  Nuclear spin hyperpolarization techniques, such as dynamic nuclear
polarization (DNP) and parahydrogen-induced polarization (PHIP), have
revolutionized nuclear magnetic resonance and magnetic resonance imaging. In
these methods, a readily available source of high spin order, either electron
spins in DNP or singlet states in hydrogen for PHIP, is brought into close
proximity with nuclear spin targets, enabling efficient transfer of spin order
under external quantum control. Despite vast disparities in energy scales and
interaction mechanisms between electron spins in DNP and nuclear singlet states
in PHIP, a pseudo-spin formalism allows us to establish an intriguing
equivalence. As a result, the important low-field polarization transfer regime
of PHIP can be mapped onto an analogous system equivalent to pulsed-DNP. This
establishes a correspondence between key polarization transfer sequences in
PHIP and DNP, facilitating the transfer of sequence development concepts. This
promises fresh insights and significant cross-pollination between DNP and PHIP
polarization sequence developers.


  We analyze the collective gravitational interaction among gas clouds in the
inner regions of galactic disks and find that it leads to accretion at a rate
$\sim M_{mc}\Omega (M_{mc}/M_t)^2$; where $M_{mc}$ is the molecular mass of the
disk, $M_t$ is sum of the central plus any axisymmetrically distributed mass,
and $\Omega$ is the mean angular speed of clumps. We discuss applications of
this result to the mega-maser galaxy NGC 4258, for which we have observational
evidence that the maser spots are concentrated in a thin molecular disk which
is clumpy, and find the accretion rate to be about $1.5\times 10^{-3}$ solar
mass per year. If the gravitational energy release of this inward falling gas
were to be radiated away efficiently, then the resulting luminosity would
greatly exceed the observed central luminosity of NGC 4258, indicating that
most of the thermal energy of the gas is advected with the flow into the
blackhole as proposed by Lasota et al. (1996).
  The gravitational interactions among molecular clouds lying within the inner
kpc of our galaxy give an accretion rate of about $10^{-5}$ solar mass per
year, which is consistent with the value obtained by Narayan et al. (1995) by
fitting the spectrum of Sagitarrius A$^*$. We also discuss possible application
of this work to quasar evolution.


  Matter wave revivals depend on a delicate interplay of constructive many-body
quantum interferences in the developing dynamics of an ultracold bosonic system
in an optical lattice. It is shown that the interplay between weak intersite
tunneling and strong onsite interactions can lead to the quantum dynamics of a
density wave displaying several features not found in the mean-field limit:
occupancy oscillations, resurgent revivals, and a (anti-) synchronization of
revival peaks and occupancy oscillation peaks. This implies cooperative
interference effects that alternate between constructive and destructive
features leading to the peak revival behaviors. These many-body quantum
interference phenomena create striking features in various observables, which
are accessible in experimental measurements.


  We report a measurement of the real space (not redshift space) power spectrum
of galaxies over four and a half decades of wavenumber, 0.01 to 300 h/Mpc, from
the IRAS Point Source Catalog Redshift Survey (PSCz). Since estimates of power
are highly correlated in the nonlinear regime, we also report results for the
prewhitened power spectrum, which is less correlated. The inferred bias between
optically-selected APM and IRAS-selected PSCz galaxies is about 1.15 at linear
scales < 0.3 h/Mpc, increasing to about 1.4 at nonlinear scales > 1 h/Mpc. The
nonlinear power spectrum of PSCz shows a near power-law behaviour to the
smallest scales measured, with mild upward curvature in the broad vicinity of
1.5 h/Mpc. Contrary to the prediction of unbiased Dark Matter models, there is
no prominent inflection at the linear-nonlinear transition scale, and no
turnover at the transition to the stable clustering regime. The nonlinear power
spectrum of PSCz requires scale-dependent bias: all Dark Matter models without
scale-dependent bias are ruled out with high confidence.


  A study of signals originating near the lithium-diffused n+ contact of p-type
point contact (PPC) high purity germanium detectors (HPGe) is presented. The
transition region between the active germanium and the fully dead layer of the
n+ contact is examined. Energy depositions in this transition region are shown
to result in partial charge collection. This provides a mechanism for events
with a well defined energy to contribute to the continuum of the energy
spectrum at lower energies. A novel technique to quantify the contribution from
this source of background is introduced. Experiments that operate germanium
detectors with a very low energy threshold may benefit from the methods
presented herein.


  We describe the source subtraction strategy and observations for the extended
Very Small Array, a CMB interferometer operating at 33 GHz. A total of 453
sources were monitored at 33 GHz using a dedicated source subtraction baseline.
131 sources brighter than 20 mJy were directly subtracted from the VSA
visibility data. Some characteristics of the subtracted sources, such as
spectra and variability, are discussed. The 33-GHz source counts are estimated
from a sample selected at 15 GHz. The selection of VSA fields in order to avoid
bright sources introduces a bias into the observed counts. This bias is
corrected and the resulting source count is estimated to be complete in the
flux-density range 20-114 mJy. The 33-GHz source counts are used to calculate a
correction to the VSA power spectrum for sources below the subtraction limit.


  A set of integers $S \subset \mathbb{N}$ is an $\alpha$-strong Sidon set if
the pairwise sums of its elements are far apart by a certain measure depending
on $\alpha$, more specifically if $| (x+w) - (y+z) | \geq \max \{
x^{\alpha},y^{\alpha},z^{\alpha},w^\alpha \}$ for every $x,y,z,w \in S$
satisfying $\max \{x,w\} \neq \max \{y,z\}$. We obtain a new lower bound for
the growth of $\alpha$-strong infinite Sidon sets when $0 \leq \alpha < 1$. We
also further extend that notion in a natural way by obtaining the first
non-trivial bound for $\alpha$-strong infinite $B_h$ sets. In both cases, we
study the implications of these bounds for the density of, respectively, the
largest Sidon or $B_h$ set contained in a random infinite subset of
$\mathbb{N}$. Our theorems improve on previous results by Kohayakawa, Lee,
Moreira and R\"odl.


  In this paper we report on massive computer experiments aimed at finding
spherical point configurations that minimize potential energy. We present
experimental evidence for two new universal optima (consisting of 40 points in
10 dimensions and 64 points in 14 dimensions), as well as evidence that there
are no others with at most 64 points. We also describe several other new
polytopes, and we present new geometrical descriptions of some of the known
universal optima.


  The production cross-section of $J/\psi$ pairs is measured using a data
sample of $pp$ collisions collected by the LHCb experiment at a centre-of-mass
energy of $\sqrt{s} = 13 \,{\mathrm{TeV}}$, corresponding to an integrated
luminosity of $279 \pm 11 \,{\mathrm{pb^{-1}}}$. The measurement is performed
for $J/\psi$ mesons with a transverse momentum of less than $10
\,{\mathrm{GeV}}/c$ in the rapidity range $2.0<y<4.5$. The production
cross-section is measured to be $15.2 \pm 1.0 \pm 0.9 \,{\mathrm{nb}}$. The
first uncertainty is statistical, and the second is systematic. The
differential cross-sections as functions of several kinematic variables of the
$J/\psi$ pair are measured and compared to theoretical predictions.


  We present a three dimensional (3D) extinction analysis in the region toward
the supernova remnant (SNR) S147 (G180.0-1.7) using multi-band photometric data
from the Xuyi Schmidt Telescope Photometric Survey of the Galactic Anticentre
(XSTPS-GAC), 2MASS and WISE. We isolate a previously unrecognised dust
structure likely to be associated with SNR S147. The structure, which we term
as "S147 dust cloud", is estimated to have a distance $d$ = 1.22 $\pm$ 0.21
kpc, consistent with the conjecture that S147 is associated with pulsar PSR
J0538 + 2817. The cloud includes several dense clumps of relatively high
extinction that locate on the radio shell of S147 and coincide spatially with
the CO and gamma-ray emission features. We conclude that the usage of CO
measurements to trace the SNR associated MCs is unavoidably limited by the
detection threshold, dust depletion, and the difficulty of distance estimates
in the outer Galaxy. 3D dust extinction mapping may provide a better way to
identify and study SNR-MC interactions.


  Code cloning negatively affects industrial software and threatens
intellectual property. This paper presents a novel approach to detecting cloned
software by using a bijective matching technique. The proposed approach focuses
on increasing the range of similarity measures and thus enhancing the precision
of the detection. This is achieved by extending a well-known stable-marriage
problem (SMP) and demonstrating how matches between code fragments of different
files can be expressed. A prototype of the proposed approach is provided using
a proper scenario, which shows a noticeable improvement in several features of
clone detection such as scalability and accuracy.


  The periodic Anderson lattice model for the crystalline electric field
(CEF)split 4f quartet states is used to describe the Yb-based Kondo
insulators/semiconductors. In the slave-boson mean-field approximation, we
derive the hybridized quasiparticle bands, and find that decreasing the
hybridization difference of the two CEF quartets may induce an
insulator-to-metal phase transition. The resulting metallic phase has a hole
and an electron Fermi pockets. Such a phase transition may be realized
experimentally by applying pressure, reducing the difference in hybridization
of the two CEF quartets.


  Motivated by an application in high-throughput genomics and metabolomics, we
propose a novel, efficient and fully data-driven approach for estimating large
block structured sparse covariance matrices in the case where the number of
variables is much larger than the number of samples without limiting ourselves
to block diagonal matrices. Our approach consists in approximating such a
covariance matrix by the sum of a low-rank sparse matrix and a diagonal matrix.
Our methodology also can deal with matrices for which the block structure
appears only if the columns and rows are permuted according to an unknown
permutation. Our technique is implemented in the R package \texttt{BlockCov}
which is available from the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN) and from
GitHub. In order to illustrate the statistical and numerical performance of our
package some numerical experiments are provided as well as a thorough
comparison with alternative methods. Finally, our approach is applied to the
use of "multi-omic" approaches for studying seed quality.


  During his brief life, the Polish mathematician and logician Adolf Lindenbaum
(1904--1941) contributed to mathematical logic, among other things, by several
significant achievements. Some results of Lindenbaum's, which bear his name,
were published without proofs by other people from the Lvov--Warsaw School and
the proofs later were provided by some others, though the authorship of
Lindenbaum has never been challenged. Many may have heard about Lindenbaum's
lemma, asserting the existence of Lindenbaum's extension, and Lindenbaum-Tarski
algebra; less known is Lindenbaum's logical matrix. This tutorial is devoted to
the two last concepts rather than the first one. However, the latter can be
understood in a purely algebraic fashion, if one employs the notion of
Lindenbaum-Tarski algebra. In general, the notions of Lindenbaum matrix and
Lindenbaum-Tarski algebra have paved a way to further algebraization of logic,
which had been begun by George Boole in the 19th century, as well as to a new
branch of logic, model theory. For this reason, the present tutorial is also a
gentle introduction to algebraic logic.
  A uniting idea of the aforementioned concepts is a special view on the formal
judgments of a formal language. It is this view we call the Lindenbaum method.
Although Lindenbaum expressed merely a starting viewpoint in the tradition of
Polish logic of the time, this viewpoint became a standard ever since and its
development goes on until this day, continuing to shape the field of algebraic
logic. Our main objective is to demonstrate how this view gave rise to
formulating the aforementioned concepts and how it opens door to unexplored
paths.


  A Cayley graph on the symmetric group $S_n$ is said to have the Aldous
property if its strictly second largest eigenvalue (that is, the largest
eigenvalue strictly smaller than the degree) is attained by the standard
representation of $S_n$. For $1\leq r < k < n$, let $C(n,k;r)$ be the set of
$k$-cycles of $S_n$ moving every point in $\{1, \ldots, r\}$. Recently, Siemons
and Zalesski [J. Algebraic Combin. 55 (2022) 989--1005] posed a conjecture
which is equivalent to saying that for any $n \ge 5$ and $1\leq r<k<n$ the
nonnormal Cayley graph $\mathrm{Cay}(S_n, C(n,k;r))$ on $S_n$ with connection
set $C(n,k;r)$ has the Aldous property. Solving this conjecture, we prove that
all these graphs have the Aldous property except when (i) $(n, k, r) = (6, 5,
1)$ or (ii) $n$ is odd, $k = n-1$, and $1 \le r < \frac{n}{2}$. Along the way
we determine all irreducible representations of $S_n$ that can achieve the
strictly second largest eigenvalue of $\mathrm{Cay}(S_n, C(n,n-1;r))$ as well
as the smallest eigenvalue of this graph.


  We adapt a continuous logic axiomatization of tracial von Neumann algebras
due to Farah, Hart and Sherman in order to prove a metatheorem for this class
of structures in the style of proof mining, a research program that aims to
obtain the hidden computational content of ordinary mathematical proofs using
tools from proof theory.


  The theory of evolutionary computation for discrete search spaces has made
significant progress in the last ten years. This survey summarizes some of the
most important recent results in this research area. It discusses fine-grained
models of runtime analysis of evolutionary algorithms, highlights recent
theoretical insights on parameter tuning and parameter control, and summarizes
the latest advances for stochastic and dynamic problems. We regard how
evolutionary algorithms optimize submodular functions and we give an overview
over the large body of recent results on estimation of distribution algorithms.
Finally, we present the state of the art of drift analysis, one of the most
powerful analysis technique developed in this field.


  The purpose of this paper is to study the relationships between a Hom-Lie
superalgebra and its induced 3-ary-Hom-Lie superalgebra. We provide an overview
of the theory and explore the structure properties such as ideals, center,
derived series, solvability, nilpotency, central extensions, and the
cohomology.


  Using the dynamics of information propagation on a network as our
illustrative example, we present and discuss a systematic approach to
quantifying heterogeneity and its propagation that borrows established tools
from Uncertainty Quantification. The crucial assumption underlying this
mathematical and computational "technology transfer" is that the evolving
states of the nodes in a network quickly become correlated with the
corresponding node "identities": features of the nodes imparted by the network
structure (e.g. the node degree, the node clustering coefficient). The node
dynamics thus depend on heterogeneous (rather than uncertain) parameters, whose
distribution over the network results from the network structure. Knowing these
distributions allows us to obtain an efficient coarse-grained representation of
the network state in terms of the expansion coefficients in suitable orthogonal
polynomials. This representation is closely related to
mathematical/computational tools for uncertainty quantification (the Polynomial
Chaos approach and its associated numerical techniques). The Polynomial Chaos
coefficients provide a set of good collective variables for the observation of
dynamics on a network, and subsequently, for the implementation of reduced
dynamic models of it. We demonstrate this idea by performing coarse-grained
computations of the nonlinear dynamics of information propagation on our
illustrative network model using the Equation-Free approach


  The cosmic microwave background (CMB) provides us with our most direct
observational window to the early universe. Observations of the temperature and
polarization anisotropies in the CMB have played a critical role in defining
the now-standard cosmological model. In this contribution we review some of the
basics of CMB science, highlighting the role of observations made with
ground-based and balloon-borne Antarctic telescopes. Most of the ingredients of
the standard cosmological model are poorly understood in terms of fundamental
physics. We discuss how current and future CMB observations can address some of
these issues, focusing on two directly relevant for Antarctic programmes:
searching for gravitational waves from inflation via B-mode polarization, and
mapping dark matter through CMB lensing.


  A many-body wave function is approximated by a product of two functions: the
wave function $\phi$ depending on the particle coordinates and the function
$\chi$ depending only on the value of interparticle interaction potential. For
the given $\phi$ an ordinary linear differential equation for $\chi$ is derived
by averaging the Hamiltonian over the constant interparticle interaction
potential surface. Generalized Hartree-Fock equations containing correlation
effects are obtained. To test the proposed technique the ground $1^{1}S_0$ and
excited $2^{3}S_1$ states of two-electron ions from H$^-$ up to Ne$^{8+}$ are
calculated. In all cases the calculated energies are more accurate than those
obtained with the Hartree-Fock theory even taking as $\phi$ the symmetrized
product of electron wave functions in the Coulomb field of nucleus complitly
disregarded the electron-electron interaction. Variation of factors in the
one-particle wave function exponents leads to the results close to those of
configuration interaction approach.


  The transient signals derived from femtosecond pump-probe experiments are
analyzed in terms of the coherent evolution of the energy levels perturbed by
the excitation pulse. The model system is treated as the sum of independent
two-level subsystems that evolve adiabatically or are permanently excited,
depending on the detuning from the central wavelength of the excitation laser.
This approach will allow us to explain numerically and analytically the
convergence between the coherent and incoherent (rate equations) treatments for
complex multi-level systems. It will be also shown that the parameter that
determines the validity of the incoherent treatment is the distribution of
states outside and inside the laser bandwidth, rather than the density of
states as it is commonly accepted.


  This paper contains the results collected so far on polynomial composites in
terms of many basic algebraic properties. Since it is a polynomial structure,
results for monoid domains come in here and there. The second part of the paper
contains the results of the relationship between the theory of polynomial
composites, the Galois theory and the theory of nilpotents. The third part of
this paper shows us some cryptosystems. We find generalizations of known
ciphers taking into account the infinite alphabet and using simple algebraic
methods. We also find two cryptosystems in which the structure of Dedekind
rings resides, namely certain elements are equivalent to fractional ideals.
Finally, we find the use of polynomial composites and monoid domains in
cryptology.


  On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. In the days that followed,
reports kept flooding in from layman to news anchors of a conflict quickly
escalating into war. Russia faced immediate backlash and condemnation from the
world at large. While the war continues to contribute to an ongoing
humanitarian and refugee crisis in Ukraine, a second battlefield has emerged in
the online space, both in the use of social media to garner support for both
sides of the conflict and also in the context of information warfare. In this
paper, we present a collection of over 63 million tweets, from February 22,
2022 through March 8, 2022 that we are publishing for the wider research
community to use. This dataset can be found at
https://github.com/echen102/ukraine-russia and will be maintained and regularly
updated as the war continues to unfold. Our preliminary analysis already shows
evidence of public engagement with Russian state sponsored media and other
domains that are known to push unreliable information; the former saw a spike
in activity on the day of the Russian invasion. Our hope is that this public
dataset can help the research community to further understand the ever evolving
role that social media plays in information dissemination, influence campaigns,
grassroots mobilization, and much more, during a time of conflict.


  We study the relevance of various scalar equations, such as inviscid
Burgers', Korteweg-de Vries (KdV), extended KdV, and higher order equations (of
Camassa-Holm type), as asymptotic models for the propagation of internal waves
in a two-fluid system. These scalar evolution equations may be justified with
two approaches. The first method consists in approximating the flow with two
decoupled, counterpropagating waves, each one satisfying such an equation. One
also recovers homologous equations when focusing on a given direction of
propagation, and seeking unidirectional approximate solutions. This second
justification is more restrictive as for the admissible initial data, but
yields greater accuracy. Additionally, we present several new coupled
asymptotic models: a Green-Naghdi type model, its simplified version in the
so-called Camassa-Holm regime, and a weakly decoupled model. All of the models
are rigorously justified in the sense of consistency.


  The elastic response in polymeric gels is studied by means of a percolation
dynamic model. By numerical simulations the fluctuations in the gyration radius
and in the center of mass motion of the percolating cluster are determined.
Their scaling behaviour at the gelation threshold gives a critical exponent for
the elastic modulus $f \sim 2.5 \pm 0.1$ in agreement with the prediction $f =
d \nu$.


  P-values are widely used in both the social and natural sciences to quantify
the statistical significance of observed results. The recent surge of big data
research has made the p-value an even more popular tool to test the
significance of a study. However, substantial literature has been produced
critiquing how p-values are used and understood. In this paper we review this
recent critical literature, much of which is routed in the life sciences, and
consider its implications for social scientific research. We provide a coherent
picture of what the main criticisms are, and draw together and disambiguate
common themes. In particular, we explain how the False Discovery Rate is
calculated, and how this differs from a p-value. We also make explicit the
Bayesian nature of many recent criticisms, a dimension that is often
underplayed or ignored. We conclude by identifying practical steps to help
remediate some of the concerns identified. We recommend that (i) far lower
significance levels are used, such as $0.01$ or $0.001$, and (ii) p-values are
interpreted contextually, and situated within both the findings of the
individual study and the broader field of inquiry (through, for example,
meta-analyses).


  The formation mechanisms of aromatic compounds in flame are strongly
influenced by the chemical and thermal history that leads to their formation.
Indeed, the complex environments that characterize combustion systems do not
only affect the composition of gas-phase species, but they also determine the
structure and the characteristics of the soot precursors generated. To
illustrate the importance of these effects, in this work we investigate the
growth mechanisms of soot precursors in an atmospheric-pressure
ethylene/oxygen/argon counterflow diffusion flame, using a combination of
computational and experimental techniques. In diffusion flames, flow
characteristics play an important role in the formation, growth, and oxidation
of particles, and soot precursors are strongly affected by the flame location.
Fluid dynamics simulations and stochastic discrete modeling were employed
together to identify key reaction pathways along various flow streamlines. The
models were validated with experimental mass spectra obtained using aerosol
mass spectrometry coupled with vacuum-ultraviolet photoionization. Results show
that both the hydrogen-abstraction-acetylene-addition mechanism and
oxygen-insertion reactions are responsible for the molecular growth, and their
relative importance is determined by the flame conditions along the
streamlines. Oxygenated species were detected in regions of high temperature,
high atomic oxygen concentration, and relatively low acetylene abundance. This
study also emphasizes the need to model the counterflow flame in three
dimensions to capture the spatial dependence on growth mechanisms of soot
precursors.


  We introduce and study an XY-type model of thermal and quantum phase
fluctuations in a two-dimensional correlated lattice d-wave superconductor
based on the QED3 effective theory of high temperature superconductors. General
features of and selected results obtained within this model were reported
earlier in an abbreviated format (Z. Tesanovic, cond-mat/0405235). The model is
geared toward describing not only the long distance but also the intermediate
lengthscale physics of underdoped cuprates. In particular, we elucidate the
dynamical origin and investigate specific features of the Cooper pair
charge-density-wave (CPCDW), which we argue is the state behind the periodic
charge density modulation discovered in recent STM experiments. We illustrate
how Mott-Hubbard correlations near half-filling suppress superfluid density and
favor an incompressible state which breaks translational symmetry of the atomic
lattice. We show how the formation of the CPCDW in such a strongly quantum
fluctuating superconductor can be understood as an Abrikosov-Hofstadter problem
in a type-II dual superconductor, with the role of the dual magnetic field
played by the electron density. The resulting Abrikosov lattice of dual
vortices translates into the periodic modulation of the Bogoliubov-deGennes gap
function and the electronic density. We compute detailed signatures of various
Abrikosov-Hofstadter dual vortex arrays in the single-particle local tunneling
density of states. A 4x4 checkerboard-type modulation pattern naturally arises
as an energetically favored ground state at and near the x = 1/8 doping and
produces good agreement with experimental observations.


  Representations of AC power systems by frequency dependent impedance
equivalents is an emerging technique in the dynamic analysis of power systems
including power electronic converters. The technique has been applied for
decades in DC-power systems, and it was recently adopted to map the impedances
in AC systems. Most of the work on AC systems can be categorized in two
approaches. One is the analysis of the system in the \textit{dq}-domain,
whereas the other applies harmonic linearization in the phase domain through
symmetric components. Impedance models based on analytical calculations,
numerical simulation and experimental studies have been previously developed
and verified in both domains independently. The authors of previous studies
discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each domain separately, but neither
a rigorous comparison nor an attempt to bridge them has been conducted. The
present paper attempts to close this gap by deriving the mathematical
formulation that shows the equivalence between the \textit{dq}-domain and the
sequence domain impedances. A modified form of the sequence domain impedance
matrix is proposed, and with this definition the stability estimates obtained
with the Generalized Nyquist Criterion (GNC) become equivalent in both domains.
The second contribution of the paper is the definition of a \textit{Mirror
Frequency Decoupled} (MFD) system. The analysis of MFD systems is less complex
than that of non-MFD systems because the positive and negative sequences are
decoupled. This paper shows that if a system is incorrectly assumed to be MFD,
this will lead to an erroneous or ambiguous estimation of the equivalent
impedance.


  The radion dynamics related to the presence of moving branes with both
positive or negative tensions is studied in the linearized approximation. The
radion effective Lagrangian is computed for a compact system with three branes
and in particular we examine the decompactification limit when one brane is
sent to infinity. In the non-compact case we calculate the coupling of the
gravitational modes (graviton, dilaton and radion) to matter on the branes. The
character of gravity on the two branes for all possible combinations of brane
tensions is also discussed. It turns out that one can have a normalizable
dilaton mode even in the non-compact case. Finally, we speculate on the role of
moving branes as a possible source of radion emission.


  In this paper, we investigate the minimum average transmit energy that can be
obtained in multiple antenna broadcast systems with channel inversion
technique. The achievable gain can be significantly higher than the
conventional gains that are mentioned in methods like perturbation technique of
Peel, et al. In order to obtain this gain, we introduce a Selective Mapping
(SLM) technique (based on random coding arguments). We propose to implement the
SLM method by using nested lattice codes in a trellis precoding framework.


  A quantum computer based on Majorana qubits would contain a large number of
zero-energy Majorana states. This system can be modelled as a connected network
of the Ising-Kitaev chains alternating the "trivial" and "topological" regions,
with the zero-energy Majorana fermions localized at their interfaces. The
low-energy sector of the theory describing such a network can be formulated in
terms of leading-order couplings between the Majorana zero modes. I consider a
minimal model exhibiting effective couplings between four Majorana zero modes -
the nonuniform Ising-Kitaev chain, containing two "topological" regions
separated by a "trivial" region. Solving the model exactly, I show that for
generic values of the model parameters the four zero modes are localized at the
four interface points of the chain. In the special case where additional
inversion symmetry is present, the Majorana zero modes are "delocalized"
between two interface points. In both cases, the low-energy sector of the
theory can be formulated in terms of the localized Majorana fermions, but the
couplings between some of them are independent of their respective separations:
the exact solution does not support the "nearest-neighbor" form of the
effective low-energy Hamiltonian.


  Diffuse, multiple-scattered waves can be very efficient for information
transfer through disordered media, provided that antenna arrays are used for
both transmission and reception of signals. Information capacity C of a
communication channel between two identical linear arrays of n equally-spaced
antennas, placed in a disordered medium with diffuse scattering, grows linearly
with n and can attain considerable values, if antenna spacing a > lambda/2,
where lambda is the wavelength. Decrease of a below lambda/2 makes the signals
received by different antennas partially correlated, thus introducing
redundancy and reducing capacity of the communication system. When the size of
antenna arrays is well below lambda/2, the scaling of C with n becomes
logarithmic and capacity is low.


  Cryptocurrencies gain trust in users by publicly disclosing the full creation
and transaction history. In return, the transaction history faithfully records
the whole spectrum of cryptocurrency user behaviors. This article analyzes and
summarizes the existing research on knowledge discovery in the cryptocurrency
transactions using data mining techniques. Specifically, we classify the
existing research into three aspects, i.e., transaction tracings and blockchain
address linking, the analyses of collective user behaviors, and the study of
individual user behaviors. For each aspect, we present the problems, summarize
the methodologies, and discuss major findings in the literature. Furthermore,
an enumeration of transaction data parsing and visualization tools and services
is also provided. Finally, we outline several future directions in this
research area, such as the current rapid development of Decentralized Finance
(De-Fi) and digital fiat money.


  We report observations of entanglement of two remote atomic qubits, achieved
by generating an entangled state of an atomic qubit and a single photon at Site
A, transmitting the photon to Site B in an adjacent laboratory through an
optical fiber, and converting the photon into an atomic qubit. Entanglement of
the two remote atomic qubits is inferred by performing, locally, quantum state
transfer of each of the atomic qubits onto a photonic qubit and subsequent
measurement of polarization correlations in violation of the Bell inequality
|S| <2. We experimentally determine S =2.16 +/- 0.03. Entanglement of two
remote atomic qubits, each qubit consisting of two independent spin wave
excitations, and reversible, coherent transfer of entanglement between matter
and light, represent important advances in quantum information science.


  The detection and characterization of a non-classical-squeezed state of
light, by using two different schemes, will be presented . In the first one, in
an one-dimensional cavity with moving mirror (non-stationary Casimir effect) in
the principal mode, we study the photon creation rate for two modes (squeezed
and coherent state) of driving field. Since the cavity with moving mirror
(similar to an optomechanical system) can be considered analogue to a Kerr-like
medium, so that in the second scheme, the probability amplitude for
multi-photons absorption in a nonlinear (Kerr) medium will be quantum
mechanically calculated. It is shown that because of presence of nonlinear
effects, the responses of these two systems to the squeezed versus coherent
state are considerably distinguishable. The drastic difference between the
results of these two states of light can be viewed as a proposal for detecting
of non-classical states.


  We identified Brightest Cluster Members (BCM) on DSS images of 1083 Abell
clusters, derived their individual and host cluster redshifts from literature
and determined the BCM ellipticity. Half the BCMs move at a speed higher than
37 % of the cluster velocity dispersion sigma_{cl}, suggesting that most BCMs
are part of substructures falling into the main cluster. Both, the BCM's
velocity offset in units of sigma_{cl}, and BCM ellipticity, weakly decrease
with cluster richness.


  We study analytically the initial value problem for a self-interacting
(massive) scalar-field on a Reissner-Nordstr\"om spacetime. Following the
no-hair theorem we examine the dynamical physical mechanism by which the
self-interacting (SI) hair decays. We show that the intermediate asymptotic
behaviour of SI perturbations is dominated by an oscillatory inverse power-law
decaying tail. We show that at late-times the decay of a SI hair is slower than
any power-law. We confirm our analytical results by numerical simulations.


  We give bounds on the gap functions of the singularities of a cuspidal plane
curve of arbitrary genus, generalising recent work of Borodzik and Livingston.
We apply these inequalities to unicuspidal curves whose singularity has one
Puiseux pair: we prove two identities tying the parameters of the singularity,
the genus, and the degree of the curve; we improve on some degree-multiplicity
asymptotic inequalities; finally, we prove some finiteness results, we
construct infinite families of examples, and in some cases we give an almost
complete classification.


  The paper addresses compact oscillatory states (compact breathers) in
translationally-invariant lattices with flat dispersion bands. The compact
breathers appear in such systems even in the linear approximation. If the
interactions are nonlinear, but comply with the flat-band symmetry, the compact
breather solutions exist, but can lose their stability for certain parameter
values. As benchmark nonlinear potentials, we use the $\beta$-FPU
(Fermi-Pasta-Ulam) and vibro-impact models. Loss of stability is numerically
observed to occur through either pitchfork or Hopf bifurcations. The loss of
stability can occur through two qualitatively different mechanisms -- through
internal instability in the basic lattice elements, or through interaction of
the compact breather with the linear passband of the lattice. The former
scenario is more typical for high-amplitude breathers, and the latter -- for
low amplitudes. For the high-amplitude case, insights into the nature of
compact-mode loss-of-stability are obtained by resorting to the limit of a
piecewise-linear system, where interactions are represented by conservative
impacts. This issue calls for detailed introspection into integrability of
piecewise-linear (impacting) systems and their relation to the smooth system.
An idea for a sensor based on the studied mechanisms is suggested.


  We found that the two-dimensional Schr\"odinger equation for 3 electrons in
an homogeneous magnetic field (perpendicular to the plane) and a parabolic
scalar confinement potential (frequency $\omega_0$) has exact analytical
solutions in the limit, where the expectation value of the center of mass
vector $\bf R$ is small compared with the average distance between the
electrons. These analytical solutions exist only for certain discrete values of
the effective frequency $\tilde \omega=\sqrt{\omega_o^2 + ({\omega_c \over 2}
)^2}$. Further, for finite external fields, the total angular momenta must be
M_L=3 m with m=integer, and spins have to be parallel. The analytically
solvable states are always cusp states, and take the components of higher
Landau levels into account. These special analytical solutions for 3 particles
and the previously published exact analytical solutions for 2 particles can be
written in an unified form. These formulae, when {\em ad hoc} generalized to N
coordinates, can be discussed as an ansatz for the wave function of the
N-particle system. This ansatz fulfills the following demands: it is exact for
two particles and for 3 particles in the limit of small $\bf R$ and for the
solvable external fields, and it is an eigenfuncton of the total orbital
angular momentum. The Laughlin functions are special cases of this ansatz for
infinite solvable fields and equal pair- angular- momenta.


  A 1D model study of charge transport in nano-devices is made by comparing
multi-configuration time dependent Hartree-Fock and frozen core calculations.
The influence of exchange and Coulomb correlation on the tunneling current is
determined. We identify the shape of the tunneling barrier and the resonance
structure of the nano-device as the two dominant parameters determining the
electron transport. Whereas the barrier shape determines the size of the
tunneling current, the resonances determine the structure of the current.


  The Rajeev-Ranken (RR) model is a Hamiltonian system describing screw-type
nonlinear waves of wavenumber $k$ in a scalar field theory pseudodual to the
1+1D SU(2) principal chiral model. Classically, the RR model is Liouville
integrable. Here, we interpret the model as a novel 3D cylindrically symmetric
quartic oscillator with an additional rotational energy. The quantum theory has
two dimensionless parameters. Upon separating variables in the Schr\"odinger
equation, we find that the radial equation has a four-term recurrence relation.
It is of type $[0,1,1_6]$ and lies beyond the ellipsoidal Lam\'e and Heun
equations in Ince's classification. At strong coupling $\lambda$, the energies
of highly excited states are shown to depend on the scaling variable $\lambda
k$. The energy spectrum at weak coupling and its dependence on wavenumber $k$
in a double-scaling strong coupling limit are obtained. The semi-classical WKB
quantization condition is expressed in terms of elliptic integrals. Numerical
inversion enables us to establish a $(\lambda k)^{2/3}$ dispersion relation for
highly energetic quantized 'screwons' at moderate and strong coupling. We also
suggest a mapping between our radial equation and one of Zinn-Justin and
Jentschura that could facilitate a resurgent WKB expansion for energy levels.
In another direction, we show that the equations of motion of the RR model can
also be viewed as Euler equations for a step-3 nilpotent Lie algebra. We use
our canonical quantization to uncover an infinite dimensional reducible unitary
representation of this nilpotent algebra, which is then decomposed using its
Casimir operators.


  In this paper, we prove fundamental properties, such as multiplicativity, of
gamma factors defined by Rankin-Selberg integrals of Shimura type for pairs of
generic representations $(\pi, \tau)$ of $\mathrm{U}_{2\ell}(F)$ and
$\mathrm{GL}_n(E)$ for a local field $F$ of characteristic zero and a quadratic
extension $E$ of $F$. We also prove similar results for pairs of generic
representations $(\pi, \tau_1 \times \tau_2)$ of $\mathrm{GL}_{2\ell}(F)$ and
$\mathrm{GL}_n(F) \times \mathrm{GL}_n(F)$. As a corollary, we see that the
gamma factors arising from Langlands--Shahidi method and our gamma factors
coincide after a suitable normalization.


  The Hilbertian gravitational repulsion is quite absent in the Einsteinian
field of a proton, owing to the gravitational action of its electric charge.
Accordingly, the proton bunches of the LHC cannot exert any repulsive
gravitational force.


  We report measurements of the spin susceptibility and the electron effective
mass for two-dimensional electrons confined at the interfaces of MgxZn1-xO/ZnO
single heterostructures (x = 0.05, 0.08, and 0.11), grown by molecular-beam
epitaxy on (0001) ZnO substrates. By tuning the built-in polarization through
control of the barrier composition, the electron density was systematically
varied in the range of 5.6 x 10^11 to 1.6 x 10^12 cm^-2, corresponding to a
range of 3.1 < rs < 5.2, where rs is the average electron spacing measured in
units of the effective Bohr radius. We used the coincidence technique, where
crossings of the spin-split Landau levels occur at critical tilt angles of
magnetic field, to evaluate the spin susceptibility. In addition, we determined
the effective mass from the temperature dependence of the Shubnikov-de Haas
oscillations measured at the coincidence conditions. The susceptibility and the
effective mass both gradually increase with decreasing electron density,
reflecting the role of electron-electron interaction.


  The Tevatron proton-antiproton collider at Fermilab continues operation as
the world's highest energy particle accelerator by delivering luminosity at a
center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV. We review recent performance and plans for
the remainder of Run 2.


  Point cloud learning has lately attracted increasing attention due to its
wide applications in many areas, such as computer vision, autonomous driving,
and robotics. As a dominating technique in AI, deep learning has been
successfully used to solve various 2D vision problems. However, deep learning
on point clouds is still in its infancy due to the unique challenges faced by
the processing of point clouds with deep neural networks. Recently, deep
learning on point clouds has become even thriving, with numerous methods being
proposed to address different problems in this area. To stimulate future
research, this paper presents a comprehensive review of recent progress in deep
learning methods for point clouds. It covers three major tasks, including 3D
shape classification, 3D object detection and tracking, and 3D point cloud
segmentation. It also presents comparative results on several publicly
available datasets, together with insightful observations and inspiring future
research directions.


  The main challenge in continual learning for generative models is to
effectively learn new target modes with limited samples while preserving
previously learned ones. To this end, we introduce a new continual learning
approach for conditional generative adversarial networks by leveraging a
mode-affinity score specifically designed for generative modeling. First, the
generator produces samples of existing modes for subsequent replay. The
discriminator is then used to compute the mode similarity measure, which
identifies a set of closest existing modes to the target. Subsequently, a label
for the target mode is generated and given as a weighted average of the labels
within this set. We extend the continual learning model by training it on the
target data with the newly-generated label, while performing memory replay to
mitigate the risk of catastrophic forgetting. Experimental results on benchmark
datasets demonstrate the gains of our continual learning approach over the
state-of-the-art methods, even when using fewer training samples.


  The Festo air muscle is today one of the most known commercial version of the
so-called McKibben pneumatic artificial muscle. A major advantage of handmade
McKibben muscles, as well as its commercial versions, lies in the possibility
it offers of realizing antagonist muscle actuator on the model of the
biceps-triceps system. If pressures are independently controlled in each
artificial muscle, it is then possible to define a position-stiffness control
of the antagonist actuator by analogy with natural neural control of antagonist
skeletal muscles. Such a control however requires a knowledge model of the
actuator making possible a stiffness estimation provided by control pressures,
while position closed-loop control is facilitated by a feedforward model of
this highly nonlinear actuation device. We discuss this issue in the particular
case of the antagonist Festo air muscle actuator, and we propose a simplified
static actuator model derived from the classic static theoretical model of the
McKibben artificial muscle, simple enough for a future MIMO position-stiffness
controller be able to integrate it. If the proposed model highlights the
ability of the antagonist Festo muscle actuator to mimic the stiffness neural
control by the mean of the sum of pressures inside artificial muscles, it also
highlights the difficulty to derive a simple but accurate model of the static
force produced by Festo muscle in the full control range of pressure. The
reported results suggest that it would be particularly interesting to derive
advantage from numerous studies about Festo muscle modelling to go further in
order to find such an inverse actuator model including an accurate estimation
of the actuator stiffness.


  Recently, 60Fe was found in the Earth crust formed in a nearby recent
supernova (SN). If the distance to the SN and mass of the progenitor of that SN
was known, then one could constrain SN models. Knowing the positions, proper
motions, and distances of dozens of young nearby neutron stars, we can
determine their past flight paths and possible kinematic origin. Once the birth
place of a neutron star in a SN is found, we would have determined the distance
of the SN and the mass of the SN progenitor star.


  Let $\mathcal{X}$ be a real separable Hilbert space. Let $C$ be a linear,
bounded and positive operator on $\mathcal{X}$ and let $A$ be the infinitesimal
generator of a strongly continuous semigroup on $\mathcal{X}$. Let
$\{W(t)\}_{t\geq 0}$ be a $\mathcal{X}$-valued cylindrical Wiener process on a
filtered (normal) probability space
$(\Omega,\mathcal{F},\{\mathcal{F}_t\}_{t\geq 0},\mathbb{P})$. Let
$F:D(F)\subseteq\mathcal{X}\rightarrow\mathcal{X}$ be a smooth enough function.
Under suitable conditions on $A$, $C$ and $F$ the following semilinear
stochastic partial differential equation \begin{gather*} \begin{cases}
dX(t,x)=\big(AX(t,x)+F(X(t,x))\big)dt+ \sqrt{C}dW(t), & t>0;\\ X(0,x)=x\in
\mathcal{X}, \end{cases} \end{gather*} has a unique generalized mild solution
$\{X(t,x)\}_{t\geq 0}$. We consider the transition semigroup defined by
\begin{align*} P(t)\varphi(x):=\mathbb{E}[\varphi(X(t,x))], \qquad \varphi\in
B_b(\mathcal{X}),\ t\geq 0,\ x\in \mathcal{X}. \end{align*} If $\mathcal{O}$ is
an open set of $\mathcal{X}$, we consider the stopped semigroup defined by
\begin{equation*}
P^{\mathcal{O}}(t)\varphi(x):=\mathbb{E}\left[\varphi(X(t,x))\mathbb{I}_{\{\omega\in\Omega\;
:\;\tau_x(\omega)> t\}}\right],\quad \varphi\in B_b(\mathcal{O}),\;
x\in\mathcal{O},\; t>0 \end{equation*} where $\tau_x$ is the stopping time
defined by \begin{equation*} \tau_x=\inf\{ s> 0\; : \; X(s,x)\in \mathcal{O}^c
\}. \end{equation*} We will study the infinitesimal generators of $P(t)$ and
$P^{\mathcal{O}}(t)$ in $L^2(\mathcal{X},\nu)$ and $L^2(\mathcal{O},\nu)$
respectively, where $\nu$ is the unique invariant measure of $P(t)$. We will
focus on investigating how these two semigroups are related to the operator
formally defined by \begin{equation*}
  N\varphi(x):=\frac{1}{2}\mbox{Tr}[C\nabla^2\varphi(x)]+\langle Ax+F(x),
\nabla\varphi(x) \rangle. \end{equation*}


  The estimation of the probability of rare events is an important task in
reliability and risk assessment. We consider failure events that are expressed
in terms of a limit state function, which depends on the solution of a partial
differential equation (PDE). Since numerical evaluations of PDEs are
computationally expensive, estimating such probabilities of failure by Monte
Carlo sampling is intractable. More efficient sampling methods from reliability
analysis, such as Subset Simulation, are popular, but can still be
impracticable if the PDE evaluations are very costly. In this article, we
develop a novel, highly efficient estimator for probabilities of rare events.
Our method is based on a Sequential Importance sampler using discretizations of
PDE-based limit state functions with different accuracies. A twofold adaptive
algorithm ensures that we obtain an estimate based on the desired
discretization accuracy. In contrast to the Multilevel Subset Simulation
estimator of [Ullmann, Papaioannou 2015; SIAM/ASA J. Uncertain. Quantif.
3(1):922-953], our estimator overcomes the nestedness problem. Of particular
importance in Sequential Importance sampling algorithms is the correct choice
of the MCMC kernel. Instead of the popular adaptive conditional sampling
method, we propose a new algorithm that uses independent proposals from an
adaptively constructed von Mises-Fischer-Nakagami distribution. The proposed
algorithm is applied to test problems in 1D and 2D space, respectively, and is
compared to the Multilevel Subset Simulation estimator and to single-level
versions of Sequential Importance Sampling and Subset Simulation.


  The Earth observation satellites (EOSs) scheduling is of great importance to
achieve efficient observation missions. The agile EOSs (AEOS) with stronger
attitude maneuvering capacity can greatly improve observation efficiency while
increasing scheduling complexity. The multiple AEOSs, oversubscribed targets
scheduling problem with multiple observations are addressed, and the potential
observation missions are modeled as nodes in the complex networks. To solve the
problem, an improved feedback structured heuristic is designed by defining the
node and target importance factors. On the basis of a real world Chinese AEOS
constellation, simulation experiments are conducted to validate the heuristic
efficiency in comparison with a constructive algorithm and a structured genetic
algorithm.


  Isospin symmetry, as the most precise flavor symmetry, could be used to
extract information of hadronic dynamics. The effective Hamiltonian of bottom
quark weak decay is zero under the isospin lowering operators $I_-^n$, which
permits us to generate isospin sum rules through several master formulas. In
this work, we derive the master formulas of isospin sum rules for the two- and
three-body non-leptonic decays of $B$ mesons. The isospin sum rules can be used
to test of isospin symmetry and provide hints the isospin partners of exotic
hadrons in the $B$ decays. It is found the isospin breaking could reach to be
$\mathcal{O}(10\%)$ in some decay modes. And the charm tetraquark resonances
might be observed in the $ B^- \to J/\Psi \pi^-\overline K^0$, $\overline B^0
\to J/\Psi \overline K^0\phi$ and $\overline B^0\to D^0\overline D^0\overline
K^0$ modes according to the isospin symmetry.


  We compute differential distributions for Drell-Yan processes at the LHC and
the Tevatron colliders at next-to-next-to-leading order in perturbative QCD,
including fiducial cuts on the decay leptons in the final state. The comparison
of predictions obtained with four different codes shows excellent agreement,
once linear power corrections from the fiducial cuts are included in those
codes that rely on phase-space slicing subtraction schemes. For $Z$-boson
production we perform a detailed study of the symmetric cuts on the transverse
momenta of the decay leptons. Predictions at fixed order in perturbative QCD
for those symmetric cuts, typically imposed in experiments, suffer from an
instability. We show how this can be remedied by an all-order resummation of
the fiducial transverse momentum spectrum, and we comment on the choice of cuts
for future experimental analyses.


  We propose a general framework for finding the ground state of many-body
fermionic systems by using feed-forward neural networks. The anticommutation
relation for fermions is usually implemented to a variational wave function by
the Slater determinant (or Pfaffian), which is a computational bottleneck
because of the numerical cost of $O(N^3)$ for $N$ particles. We bypass this
bottleneck by explicitly calculating the sign changes associated with particle
exchanges in real space and using fully connected neural networks for
optimizing the rest parts of the wave function. This reduces the computational
cost to $O(N^2)$ or less. We show that the accuracy of the approximation can be
improved by optimizing the "variance" of the energy simultaneously with the
energy itself. We also find that a reweighting method in Monte Carlo sampling
can stabilize the calculation. These improvements can be applied to other
approaches based on variational Monte Carlo methods. Moreover, we show that the
accuracy can be further improved by using the symmetry of the system, the
representative states, and an additional neural network implementing a
generalized Gutzwiller-Jastrow factor. We demonstrate the efficiency of the
method by applying it to a two-dimensional Hubbard model.


  It is proved that the limiting distribution of the length of the longest
weakly increasing subsequence in an inhomogeneous random word is related to the
distribution function for the eigenvalues of a certain direct sum of Gaussian
unitary ensembles subject to an overall constraint that the eigenvalues lie in
a hyperplane.


  We examine observational constraints on single-field inflation in which the
inflaton is a composite field stemming from a four-dimensional strongly
interacting field theory. We confront the predictions with the Planck and very
recent BICEP2 data. In the large non-minimal coupling regions, we discover for
MCI model that the predictions lie well inside the joint $68\%$ CL for the
Planck data, but is in tension with the recent BICEP2 observations. In the case
of the GI model, the predictions satisfy the Planck results. However, this
model can produce a large tensor-to-scalar ratio consistent with the recent
BICEP2 observations if the number of e-foldings is slightly smaller than the
range commonly used. For a super Yang-Mills paradigm, we discover that the
predictions satisfy the Planck data, and surprisingly a large tensor-to-scalar
ratio consistent with the BICEP2 results can also be produced for an acceptable
range of the number of e-foldings and of the confining scale. In the small
non-minimal coupling regions, all of the models can satisfy the BICEP2 results.
However, the predictions of GI and SgbI models cannot satisfy the observational
bound on the amplitude of the curvature perturbation launched by Planck, and
the techni-inflaton self-coupling in the MCI model is constrained to be
extremely small.


  We propose a mathematical description of crystal structure: underlying
translational periodicity together with the distinct atomic positions up to the
symmetry operations in the unit cell. It is consistent with the international
table of crystallography. By the Cauchy-Born hypothesis, such a description can
be integrated with the theory of continuum mechanics to calculate a derived
crystal structure produced by solid-solid phase transformation. In addition, we
generalize the expressions for orientation relationship between the parent
lattice and the derived lattice. The derived structure rationalizes the lattice
parameters and the general equivalent atomic positions that assist the indexing
process of X-ray diffraction analysis for low symmetry martensitic materials
undergoing phase transformation. The analysis is demonstrated in a CuAlMn shape
memory alloy. From its austenite phase (L2_1 face-centered cubic structure), we
identify that the derived martensitic structure has the orthorhombic symmetry
Pmmm with derived lattice parameters a_dv = 4.36491 \AA, b_dv = 5.40865 \AA and
c_dv = 4.2402 \AA, by which the complicated X-ray Laue diffraction pattern can
be well indexed, and the orientation relationship can be verified.


  This paper proves that protomechanics, previously introduced in
quant-ph/9909025, deduces both quantum mechanics and classical mechanics. It
does not only solve the problem of the arbitrariness on the operator ordering
for the quantization procedure, but also that of the analyticity at the exact
classical-limit of $\hbar =0 $. In addition, proto-mechanics proves valid also
for the description of a half-spin.


  Machine Learning (ML) systems are becoming instrumental in the public sector,
with applications spanning areas like criminal justice, social welfare,
financial fraud detection, and public health. While these systems offer great
potential benefits to institutional decision-making processes, such as improved
efficiency and reliability, they still face the challenge of aligning nuanced
policy objectives with the precise formalization requirements necessitated by
ML models. In this paper, we aim to bridge the gap between ML model
requirements and public sector decision-making by presenting a comprehensive
overview of key technical challenges where disjunctions between policy goals
and ML models commonly arise. We concentrate on pivotal points of the ML
pipeline that connect the model to its operational environment, discussing the
significance of representative training data and highlighting the importance of
a model setup that facilitates effective decision-making. Additionally, we link
these challenges with emerging methodological advancements, encompassing causal
ML, domain adaptation, uncertainty quantification, and multi-objective
optimization, illustrating the path forward for harmonizing ML and public
sector objectives.


  A good hundred years after the necessity for a quantum theory of gravity was
acknowledged by Albert Einstein, the search for it continues to be an ongoing
endeavour. Nevertheless, the field still evolves rapidly as manifested by the
recent rise of quantum gravity phenomenology supported by an enormous surge in
experimental precision. In particular, the minimum length paradigm ingrained in
the program of generalized uncertainty principles (GUPs) is steadily growing in
importance. The present thesis is aimed at establishing a link between modified
uncertainty relations, derived from deformed canonical commutators, and curved
spaces - specifically, GUPs and nontrivial momentum space as well as the
related extended uncertainty principles (EUPs) and curved position space. In
that vein, we derive a new kind of EUP relating the radius of geodesic balls,
assumed to constrain the wave functions in the underlying Hilbert space, with
the standard deviation of the momentum operator. This result is gradually
generalized to relativistic particles in curved spacetime in accordance with
the 3+1 decomposition. In a sense pursuing the inverse route, we find an
explicit correspondence between theories yielding a GUP and quantum dynamics
set on non-Euclidean momentum space. Quantitatively, the coordinate
noncommutativity translates to momentum space curvature in the dual
description, allowing for an analogous transfer of constraints from the
literature. Finally, we find a formulation of quantum mechanics which proves
consistent on the arbitrarily curved cotangent bundle. Along these lines, we
show that the harmonic oscillator can not be used as a means to distinguish
between curvature in position and momentum space, thereby providing an explicit
instantiation of Born reciprocity in the context of curved spaces.


  Context. Chamaeleon II molecular cloud is an active star forming region that
offers an excellent opportunity for studying the formation of brown dwarfs in
the southern hemisphere. Aims. Our aims are to identify a population of pre-
and proto- brown dwarfs (5 sigma mass limit threshold of ~0.015 Msun) and
provide information on the formation mechanisms of substellar objects. Methods.
We performed high sensitivity observations at 870 microns using the LABOCA
bolometer at the APEX telescope towards an active star forming region in
Chamaeleon II. The data are complemented with an extensive multiwavelength
catalogue of sources from the optical to the far-infrared to study the nature
of the LABOCA detections. Results. We detect fifteen cores at 870 microns, and
eleven of them show masses in the substellar regime. The most intense objects
in the surveyed field correspond to the submillimeter counterparts of the well
known young stellar objects DK Cha and IRAS 12500-7658. We identify a possible
proto-brown dwarf candidate (ChaII-APEX-L) with IRAC emission at 3.6 and 4.5
microns. Conclusions. Our analysis indicates that most of the spatially
resolved cores are transient, and that the point-like starless cores in the
sub-stellar regime (with masses between 0.016 Msun and 0.066 Msun) could be
pre-brown dwarfs cores gravitationally unstable if they have radii smaller than
220 AU to 907 AU (1.2" to 5" at 178 pc) respectively for different masses. ALMA
observations will be the key to reveal the energetic state of these pre-brown
dwarfs candidates.


  Taking a functional approach, we derive a general expression for the gradient
of the Mutual Information (MI) with respect to the system parameters in the
stochastic systems. This expression covers the cases in which the system input
depends on the system parameters. As an application, we consider the K-user
Multiple Access Channels (MAC) with feedback and utilize the obtained results
to explore the behavior of these systems in terms of the MI. Specializing the
results to the additive Gaussian noise MAC, we extend the MI and Minimum Mean
Square Error (MMSE) relationship, i.e., I-MMSE to the K-user Gaussian MAC with
feedback. In this derivation, we show that the gradient of MI can be decomposed
into three distinct parts, where the first part is the MMSE term originated
from noise, and the second and third parts reflect the effects of the
interference and feedback, respectively. Then, considering the capacity
achieving Fourier-Modulated Estimate Correction (F-MEC) strategy of Kramer, we
show how feedback compensates the destructive effects of the users'
interference in the K-user symmetric Gaussian MAC.


  We present a comprehensive investigation of the superconducting properties of
ZrRe2, a Re-based hexagonal Laves compounds. ZrRe2 crystallizes in a C14-type
structure (space group P63/mmc), with cell parameters a=b=5.2682(5) and
c=8.63045 . Resistivity and magnetic susceptibility data both suggest that
ZrRe2 exhibits a sharp superconducting transition above 6.1 K. The measured
lower and upper critical fields are 6.27 mT and 12.77 T, respectively, with a
large upper critical field that approached the Pauli limit.Measurements of the
heat capacity confirm the presence of bulk superconductivity, with a normalized
specific heat change of 1.24 and an electron-phonon strength of 0.69 . DFT
calculations revealed that the band structure of ZrRe2 is intricate and without
van-Hove singularity. The observed large specific heat jump, combined with the
electron-phonon strength , suggests that ZrRe2 is a weakly coupled type II
superconductor.


  In this paper the stochastic complexity criterion is applied to estimation of
the order in AR and ARMA models. The power of the criterion for short strings
is illustrated by simulations. It requires an integral of the square root of
Fisher information, which is done by Monte Carlo technique. The stochastic
complexity, which is the negative logarithm of the Normalized Maximum
Likelihood universal density function, is given. Also, exact asymptotic
formulas for the Fisher information matrix are derived.


  We introduce in this paper the notion of noncommutative Serre fibration
(shortly, NCSF) and show that up to homotopy, every NCCW complex morphism is
some noncommutative Serre fibration. We then deduce a six-term exact sequence
for the periodic cyclic homology and for K-theory of an arbitrary
noncommutative Serre fibration. We also show how to use this technique to
compute K-theory and cyclic theory of some noncommutative quotients.


  One-dimensional strongly correlated electron systems coupled via transverse
hopping and presence of interband interactions can converge to a Luttinger
liquid state or diverge to an even more intricate behavior, as a Mott state.
Explicit consideration of the renormalization group (RG) flow of the Fermi
points in the Fermi surface, turns the classification of phase transitions more
challenging. We reconsider the recent paper for the spinless case [E. Correa
and A. Ferraz, Eur. Phys. J. B 87 (2014) 51], where RG flow equations are
derived in a cutoff-dependent form up to two-loops order. We demonstrate that
the cutoff-dependence can be removed by rewriting the RG flow equations in
terms of the energy scale variable. In our paper, the RG flow equations assume
a cutoff-independent form and leads to fixed points independent of cutoff
choice. The consequence is the invariance under cutoff transformations, more
suitable for classifying universality classes and phase transitions.


  Charge-changing cross section ($\sigma_{\text{cc}}$) measurements via the
transmission method have made important progress recently aiming to determine
the charge radii of exotic nuclei. In this work, we report a new
$\sigma_{\text{cc}}$ measurement of 304(9) MeV/nucleon $^{28}$Si on carbon at
the second Radioactive Ion Beam Line in Lanzhou (RIBLL2) and describe the data
analysis procedure in detail. This procedure is essential to evaluate the
systematic uncertainty in the transmission method. The determined
$\sigma_{\mathrm{cc}}$ of 1125(11) mb is found to be consistent with the
existing data at similar energies. The present work will serve as a reference
in the $\sigma_{\text{cc}}$ determinations at RIBLL2.


  High spin states in 105Cd were studied using 16O beam on 92Mo reaction at an
incident beam energy of 75 MeV. The level scheme of 105Cd has been observed up
to an excitation energy of 10.8 MeV with the addition of 30 new gamma
transitions to the previous work. Spin and parity for most of the reported
levels are assigned from the DCO ratios and linear polarization measurements.
The microscopic origin of the investigated band structures is discussed in the
context of triaxial projected shell model. The energies of observed positive
and negative parity bands agree with the predictions of the TPSM by considering
triaxial deformation for the observed excited band structures. The shape
evolution with increasing angular momentum is explained in the framework of
Cranked Shell Model and the Total Routhian Surface calculations.


  Since 2012, Deep learning has revolutionized Artificial Intelligence and has
achieved state-of-the-art outcomes in different domains, ranging from Image
Classification to Speech Generation. Though it has many potentials, our current
architectures come with the pre-requisite of large amounts of data. Few-Shot
Learning (also known as one-shot learning) is a sub-field of machine learning
that aims to create such models that can learn the desired objective with less
data, similar to how humans learn. In this paper, we have reviewed some of the
well-known deep learning-based approaches towards few-shot learning. We have
discussed the recent achievements, challenges, and possibilities of improvement
of few-shot learning based deep learning architectures. Our aim for this paper
is threefold: (i) Give a brief introduction to deep learning architectures for
few-shot learning with pointers to core references. (ii) Indicate how deep
learning has been applied to the low-data regime, from data preparation to
model training. and, (iii) Provide a starting point for people interested in
experimenting and perhaps contributing to the field of few-shot learning by
pointing out some useful resources and open-source code. Our code is available
at Github: https://github.com/shruti-jadon/Hands-on-One-Shot-Learning.


  We extend the support theory of Benson--Iyengar--Krause to the non-Noetherian
setting by introducing a new notion of small support for modules. This enables
us to prove that the stable module category of a finite group is canonically
stratified by the action of the Tate cohomology ring, despite the fact that
this ring is rarely Noetherian. In the tensor triangular context, we compare
the support theory proposed by W. Sanders (which extends the Balmer--Favi
support theory beyond the weakly Noetherian setting) with our generalized BIK
support theory. When the Balmer spectrum is homeomorphic to the Zariski
spectrum of the endomorphism ring of the unit, the two support theories
coincide as do their associated theories of stratification. We also prove a
negative result which states that the Balmer--Favi--Sanders support theory can
only stratify categories whose spectra are weakly Noetherian. This provides
additional justification for the weakly Noetherian hypothesis in the work of
Barthel, Heard and B. Sanders. On the other hand, the detection property and
the local-to-global principle remain interesting in the general setting.


  NGC 1980 is a young cluster that is located about 0.5 degrees south of the
Orion Nebula Cluster (ONC). Recent studies by Bouy et al. and Pillitteri et al.
have suggested that NGC 1980 contains an older population of stars compared to
a much younger ONC, and that it belongs to a foreground population that may be
located in front of the Orion A molecular gas by as much as 40 pc. In this work
we present low-resolution spectra towards 148 young stars found towards the NGC
1980 region. We determine the spectral types of these stars, examine accretion
signatures and measure the extinction towards them. We determine that based on
these observations, the age of the population of NGC 1980 is indistinguishable
from L1641, estimated to be ~3 Myr, comparable with the study by Fang et al.


  Wide-scale electrification of the transportation sector will require careful
planning and coordination with the power grid. Left unmanaged, uncoordinated
charging of electric vehicles (EVs) at increased levels of penetration will
amplify existing peak loads, potentially outstripping the grid's capacity to
reliably meet demand. In this paper, we report findings from the OptimizEV
Project - a real-world pilot study in Upstate New York exploring a novel
approach to coordinated residential EV charging. The proposed coordination
mechanism seeks to harness the latent flexibility in EV charging by offering EV
owners monetary incentives to delay the time required to charge their EVs. Each
time an EV owner initiates a charging session, they specify how long they
intend to leave their vehicle plugged in by selecting from a menu of deadlines
that offers lower electricity prices the longer they're willing to delay the
time required to charge their EV. Given a collection of active charging
requests, a smart charging system dynamically optimizes the power being drawn
by each EV in real time to minimize strain on the grid, while ensuring that
each customer's car is fully charged by its deadline. Under the proposed
incentive mechanism, we find that customers are frequently willing to engage in
optimized charging sessions, allowing the system to delay the completion of
their charging requests by more than eight hours on average. Using the
flexibility provided by customers, the smart charging system was shown to be
highly effective in shifting the majority of EV charging loads off-peak to fill
the night-time valley of the aggregate load curve. Customer opt-in rates
remained stable over the span of the study, providing empirical evidence in
support of the proposed coordination mechanism as a potentially viable
"non-wires alternative" to meet the increased demand for electricity driven
growing EV adoption.


  Reinforcement learning (RL) is challenging in the common case of delays
between events and their sensory perceptions. State-of-the-art (SOTA) state
augmentation techniques either suffer from state space explosion or performance
degeneration in stochastic environments. To address these challenges, we
present a novel Auxiliary-Delayed Reinforcement Learning (AD-RL) method that
leverages auxiliary tasks involving short delays to accelerate RL with long
delays, without compromising performance in stochastic environments.
Specifically, AD-RL learns a value function for short delays and uses
bootstrapping and policy improvement techniques to adjust it for long delays.
We theoretically show that this can greatly reduce the sample complexity. On
deterministic and stochastic benchmarks, our method significantly outperforms
the SOTAs in both sample efficiency and policy performance. Code is available
at https://github.com/QingyuanWuNothing/AD-RL.


  Let $(R,\mathfrak{m})$ be a Noetherian local ring, $I$ an ideal of $R$, and
$M$ a finitely generated $R$-module of dimension $d$. In this paper, we
describe primes ideal $\mathfrak{p}$ satisfying ${\rm depth}(M)= {\rm
depth}M_{\mathfrak{p}} +\dim R/\mathfrak{p}$ in term of pseudo supports
Psupp$_R^i(M)$ of $M$, for $i=0, \ldots,d$. Furthermore, if $R$ is the
homomorphic image of a Cohen-Macaulay local ring, formulas for depth of $M$ and
depth of $I$ on $M$ are determined via the finite subset of attached primes of
local cohomology modules $H_{\mathfrak{m}}^i(M)$, for $i=0, \ldots,d$.


  We present a selfconsistent method for treating nonperturbative effects in
inclusive nonleptonic and semileptonic decays of heavy flavour hadrons. These
effects give rise to powerlike corrections $\propto 1/m_Q^n\,$, $n \ge 2$ with
$m_Q$ denoting the heavy quark mass.The leading correction to the semileptonic
branching ratio occurs for n=2. It is expressed in terms of the
vector-pseudoscalar mass splitting: $\delta BR\ind{sl}/BR\ind{sl} \simeq
BR\ind{nl}\, \cdot \,6\,(\,(M_V^2-M_P^2)/m_Q^2)\cdot (c_+^2 - c_-^2)/2N_c$ and
yields a {\it reduction} of $BR\ind{sl}$. This nonperturbative correction
contributes to the nonleptonic width with a sign opposite to that of the
perturbative terms that are non-leading in $1/N_c$. In beauty decays the former
reduces the latter by 20 \% whereas in charm decays they more or less cancel.
This leads to a {\it reduction} of $BR\ind{sl}$ by no more than 10 \% in beauty
decays and by a factor of roughly two in charm decays. We confront these
results with those obtained from phenomenological models of heavy flavour
decays and find that such models are unable to mimic these leading corrections
by a specific choice of quark masses or by invoking Fermi motion.


  Resolved observations are bringing new constraints on the origin of radial
gaps in protoplanetary disks. The kinematics, sampled in detail in one
case-study, are indicative of non-Keplerian flows, corresponding to warped
structures and accretion which may both play a role in the development of
cavities. Disk asymmetries seen in the radio continuum are being interpreted in
the context of dust segregation via aerodynamic trapping. We summarise recent
observational progress, and also describe prospects for improvements in the
near term.


  In this paper I analyze the onset of Rayleigh-Taylor instability between two
linear viscoelastic fluids assuming that the perturbations at the interface are
small. In the first half, the paper analyzes a stratified viscoelastic fluid in
which I prove that the perturbations rise or fall exponentially without
oscillating. The second half of the paper examines the effect of electric and
magnetic fields on viscoelastic fluids. I show that it is possible to choose
electric or magnetic field gradient such that the effective acceleration due to
gravity is zero. If a heavy Newtonian fluid rests on top of a lighter Newtonian
fluid such a choice of field gradient would have rendered the arrangement
stable. If the fluids are viscoelastic, I show that a similar arrangement is
unstable.


  A calculation of the pion mass and decay constant at NNNLO in two-flavour
chiral perturbation theory is presented. The results are cross-checked by using
both the exponential and square root parameterizations of the Goldstone matrix
field, as well as by comparing to the known leading log coefficients of the two
quantities. A small numerical study of the quark mass dependence is performed,
and for a physical quark mass there is good agreement with lower order results.


  Much of the complexity of social, biological, and engineered systems arises
from a network of complex interactions connecting many basic components.
Network analysis tools have been successful at uncovering latent structure
termed communities in such networks. However, some of the most interesting
structure can be difficult to uncover because it is obscured by the more
dominant structure. Our previous work proposes a general structure
amplification technique called HICODE that uncovers many layers of functional
hidden structure in complex networks. HICODE incrementally weakens dominant
structure through randomization allowing the hidden functionality to emerge,
and uncovers these hidden structure in real-world networks that previous
methods rarely uncover. In this work, we conduct a comprehensive and systematic
theoretical analysis on the hidden community structure. In what follows, we
define multi-layer stochastic block model, and provide theoretical support
using the model on why the existence of hidden structure will make the
detection of dominant structure harder compared with equivalent random noise.
We then provide theoretical proofs that the iterative reducing methods could
help promote the uncovering of hidden structure as well as boosting the
detection quality of dominant structure.


  This paper reviews some of the recent observational results on stellar mass
black hole candidates. Over the last decade, much of the progress in this field
has been achieved through the study of transient X--ray binary sources which
shine only sporadically in the X--ray sky and undergo much larger luminosity
variations then most persistent sources. There are currently six stellar--mass
black hole candidates for which the mass of the compact object is estimated to
be well above the maximum neutron star mass. The three most recently identified
black hole candidates of this kind belong to a class of transient X--ray
sources with peculiar spectral properties. Several new transients of this class
are being discovered and studied every year thanks to more continous monitoring
of the X--ray sky. Many of them are likely to contain other black hole
candidates. The growing number of candidates and the large luminosity
variations (and therefore, accretion rate variations) in transient sources will
allow to study the chacteristics of accreting black holes with an unprecedented
detail.


  In this paper we propose a novel method for estimating rigid body motion by
modeling the object state directly in the space of the rigid body motion group
SE(2). It has been recently observed that a noisy manoeuvring object in SE(2)
exhibits banana-shaped probability density contours in its pose. For this
reason, we propose and investigate two state space models for moving object
tracking: (i) a direct product SE(2)xR3 and (ii) a direct product of the two
rigid body motion groups SE(2)xSE(2). The first term within these two state
space constructions describes the current pose of the rigid body, while the
second one employs its second order dynamics, i.e., the velocities. By this, we
gain the flexibility of tracking omnidirectional motion in the vein of a
constant velocity model, but also accounting for the dynamics in the rotation
component. Since the SE(2) group is a matrix Lie group, we solve this problem
by using the extended Kalman filter on matrix Lie groups and provide a detailed
derivation of the proposed filters. We analyze the performance of the filters
on a large number of synthetic trajectories and compare them with (i) the
extended Kalman filter based constant velocity and turn rate model and (ii) the
linear Kalman filter based constant velocity model. The results show that the
proposed filters outperform the other two filters on a wide spectrum of types
of motion.


  The current body of research on terahertz (THz) wireless communications
predominantly focuses on its application for single-user backhaul/fronthaul
connectivity at sub-THz frequencies. First, we develop a generalized
statistical model for signal propagation at THz frequencies encompassing
physical layer impairments, including random path-loss with Gamma distribution
for the molecular absorption coefficient, short-term fading characterized by
the $\alpha$-$\eta$-$\kappa$-$\mu$ distribution, antenna misalignment errors,
and transceiver hardware impairments. Next, we propose random access protocols
for a cell-free wireless network, ensuring successful transmission for multiple
users with limited delay and energy loss, exploiting the combined effect of
random atmospheric absorption, non-linearity of fading, hardware impairments,
and antenna misalignment errors. We consider two schemes: a fixed transmission
probability (FTP) scheme where the transmission probability (TP) of each user
is updated at the beginning of the data transmission and an adaptive
transmission probability (ATP) scheme where the TP is updated with each
successful reception of the data. We analyze the performance of both protocols
using delay, energy consumption, and outage probability with scaling laws for
the transmission of a data frame consisting of a single packet from users at a
predefined quality of service (QoS).


  We present new results based on the entire CHOOZ data sample. We find (at 90%
confidence level) no evidence for neutrino oscillations in the anti_nue
disappearance mode, for the parameter region given by approximately Delta m**2
> 7 x 10**-4 eV^2 for maximum mixing, and sin**2(2 theta) = 0.10 for large
Delta m**2. Lower sensitivity results, based only on the comparison of the
positron spectra from the two different-distance nuclear reactors, are also
presented; these are independent of the absolute normalization of the anti_nue
flux, the cross section, the number of target protons and the detector
efficiencies.


  The study of the stratification associated to the number of generators of the
ideals in the punctual Hilbert scheme of points on the affine plain goes back
to the '70s. In this paper, we present an elegant formula for the E-polynomials
of these strata.


  In this study we determine the structure of reversible DNA codes obtained
from skew cyclic codes. We show that the generators of such DNA codes enjoy
some special properties. We study the structural properties of such family of
codes and we also illustrate our results with examples.


  J. Hadamard's ideas of correct formulation of problems of mathematical
physics as well as related Banach's theorem on the inverse operator are
analyzed. Modern techniques of numerical simulations are shown to be in drastic
contradiction to the concepts of J. Hadamard, S. Banach and a number of other
outstanding scientists in the sense that the priority is given to the
realization of inefficient algorithms, based on a belief that ill-posed
problems are adequate to real phenomena. A new method of the solution of
problems, traditionally associated with Fredholm integral equations of the
first kind, is developed. Its key aspect is a constructive use of possibilities
of the functional space $l_2$ to ensure the conditions of correctness. A
well-known phenomenon of smoothing of information is taken into account by
means of a special composition that explicitly involves the sought function and
is infinitesimal in the space $L_2$. By relatively simple transformations, the
outlined class of problems is reduced to the solution of Fredholm integral
equations of the second kind with properties most favorable for the numerical
realization. We demonstrate a reduction to Fredholm integral equations of the
first kind and, correspondingly, a possibility to extend the suggested approach
to wide classes of linear and nonlinear boundary-value and
initial-boundary-value problems. We put forward arguments that the
determination of causal relationships, based on the formulation restricted to a
primitive renaming of known and unknown functions of the corresponding direct
problem, is essentially illegitimate.


  I review briefly different aspects of the MOND paradigm, with emphasis on
phenomenology, epitomized here by many MOND laws of galactic motion--analogous
to Kepler's laws of planetary motion. I then comment on the possible roots of
MOND in cosmology, possibly the deepest and most far reaching aspect of MOND.
This is followed by a succinct account of existing underlying theories. I also
reflect on the implications of MOND's successes for the dark matter (DM)
paradigm: MOND predictions imply that baryons alone accurately determine the
full field of each and every individual galactic object. This conflicts with
the expectations in the DM paradigm because of the haphazard formation and
evolution of galactic objects and the very different influences that baryons
and DM are subject to during the evolution, as evidenced, e.g., by the very
small baryon-to-DM fraction in galaxies (compared with the cosmic value). All
this should disabuse DM advocates of the thought that DM will someday be able
to reproduce MOND: It is inconceivable that the modicum of baryons left over in
galaxies can be made to determine everything if a much heavier DM component is
present.


  Nerf-based Generative models have shown impressive capacity in generating
high-quality images with consistent 3D geometry. Despite successful synthesis
of fake identity images randomly sampled from latent space, adopting these
models for generating face images of real subjects is still a challenging task
due to its so-called inversion issue. In this paper, we propose a universal
method to surgically fine-tune these NeRF-GAN models in order to achieve
high-fidelity animation of real subjects only by a single image. Given the
optimized latent code for an out-of-domain real image, we employ 2D loss
functions on the rendered image to reduce the identity gap. Furthermore, our
method leverages explicit and implicit 3D regularizations using the in-domain
neighborhood samples around the optimized latent code to remove geometrical and
visual artifacts. Our experiments confirm the effectiveness of our method in
realistic, high-fidelity, and 3D consistent animation of real faces on multiple
NeRF-GAN models across different datasets.


  This note presents two ideas. The first one is that quantum theory has a
fundamentally perturbative basis but leads to nonperturbative states which it
would seem natural to take into account in the foundation of a theory of
quantum phenomena. The second one consists in questioning the validity of the
present notion of time. Both matters are related to the fact that atomic levels
have a certain width. This note is presented qualitatively so as to evidence
its main points, independently of the models on which these have been tested.


  Rapid urbanization burdens city infrastructure and creates the need for local
governments to maximize the usage of resources to serve its citizens. Smart
city projects aim to alleviate the urbanization problem by deploying a vast
amount of Internet-of-things (IoT) devices to monitor and manage environmental
conditions and infrastructure. However, smart city projects can be extremely
expensive to deploy and manage. A significant portion of the expense is a
result of providing Internet connectivity via 5G or WiFi to IoT devices. This
paper proposes the use of delay tolerant networks (DTNs) as a backbone for
smart city communication; enabling developing communities to become smart
cities at a fraction of the cost. A model is introduced to aid policy makers in
designing and evaluating the expected performance of such networks. Preliminary
results are presented based on a public transit network data-set from Chapel
Hill, North Carolina. Finally, innovative ways of improving network performance
in a low-cost smart city is discussed.


  In battery modeling, the electrode is discretized at the macroscopic scale
with a single representative particle in each volume. This lacks the accurate
physics to describe interparticle interactions in electrodes. To remedy this,
we formulate a model that describes the evolution of degradation of a
population of battery active material particles using ideas in population
genetics of fitness evolution, where the state of a system depends on the
health of each particle that contributes to the system. With the fitness
formulation, the model incorporates effects of particle size and heterogeneous
degradation effects which accumulate in the particles as the battery is cycled,
accounting for different active material degradation mechanisms. At the
particle scale, degradation progresses nonuniformly across the population of
active particles, observed from the autocatalytic relationship between fitness
and degradation. Electrode-level degradation is formed from various
contributions of the particle-level degradation, especially from smaller
particles. It is shown that specific mechanisms of particle-level degradation
can be associated with characteristic signatures in the capacity-loss and
voltage profiles. Conversely, certain features in the electrode-level phenomena
can also provide insight into the relative importance of different
particle-level degradation mechanisms.


  In this paper, we propose a novel generative adversarial network (GAN) for 3D
point clouds generation, which is called tree-GAN. To achieve state-of-the-art
performance for multi-class 3D point cloud generation, a tree-structured graph
convolution network (TreeGCN) is introduced as a generator for tree-GAN.
Because TreeGCN performs graph convolutions within a tree, it can use ancestor
information to boost the representation power for features. To evaluate GANs
for 3D point clouds accurately, we develop a novel evaluation metric called
Frechet point cloud distance (FPD). Experimental results demonstrate that the
proposed tree-GAN outperforms state-of-the-art GANs in terms of both
conventional metrics and FPD, and can generate point clouds for different
semantic parts without prior knowledge.


  This paper addresses streak reduction in limited angle tomography. Although
the iterative reweighted total variation (wTV) algorithm reduces small streaks
well, it is rather inept at eliminating large ones since total variation (TV)
regularization is scale-dependent and may regard these streaks as homogeneous
areas. Hence, the main purpose of this paper is to reduce streak artifacts at
various scales. We propose the scale-space anisotropic total variation (ssaTV)
algorithm in two different implementations. The first implementation (ssaTV-1)
utilizes an anisotropic gradient-like operator which uses 2s neighboring pixels
along the streaks' normal direction at each scale s. The second implementation
(ssaTV-2) makes use of anisotropic down-sampling and up-sampling operations,
similarly oriented along the streaks' normal direction, to apply TV
regularization at various scales. Experiments on numerical and clinical data
demonstrate that both ssaTV algorithms reduce streak artifacts more effectively
and efficiently than wTV, particularly when using multiple scales.


  We generalize Kracht's theory of internal describability from classical modal
logic to the family of all logics canonically associated with varieties of
normal lattice expansions (LE algebras). We work in the purely algebraic
setting of perfect LEs; the formulas playing the role of Kracht's formulas in
this generalized setting pertain to a first order language whose atoms are
special inequalities between terms of perfect algebras. Via duality, formulas
in this language can be equivalently translated into first order conditions in
the frame correspondence languages of several types of relational semantics for
LE-logics.


  Transit Timing Variations (TTVs) can provide useful information for systems
observed by transit, by putting constraints on the masses and eccentricities of
the observed planets, or even constrain the existence of non-transiting
companions. However, TTVs can also prevent the detection of small planets in
transit surveys, or bias the recovered planetary and transit parameters. Here
we show that Kepler-1972 c, initially the "not transit-like" false positive
KOI-3184.02, is an Earth-sized planet whose orbit is perturbed by Kepler-1972 b
(initially KOI-3184.01). The pair is locked in a 3:2 Mean-motion resonance,
each planet displaying TTVs of more than 6h hours of amplitude over the
duration of the Kepler mission. The two planets have similar masses $m_b/m_c
=0.956_{-0.051}^{+0.056}$ and radii $R_b=0.802_{-0.041}^{+0.042}R_{Earth}$,
$R_c=0.868_{-0.050}^{+0.051}R_{Earth}$, and the whole system, including the
inner candidate KOI-3184.03, appear to be coplanar. Despite the faintness of
the signals (SNR of 1.35 for each transit of Kepler-1972 b and 1.10 for
Kepler-1972 c), we recovered the transits of the planets using the RIVERS
method, based on the recognition of the tracks of planets in river diagrams
using machine learning, and a photo-dynamic fit of the lightcurve. Recovering
the correct ephemerides of the planets is essential to have a complete picture
of the observed planetary systems. In particular, we show that in Kepler-1972,
not taking into account planet-planet interactions yields an error of $\sim
30\%$ on the radii of planets b and c, in addition to generating in-transit
scatter, which leads to mistake KOI3184.02 for a false positive. Alleviating
this bias is essential for an unbiased view of Kepler systems, some of the TESS
stars, and the upcoming PLATO mission.


  Recent asteroseismic studies have revealed that the convective core of
$\gamma$ Doradus stars rotates faster than their radiative interior. We study
the development of differential rotation near the convective core to test
angular momentum transport processes that are typically adopted in stellar
evolution models. Models that only include the advection of angular momentum by
meridional circulation and shear instabilities cannot reproduce current
rotational constraints, irrespective of the initial conditions. The latest
formulation of internal magnetic fields based on the Tayler instability is
indeed able to reproduce the internal rotation rate of post-main sequence
stars, however, it appears too efficient during the main sequence and has thus
been disfavoured. A less efficient version of the same transport process can
simultaneously reproduce the rotation rate of the convective core, the rotation
rate in radiative regions as probed by gravity-modes, and the surface
rotational velocities of $\gamma$ Doradus stars. Our work suggests that there
are additional physical processes apart from internal magnetic fields at work
in the stellar interiors of post-main sequence stars.


  Turbulent flows over porous substrates are studied via a systematic
exploration of the dependence of the flow properties on the substrate
parameters, including permeability $K$, grain pitch $L$, and depth $h$. The
study uses direct numerical simulations mainly for staggered-cube substrates
with $L^+\approx10$ - $50$, $\sqrt{K}/L\approx0.01$ - $0.25$, and depths from
$h=O(L)$ to $h\gg L$, ranging from typical impermeable rough surfaces to deep
porous substrates. The results indicate that the permeability has significantly
greater relevance than the grain size for the properties of the overlying flow,
including the mean-flow slip and the shear across the interface, the drag
increase relative to smooth-wall flow, and the statistics and spectra of the
overlying turbulence, whereas the direct effect of grain size is only
noticeable near the interface as grain-coherent flow fluctuations. The
substrate depth also has a significant effect, with shallower substrates
suppressing the effective transpiration at the interface. Based on the
direct-simulation results, we propose an empirical `equivalent permeability'
$K_{eq}^t$, that incorporates this effect and scales well the overlying
turbulence for substrates with different depths, permeabilities, etc. Based on
this, we propose a conceptual $h^+$-$\sqrt{K^+}$ regime diagram where, for any
given substrate topology, turbulence transitions smoothly from that over
impermeable rough surfaces with $h=O(L)$ to that over deep porous substrates
with $h^+\gtrsim50$, with the latter limit determined by the typical
lengthscale of the overlying pressure fluctuations.