  We propose a new space-time variational formulation for wave equation
initial-boundary value problems. The key property is that the formulation is
coercive (sign-definite) and continuous in a norm stronger than $H^1(Q)$, $Q$
being the space-time cylinder. Coercivity holds for constant-coefficient
impedance cavity problems posed in star-shaped domains, and for a class of
impedance-Dirichlet problems. The formulation is defined using simple Morawetz
multipliers and its coercivity is proved with elementary analytical tools,
following earlier work on the Helmholtz equation. The formulation can be stably
discretised with any $H^2(Q)$-conforming discrete space, leading to
quasi-optimal space-time Galerkin schemes. Several numerical experiments show
the excellent properties of the method.


  Video smoke detection is a promising fire detection method especially in open
or large spaces and outdoor environments. Traditional video smoke detection
methods usually consist of candidate region extraction and classification, but
lack powerful characterization for smoke. In this paper, we propose a novel
video smoke detection method based on deep saliency network. Visual saliency
detection aims to highlight the most important object regions in an image. The
pixel-level and object-level salient convolutional neural networks are combined
to extract the informative smoke saliency map. An end-to-end framework for
salient smoke detection and existence prediction of smoke is proposed for
application in video smoke detection. The deep feature map is combined with the
saliency map to predict the existence of smoke in an image. Initial and
augmented dataset are built to measure the performance of frameworks with
different design strategies. Qualitative and quantitative analysis at
frame-level and pixel-level demonstrate the excellent performance of the
ultimate framework.


  Based on the tree architecture, the objective of this paper is to design deep
neural networks with two or more hidden layers (called deep nets) for
realization of radial functions so as to enable rotational invariance for
near-optimal function approximation in an arbitrarily high dimensional
Euclidian space. It is shown that deep nets have much better performance than
shallow nets (with only one hidden layer) in terms of approximation accuracy
and learning capabilities. In particular, for learning radial functions, it is
shown that near-optimal rate can be achieved by deep nets but not by shallow
nets. Our results illustrate the necessity of depth in neural network design
for realization of rotation-invariance target functions.


  We report on the design and development of the CASPR system, a socialbot
designed to compete in the Amazon Alexa Socialbot Challenge 4. CASPR's
distinguishing characteristic is that it will use automated commonsense
reasoning to truly "understand" dialogs, allowing it to converse like a human.
Three main requirements of a socialbot are that it should be able to
"understand" users' utterances, possess a strategy for holding a conversation,
and be able to learn new knowledge. We developed techniques such as
conversational knowledge template (CKT) to approximate commonsense reasoning
needed to hold a conversation on specific topics. We present the philosophy
behind CASPR's design as well as details of its implementation. We also report
on CASPR's performance as well as discuss lessons learned.


  In many cases, beam to column connections in structural frames are semi
rigid, but they are considered to be ideally rigid or pinned due to their
computational complexity and shortage of designing methods. In this paper,
connections are considered as linear rotational springs with variable
stiffness. Moreover, the main contribution of the present study is a
preliminary design method of moment resisting frames, considering semi rigid
behavior of connections, by means of presented diagrams for different frames.
These diagrams relate three features of a frame together; stiffness of frames
connections, geometrical properties of frames elements, and its lateral
displacement. These diagrams can be used when the required stiffness of frames
connections is needed while the desired response of the frame, dimensions of
the frame and the ratio of second moment of inertia of its elements are known.
On the other hand, they could be used to obtain the ratio of beams length to
columns length and the ratio of second moment of inertia of beams to columns
alongside the stiffness of frames connections while the only known data is the
number of frames grids in X and Y directions and its desired response.


  Quantum criticality in certain heavy-fermion metals is believed to go beyond
the Landau framework of order-parameter fluctuations. In particular, there is
considerable evidence for Kondo destruction: a disappearance of the static
Kondo singlet amplitude that results in a sudden reconstruction of Fermi
surface across the quantum critical point and an extra critical energy scale.
This effect can be analyzed in terms of a dynamical interplay between the Kondo
and RKKY interactions. In the Kondo-destroyed phase, a well-defined Kondo
resonance is lost, but Kondo singlet correlations remain at nonzero
frequencies. This dynamical effect allows for mass enhancement in the
Kondo-destroyed phase. Here, we elucidate the dynamical Kondo effect in
Bose-Fermi Kondo/Anderson models, which unambiguously exhibit Kondo-destruction
quantum critical points. We show that a simple physical quantity---the
expectation value $\langle {\bf S}_{f} \cdot {\bf s}_{c} \rangle$ for the dot
product of the local ($f$) and conduction-electron ($c$) spins---varies
continuously across such quantum critical points. A nonzero $\langle {\bf
S}_{f} \cdot {\bf s}_{c} \rangle$ manifests the dynamical Kondo effect that
operates in the Kondo-destroyed phase. Implications are discussed for the
stability of Kondo-destruction quantum criticality as well as the understanding
of experimental results in quantum critical heavy-fermion metals.


  The latest results of the ATLAS experiment for the production of a top-quark
pair in association with a photon using proton-proton collision data from the
LHC at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV are summarised here. This includes
inclusive and differential cross-sections measurements performed in
single-lepton and dilepton final states in a fiducial volume corresponding to
the experimental acceptance.


  A fullerene graph is a 3-connected cubic planar graph with pentagonal and
hexagonal faces. The leapfrog transformation of a planar graph produces the
trucation of the dual of the given graph. A fullerene graph is leapfrog if it
can be obtained from another fullerene graph by the leapfrog transformation. We
prove that leapfrog fullerene graphs on $n=12k-6$ vertices have at least
$2^{k}$ Hamilton cycles.


  The discovery of ultra-high-energy neutrinos, with energies above 100 PeV,
may soon be within reach of upcoming neutrino telescopes. We present a robust
framework to compute the statistical significance of point-source discovery via
the detection of neutrino multiplets. We apply it to the radio array component
of IceCube-Gen2. To identify a source with $3\sigma$ significance, IceCube-Gen2
will need to detect a triplet, at best, and an octuplet, at worst, depending on
whether the source is steady-state or transient, and on its position in the
sky. The discovery, or absence, of sources significantly constrains the
properties of the source population.


  [Abridged] Tides may play an important role in determining the observed
distributions of mass, orbital period, and eccentricity of the extrasolar
planets. In addition, tidal interactions between giant planets in the solar
system and their moons are thought to be responsible for the orbital migration
of the satellites, leading to their capture into resonant configurations. We
treat the underlying fluid dynamical problem with the aim of determining the
efficiency of tidal dissipation in gaseous giant planets. In cases of interest,
the tidal forcing frequencies are comparable to the spin frequency of the
planet but small compared to its dynamical frequency. We therefore study the
linearized response of a slowly and possibly differentially rotating planet to
low-frequency tidal forcing. Convective regions of the planet support inertial
waves, while any radiative regions support generalized Hough waves. We present
illustrative numerical calculations of the tidal dissipation rate and argue
that inertial waves provide a natural avenue for efficient tidal dissipation in
most cases of interest. The resulting value of Q depends in a highly erratic
way on the forcing frequency, but we provide evidence that the relevant
frequency-averaged dissipation rate may be asymptotically independent of the
viscosity in the limit of small Ekman number. In short-period extrasolar
planets, if the stellar irradiation of the planet leads to the formation of a
radiative outer layer that supports generalized Hough modes, the tidal
dissipation rate can be enhanced through the excitation and damping of these
waves. These dissipative mechanisms offer a promising explanation of the
historical evolution and current state of the Galilean satellites as well as
the observed circularization of the orbits of short-period extrasolar planets.


  DVB-S2 and DVB-SH satellite broadcasting standards currently deploy 16- and
32-amplitude phase shift keying (APSK) modulation using the consultative
committee for space data systems (CCSDS) mapping. Such standards also include
hierarchical modulation as a mean to provide unequal error protection in highly
variable channels over satellite. Foreseeing the increasing need for higher
data rates, this paper tackles the optimization of 64-APSK constellations to
minimize the mean square error between the original and received symbol.
Optimization is performed according to the sensitivity of the data to the
channel errors, by means of genetic algorithms, a well-known technique
currently used in a variety of application domains, when close form solutions
are impractical. Test results show that through non-uniform constellation and
asymmetric symbol mapping, it is possible to significantly reduce the
distortion while preserving bandwidth efficiency. Tests performed on real
signals based on perceptual quality measurements allow validating the proposed
scheme against conventional 64-APSK constellations and CCSDS mapping.


  A short survey on the properties of four graphs constructed in $\{0, 1\}^n$
Boolean space is presented. Flexible activation function of an artificial
neuron in a sparse distributed memory model is defined on the basis of the Ugly
duckling theorem. Cotan Laplacian on 2-face triangulation of $n$-cube has
degenerate spectrum of eigenvalues corresponding to the Hamming distance
distribution of $\{0, 1\}^n$ space. Degenerate spectrum of eigenvalues of the
cotan Laplacian defined on the graph comprising $2^n$ 2-face triangulated
$n$-cubes sharing common origin includes all integers from 0 to 3$n$, without
the eigenvalue of 3$n$-1 (multiplicities of the same eigenvalues form A038717
OEIS sequence), while the multiplicities of the same eigenvalues $[-n\sqrt{2},
n\sqrt{2}]$ of the adjacency matrix of $2^n$-cube form trinomial triangle. The
distance matrix of this graph, providing further OEIS sequences, as well as its
relation with Buckminster Fuller vector equilibrium is also discussed.


  The effects of radiative losses due to Newtonian cooling and MHD turbulence
have been considered to examine the spatial damping of linear compressional
waves in quiescent prominences and prominence-corona transition region (PCTR).
The radiative losses give acceptable damping lengths for the slow mode wave for
the radiative relaxation time in the range (10-1000s). From prominence
seismology, the values of opacity and turbulent kinematic viscosity have been
inferred. It has been found that for a given value of radiative relaxation
time, the high frequency slow mode waves are highly damped. We have also
investigated the possible role of MHD turbulence in damping of MHD waves and
found a turbulent viscosity can re-produce the observed damping time and
damping length in prominences, especially in PCTR.


  We derived the evolution of the energy deposition in the intergalactic medium
(IGM) by different decaying (or annihilating) dark matter (DM) candidates.
Heavy annihilating DM particles (with mass larger than a few GeV) have no
influence on reionization and heating, even if we assume that all the energy
emitted by annihilations is absorbed by the IGM. In the case of lighter
particles, the impact on reionization and heating depends on the efficiency of
energy absorption by the IGM. We calculated the fraction of energy produced by
decays and annihilations which is effectively absorbed by the IGM. We found
that this fraction is generally high at very high redshift (>>100), but drops
at more recent epochs.


  We show that many-body systems with conserved particle number which have the
symmetries corresponding to a nonsymmorphic space group have low lying
excitations for certain integer values of the particle number per unit cell.
These results may be interpreted as a generalization of some band touching
theorems to interacting systems.


  It is well known that a tournament (complete oriented graph) on $n$ vertices
has at most ${1/4}\binom{n}{3}$ directed triangles, and that the constant 1/4
is best possible. Motivated by some geometric considerations, our aim in this
paper is to consider some `higher order' versions of this statement. For
example, if we give each 3-set from an $n$-set a cyclic ordering, then what is
the greatest number of `directed 4-sets' we can have? We give an asymptotically
best possible answer to this question, and give bounds in the general case when
we orient each $d$-set from an $n$-set.


  We provide an overview of the software engineering efforts and their impact
in QMCPACK, a production-level ab-initio Quantum Monte Carlo open-source code
targeting high-performance computing (HPC) systems. Aspects included are: (i)
strategic expansion of continuous integration (CI) targeting CPUs, using GitHub
Actions runners, and NVIDIA and AMD GPUs in pre-exascale systems, using
self-hosted hardware; (ii) incremental reduction of memory leaks using
sanitizers, (iii) incorporation of Docker containers for CI and
reproducibility, and (iv) refactoring efforts to improve maintainability,
testing coverage, and memory lifetime management. We quantify the value of
these improvements by providing metrics to illustrate the shift towards a
predictive, rather than reactive, sustainable maintenance approach. Our goal,
in documenting the impact of these efforts on QMCPACK, is to contribute to the
body of knowledge on the importance of research software engineering (RSE) for
the sustainability of community HPC codes and scientific discovery at scale.


  Near-infrared surveys have revealed a substantial population of enigmatic
faint galaxies with extremely red optical-to-near-infrared colours and with a
sky surface density comparable to that of faint quasars. There are two
scenarios for these extreme colours: (i) these distant galaxies have formed
virtually all their stars at very high redshifts and, due to the absence of
recently formed stars, the colours are extremely red and (ii) these distant
galaxies contain large amounts of dust, severely reddening the rest-frame
UV--optical spectrum. HR10 ($z = 1.44$) is considered the archetype of the
extremely red galaxies. Here we report the detection of the continuum emission
from HR10 at 850$\mu$m and at 1250$\mu$m, demonstrating that HR10 is a very
dusty galaxy undergoing a major episode of star formation. Our result provides
a clear example of a high-redshift galaxy where the star formation rate
inferred from the ultraviolet luminosity would be underestimated by a factor up
to 1000, and shows that great caution should be used to infer the global star
formation history of the Universe from optical observations only.


  In this paper, we investigate parameter families of iterated function systems
and continuity. Specifically, if we have a set of iterated function systems
that depend continuously on a parameter, which properties of the invariant sets
will vary continuously? We show here that the invariant sets will vary
continuously as a function of the parameter. Furthermore, we give some
sufficient conditions under which the Hausdorff dimension will depend
continuously on the parameter. Lastly, we give a counter-example where the
dimension is not a continuous function of the parameter.


  We present a new orbit and mass solution for the four small satellites of
Pluto: Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra. We have reanalyzed all available
observations of the Pluto system obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST)
from 2005 to 2019 with the ACS, WFPC2, and WFC3 instruments, as well as the New
Horizons LORRI images taken on approach to Pluto in 2015. We have used this
high precision astrometry to produce updated orbits and mass estimates with
uncertainties for all four of the small satellites. We find that the masses of
Nix and Hydra are smaller than previously published estimates, with a dynamical
mass of 1.8$\pm$0.4$\times$10$^{-3}$ km$^3$/s$^2$ (2.7$\pm$0.6$\times$10$^{16}$
kg) for Nix and 2.0$\pm$0.2$\times$10$^{-3}$ km$^3$/s$^2$
(3.0$\pm$0.3$\times$10$^{16}$ kg) for Hydra. These masses are 60% and 63% of
the mean estimates by Brozovic et al. (2015), although still consistent with
their 1-sigma uncertainties, and correspond to densities of 1.0$\pm$0.2
g/cm$^3$ for Nix and 1.2$\pm$0.2 g/cm$^3$ for Hydra given the moon volume
estimates from Porter et al (2021). Although these densities are consistent
with a range of ice-rock compositions, depending on the unknown bulk porosity
in the moon interiors, the moons' high albedos and predominantly icy surfaces
are most easily explained if their interiors are ice-rich. The tiny masses of
Kerberos and Sytx remain very poorly constrained; we find 1-$\sigma$ upper
limits for the dynamical mass of Styx to be 3$\times$10$^{-5}$ km$^3$/s$^2$
(5$\times$10$^{14}$ kg) and for Kerberos 5$\times$10$^{-5}$ km$^3$/s$^2$
(8$\times$10$^{14}$ kg), consistent with densities of $<$2.1 g/cm$^3$ for both
bodies.


  We present a self-consistent mean field model of the extraction of atoms from
a Bose-Einstein condensate to form a CW atom laser. The model is based upon the
Hartree-Fock Bogoliubov equations within the Popov approximation, modified by
the inclusion of spatially dependent source and sink terms, which lead to
current flow within the condensate. The effects of this current flow are
investigated for traps containing Rubidium (repulsive effective interaction)
and Lithium (attractive interaction) atoms. The extra kinetic energy associated
with this flow is shown to be able to stabilise the condensate in the
attractive case against mechanical instability.


  We present results from a spectroscopic search for massive companions to
dust-making Galactic WC9 stars as a step to testing the paradigm that dust
formation in these systems requires colliding winds to produce over densities.
We find evidence for OB companions to the WC9 stars WR 59 and WR 65, but not WR
121 or WR 117. We identify lines of N III-V and possibly N II in the spectrum
of WR 88, one of the few Galactic WC9 stars which do not make circumstellar
dust, and suggest that WR 88 is a transitional WN-WC9 object and less evolved
than the other WC9 stars. On the other hand, the possible identification of a
strong emission line at 4176A in the spectrum of WR 117 with Ne I suggests that
this star is more evolved than other WC9 stars studied.


  We study the statistical properties of the eigenvalues of the primordial
tidal and deformation tensor for random Gaussian cosmic density fields. With
the tidal and deformation tensors, Hessians of the gravitational and velocity
potential, being Gaussian, the corresponding eigenvalue fields are distinctly
non-Gaussian. Following the extension of the Doroshkevich formula for the
joined distribution of eigenvalues to two-dimensional fields, we evaluate the
two- and three-point correlation functions of the eigenvalue fields. In
addition, we assess the number densities of singular points of the eigenvalue
fields and find their corresponding two- and three-point correlation functions.
  The role of tidal forces and the resulting mass element deformation in
shaping the prominent anisotropic wall-like and filamentary components of the
cosmic web has since long been recognized based on the Zel'dovich
approximation. Less well-known is that the weblike spatial pattern is already
recognizable in the primordial tidal and deformation eigenvalue field, even
while the corresponding Gaussian density and the potential field appear merely
as a spatially incoherent and unstructured random field. Furthermore, against
the background of a full phase-space assessment of structure formation in the
Universe, the caustic skeleton theory entails a fully analytical framework for
the nonlinear evolution of the cosmic web. It describes the folding of the dark
matter sheet and the emerging caustic singularities, fully specified by the
deformation eigenvalues and eigenvectors. Finally, tidal tensor eigenvalues are
of central importance, and understanding their distribution is critical in
predicting the resulting rotation and orientation.
  The current study applies to two-dimensional Gaussian random fields and will
be generalized to a three-dimensional analysis in an upcoming study.


  This extended abstract reports on previous work of the CamFort project in
which we developed an external units-of-measure type system for Fortran code,
targeted at scientists. Our approach can guide the programmer in adding
specifications (type annotations) to existing code, with the aim of easing
adoption on legacy code. Pertinent to the topics of the HATRA workshop, we
discuss the human-aspects of the tool here. CamFort is open-source and freely
available online.


  The diffusive thermal conductivity of neutrons in dense matter [$\rho \sim (1
- 8) \times 10^{14}$ g cm$^{-3}$] of neutron star cores is calculated. The
contribution from neutron--neutron and neutron--proton collisions is taken into
account. We use the transition probabilities calculated for symmetric dense
nucleon matter on the basis of the Dirac--Brueckner approach to the in-medium
effects and the Bonn model of bare nucleon--nucleon interaction. The diffusive
thermal conductivity of neutrons in the presence of neutron and proton
superfluidities is analyzed in a microscopic manner; the effects of
superfluidity are shown to be significant. The low temperature behavior of the
thermal conductivity appears to be extremely sensitive to the relation between
critical temperatures of neutrons and protons. The results are fitted by simple
analytic expressions. In combination with the formulae for the electron and
muon thermal conductivities, obtained earlier, the present expressions provide
a realistic description of the full diffusive thermal conductivity in the
neutron star cores for normal and various superfluid phases.


  Time-reversal invariant three-dimensional topological insulators can be
defined fundamentally by a topological field theory with a quantized axion
angle theta of zero or pi. It was recently shown that fractional quantized
values of theta are consistent with time-reversal invariance if deconfined,
gapped, fractionally charged bulk excitations appear in the low-energy spectrum
due to strong correlation effects, leading to the concept of a fractional
topological insulator. These fractionally charged excitations are coupled to
emergent gauge fields which ensure that the microscopic degrees of freedom, the
original electrons, are gauge-invariant objects. A first step towards the
construction of microscopic models of fractional topological insulators is to
understand the nature of these emergent gauge theories and their corresponding
phases. In this work, we show that low-energy effective gauge theories of both
Abelian or non-Abelian type are consistent with a fractional quantized axion
angle if they admit a Coulomb phase or a Higgs phase with gauge group broken
down to a discrete subgroup. The Coulomb phases support gapless but
electrically neutral bulk excitations while the Higgs phases are fully gapped.
The Higgs and non-Abelian Coulomb phases exhibit multiple ground states on
boundaryless spatial 3-manifolds with nontrivial first homology, while the
Abelian Coulomb phase has a unique ground state. The ground state degeneracy
receives an additional contribution on manifolds with boundary due to the
induced boundary Chern-Simons term.


  By using Hsu's multiplicative functional for the Neumann heat equation, a
natural damped gradient operator is defined for the reflecting Brownian motion
on compact manifolds with boundary. This operator is linked to quasi-invariant
flows in terms of a integration by parts formula, which leads to the standard
log-Sobolev inequality for the associated Dirichlet form on the path space.


  We report on the high-precision astrometric observations of maser sources
around the Galactic Center in the SiO J=1--0 v=1 and 2 lines with the VLBA
during 2001 -- 2004. With phase-referencing interferometry referred to the
radio continuum source Sgr A*, accurate positions of masers were obtained for
three detected objects: IRS 10 EE (7 epochs), IRS 15NE (2 epochs), and SiO 6
(only 1 epoch). Because circumstellar masers of these objects were resolved
into several components, proper motions for the maser sources were derived with
several different methods. Combining our VLBA results with those of the
previous VLA observations, we obtained the IRS 10EE proper motion of 76+-3 km
s^{-1} (at 8 kpc) to the south relative to Sgr A*. Almost null proper motion of
this star in the east--west direction results in a net transverse motion of the
infrared reference frame of about 30+-9 km s^{-1} to the west relative to Sgr
A*. The proper-motion data also suggests that IRS 10EE is an astrometric binary
with an unseen massive companion.


  A superelliptic curve $\X$ of genus $g\geq 2$ is not necessarily defined over
its field of moduli but it can be defined over a quadratic extension of it.
While a lot of work has been done by many authors to determine which
hyperelliptic curves are defined over their field of moduli, less is known for
superelliptic curves. In this paper we observe that if the reduced group of a
genus $g\geq 2$ superelliptic curve $\X$ is different from the trivial or
cyclic group, then $\X$ can be defined over its field of moduli; in the cyclic
situation we provide a sufficient condition for this to happen. We also
determine those families of superelliptic curves of genus at most $10$ which
might not be definable over their field of moduli.


  This paper contains several results about the structure of the congruence
kernel C^(S)(G) of an absolutely almost simple simply connected algebraic group
G over a global field K with respect to a set of places S of K. In particular,
we show that C^(S)(G) is always trivial if S contains a generalized arithmetic
progression. We also give a criterion for the centrality of C^(S)(G) in the
general situation in terms of the existence of commuting lifts of the groups
G(K_v) for v \notin S in the S-arithmetic completion \widehat{G}^(S). This
result enables one to give simple proofs of the centrality in a number of
cases. Finally, we show that if K is a number field and $G$ is K-isotropic then
C^(S)(G) as a normal subgroup of \widehat{G}^(S) is almost generated by a
single element.


  Gravitational probes should maintain spatial flatness for
Einsten-Infeld-Hoffmann dynamics of relativistic matter-energy. The continuous
elementary source/particle in Einstein's gravitational theory is the r^{-4}
radial energy density rather than the delta-operator density in empty-space
gravitation. The space energy integral of such an infinite (astro)particle is
finite and determines its nonlocal gravitational charge for the
energy-to-energy attraction of other nonlocal (astro)particles. The non-empty
flat space of the undivided material Universe is charged continuously by the
world energy density of the global ensemble of overlapping radial particles.
Nonlocal gravitational/inertial energy-charges incorporate Machian relativism
quantitatively into Einstein's gravitation for self-contained SR-GR dynamics
without references on Newton's mass-to-mass attraction.


  The integrable perturbation of the degenerate boundary condition (d) by the
$\phi_{1,3}$ boundary field generates a renormalization group flow down to the
superposition of Cardy boundary states (+)&(-). Exact Thermodynamic Bethe
Ansatz (TBA) equations for all the excited states are derived here extending
the results of a previous paper to this case. As an intermediate step, the
non-Cardy boundary conformal sector (+)&(-) is also described as the scaling
limit of an A_4 lattice model with appropriate integrable boundary conditions
and produces the first example of superposition of finitized Virasoro
characters.


  Fuzzing consists of repeatedly testing an application with modified, or
fuzzed, inputs with the goal of finding security vulnerabilities in
input-parsing code. In this paper, we show how to automate the generation of an
input grammar suitable for input fuzzing using sample inputs and
neural-network-based statistical machine-learning techniques. We present a
detailed case study with a complex input format, namely PDF, and a large
complex security-critical parser for this format, namely, the PDF parser
embedded in Microsoft's new Edge browser. We discuss (and measure) the tension
between conflicting learning and fuzzing goals: learning wants to capture the
structure of well-formed inputs, while fuzzing wants to break that structure in
order to cover unexpected code paths and find bugs. We also present a new
algorithm for this learn&fuzz challenge which uses a learnt input probability
distribution to intelligently guide where to fuzz inputs.


  The steep increase of the relaxation time of glass forming liquids upon
cooling is traditionally ascribed to an impending entropy crisis: since the
system has "nowhere to go", dynamics must come to a halt. This classic
argument, due to Adam \& Gibbs, has been bolstered and refined by the
development of the Random First Order Transition (RFOT) theory, which fares
remarkably well at reproducing most salient experimental facts of super-cooled
liquids. All static predictions of RFOT, including the existence of a
point-to-set length and the role of pinning sites, have been vindicated by
detailed numerical simulations. Yet, there is no consensus that the basic
mechanism explaining the glass transition is the one captured by RFOT. Strong
doubts have emerged following the observation that adding or removing kinetic
constraints can change the relaxation time by orders of magnitude, while
leaving thermodynamics unchanged. This is at odds with the idea of a one-to-one
mapping between excess entropy and relaxation time.
  In the following discussion paper presented at the Solvay conference in
October 2023, we review areas of consensus and dissent of RFOT with other
competing theoretical proposals, and propose possible paths for (partial)
reconciliation. We further argue that extensive numerical simulations of the
non-linear susceptibility of glasses, in particular in the aging regime, should
shed important light on the mechanism at the origin of the super-Arrhenius
behaviour of the relaxation time. In any case, more imagination is still needed
to come up with experimental, theoretical or numerical ideas that would allow
to finally settle the question of why glasses do not flow.


  It has been proposed that the cosmological constant $\Lambda$ might be
measured from geometric effects on large-scale structure. A positive vacuum
density leads to correlation-function contours which are squashed in the radial
direction when calculated assuming a matter-dominated model. We show that this
effect will be somewhat harder to detect than previous calculations have
suggested: the squashing factor is likely to be $<1.3$, given realistic
constraints on the matter contribution to $\Omega$. Moreover, the geometrical
distortion risks being confused with the redshift-space distortions caused by
the peculiar velocities associated with the growth of galaxy clustering. These
depend on the density and bias parameters via the combination $\beta\equiv
\Omega^{0.6}/b$, and we show that the main practical effect of a geometrical
flattening factor $F$ is to simulate gravitational instability with $\beta_{\rm
eff}\simeq 0.5(F-1)$. Nevertheless, with datasets of sufficient size it is
possible to distinguish the two effects; we discuss in detail how this should
be done. New-generation redshift surveys of galaxies and quasars are
potentially capable of detecting a non-zero vacuum density, if it exists at a
cosmologically interesting level.


  We report the spontaneous formation of bipolar magnetic structures in direct
numerical simulations of stratified forced turbulence with an outer coronal
envelope. The turbulence is forced with transverse random waves only in the
lower (turbulent) part of the domain. Our initial magnetic field is either
uniform in the entire domain or confined to the turbulent layer. After about
1--2 turbulent diffusion times, a bipolar magnetic region of vertical field
develops with two coherent circular structures that live during one turbulent
diffusion time, and then decay during 0.5 turbulent diffusion times. The
resulting magnetic field strengths inside the bipolar region are comparable to
the equipartition value with respect to the turbulent kinetic energy. The
bipolar magnetic region forms a loop-like structure in the upper coronal layer.
We associate the magnetic structure formation with the negative effective
magnetic pressure instability in the two-layer model.


  We give a preliminary report on one of the tests we have performed of a full
non-axisymmetric general relativistic code. The test considered here concerns
the numerical evolution of vacuum non-axisymmetric gravitational waves and
their comparison at low amplitudes with theoretical waveforms obtained from
linearised theory.


  Model reduction methods for bilinear control systems are compared by means of
practical examples of Liouville-von Neumann and Fokker--Planck type. Methods
based on balancing generalized system Gramians and on minimizing an H2-type
cost functional are considered. The focus is on the numerical implementation
and a thorough comparison of the methods. Structure and stability preservation
are investigated, and the competitiveness of the approaches is shown for
practically relevant, large-scale examples.


  Making an informed choice of pre-trained language model (LM) is critical for
performance, yet environmentally costly, and as such widely underexplored. The
field of Computer Vision has begun to tackle encoder ranking, with promising
forays into Natural Language Processing, however they lack coverage of
linguistic tasks such as structured prediction. We propose probing to rank LMs,
specifically for parsing dependencies in a given language, by measuring the
degree to which labeled trees are recoverable from an LM's contextualized
embeddings. Across 46 typologically and architecturally diverse LM-language
pairs, our probing approach predicts the best LM choice 79% of the time using
orders of magnitude less compute than training a full parser. Within this
study, we identify and analyze one recently proposed decoupled LM - RemBERT -
and find it strikingly contains less inherent dependency information, but often
yields the best parser after full fine-tuning. Without this outlier our
approach identifies the best LM in 89% of cases.


  A three-dimensional model of a novel plasma based electrically small antenna
is developed for investigating the gas properties and antenna parameters under
a low pressure, low plasma temperature environment. The antenna exhibits dipole
antenna-like behavior with wide-band impedance matching from $213-700$ MHz.
Plasma is sustained by $0.9$ W of RF input power at $100$ MHz and the gas
pressure is strategically controlled at $500$ mili-Torr. The simulated $S_{11}$
is verified against the available experimental data and further antenna
parameters are extracted. The proposed ESA shows dipole-like radiation pattern
with a radiation efficiency of $16\%$ at $700$ MHz. The performance metric for
ESAs, the Chu-limit, is exceeded by this antenna with the $Bandwidth\times
Efficiency$ reaching $0.168$ with a $ka$ of $0.5571$.The findings from this
letter demonstrate the practicability of using COMSOL Multiphysics as a tool
for predicting plasma behavior and antenna performance while the boundary
conditions for all the coupled physics are respected.


  Slurries of powdered Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x superconductor in low volatility alkanes
were treated with intense ultrasound. Significant enhancements of magnetic
irreversibility as well as transport critical current are reported. The effects
are dependent on the concentration of the slurry and are optimal for 1.5% wt.
slurry loading. Electron microscopy shows that ultrasonic treatment leads to a
change in grain morphology and intergrain welding. The observed enhancement of
superconducting properties is consistent with the limitations in critical
currents in BSCCO superconductor being due to intergrain coupling rather than
intragrain pinning strength.


  L\'{e}vy flights can be described using a Fokker-Planck equation which
involves a fractional derivative operator in the position co-ordinate. Such an
operator has its natural expression in the Fourier domain. Starting with this,
we show that the solution of the equation can be written as a Hamiltonian path
integral. Though this has been realized in the literature, the method has not
found applications as the path integral appears difficult to evaluate. We show
that a method in which one integrates over the position co-ordinates first,
after which integration is performed over the momentum co-ordinates, can be
used to evaluate several path integrals that are of interest. Using this, we
evaluate the propagators for (a) free particle (b) particle subjected to a
linear potential and (c) harmonic potential. In all the three cases, we have
obtained results for both overdamped and underdamped cases.


  We propose to formulate point cloud extraction from ultrasound volumes as an
image segmentation problem. Through this convenient formulation, a quick
prototype exploring various variants of the Residual Network, U-Net, and the
Squeeze and Excitation Network was developed and evaluated. This report
documents the experimental results compiled using a training dataset of five
labeled ultrasound volumes and 84 unlabeled volumes that got completed in a
two-week period as part of a submission to the open challenge "3D Surface Mesh
Estimation for CVPR workshop on Deep Learning in Ultrasound Image Analysis".
Based on external evaluation performed by the challenge's organizers, the
framework came first place on the challenge's
\href{https://www.cvpr2023-dl-ultrasound.com/}{Leaderboard}. Source code is
shared with the research community at a
\href{https://github.com/lisatwyw/smrvis}{public repository}.


  We have discovered a partially eclipsing white dwarf, low-mass M dwarf binary
(3 hour 54.41 second orbital period), SDSS J143547.87+373338.5, from May 2007
observations at the WIYN telescope. Here we present blue band photometry of
three eclipses. Eclipse fitting gives main sequence solutions to the M dwarf
companion of $M_S=0.15-0.35 M_{\odot}$ and $R_S=0.17-0.32 R_{\odot}$. Analysis
of the SDSS spectrum constrains the M dwarf further to be of type M4-M6 with
$M_S=0.11-0.20 M_{\odot}$. Once full radial velocity curves are measured, high
precision determinations of the masses and radii of both components will be
easily obtained without any knowledge of stellar structure or evolution. ZZ
Ceti pulsations from the white dwarf were not found at our 4 mmag detection
limit.


  Directed topology is an area of mathematics with applications in concurrency.
It extends the concept of a topological space by adding a notion of
directedness, which restricts how paths can evolve through a space and enables
thereby a faithful representation of computation with their direction. In this
paper, we present a Lean formalisation of directed spaces and a Van Kampen
theorem for them. This theorem allows the calculation of the homotopy type of a
space by combining local knowledge the homotopy type of subspaces. With this
theorem, the reasoning about spaces can be reduced to subspaces and, by
representing concurrent systems as directed spaces, we can reduce the deduction
of properties of a composed system to that of subsystems. The formalisation in
Lean can serve to support computer-assisted reasoning about the behaviour of
concurrent systems.


  The lattice dimension of a graph G is the minimal dimension of a cubic
lattice in which G can be isometrically embedded. We prove that the lattice
dimension of a tree with n leaves is $\lceil n/2 \rceil$.


  We extend the family of problems that may be implemented on an adiabatic
quantum optimizer (AQO). When a quadratic optimization problem has at least one
set of discrete controls and the constraints are linear, we call this a
quadratic constrained mixed discrete optimization (QCMDO) problem. QCMDO
problems are NP-hard, and no efficient classical algorithm for their solution
is known. Included in the class of QCMDO problems are combinatorial
optimization problems constrained by a linear partial differential equation
(PDE) or system of linear PDEs. An essential complication commonly encountered
in solving this type of problem is that the linear constraint may introduce
many intermediate continuous variables into the optimization while the
computational cost grows exponentially with problem size. We resolve this
difficulty by developing a constructive mapping from QCMDO to quadratic
unconstrained binary optimization (QUBO) such that the size of the QUBO problem
depends only on the number of discrete control variables. With a suitable
embedding, taking into account the physical constraints of the realizable
coupling graph, the resulting QUBO problem can be implemented on an existing
AQO. The mapping itself is efficient, scaling cubically with the number of
continuous variables in the general case and linearly in the PDE case if an
efficient preconditioner is available.


  In connection with his interest in selfdistributive algebra, Richard Laver
established two deep results with potential applications in low-dimensional
topology, namely the existence of what is now known as the Laver tables and the
well-foundedness of the standard ordering of positive braids. Here we present
these results and discuss the way they could be used in topological
applications.


  Gaussianity and statistical isotropy of the Universe are modern cosmology's
minimal set of hypotheses. In this work we introduce a new statistical test to
detect observational deviations from this minimal set. By defining the
temperature correlation function over the whole celestial sphere, we are able
to independently quantify both angular and planar dependence (modulations) of
the CMB temperature power spectrum over different slices of this sphere. Given
that planar dependence leads to further modulations of the usual angular power
spectrum $C_l$, this test can potentially reveal richer structures in the
morphology of the primordial temperature field. We have also constructed an
unbiased estimator for this angular-planar power spectrum which naturally
generalizes the estimator for the usual $C_l$'s. With the help of a chi-square
analysis, we have used this estimator to search for observational deviations of
statistical isotropy in WMAP's 5 year release data set (ILC5), where we found
only slight anomalies on the angular scales $l=7$ and $l=8$. Since this
angular-planar statistic is model-independent, it is ideal to employ in
searches of statistical anisotropy (e.g., contaminations from the galactic
plane) and to characterize non-Gaussianities.


  We present a sublinear randomized algorithm to compute a sparse Fourier
transform for nonequispaced data. Suppose a signal S is known to consist of N
equispaced samples, of which only L<N are available. If the ratio p=L/N is not
close to 1, the available data are typically non-equispaced samples. Then our
algorithm reconstructs a near-optimal B-term representation R with high
probability 1-delta, in time and space poly(B,log(L),log p, log(1/delta),
epsilon^{-1}, such that ||S-R||^2 < (1+epsilon) ||S-R_{opt}^B||^2, where
R_{opt}^B is the optimal B-term Fourier representation of signal S. The
sublinear poly(logL) time is compared to the superlinear O(Nlog N+L) time
requirement of the present best known Inverse Nonequispaced Fast Fourier
Transform (INFFT) algorithms. Numerical experiments support the advantage in
speed of our algorithm over other methods for sparse signals: it already
outperforms INFFT for large but realistic size N and works well even in the
situation of a large percentage of missing data and in the presence of noise.


  We apply the inverse geometric optimization technique to generate an optimal
and robust stimulated Raman exact passage (STIREP) considering the loss of the
upper state as a characterization parameter. Control fields temporal shapes
that are optimal with respect to pulse area, energy, and duration, are found to
form a simple sequence with a combination of intuitively (near the beginning
and the end) and counter-intuitively ordered pulse pairs. The resulting
dynamics produces a loss which is about a third of that of the non-robust
optimal STIREP. Alternative optimal solutions featuring lower losses, larger
pulse areas, and fully counter-intuitive pulse sequences are derived.


  We consider a centered random walk with finite variance and investigate the
asymptotic behaviour of the probability that the area under this walk remains
positive up to a large time $n$. Assuming that the moment of order $2+\delta$
is finite, we show that the exact asymptotics for this probability are
$n^{-1/4}$. To show these asymptotics we develop a discrete potential theory
for the integrated random walk.


  Document-level Event Extraction (DEE) is particularly tricky due to the two
challenges it poses: scattering-arguments and multi-events. The first challenge
means that arguments of one event record could reside in different sentences in
the document, while the second one reflects one document may simultaneously
contain multiple such event records. Motivated by humans' reading cognitive to
extract information of interests, in this paper, we propose a method called HRE
(Human Reading inspired Extractor for Document Events), where DEE is decomposed
into these two iterative stages, rough reading and elaborate reading.
Specifically, the first stage browses the document to detect the occurrence of
events, and the second stage serves to extract specific event arguments. For
each concrete event role, elaborate reading hierarchically works from sentences
to characters to locate arguments across sentences, thus the
scattering-arguments problem is tackled. Meanwhile, rough reading is explored
in a multi-round manner to discover undetected events, thus the multi-events
problem is handled. Experiment results show the superiority of HRE over prior
competitive methods.


  We investigate the chemical segregation of complex O-bearing species
(including the largest and most complex ones detected to date in space) towards
Orion KL, the closest high-mass star-forming region. The molecular line images
obtained using the ALMA science verification data reveal a clear segregation of
chemically related species depending on their different functional groups. We
map the emission of 13CH3OH, HCOOCH3, CH3OCH3, CH2OCH2, CH3COOCH3, HCOOCH2CH3,
CH3CH2OCH3, HCOOH, OHCH2CH2OH, CH3COOH, CH3CH2OH, CH3OCH2OH, OHCH2CHO, and
CH3COCH3 with 1.5" angular resolution and provide molecular abundances of these
species toward different gas components of this region. We disentangle the
emission of these species in the different Orion components by carefully
selecting lines free of blending and opacity effects. Possible effects in the
molecular spatial distribution due to residual blendings and different
excitation conditions are also addressed. We find that while species containing
the C-O-C group, i.e. an ether group, exhibit their peak emission and higher
abundance towards the compact ridge, the hot core south is the component where
species containing a hydroxyl group (-OH) bound to a carbon atom (C-O-H)
present their emission peak and higher abundance. This finding allows us to
propose methoxy (CH3O-) and hydroxymethyl (-CH2OH) radicals as the major
drivers of the chemistry in the compact ridge and the hot core south,
respectively, as well as different evolutionary stages and prevailing physical
processes in the different Orion components.


  We conduct one dimensional (1D) stellar evolution simulations of non-rotating
stars with initial masses in the range of $11-48 M_\odot$ to the time of core
collapse and, using a criterion on the specific angular momentum fluctuations
in the inner convective zones, estimate the masses of the neutron star (NS)
remnants according to the jittering jets explosion mechanism. From the 1D
simulations we find that several convective zones with specific angular
momentum fluctuations of $j_{conv} > 2.5 \times 10^{15} cm^2 s^{-1}$ develop
near the edge of the iron core in all models. For this condition for explosion
we find the NS remnant masses to be in the range of $1.3 -1.8 M_\odot$, while
if we require twice as large values, i.e., $j_{conv} > 5 \times 10^{15} cm^2
s^{-1}$, we find the NS remnant masses to be in the range of $1.4 - 2.8
M_\odot$ (the upper values here might form black holes). Note that in general
the formation of black holes in the jittering jets explosion mechanism requires
a rapidly rotating pre-collapse core, while we simulate non-rotating stars.


  The performance of supervised classification techniques often deteriorates
when the data has noisy labels. Even the semi-supervised classification
approaches have largely focused only on the problem of handling missing labels.
Most of the approaches addressing the noisy label data rely on deep neural
networks (DNN) that require huge datasets for classification tasks. This poses
a serious challenge especially in process and manufacturing industries, where
the data is limited and labels are noisy. We propose a semi-supervised cascaded
clustering (SSCC) algorithm to extract patterns and generate a cascaded tree of
classes in such datasets. A novel cluster evaluation matrix (CEM) with
configurable hyperparameters is introduced to localize and eliminate the noisy
labels and invoke a pruning criterion on cascaded clustering. The algorithm
reduces the dependency on expensive human expertise for assessing the accuracy
of labels. A classifier generated based on SSCC is found to be accurate and
consistent even when trained on noisy label datasets. It performed better in
comparison with the support vector machines (SVM) when tested on multiple
noisy-label datasets, including an industrial dataset. The proposed approach
can be effectively used for deriving actionable insights in industrial settings
with minimal human expertise.


  The question whether global symmetries can be realized in
quantum-gravity-matter-systems has far-reaching phenomenological consequences.
Here, we collect evidence that within an asymptotically safe context, discrete
global symmetries of the form $\mathbb{Z}_n$, $n>4$, cannot be realized in a
near-perturbative regime. In contrast, an effective-field-theory approach to
quantum gravity might feature such symmetries, providing a mechanism to
generate mass hierarchies in the infrared without the need for additional
fine-tuning.


  Testing the equality in distributions of multiple samples is a common task in
many fields. However, this problem for high-dimensional or non-Euclidean data
has not been well explored. In this paper, we propose new nonparametric tests
based on a similarity graph constructed on the pooled observations from
multiple samples, and make use of both within-sample edges and between-sample
edges, a straightforward but yet not explored idea. The new tests exhibit
substantial power improvements over existing tests for a wide range of
alternatives. We also study the asymptotic distributions of the test
statistics, offering easy off-the-shelf tools for large datasets. The new tests
are illustrated through an analysis of the age image dataset.


  We present the Coordinated Synoptic Investigation of NGC 2264, a continuous
30-day multi-wavelength photometric monitoring campaign on more than 1000 young
cluster members using 16 telescopes. The unprecedented combination of
multi-wavelength, high-precision, high-cadence, and long-duration data opens a
new window into the time domain behavior of young stellar objects. Here we
provide an overview of the observations, focusing on results from Spitzer and
CoRoT. The highlight of this work is detailed analysis of 162 classical T Tauri
stars for which we can probe optical and mid-infrared flux variations to 1%
amplitudes and sub-hour timescales. We present a morphological variability
census and then use metrics of periodicity, stochasticity, and symmetry to
statistically separate the light curves into seven distinct classes, which we
suggest represent different physical processes and geometric effects. We
provide distributions of the characteristic timescales and amplitudes, and
assess the fractional representation within each class. The largest category
(>20%) are optical "dippers" having discrete fading events lasting ~1-5 days.
The degree of correlation between the optical and infrared light curves is
positive but weak; notably, the independently assigned optical and infrared
morphology classes tend to be different for the same object. Assessment of flux
variation behavior with respect to (circum)stellar properties reveals
correlations of variability parameters with H$\alpha$ emission and with
effective temperature. Overall, our results point to multiple origins of young
star variability, including circumstellar obscuration events, hot spots on the
star and/or disk, accretion bursts, and rapid structural changes in the inner
disk.


  We study the capture rate in the doublet hyperfine initial state for the muon
capture reaction $\mu^- + \,^2{\rm H} \rightarrow \nu_\mu + n + n$ ($\Gamma^D$)
and the total capture rate for the reaction $ \mu^- + \,^3{\rm He} \rightarrow
\nu_\mu + \,^3{\rm H}$ ($\Gamma_0$). We investigate whether $\Gamma^D$ and
$\Gamma_0$ could be sensitive to the $nn$ $S$-wave scattering length
($a_{nn}$). To this aim, we consider nuclear potentials and weak currents
derived within $\chi$EFT. We employ the N3LO chiral potential with cutoff
$\Lambda$=500 MeV, but the low-energy constant (LEC) determining $a_{nn}$ is
varied so as to obtain $a_{nn}$=-18.95 (the present empirical value), -16.0,
-22.0, and +18.22 fm. The last value leads to a $nn$ bound state with a binding
energy of 139 keV. The LECs $c_D$ and $c_E$, present in the three-nucleon
potential and axial-vector current, are fitted to reproduce the $A=3$ binding
energies and the triton Gamow-Teller matrix element. The capture rate
$\Gamma^D$ is found to be 399(3) s$^{-1}$ for $a_{nn}$=-18.95 and -16.0 fm; and
400(3) s$^{-1}$ for $a_{nn}$=-22.0 fm. For $a_{nn}$=+18.22 fm, we obtain 275(3)
s$^{-1}$ (135(3) s$^{-1}$), when the final $nn$ system is unbound (bound). The
rate $\Gamma_0$ is found to be 1494(15), 1491(16), 1488(18), and 1475(16)
s$^{-1}$ for $a_{nn}$=-18.95, -16.0, -22.0, and +18.22 fm, respectively. The
theoretical uncertainties are due to the fitting procedure and radiative
corrections. Our results seem to exclude the possibility of constraining a
negative $a_{nn}$ with an uncertainty of less than $\sim \pm$ 3 fm through an
accurate determination of the muon capture rates, but the uncertainty on the
present empirical value will not complicate the interpretation of the
(forth-coming) experimental results for $\Gamma^D$. Finally, a comparison with
the already available experimental data discourages the possibility of a bound
$nn$ state.


  The rising adoption of industrial robots is radically changing the role of
workers in the production process. Robots can be used for some of the more
physically demanding and dangerous production work, thus reducing the
possibility of worker injury. On the other hand, robots may replace workers,
potentially increasing worker anxiety about their job safety. In this paper, we
investigate how individual physical health and mental health outcomes vary with
local exposure to robots for manufacturing workers in China. We find a link
between robot exposure and better physical health of workers, particularly for
younger workers and those with less education. However, we also find that robot
exposure is associated with more mental stress for Chinese workers,
particularly older and less educated workers.


  A named entity recognition and classification plays the first and foremost
important role in capturing semantics in data and anchoring in translation as
well as downstream study for history. However, NER in historical text has faced
challenges such as scarcity of annotated corpus, multilanguage variety, various
noise, and different convention far different from the contemporary language
model. This paper introduces Korean historical corpus (Diary of Royal secretary
which is named SeungJeongWon) recorded over several centuries and recently
added with named entity information as well as phrase markers which historians
carefully annotated. We fined-tuned the language model on history corpus,
conducted extensive comparative experiments using our language model and
pretrained muti-language models. We set up the hypothesis of combination of
time and annotation information and tested it based on statistical t test. Our
finding shows that phrase markers clearly improve the performance of NER model
in predicting unseen entity in documents written far different time period. It
also shows that each of phrase marker and corpus-specific trained model does
not improve the performance. We discuss the future research directions and
practical strategies to decipher the history document.


  Quasars show considerable promise as standard candles in a high-redshift
window beyond Type Ia supernovae. Recently, Risaliti, Lusso \& collaborators
\cite{Risaliti:2018reu, Lusso:2019akb, Lusso:2020pdb} have succeeded in
producing a high redshift Hubble diagram ($ z \lesssim 7$) that supports "a
trend whereby the Hubble diagram of quasars is well reproduced by the standard
flat $\Lambda$CDM model up to $z \sim 1.5-2$, but strong deviations emerge at
higher redshifts". This conclusion hinges upon a log polynomial expansion for
the luminosity distance. In this note, we demonstrate that this expansion (or
"improvements" thereof) typically can only be trusted up to $z \sim 1.5-2$. As
a result, a breakdown in the validity of the expansion may be misinterpreted as
a (phantom) deviation from flat $\Lambda$CDM. We further illustrate the problem
through mock data examples.


  For many algebraic codes the main part of decoding can be reduced to a shift
register synthesis problem. In this paper we present an approach for solving
generalised shift register problems over skew polynomial rings which occur in
error and erasure decoding of $\ell$-Interleaved Gabidulin codes. The algorithm
is based on module minimisation and has time complexity $O(\ell \mu^2)$ where
$\mu$ measures the size of the input problem.


  We consider the signal detection problem in the Gaussian design trace
regression model with low rank alternative hypotheses. We derive the precise
(Ingster-type) detection boundary for the Frobenius and the nuclear norm. We
then apply these results to show that honest confidence sets for the unknown
matrix parameter that adapt to all low rank sub-models in nuclear norm do not
exist. This shows that recently obtained positive results in (Carpentier,
Eisert, Gross and Nickl, 2015) for confidence sets in low rank recovery
problems are essentially optimal.


  In recent years, there has been substantial progress in the derivation of
nuclear forces from chiral effective field theory. Accurate two-nucleon forces
(2NF) have been constructed up to next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (N3LO)
of chiral perturbation theory and applied in microscopic nuclear structure
calculations with a good degree of success. However, chiral three-nucleon
forces (3NF) have been used only at N2LO, improving some miscroscopic
predictions, but leaving also several issues, like the "Ay puzzle'" of
nucleon-deuteron scattering, unresolved. Thus, the 3NF at N3LO is needed for
essentially two reasons: For consistency with the 2NF, and to (hopefully)
improve some critical predictions of nuclear structure and reactions. However,
there are indications that the 3NF at N3LO (in the so-called Delta-less version
of the theory) is rather weak and may not solve any of the outstanding
problems. If this suspicion is confirmed, we have to go beyond, which may be
similar to opening Pandora's Box. In this talk, I will discuss the various
possible scenarios and how to deal with them.


  We present the alternative topological twisting of N=4 Yang-Mills, in which
the path integral is dominated not by instantons, but by flat connections of
the COMPLEXIFIED gauge group. The theory is nontrivial on compact orientable
four-manifolds with nonpositive Euler number, which are necessarily not simply
connected. On such manifolds, one finds a single topological invariant,
analogous to the Casson invariant of three-manifolds.


  We obtain the conserved, nonlocal charges for the supersymmetric two boson
hierarchy from fractional powers of its Lax operator. We show that these
charges reduce to the ones of the supersymmetric KdV system under appropriate
reduction. We study the algebra of the nonlocal, local and supersymmetry
charges with respect to the first and the second Hamiltonian structures of the
system and discuss how they close as a graded nonlinear cubic algebra.


  We show that in a prime nonassociative Novikov algebra every nonzero ideal is
non-associative. We prove that Baer (and Andrunakievich) radical and left
quasiregular radical coincide in finite dimensional Novikov algebras over a
field of characteristic 0 or algebraically closed field of odd characteristic.
We show non-existence of right quasiregular radical in finite dimensional
Novikov algebras.


  We propose a new variable selection procedure for a functional linear model
with multiple scalar responses and multiple functional predictors. This method
is based on basis expansions of the involved functional predictors and
coefficients that lead to a multivariate linear regression model. Then a
criterion by means of which the variable selection problem reduces to that of
estimating a suitable set is introduced. Estimation of this set is achieved by
using appropriate penalizations of estimates of this criterion, so leading to
our proposal. A simulation study that permits to investigate the effectiveness
of the proposed approach and to compare it with existing methods is given.


  Assessing atomic defect states and their ramifications on the electronic
properties of two dimensional van der Waals semiconducting transition metal
dichalcogenides (SC TMDs) is the primary task to expedite multi disciplinary
efforts in the promotion of next generation electrical and optical device
applications utilizing these low dimensional materials. Here, with electron
tunneling and optical spectroscopy measurements with density functional theory,
we spectroscopically locate the midgap states from chalcogen atom vacancies in
four representative monolayer SC TMDs (MoS2, WS2, MoSe2, WSe2), and carefully
analyze the similarities and dissimilarities of the atomic defects in four
distinctive materials regarding the physical origins of the missing chalcogen
atoms and the implications to SC mTMD properties. In addition, we address both
quasiparticle and optical energy gaps of the SC mTMD films and find out many
body interactions significantly enlarge the quasiparticle energy gaps and
excitonic binding energies, when the semiconducting monolayers are encapsulated
by non interacting hexagonal boron nitride layers.


  In this paper, we present a modular strategy which describes key properties
of the absolute primary decomposition of an equidimensional polynomial ideal
defined by polynomials with rational coefficients. The algorithm we design is
based on the classical technique of elimination of variables and colon ideals
and uses a tricky choice of prime integers to work with. Thanks to this
technique, we can obtain the number of absolute irreducible components, their
degree, multiplicity and also the affine Hilbert function of the reduced
components (namely, their initial ideal w.r.t. a degree-compatible term
ordering) .


  Within the framework of nonrelativisitic QCD factorization formalism, we
present the next-to-leading-order relativistic corrections to $\Upsilon$
exclusive decay into $\eta_c$ plus $J/\psi$. The double charmonia can be
produced through several immediate channels, i.e. $\Upsilon\to g^*g^*g^*\to
\eta_c+J/\psi$, $\Upsilon\to g^*g^*\gamma^*\to \eta_c+J/\psi$, and $\Upsilon\to
\gamma^*\to \eta_c+J/\psi$. The amplitudes of these three channels are obtained
accurate up to ${\cal O}(\alpha_s^3 v^2)$, ${\cal O}(\alpha\alpha_s^2 v^2)$,
and ${\cal O}(\alpha\alpha_s^2 v^2)$ respectively, where $v$ indicates the
typical heavy quark velocity in bottomonium and/or charmonium rest frame. The
decay rates are also presented. We find the next-to-leading-order relativistic
corrections to the short distance coefficients as well as the decay rates are
both significant and negative, especially for the corrections from bottomonium.
More seriously, the decay rates are even brought into negative by including the
relativistic corrections, which indicates the poor convergence for the velocity
expansion in this kind of processes. Detailed analysis is given in the paper.


  We propose a numerical approach to study the invasion fitness of a mutant and
to determine evolutionary singular strategies in evolutionary structured models
in which the competitive exclusion principle holds. Our approach is based on a
dual representation, which consists of the modelling of the small size mutant
population by a stochastic model and the computation of its corresponding
deterministic model. The use of the deterministic model greatly facilitates the
numerical determination of the feasibility of invasion as well as the
convergence-stability of the evolutionary singular strategy. Our approach
combines standard adaptive dynamics with the link between the mutant survival
criterion in the stochastic model and the sign of the eigenvalue in the
corresponding deterministic model. We present our method in the context of a
mass-structured individual-based chemostat model. We exploit a previously
derived mathematical relationship between stochastic and deterministic
representations of the mutant population in the chemostat model to derive a
general numerical method for analyzing the invasion fitness in the stochastic
models. Our method can be applied to the broad class of evolutionary models for
which a link between the stochastic and deterministic invasion fitnesses can be
established.


  In this paper, we propose an approach for assigning an interest level to the
goals of a planetary rover. Assigning an interest level to goals, allows the
rover autonomously to transform and reallocate the goals. The interest level is
defined by data-fusing payload and navigation information. The fusion yields an
"interest map", that quantifies the level of interest of each area around the
rover. In this way the planner can choose the most interesting scientific
objectives to be analyzed, with limited human intervention, and reallocates its
goals autonomously. The Dezert-Smarandache Theory of Plausible and Paradoxical
Reasoning was used for information fusion: this theory allows dealing with
vague and conflicting data. In particular, it allows us directly to model the
behavior of the scientists that have to evaluate the relevance of a particular
set of goals. The paper shows an application of the proposed approach to the
generation of a reliable interest map.


  An elaboration of Dempster's method of constructing belief functions suggests
a broadly applicable strategy for constructing lower probabilities under a
variety of evidentiary constraints.


  Using accelerators based on analog computing is an efficient way to process
the immensely large workloads in Neural Networks (NNs). One example of an
analog computing scheme for NNs is Integrate-and-Fire (IF) Spiking Neural
Networks (SNNs). However, to achieve high inference accuracy in IF-SNNs, the
analog hardware needs to represent current-based multiply-accumulate (MAC)
levels as spike times, for which a large membrane capacitor needs to be charged
for a certain amount of time. A large capacitor results in high energy use,
considerable area cost, and long latency, constituting one of the major
bottlenecks in analog IF-SNN implementations. In this work, we propose a HW/SW
Codesign method, called CapMin, for capacitor size minimization in analog
computing IF-SNNs. CapMin minimizes the capacitor size by reducing the number
of spike times needed for accurate operation of the HW, based on the absolute
frequency of MAC level occurrences in the SW. To increase the operation of
IF-SNNs to current variation, we propose the method CapMin-V, which trades
capacitor size for protection based on the reduced capacitor size found in
CapMin. In our experiments, CapMin achieves more than a 14$\times$ reduction in
capacitor size over the state of the art, while CapMin-V achieves increased
variation tolerance in the IF-SNN operation, requiring only a small increase in
capacitor size.


  Deep generative models have been successfully applied to Zero-Shot Learning
(ZSL) recently. However, the underlying drawbacks of GANs and VAEs (e.g., the
hardness of training with ZSL-oriented regularizers and the limited generation
quality) hinder the existing generative ZSL models from fully bypassing the
seen-unseen bias. To tackle the above limitations, for the first time, this
work incorporates a new family of generative models (i.e., flow-based models)
into ZSL. The proposed Invertible Zero-shot Flow (IZF) learns factorized data
embeddings (i.e., the semantic factors and the non-semantic ones) with the
forward pass of an invertible flow network, while the reverse pass generates
data samples. This procedure theoretically extends conventional generative
flows to a factorized conditional scheme. To explicitly solve the bias problem,
our model enlarges the seen-unseen distributional discrepancy based on negative
sample-based distance measurement. Notably, IZF works flexibly with either a
naive Bayesian classifier or a held-out trainable one for zero-shot
recognition. Experiments on widely-adopted ZSL benchmarks demonstrate the
significant performance gain of IZF over existing methods, in both classic and
generalized settings.


  Gauge-invariant sources with a hydrogen wave function shape are constructed
for bottomonium two-point correlation functions using the free-form smearing
technique. The bottomonium spectrum, including a first lattice result for the
D-wave first-excited state, is extracted from free-form smeared correlation
functions. Results are compared with conventional smearing techniques and
free-form smearing is found to have the advantage of reduced statistical
errors.


  We present 12CO J = 2-1 line observations of G54.1+0.3, a composite supernova
remnant with a mid-infrared (MIR) loop surrounding the central pulsar wind
nebula (PWN). We mapped an area of 12' x 9' around the PWN and its associated
MIR loop. We confirm two velocity components that had been proposed to be
possibly interacting with the PWN/MIR-loop; the +53 km/s cloud that appears in
contact with the eastern boundary of the PWN and the +23 km/s cloud that has CO
emission coincident with the MIR loop. We have not found a direct evidence for
the interaction in either of these clouds. Instead, we detected an 5'-long
arc-like cloud at +15-+23 km/s with a systematic velocity gradient of ~3
km/s/arcmin and broad-line emitting CO gas having widths (FWHM) of <7 km/s in
the western interior of the supernova remnant. We discuss their association
with the supernova remnant.


  Static spin-stripe order and superconductivity were systematically studied in
La_2-xBa_xCuO_4 (0.11 - 0.17) at ambient pressure by means of magnetization and
muSR experiments. We find that all the investigated La_2-xBa_xCuO_4 samples
exhibit static spin-stripe order and that the quasi two-dimensional
superconducting (SC) transition temperature T_c1 and the static spin-stripe
order temperature T_so have very similar values throughout the phase diagram.
Moreover, the magnetic and the SC properties of the x = 0.155 (LBCO-0.155) and
x = 0.17 (LBCO-0.17) samples were studied under hydrostatic pressure. As a
remarkable result, in these bulk cuprate superconductors the three-dimensional
SC transition temperature T_c and T_so nearly coincide at all pressure
investigated (0 - 2.3 GPa). We also observed a pressure induced transition from
long-range spin stripe order to a disordered magnetic state at 1.6 GPa in
LBCO-0.155, coexisting with a SC state with substantial superfluid density. In
LBCO-0.17 a disordered magnetic state is present at all p. The present results
indicate that static magnetic order and SC pairing correlations develop in a
cooperative fashion in La_2-xBa_xCuO_4, and provide a new route of
understanding the complex interplay between static magnetism and
superconductivity in the stripe phase of cuprates.


  Fifty-one dense cores associated with water masers were mapped at 350 micron.
These cores are very luminous, 10^3 < Lbol/Lsun < 10^6, indicative of the
formation of massive stars. Dust continuum contour maps and photometry are
presented for these sources. The spectral energy distributions and normalized
radial profiles of dust continuum emission were modeled for 31 sources using a
one-dimensional dust radiative transfer code, assuming a power law density
distribution in the envelope, n = n_f (r/r_f)^{-p}. The best fit density power
law exponent, p, ranged from 0.75 to 2.5 with <p> = 1.8 +/- 0.4. The mean value
of p is comparable to that found in regions forming only low mass stars. The
mean p is incompatible with a logatropic sphere (p = 1), but other star
formation models cannot be ruled out. Different mass estimates are compared and
mean masses of gas and dust are reported within a half-power radius determined
from the dust emission and within a radius where the total density exceeds 10^4
cm^3. Evolutionary indicators commonly used for low mass star formation may
have some utility for regions forming massive stars. For comparison with
extragalactic star formation studies, the luminosity to dust mass ratio is
calculated for these sources with a method most parallel to that used in
studies of distant galaxies and is found to be similar to that seen in high
redshift starburst galaxies.


  In this paper we research a model of multilayer circuits with a single
logical layer. We consider $\lambda$-separable graphs as a support for
circuits. We establish the Shannon function lower bound $\max
\bigl(\frac{2^n}{n}, \frac{2^n (1 - \lambda)}{\log k} \bigr)$ for this type of
circuits where $k$ is the number of layers. For $d$-dimensional graphs, which
are $\lambda$-separable for $\lambda = \frac{d - 1}{d}$, this gives the Shannon
function lower bound $\frac{2^n}{\min(n, d \log k)}$. For multidimensional
rectangular circuits the proved lower bound asymptotically matches to the upper
bound.


  We address the optimal estimation of quantum parameters, in the framework of
local quantum estimation theory, for a massive scalar quantum field in the
expanding Robertson-Walker universe exhibiting Lorentz invariance violation
(LIV). The information about the history of the expanding spacetime in the
presence of LIV can be extracted by taking measurements on the entangled state
of particle modes. We find that, in the estimation of cosmological parameters,
the ultimate bounds to the precision of the Lorentz-invariant massive scalar
field can be improved due to the effects of LIV under some appropriate
conditions. We also show that, in the Lorentz-invariant massive scalar field
and massless scalar field due to LIV backgrounds, the optimal precision can be
achieved by choosing the particles with some suitable LIV, cosmological and
field parameters. Moreover, in the estimation of LIV parameter during the
spacetime expansion, we prove that the appropriate momentum mode of field
particles and larger cosmological parameters can provide us a better precision.
Particularly, the optimal precision of the parameters estimation can be
obtained by performing projective measurements implemented by the projectors
onto the eigenvectors of specific probe states.


  Nonlinear non-Gaussian state-space models are ubiquitous in statistics,
econometrics, information engineering and signal processing. Particle methods,
also known as Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) methods, provide reliable numerical
approximations to the associated state inference problems. However, in most
applications, the state-space model of interest also depends on unknown static
parameters that need to be estimated from the data. In this context, standard
particle methods fail and it is necessary to rely on more sophisticated
algorithms. The aim of this paper is to present a comprehensive review of
particle methods that have been proposed to perform static parameter estimation
in state-space models. We discuss the advantages and limitations of these
methods and illustrate their performance on simple models.


  In quantum Bayesian inference problems, any conclusions drawn from a finite
number of measurements depend not only on the outcomes of the measurements but
also on a prior. Here we show that, in general, the prior remains important
even in the limit of an infinite number of measurements. We illustrate this
point with several examples where two priors lead to very different conclusions
given the same measurement data.


  In this paper, we prove that any translation and $SU_2(\IC)$-invariant pure
state of $\IM=\otimes_{k \in \IZ}\!M^{(k)}_d(\IC)$, that is also real, lattice
symmetric and reflection positive with a certain twist $r_0 \in U_d(\IC)$, is
finitely correlated and its two-point spatial correlation function decays
exponentially whenever $d$ is an odd integer. In particular, the Heisenberg
iso-spin anti-ferromagnetic integer spin model admits unique low temperature
limiting ground state and its spatial correlation function decays
exponentially. The unique low temperature limiting ground state of the
Hamiltonian is determined by the unique solution to Clebsch-Gordon
inter-twinning isometry between two representations of $SU_2(\IC)$.


  A variety of scientific results have been achieved over the last 10 years
with the GROND simultaneous 7-channel imager at the 2.2m telescope of the
Max-Planck Society at ESO/La Silla. While designed primarily for rapid
observations of gamma-ray burst afterglows, the combination of simultaneous
imaging in the Sloan g'r'i'z' and near-infrared JHK bands at a medium-sized
(2.2m) telescope and the very flexible scheduling possibility has resulted in
an extensive use for many other astrophysical research topics, from exoplanets
and accreting binaries to galaxies and quasars.


  Robust reinforcement learning (RL) is to find a policy that optimizes the
worst-case performance over an uncertainty set of MDPs. In this paper, we focus
on model-free robust RL, where the uncertainty set is defined to be centering
at a misspecified MDP that generates a single sample trajectory sequentially
and is assumed to be unknown. We develop a sample-based approach to estimate
the unknown uncertainty set and design a robust Q-learning algorithm (tabular
case) and robust TDC algorithm (function approximation setting), which can be
implemented in an online and incremental fashion. For the robust Q-learning
algorithm, we prove that it converges to the optimal robust Q function, and for
the robust TDC algorithm, we prove that it converges asymptotically to some
stationary points. Unlike the results in [Roy et al., 2017], our algorithms do
not need any additional conditions on the discount factor to guarantee the
convergence. We further characterize the finite-time error bounds of the two
algorithms and show that both the robust Q-learning and robust TDC algorithms
converge as fast as their vanilla counterparts(within a constant factor). Our
numerical experiments further demonstrate the robustness of our algorithms. Our
approach can be readily extended to robustify many other algorithms, e.g., TD,
SARSA, and other GTD algorithms.


  We present a method for learning bilingual translation dictionaries between
English and Bantu languages. We show that exploiting the grammatical structure
common to Bantu languages enables bilingual dictionary induction for languages
where training data is unavailable.


  The problem of constructing internally rotating solitons of fixed angular
frequency $\omega$ in the Faddeev-Skyrme model is reformulated as a variational
problem for an energy-like functional, called pseudoenergy, which depends
parametrically on $\omega$. This problem is solved numerically using a gradient
descent method, without imposing any spatial symmetries on the solitons, and
the dependence of the solitons' energy on $\omega$, and on their conserved
total isospin $J$, studied. It is found that, generically, the shape of a
soliton is independent of $\omega$, and that its size grows monotonically with
$\omega$. A simple elastic rod model of time-dependent hopfions is developed
which, despite having only one free parameter, accounts well for most of the
numerical results.


  On the basis of the method of iterative summation of path integrals (ISPI),
we develop a numerically exact transfer-matrix method to describe the
nonequilibrium properties of interacting quantum-dot systems. For this, we map
the ISPI scheme to a transfer-matrix approach, which is more accessible to
physical interpretation, allows for a more transparent formulation of the
theory, and substantially improves the efficiency. In particular, the
stationary limit is directly implemented, without the need of extrapolation.
The resulting new method, referred to as "transfer-matrix summation of path
integrals" (TraSPI), is then applied to resonant electronic transport through a
single-level quantum dot.


  We calculate the 1/$m^3_c$ corrections in the inclusive semileptonic widths
of $D$ mesons. We show that these are due to the novel penguin type operators
that appear at this level in the transition operator. Taking into account the
nonperturbative corrections leads to the predicted value of the semileptonic
width significantly lower than the experimental value. The $1/m^3_c$ worsen the
situation or at the very least, within uncertainty, give small contribution. We
indicate possible ways out. It seems most probable that violations of duality
are noticeable in the energy range characteristic to the inclusive decays in
the charm family. Theoretically these deviations are related to divergence of
the high-order terms in the power expansion in the inverse heavy quark mass.


  Motivated by the universality of Hawking radiation and that of the anomaly
cancellation technique as well as that of the effective action method, we
investigate the Hawking radiation of a Schwarzschild black hole in the
isotropic coordinates via the cancellation of gravitational anomaly. After
performing a dimensional reduction from the four-dimensional isotropic
Schwarzschild metric, we show that this reduction procedure will, in general,
result in two classes of two-dimensional effective metrics: the conformal
equivalent and the inequivalent ones. For the physically equivalent class, the
two-dimensional effective metric displays such a distinct feature that the
determinant is not equal to the unity ($\sqrt{-g} \neq 1$), but also vanishes
at the horizon, the latter of which possibly invalidates the anomaly analysis
there. ...
  This is an updated version to replace our e-print arXiv:0709.0044 [hep-th].
Abstract is too long to exceed the limit of 24 lines by arXiv.


  An indispensable part of our lives, computing has also become essential to
industries and governments. Steady improvements in computer hardware have been
supported by periodic doubling of transistor densities in integrated circuits
over the last fifty years. Such Moore scaling now requires increasingly heroic
efforts, stimulating research in alternative hardware and stirring controversy.
To help evaluate emerging technologies and enrich our understanding of
integrated-circuit scaling, we review fundamental limits to computation: in
manufacturing, energy, physical space, design and verification effort, and
algorithms. To outline what is achievable in principle and in practice, we
recall how some limits were circumvented, compare loose and tight limits. We
also point out that engineering difficulties encountered by emerging
technologies may indicate yet-unknown limits.


  In this paper we explore the asymptotic enumeration of three-dimensional
excursions confined to the positive octant. As shown in [29], both the
exponential growth and the critical exponent admit universal formulas,
respectively in terms of the inventory of the step set and of the principal
Dirichlet eigenvalue of a certain spherical triangle, itself being
characterized by the steps of the model. We focus on the critical exponent, and
our main objective is to relate combinatorial properties of the step set
(structure of the so-called group of the walk, existence of a Hadamard
factorization, existence of differential equations satisfied by the generating
functions) to geometric or analytic properties of the associated spherical
triangle (remarkable angles, tiling properties, existence of an exceptional
closed-form formula for the principal eigenvalue). As in general the
eigenvalues of the Dirichlet problem on a spherical triangle are not known in
closed form, we also develop a finite-elements method to compute approximate
values, typically with ten digits of precision.


  In this paper we study left 3-Engel elements in groups. In particular, we
prove that for any prime $p$ and any left 3-Engel element $x$ of finite
$p$-power order in a group $G$, $x^p$ is in the Baer radical of $G$. Also it is
proved that $<x,y>$ is nilpotent of class 4 for every two left 3-Engel elements
in a group $G$.


  In the Painleve--Gullstrand (PG) reference frame, the description of
elementary particles in the background of a black hole (BH) is similar to the
description of non-relativistic matter falling toward the BH center. The
velocity of the fall depends on the distance to the center, and it surpasses
the speed of light inside the horizon.~Another analogy to non-relativistic
physics appears in the description of the massless fermionic particle. Its
Hamiltonian inside the BH, when written in the PG reference frame, is identical
to the Hamiltonian of the electronic quasiparticles in type~II Weyl semimetals
(WSII) that reside in the vicinity of a type~II Weyl point. When these
materials are in the equilibrium state, the type II Weyl point becomes the
crossing point of the two pieces of the Fermi surface called Fermi pockets. {It
was previously stated} that there should be a Fermi surface inside a black hole
in equilibrium. In real materials, type II Weyl points come in pairs, and the
descriptions of the quasiparticles in their vicinities are, to a certain
extent, inverse. Namely, the directions of their velocities are opposite. In
line with the mentioned analogy, we propose the hypothesis that inside the
equilibrium BH there exist low-energy excitations moving toward the exterior of
the BH. These excitations are able to escape from the BH, unlike ordinary
matter that falls to its center. The important consequences to the quantum
theory of black holes follow.


  In nearly all concepts invoked or proposed to change or shield gravity it is
intuitively assumed that manipulation of gravity automatically leads to a
breakthrough for propulsion. In this study it is shown, that even if gravity
could be hypothetically controlled along the manipulation schemes outlined, the
gains in terms of propulsion would be modest and lead to no breakthrough.
Although the manipulation schemes presented are not exhaustive, they include
the most straightforward ones from the current physics point of view.


  In optical anti-counterfeiting, several distinct optically variable devices
(OVDs) are often concurrently employed to compensate for the insufficient
security level of constituent OVDs. Alternatively, metasurfaces that exhibit
multiple optical responses effectively combine multiple OVDs into one, thus
significantly enhancing their security and hindering fraudulent replication.
This work demonstrates the simultaneous control of three separate optical
responses, i.e., phase, amplitude, and luminescence, using anisotropic
gap-plasmon metasurfaces. Due to the incorporated geometric anisotropy, the
designed structure exhibits distinct responses under x- and y-polarized light,
revealing either a color image, or a holographic projection in the far field.
Furthermore, inserting upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) into the dielectric
gaps of the structures, the designed metasurface is able to generate a third
luminescent image upon illumination with the near-infrared light. The
stochastic distribution of the UCNPs constitutes a unique fingerprint,
achieving a physically unclonable function (PUF) layer. Crucially, our
triple-mode metasurface requires only readily attainable equipment such as a
macro-lens/camera and a laser pointer to read most of the channels, thus paving
the way towards highly secure and easy-to-authenticate metasurface-driven OVDs
(mOVDs).


  We classify the discriminantly separable polynomials of degree two in each of
three variables, defined by a property that all the discriminants as
polynomials of two variables are factorized as products of two polynomials of
one variable each. Our classification is based on the study of structures of
zeros of a polynomial component $P$ of a discriminant. This classification is
related to the classification of pencils of conics in a delicate way. We
establish a relationship between our classification and the classification of
integrable quad-equations which has been suggested recently by Adler, Bobenko,
and Suris.


  Integrated photonic devices have become pivotal elements across most research
fields that involve light-based applications. A particularly versatile category
of this technology are programmable photonic integrated processors, which are
being employed in an increasing variety of applications, like communication or
photonic computing. Such processors accurately control on-chip light within
meshes of programmable optical gates. Free-space optics applications can
utilize this technology by using appropriate on-chip interfaces to couple
distributions of light to the photonic chip. This enables, for example, access
to the spatial properties of free-space light, particularly to phase
distributions, which is usually challenging and requires either specialized
devices or additional components. Here we discuss and show the detection of
amplitude and phase of structured higher-order light beams using a multipurpose
photonic processor. Our device provides measurements of amplitude and phase
distributions which can be used to, e.g., directly distinguish light's orbital
angular momentum without the need for further elements interacting with the
free-space light. Paving a way towards more convenient and intuitive phase
measurements of structured light, we envision applications in a wide range of
fields, specifically in microscopy or communications where the spatial
distributions of lights properties are important.


  For $d \geq 4$ and $p$ a sufficiently large prime, we construct a lattice
$\Gamma \leq {\rm PSp}_{2d}(\mathbb Q_p),$ such that its universal central
extension cannot be sofic if $\Gamma$ satisfies some weak form of stability in
permutations. In the proof, we make use of high-dimensional expansion phenomena
and, extending results of Lubotzky, we construct new examples of cosystolic
expanders over arbitrary finite abelian groups.


  When analysing new emerging infectious disease outbreaks one typically has
observational data over a limited period of time and several parameters to
estimate, such as growth rate, R0, serial or generation interval distribution,
latent and incubation times or case fatality rates. Also parameters describing
the temporal relations between appearance of symptoms, notification, death and
recovery/discharge will be of interest. These parameters form the basis for
predicting the future outbreak, planning preventive measures and monitoring the
progress of the disease. We study the problem of making inference during the
emerging phase of an outbreak and point out potential sources of bias related
to contact tracing, replacing generation times by serial intervals, multiple
potential infectors or truncation effects amplified by exponential growth.
These biases directly affect the estimation of e.g. the generation time
distribution and the case fatality rate, but can then propagate to other
estimates, e.g. of R0 and growth rate. Many of the traditionally used
estimation methods in disease epidemiology may suffer from these biases when
applied to the emerging disease outbreak situation. We show how to avoid these
biases based on proper statistical modelling. We illustrate the theory by
numerical examples and simulations based on the recent 2014-15 Ebola outbreak
to quantify possible estimation biases, which may be up to 20% underestimation
of R0, if the epidemic growth rate is fitted to observed data or, conversely,
up to 62% overestimation of the growth rate if the correct R0 is used in
conjunction with the Euler-Lotka equation.


  The eventual detection of gravitational waves from core-collapse supernovae
(CCSN) will help improve our current understanding of the explosion mechanism
of massive stars. The stochastic nature of the late post-bounce gravitational
wave signal due to the non-linear dynamics of the matter involved and the large
number of degrees of freedom of the phenomenon make the source parameter
inference problem very challenging. In this paper we take a step towards that
goal and present a parameter estimation approach which is based on the
gravitational waves associated with oscillations of proto-neutron stars (PNS).
Numerical simulations of CCSN have shown that buoyancy-driven g-modes are
responsible for a significant fraction of the gravitational wave signal and
their time-frequency evolution is linked to the physical properties of the
compact remnant through universal relations, as demonstrated in [1]. We use a
set of 1D CCSN simulations to build a model that relates the evolution of the
PNS properties with the frequency of the dominant g-mode, which is extracted
from the gravitational-wave data using a new algorithm we have developed for
our study. The model is used to infer the time evolution of a combination of
the mass and the radius of the PNS. The performance of the method is estimated
employing simulations of 2D CCSN waveforms covering a progenitor mass range
between 11 and 40 solar masses and different equations of state. Considering
signals embedded in Gaussian gravitational wave detector noise, we show that it
is possible to infer PNS properties for a galactic source using Advanced LIGO
and Advanced Virgo data at design sensitivities. Third generation detectors
such as Einstein Telescope and Cosmic Explorer will allow to test distances of
${\cal O}(100\, {\rm kpc})$.


  For supercritical multitype branching processes in continuous time, we
investigate the evolution of types along those lineages that survive up to some
time t. We establish almost-sure convergence theorems for both time and
population averages of ancestral types (conditioned on non-extinction), and
identify the mutation process describing the type evolution along typical
lineages. An important tool is a representation of the family tree in terms of
a suitable size-biased tree with trunk. As a by-product, this representation
allows a `conceptual proof' (in the sense of Kurtz, Lyons, Pemantle, Peres
1997) of the continuous-time version of the Kesten-Stigum theorem.


  We report a new correlated phase of two-dimensional charged carriers in high
magnetic fields, manifested by an anisotropic insulating behavior at low
temperatures. It appears near Landau level filling factor $\nu=1/2$ in hole
systems confined to wide GaAs quantum wells when the sample is tilted in
magnetic field to an intermediate angle. The parallel field component
($B_{||}$) leads to a crossing of the lowest two Landau levels, and an
elongated hole wavefunction in the direction of $B_{||}$. Under these
conditions, the in-plane resistance exhibits an insulating behavior, with the
resistance along $B_{||}$ more than 10 times smaller than the resistance
perpendicular to $B_{||}$. We interpret this anisotropic insulating phase as a
two-component, striped Wigner crystal.


  Energy transfers from larger to smaller scales in turbulence. This energy
cascade is a process of the creation of smaller-scale coherent vortices by
larger ones. In our recent study (Yoneda, Goto and Tsuruhashi 2021), we
reformulated the energy cascade in terms of this stretching process and derived
the $-5/3$ law of the energy spectrum under physically reasonable assumptions.
In the present study, we provide a quantitative verification of these
assumptions by using direct numerical simulations. We decompose developed
turbulence in a periodic cube into scales by using the band-pass filter and
identify the axes of coherent tubular vortices by the low-pressure method. Even
when the turbulent kinetic energy and its dissipation rate temporally fluctuate
about their temporal means, the total length of the vortices at each scale
varies little with time. This result is consistent with our assumption of the
temporal stationarity on the vorticity decomposition. The present numerical
analysis also shows that the hierarchy of vortex axes is self-similar in a wide
range of scales, i.e. in the inertial range and a lower part of the dissipation
range and that the volume fraction occupied by the tubular vortices at each
scale is independent of the scale.