reason for the significant gender
bias: the number of popular male Indian politicians is almost twice as large as
the number of popular female Indian politicians, which might have resulted in
the observed bias. We conclude by discussing the implications of this work.


  This paper proposes two practical implementations of Four-Dimensional
Variational (4D-Var) Ensemble Kalman Filter (4D-EnKF) methods for non-linear
data assimilation. Our formulations' main idea is to avoid the intrinsic need
for adjoint models in the context of 4D-Var optimization and, even more, to
handle non-linear observation operators during the assimilation of
observations. The proposed methods work as follows: snapshots of an ensemble of
model realizations are taken at observation times, these snapshots are employed
to build control spaces onto which analysis increments can be estimated. Via
the linearization of observation operators at observation times, a line-search
based optimization method is proposed to estimate optimal analysis increments.
The convergence of this method is theoretically proven as long as the dimension
of control-spaces equals model one. In the first formulation, control spaces
are given by full-rank square root approximations of background error
covariance matrices via the Bickel and Levina precision matrix estimator. In
this context, we propose an iterative Woodbury matrix formula to perform the
optimization steps efficiently. The last formulation can be considered as an
extension of the Maximum Likelihood Ensemble Filter to the 4D-Var context. This
employs pseudo-square root approximations of prior error covariance matrices to
build control spaces. Experimental tests are performed by using the Lorenz 96
model. The results reveal that, in terms of Root-Mean-Square-Error values, both
methods can obtain reasonable estimates of posterior error modes in the 4D-Var
optimization problem. Moreover, the accuracies of the proposed filter
implementations can be improved as the ensemble sizes are increased.


  The NA48 experiments aims at a precise measurement of direct CP violation in
the neutral Kaon system. This puts stringent requirements on the
electromagnetic calorimeter used to detect photons of average energy 25 GeV.
The choice of NA48 is a quasi homogeneous Liquid Krypton calorimeter with fast
readout. The operation of this device and the performances achieved are
described.


  Hydrogel consists of a crosslinked polymer matrix imbibed with a solvent such
as water at volume fractions that can exceed 90\%. They are important in many
scientific and engineering applications due to their tunable physiochemical
properties, bio-compatibility, and ultra-low friction. Their multiphase
structure leads to a complex interfacial rheology, yet a detailed, microscopic
understanding of hydrogel friction is still emerging. Using a custom-built
tribometer, here we identify three distinct regimes of frictional behavior for
polyacrylic acid (PAA), polyacrylamide (PAAm), and agarose hydrogel spheres on
smooth surfaces. We find that at low velocities, friction is controlled by
hydrodynamic flow through the porous hydrogel network, and is inversely
proportional to the characteristic pore size. At high velocities, a mesoscopic,
lubricating liquid film forms between the gel and surface that obeys
elastohydrodynamic theory. Between these regimes, the frictional force
decreases by an order of magnitude and displays slow relaxation over several
minutes. Our results can be interpreted as an interfacial shear thinning of the
polymers with an increasing relaxation time due to the confinement of
entanglements. This transition can be tuned by varying the solvent salt
concentration, solvent viscosity, and sliding geometry at the interface.


  In this paper, we study FPGA based pipelined and superscalar design of two
variants of conjugate gradient methods for solving Laplacian equation on a
discrete grid; the first version corresponds to the original conjugate gradient
algorithm, and the second version corresponds to a slightly modified version of
the same.
  In conjugate gradient method to solve partial differential equations, matrix
vector operations are required in each iteration; these operations can be
implemented as 5 point stencil operations on the grid without explicitely
constructing the matrix. We show that a pipelined and superscalar design using
high level synthesis written in C language leads to a significant reduction in
latencies for both methods. When comparing these two, we show that the later
has roughly two times lower latency than the former given the same degree of
superscalarity. These reductions in latencies for the newer variant of CG is
due to parallel implementations of stencil operation on subdomains of the grid,
and dut to overlap of these stencil operations with dot product operations. In
a superscalar design, domain needs to be partitioned, and boundary data needs
to be copied, which requires padding. In 1D partition, the padding latency
increases as the number of partitions increase. For a streaming data flow
model, we propose a novel traversal of the grid for 2D domain decomposition
that leads to 2 times reduction in latency cost involved with padding compared
to 1D partitions. Our implementation is roughly 10 times faster than software
implementation for linear system of dimension $10000 \times 10000.$


  In this work, we have used an Effective Field Theory (EFT) framework based on
Heavy Quark Spin (HQSS), Heavy Flavour (HFS) and Heavy Antiquark-Diquark
symmetries (HADS). Using a standard lagrangian for the heavy meson-heavy
antimeson system, we fit the counter-terms of the model to predict some
promising experimental data that can be interpreted as heavy meson-heavy
antimeson molecules, that is, the X(3872) and the $Z_{b}(10610)/Z'_{b}(10650)$.
Next, and, taking advantage of HADS, we use the same lagrangian to explore the
consequences for heavy meson-doubly heavy baryon molecules, which can also be
interpreted as triply heavy pentaquarks.


  A large number of AGN have been monitored for nearly 30 years at 22, 37 and
87 GHz in Mets\"ahovi Radio Observatory. These data were combined with lower
frequency 4.8, 8.0 and 14.5 GHz data from the University of Michigan Radio
Astronomy Observatory, higher frequency data at 90 and 230 GHz from SEST, and
supplementary higher frequency data from the literature to study the long-term
variability of a large sample of AGN. Both the characteristics of individual
flares from visual inspection and statistically-determined variability
timescales as a function of frequency and optical class type were determined.
Based on past behaviour, predictions of sources expected to exhibit large
flares in 2008--2009 appropriate for study by GLAST and other instruments are
made. The need for long-term data for properly understanding source behaviour
is emphasised.


  We apply current analytical knowledge on the characteristic mass and linear
evolution of miniclusters down to redshift $z=0$ to the hypothetical
minicluster distribution of the Milky Way. Using the mass-radius relation and a
core-halo relation for stable soliton solutions composed of axion-like
particles (ALPs), we connect the galactic minicluster mass distribution to that
of their ALP star cores. We consider different temperature evolutions of the
ALP field with masses in the range $10^{-12}\,\mathrm{eV} \leq m_a \leq
10^{-3}\,$eV and infer the abundance and properties of QCD axion- and ALP stars
in our galaxy. We re-evaluate detection prospects for collisions of neutron
stars with both ALP stars and miniclusters as well as relativistic ALP bursts,
so-called Bosenovae. Our analysis shows that the collision rates between
miniclusters and neutron stars can become as large as $\sim 10^5\,$yr$^{-1}$
galaxy$^{-1}$, but that the fraction of encounters that can lead to resonance
between ALP mass and magnetosphere plasma frequency is generally well below
$\sim 1\,$yr$^{-1}$ galaxy$^{-1}$, depending on the ALP model. We confirm
previous results that merger rates of ALP stars are extremely small $<
10^{-12}\,$yr$^{-1}$ galaxy$^{-1}$, while their host miniclusters can merge
much more frequently, up to $\sim 10^3\,$yr$^{-1}$ galaxy$^{-1}$ for the QCD
axion. We find that Bosenovae and parametric resonance are much more likely to
lead to observable signatures than neutron star encounters. We also suggest
that a combination of accretion and parametric resonance can lead to observable
radio lines for a wide range of ALP masses $m_a$ and photon-couplings
$g_{a\gamma\gamma}$.