  Access control management is an integral part of maintaining the security of
an application. Although there has been significant work in the field of cloud
access control mechanisms, however, with the advent of Distributed Ledger
Technology (DLT), on-chain access control management frameworks hardly exist.
Existing access control management mechanisms are tightly coupled with the
business logic, resulting in governance issues, non-coherent with existing
Identity Management Solutions, low security, and compromised usability. We
propose a novel framework to implement dynamic role-based access control for
decentralized applications (dApps). The framework allows for managing access
control on a dApp, which is completely decoupled from the business application
and integrates seamlessly with any dApps. The smart contract architecture
allows for the independent management of business logic and execution of access
control policies. It also facilitates secure, low cost, and a high degree of
flexibility of access control management. The proposed framework promotes
decentralized governance of access control policies and efficient smart
contract upgrades. We also provide quantitative and qualitative metrics for the
efficacy and efficiency of the framework. Any Turing complete smart contract
programming language is an excellent fit to implement the framework. We expect
this framework to benefit enterprise and non-enterprise dApps and provide
greater access control flexibility and effective integration with traditional
and state of the art identity management solutions.


  It has been shown that word embeddings can exhibit gender bias, and various
methods have been proposed to quantify this. However, the extent to which the
methods are capturing social stereotypes inherited from the data has been
debated. Bias is a complex concept and there exist multiple ways to define it.
Previous work has leveraged gender word pairs to measure bias and extract
biased analogies. We show that the reliance on these gendered pairs has strong
limitations: bias measures based off of them are not robust and cannot identify
common types of real-world bias, whilst analogies utilising them are unsuitable
indicators of bias. In particular, the well-known analogy "man is to
computer-programmer as woman is to homemaker" is due to word similarity rather
than societal bias. This has important implications for work on measuring bias
in embeddings and related work debiasing embeddings.


  In this paper, we critically examine the prevalent practice of using additive
mixtures of Mat\'ern kernels in single-output Gaussian process (GP) models and
explore the properties of multiplicative mixtures of Mat\'ern kernels for
multi-output GP models. For the single-output case, we derive a series of
theoretical results showing that the smoothness of a mixture of Mat\'ern
kernels is determined by the least smooth component and that a GP with such a
kernel is effectively equivalent to the least smooth kernel component.
Furthermore, we demonstrate that none of the mixing weights or parameters
within individual kernel components are identifiable. We then turn our
attention to multi-output GP models and analyze the identifiability of the
covariance matrix $A$ in the multiplicative kernel $K(x,y) = AK_0(x,y)$, where
$K_0$ is a standard single output kernel such as Mat\'ern. We show that $A$ is
identifiable up to a multiplicative constant, suggesting that multiplicative
mixtures are well suited for multi-output tasks. Our findings are supported by
extensive simulations and real applications for both single- and multi-output
settings. This work provides insight into kernel selection and interpretation
for GP models, emphasizing the importance of choosing appropriate kernel
structures for different tasks.


  The current situation of COVID-19 demands novel solutions to boost healthcare
services and economic growth. A full-fledged solution that can help the
government and people retain their normal lifestyle and improve the economy is
crucial. By bringing into the picture a unique incentive-based approach, the
strain of government and the people can be greatly reduced. By providing
incentives for actions such as voluntary testing, isolation, etc., the
government can better plan strategies for fighting the situation while people
in need can benefit from the incentive offered. This idea of combining strength
to battle against the virus can bring out newer possibilities that can give an
upper hand in this war. As the unpredictable future develops, sharing and
maintaining COVID related data of every user could be the needed trigger to
kick start the economy and blockchain paves the way for this solution with
decentralization and immutability of data.


  Relativistic symmetries of the Dirac Hamiltonian with a mixture of
spherically symmetric Lorentz scalar and vector potentials, are examined from
the point of view of supersymmetric quantum mechanics. The cases considered
include the Coulomb, pseudospin and spin limits relevant, respectively, to
atoms, nuclei and hadrons.


  Highly entangled biphoton states, generated by spontaneous parametric
processes, find wide applications in many experimental realizations. There is
an increasing demand for accurate prediction of their time-dependent detection.
Unlike approaches that have emerged so far, this paper presents an approach
providing full time-dependent counting statistics in terms of efficiently
computable formulas, valid for a wide range of entanglement and arbitrary
interaction times. General spatial modes are taken into account to describe
free space and fiber propagation. The time intervals that correspond to the
statistics are classified according to their widths. Apart from large and small
widths compared to the temporal correlation width, intermediate interval widths
give access to accidental correlations between separated time intervals.
Moreover, the approach is easily applicable to a modular array of arbitrary
optical components and external influences. This is demonstrated on phase-time
coding, where the detuning of the interferometers affecting Franson
interference is investigated. An acceptable range for the detuning is
estimated, such that the security of the key is not compromised.


  The principle of Generalized Natural Selection (GNS) states that in nature,
computational processes of high computational sophistication are more likely to
maintain/abide than processes of lower computational sophistication provided
that sufficiently many resources are around to sustain the processes. In this
paper we give a concrete set-up how to test GNS in a weak sense. In particular,
we work in the setting of Cellular Automata and see how GNS can manifest itself
in this setting.


  Kaon decays have played a key role in the construction of the Standard Model
and continue to be an important testing ground of the electroweak flavour
theory. They can provide new signals of CP-violation phenomena and, perhaps, a
window into physics beyond the Standard Model. The interplay of long-distance
QCD effects in strangeness-changing transitions can be analyzed, combining the
short-distance Operator Product Expansion with Chiral Perturbation Theory
techniques. A brief overview is presented, focusing on a few selected decay
modes. A more detailed and comprehensive review can be found in
arXiv:1107.6001.


  We study the ground state (GS) and the phase transition in a
hexagonal-close-packed lattice with both XY and Ising models by using extensive
Monte Carlo simulation. We suppose the in-plane interaction $J_1$ and
inter-plane interaction $J_2$, both antiferromagnetic. The system is frustrated
with two kinds of GS configuration below and above a critical value of
$\eta=J_1/J_2$ ($\eta_c$). For the Ising case, one has $\eta_c=0.5$ which
separates in-plane ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic states, while for the XY
case $\eta_c=1/3$ separates the collinear and non collinear spin
configurations. The phase transition is shown to be of first (second) order for
$\eta> (<) \eta_c$. The spin resistivity is calculated for the Ising case. It
shows a rounded maximum at the magnetic transition in the second-order region,
and a discontinuity in the first-order region of $\eta$.


  Quantum networks (QNs) relying on free-space optical (FSO) quantum channels
can support quantum applications in environments wherein establishing an
optical fiber infrastructure is challenging and costly. However, FSO-based QNs
require a clear line-of-sight (LoS) between users, which is challenging due to
blockages and natural obstacles. In this paper, a reconfigurable intelligent
surface (RIS)-assisted FSO-based QN is proposed as a cost-efficient framework
providing a virtual LoS between users for entanglement distribution. A novel
modeling of the quantum noise and losses experienced by quantum states over FSO
channels defined by atmospheric losses, turbulence, and pointing errors is
derived. Then, the joint optimization of entanglement distribution and RIS
placement problem is formulated, under heterogeneous entanglement rate and
fidelity constraints. This problem is solved using a simulated annealing
metaheuristic algorithm. Simulation results show that the proposed framework
effectively meets the minimum fidelity requirements of all users' quantum
applications. This is in stark contrast to baseline algorithms that lead to a
drop of at least 83% in users' end-to-end fidelities. The proposed framework
also achieves a 64% enhancement in the fairness level between users compared to
baseline rate maximizing frameworks. Finally, the weather conditions, e.g.,
rain, are observed to have a more significant effect than pointing errors and
turbulence.


  We show that it is possible to construct a consistent model describing a
current-carrying cosmic string endowed with torsion. The torsion contribution
to the gravitational force and geodesics of a test-particle moving around the
SCCS are analyzed. In particular, we point out two interesting astrophysical
phenomena in which the higher magnitude force we derived may play a critical
role: the dynamics of compact objects orbiting the torsioned SCCS and accretion
of matter onto it. The deficit angle associated to the SCCS can be obtained and
compared with data from the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite. We
also derived a value for the torsion contribution to matter density
fluctuations in the early Universe.


  Cavitation and bubble dynamics are central concepts in engineering, the
natural sciences, and the mathematics of fluid mechanics. Due to the nonlinear
nature of their dynamics, the governing equations are not fully solvable. Here,
the dynamics of a spherical bubble in an N-dimensional fluid are discussed in
the hope that examining bubble behavior in N dimensions will add insight to
their behavior in three dimensions. Several canonical results in bubble
dynamics are re-derived, including the Rayleigh collapse time, the
Rayleigh-Plesset equation, and the Minnaert frequency. Numerical simulations
are used to examine the onset of nonlinear behavior. Overall, the dynamics of
bubbles are faster at higher dimensions, with nonlinear behavior occurring at
lower amplitudes. Several features are found to be unique to three dimensions,
including the trend of nonlinear behaviour and apparent coincidences in
timescales.


  Cross-device training is a crucial subfield of federated learning, where the
number of clients can reach into the billions. Standard approaches and local
methods are prone to issues such as client drift and insensitivity to data
similarities. We propose a novel algorithm (SPAM) for cross-device federated
learning with non-convex losses, which solves both issues. We provide sharp
analysis under second-order (Hessian) similarity, a condition satisfied by a
variety of machine learning problems in practice. Additionally, we extend our
results to the partial participation setting, where a cohort of selected
clients communicate with the server at each communication round. Our method is
the first in its kind, that does not require the smoothness of the objective
and provably benefits from clients having similar data.


  We show that superfluidity can be used to prevent thermalisation in a
nonlinear Floquet system. Generically, periodic driving boils an interacting
system to a featureless infinite temperature state. Fast driving is a known
strategy to postpone Floquet heating with a large but always finite boiling
time. In contrast, using a nonlinear periodically-driven system on a lattice,
we show the existence of a continuous class of initial states which do not
thermalise at all. This absence of thermalisation is associated to the
existence and persistence of a stable superflow motion.


  In this brief note we calculate the entanglement entropy in $M^{\otimes
N}/S_N$ symmetric orbifold CFTs in the presence of topological defects, which
were recently constructed in \cite{Gutperle:2024vyp,Knighton:2024noc}. We
consider both universal defects which realize $Rep(S_N)$ non-invertible
symmetry and non-universal defects. We calculate the sub-leading defect
entropy/g-factor for defects at the boundary entangling surface as well as
inside it.


  The relativistic Foldy-Wouthuysen transformation is used for an advanced
description of planar graphene electrons in external fields and free
(2+1)-space. It is shown that the initial Dirac equation should by based on the
usual $(4\times4)$ Dirac matrices but not on the reduction of matrix dimensions
and the use of $(2\times2)$ Pauli matrices. The latter approach does not agree
with the experiment. The spin of graphene electrons is not the one-value spin
and takes the values $\pm1/2$. The exact Foldy-Wouthuysen Hamiltonian of a
graphene electron in uniform and nonuniform magnetic fields is derived. The
exact energy spectrum agreeing with the experiment and exact Foldy-Wouthuysen
wave eigenfunctions are obtained. These eigenfunctions describe multiwave
(structured) states in (2+1)-space. It is proven that the Hermite-Gauss beams
exist even in the free space. In the multiwave Hermite-Gauss states, graphene
electrons acquire nonzero effective masses dependent on a quantum number and
move with group velocities which are less than the Fermi velocity. Graphene
electrons in a static electric field also can exist in the multiwave
Hermite-Gauss states defining non-spreading coherent beams. These beams can be
accelerated and decelerated.


  We propose a heuristic-based optimization scheme for reliable optical
amplifier reconfiguration process in ADON. In the experiment on a commercial
testbed, the scheme prevents a 1.0-dB Q-factor degradation and outperforms
98.5% random solutions.


  Causal inference with spatial environmental data is often challenging due to
the presence of interference: outcomes for observational units depend on some
combination of local and non-local treatment. This is especially relevant when
estimating the effect of power plant emissions controls on population health,
as pollution exposure is dictated by (i) the location of point-source
emissions, as well as (ii) the transport of pollutants across space via dynamic
physical-chemical processes. In this work, we estimate the effectiveness of air
quality interventions at coal-fired power plants in reducing two adverse health
outcomes in Texas in 2016: pediatric asthma ED visits and Medicare all-cause
mortality. We develop methods for causal inference with interference when the
underlying network structure is not known with certainty and instead must be
estimated from ancillary data. Notably, uncertainty in the interference
structure is propagated to the resulting causal effect estimates. We offer a
Bayesian, spatial mechanistic model for the interference mapping which we
combine with a flexible non-parametric outcome model to marginalize estimates
of causal effects over uncertainty in the structure of interference. Our
analysis finds some evidence that emissions controls at upwind power plants
reduce asthma ED visits and all-cause mortality, however accounting for
uncertainty in the interference renders the results largely inconclusive.


  We present the results of the GREAT08 Challenge, a blind analysis challenge
to infer weak gravitational lensing shear distortions from images. The primary
goal was to stimulate new ideas by presenting the problem to researchers
outside the shear measurement community. Six GREAT08 Team methods were
presented at the launch of the Challenge and five additional groups submitted
results during the 6 month competition. Participants analyzed 30 million
simulated galaxies with a range in signal to noise ratio, point-spread function
ellipticity, galaxy size, and galaxy type. The large quantity of simulations
allowed shear measurement methods to be assessed at a level of accuracy
suitable for currently planned future cosmic shear observations for the first
time. Different methods perform well in different parts of simulation parameter
space and come close to the target level of accuracy in several of these. A
number of fresh ideas have emerged as a result of the Challenge including a
re-examination of the process of combining information from different galaxies,
which reduces the dependence on realistic galaxy modelling. The image
simulations will become increasingly sophisticated in future GREAT challenges,
meanwhile the GREAT08 simulations remain as a benchmark for additional
developments in shear measurement algorithms.


  Multipole expansions depend on the coordinate system, so that coefficients of
multipole moments can be set equal to zero by an appropriate choice of
coordinates. Therefore, it is meaningless to say that a physical system has a
nonvanishing quadrupole moment, say, without specifying which coordinate system
is used. (Except if this moment is the lowest non-vanishing one.) This result
is demonstrated for the case of two equal like electric charges. Specifically,
an adapted coordinate system in which the potential is given by a monopole term
only is explicitly found, the coefficients of all higher multipoles vanish
identically. It is suggested that this result can be generalized to other
potential problems, by making equal coordinate surfaces coincide with the
potential problem's equipotential surfaces.


  The broad line region (BLR) size-luminosity relation has paramount importance
for estimating the mass of black holes in active galactic nuclei (AGNs).
Traditionally, the size of the H$\beta$ BLR is often estimated from the optical
continuum luminosity at 5100\angstrom{} , while the size of the H$\alpha$ BLR
and its correlation with the luminosity is much less constrained. As a part of
the Seoul National University AGN Monitoring Project (SAMP) which provides
six-year photometric and spectroscopic monitoring data, we present our
measurements of the H$\alpha$ lags of 6 high-luminosity AGNs. Combined with the
measurements for 42 AGNs from the literature, we derive the size-luminosity
relations of H$\alpha$ BLR against broad H$\alpha$ and 5100\angstrom{}
continuum luminosities. We find the slope of the relations to be $0.61\pm0.04$
and $0.59\pm0.04$, respectively, which are consistent with the \hb{}
size-luminosity relation. Moreover, we find a linear relation between the
5100\angstrom{} continuum luminosity and the broad H$\alpha$ luminosity across
7 orders of magnitude. Using these results, we propose a new virial mass
estimator based on the H$\alpha$ broad emission line, finding that the previous
mass estimates based on the scaling relations in the literature are
overestimated by up to 0.7 dex at masses lower than $10^7$~M$_{\odot}$.


  Two points are randomly selected inside a three-dimensional euclidian cube.
The value l of their separation lies somewhere between zero and the length of a
diagonal of the cube. The probability density P(l) of the separation is
obtained analytically. Also a Monte Carlo computer simulation is performed,
showing good agreement with the formulas obtained.


  We prove two generalizations of the matrix-tree theorem. The first one, a
result essentially due to Moon for which we provide a new proof, extends the
``all minors'' matrix-tree theorem to the ``massive'' case where no condition
on row or column sums is imposed. The second generalization, which is new,
extends the recently discovered Pfaffian-tree theorem of Masbaum and Vaintrob
into a ``Hyperpfaffian-cactus'' theorem. Our methods are noninductive, explicit
and make critical use of Grassmann-Berezin calculus that was developed for the
needs of modern theoretical physics.


  In this paper we show that a nonlocal minimal surface which is a graph
outside a cylinder is in fact a graph in the whole of the space. As a
consequence, in dimension~$3$, we show that the graph is smooth. The proofs
rely on convolution techniques and appropriate integral estimates which show
the pointwise validity of an Euler-Lagrange equation related to the nonlocal
mean curvature.


  The properties of the deformed bosonic oscillator, and the quantum groups
${\cal U}_q(SL(2))$ and $GL_q(2)$ in the limit as their deformation parameter
$q$ goes to a root of unity are investigated and interpreted physically. These
properties are seen to be related to fractional supersymmetry and intrinsic
anyonic spin. A simple deformation of the Klein-Gordon equation is introduced,
based on $GL_q(2)$. When $q$ is a root of unity this equation is a root of the
undeformed Klein-Gordon equation.


  Type Ia supernovae are the outcome of the explosion of a carbon-oxygen white
dwarf in a close binary system. They are thought to be the main contributors to
the galactic nucleosynthesis of iron-peak elements, with important
contributions to the yields of intermediate mass elements. Recent analyses of
the phase diagram of carbon and oxygen containing impurities such as $^{22}$Ne
and $^{56}$Fe in conditions relevant to white dwarf interiors suggest that both
isotopes can partially separate when the temperature of the star is low enough
to start solidifying. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of
such a segregation on the yields of the different chemical species synthesized
during explosions. A one-dimensional supernova code has been used to evaluate
the impact of the sedimentation assuming different degrees of chemical
separation. It is found that the main properties of the ejecta, kinetic energy
and ejected mass of $^{56}$Ni do only vary slightly when the separation is
taken into account. However, the yields of important isotopes that are used as
diagnostic tools such as manganese can be strongly modified. Furthermore, the
chemical segregation studied here is able to change several indicators related
to progenitor metallicity (such as the mass ratio of calcium to sulphur in the
ejecta or the UV flux of the supernova) and to its mass, whether it is a
Chandrasekhar-mass white dwarf or a substantially lighter one (such as the
imprint of stable nickel on late-time infrared spectra or those related to the
presence of radioactive nickel at the centre of the ejecta).


  This paper presents the designing and testing of PizzaBox, a 3D printed,
interactive food ordering system that aims to differ from conventional food
ordering systems and provide an entertaining and unique experience when
ordering a pizza by incorporating underlying technologies that support
ubiquitous computing. The PizzaBox has gone through both low and medium
fidelity testing while working collaboratively with participants to co-design
and refine a product that is approachable to all age groups while maintaining a
simple process for ordering food from start to finish. Final testing was
conducted at an independent pizzeria where interviews with participants lead us
to develop four discussion themes 1) usability and end user engagement, 2)
towards connected real-time products and services, 3) healthy eating, 4)
evolution of food ordering systems. Our interviews show that in general,
PizzaBox would have a greater appeal to a younger audience by providing a
fantasy of helping in the creation and baking of the pizza but also has a
novelty value that all ages would enjoy. We investigate the effect that the
PizzaBox has in encouraging new healthy habits or promoting a healthier
lifestyle as well as how we can improve PizzaBox to better encourage these
lifestyle changes.


  Symanzik effective actions, conjectured to describe lattice artifacts, are
determined for a class of lattice regularizations of the non-linear O(N) sigma
model in two dimensions in the leading order of the 1/N-expansion. The class of
actions considered includes also ones which do not have the usual classical
limit and are not (so far) treatable in the framework of ordinary perturbation
theory. The effective actions obtained are shown to reproduce previously
computed lattice artifacts of the step scaling functions defined in finite
volume, giving further confidence in Symanzik's theory of lattice artifacts.


  Path integral-based simulation methodologies play a crucial role for the
investigation of nuclear quantum effects by means of computer simulations.
However, these techniques are significantly more demanding than corresponding
classical simulations. To reduce this numerical effort, we recently proposed a
method, based on a rigorous Hamiltonian formulation, which restricts the
quantum modeling to a small but relevant spatial region within a larger
reservoir where particles are treated classically. In this work, we extend this
idea and show how it can be implemented along with state-of-the-art path
integral simulation techniques, such as ring polymer and centroid molecular
dynamics, which allow the approximate calculation of both quantum statistical
and quantum dynamical properties. To this end, we derive a new integration
algorithm which also makes use of multiple time-stepping. The scheme is
validated via adaptive classical--path-integral simulations of liquid water.
Potential applications of the proposed multiresolution method are diverse and
include efficient quantum simulations of interfaces as well as complex
biomolecular systems such as membranes and proteins.


  In this paper we derive a Large Deviation Principle (LDP) for inhomogeneous
U/V-statistics of a general order. Using this, we derive a LDP for two types of
statistics: random multilinear forms, and number of monochromatic copies of a
subgraph. We show that the corresponding rate functions in these cases can be
expressed as a variational problem over a suitable space of functions. We use
the tools developed to study Gibbs measures with the corresponding
Hamiltonians, which include tensor generalizations of both Ising (with
non-compact base measure) and Potts models. For these Gibbs measures, we
establish scaling limits of log normalizing constants, and weak laws in terms
of weak* topology, which are of possible independent interest.


  We present Loopix, a low-latency anonymous communication system that provides
bi-directional 'third-party' sender and receiver anonymity and unobservability.
Loopix leverages cover traffic and brief message delays to provide anonymity
and achieve traffic analysis resistance, including against a global network
adversary. Mixes and clients self-monitor the network via loops of traffic to
provide protection against active attacks, and inject cover traffic to provide
stronger anonymity and a measure of sender and receiver unobservability.
Service providers mediate access in and out of a stratified network of Poisson
mix nodes to facilitate accounting and off-line message reception, as well as
to keep the number of links in the system low, and to concentrate cover
traffic. We provide a theoretical analysis of the Poisson mixing strategy as
well as an empirical evaluation of the anonymity provided by the protocol and a
functional implementation that we analyze in terms of scalability by running it
on AWS EC2. We show that a Loopix relay can handle upwards of 300 messages per
second, at a small delay overhead of less than 1.5 ms on top of the delays
introduced into messages to provide security. Overall message latency is in the
order of seconds - which is low for a mix-system. Furthermore, many mix nodes
can be securely added to a stratified topology to scale throughput without
sacrificing anonymity.


  A focal point for the HEMC'99 workshop was the evaluation of straw-man
parameter sets for the acceleration and collider rings of muon colliders at
center of mass energies of 10 TeV and 100 TeV. These self-consistent parameter
sets are presented and discussed. The methods and assumptions used in their
generation are described and motivations are given for the specific choices of
parameter values. The assessment of the parameter sets during the workshop is
then reviewed and the implications for the feasibility of many-TeV muon
colliders are evaluated. Finally, a preview is given of plans for iterating on
the parameter sets and, more generally, for future feasibility studies on
many-TeV muon colliders.


  A classical decision tree is completely based on splitting measures, which
utilize the occurrence of random events in correspondence to its class labels
in order to optimally segregate datasets. However, the splitting measures are
based on greedy strategy, which leads to construction of an imbalanced tree and
hence decreases the prediction accuracy of the classical decision tree
algorithm. An intriguing approach is to utilize the foundational aspects of
quantum computing for enhancing decision tree algorithm. Therefore, in this
work, we propose to use fidelity as a quantum splitting criterion to construct
an efficient and balanced quantum decision tree. For this, we construct a
quantum state using the occurrence of random events in a feature and its
corresponding class. The quantum state is further utilized to compute fidelity
for determining the splitting attribute among all features. Using numerical
analysis, our results clearly demonstrate that the proposed algorithm
cooperatively ensures the construction of a balanced tree. We further compared
the efficiency of our proposed quantum splitting criterion to different
classical splitting criteria on balanced and imbalanced datasets. Our
simulation results show that the proposed splitting criterion exceeds all
classical splitting criteria for all possible evaluation metrics.


  In the 1960's, Mandelstam proposed a new approach to gauge theories and
gravity based on loops. The program for gauge theories was completed for
Yang--Mills theories by Gambini and Trias in the 1980's. Gauge theories could
be understood as representations of certain group: the group of loops. The same
formalism could not be implemented at that time for the gravitational case.
Here we would like to propose an extension to the case of gravity. The
resulting theory is described in terms of loops and open paths and can provide
the underpinning for a new quantum representation for gravity distinct from the
one used in loop quantum gravity or string theory. In it, space-time points are
emergent entities that would only have quasi-classical status. The formulation
may be given entirely in terms of Dirac observables that form a complete set of
gauge invariant functions that completely define the Riemannian geometry of the
spacetime. At the quantum level this formulation will lead to a reduced phase
space quantization free of any constraints.


  The phase response curve (PRC) is an important measure representing the
interaction between oscillatory elements. To understand synchrony in biological
systems, many research groups have sought to measure PRCs directly from
biological cells including neurons. Ermentrout et al. and Ota et al. showed
that PRCs can be identified through measurement of white-noise spike-triggered
averages. The disadvantage of this method is that one has to collect more than
ten-thousand spikes to ensure the accuracy of the estimate. In this paper, to
achieve a more accurate estimation of PRCs with a limited sample size, we use
colored noise, which has recently drawn attention because of its unique effect
on dynamical systems. We numerically show that there is an optimal colored
noise to estimate PRCs in the most rigorous fashion.


  We present a re-reduction of archival CCD frames of the doubly imaged quasar
0957+561 using a new photometry code. Aperture photometry with corrections for
both cross contamination between the quasar images and galaxy contamination is
performed on about 2650 R-band images from a five year period (1992-1997). From
the brightness data a time delay of 424.9 +/- 1.2 days is derived using two
different statistical techniques. The amount of gravitational microlensing in
the quasar light curves is briefly investigated, and we find unambiguous
evidence of both long term and short term microlensing. We also note the
unusual circumstance regarding time delay estimates for this gravitational
lens. Estimates by different observers from different data sets or even with
the same data sets give lag estimates differing by typically 8 days, and error
bars of only a day or two. This probably indicates several complexities where
the result of each estimate depends upon the details of the calculation.


  Figures in scientific publications contain important information and results,
and alt text is needed for blind and low vision readers to engage with their
content. We conduct a study to characterize the semantic content of alt text in
HCI publications based on a framework introduced by Lundgard and Satyanarayan.
Our study focuses on alt text for graphs, charts, and plots extracted from HCI
and accessibility publications; we focus on these communities due to the lack
of alt text in papers published outside of these disciplines. We find that the
capacity of author-written alt text to fulfill blind and low vision user needs
is mixed; for example, only 50% of alt texts in our sample contain information
about extrema or outliers, and only 31% contain information about major trends
or comparisons conveyed by the graph. We release our collected dataset of
author-written alt text, and outline possible ways that it can be used to
develop tools and models to assist future authors in writing better alt text.
Based on our findings, we also discuss recommendations that can be acted upon
by publishers and authors to encourage inclusion of more types of semantic
content in alt text.


  We present new white dwarf cooling models which incorporate an accurate outer
boundary condition based on new opacity and detailed radiative transfer
calculations. We find that helium atmosphere dwarfs cool considerably faster
than has previously been claimed, while old hydrogen atmosphere dwarfs will
deviate significantly from black body appearance. We use our new models to
derive age limits for the Galactic disk. We find that the Liebert, Dahn & Monet
(1988) luminosity function yields an age of only 6 Gyr if it is complete to
stated limits. However, age estimates of individual dwarfs and the luminosity
function of Oswalt et al (1995) are both consistent with disk ages as large as
\sim 11 Gyr. We have also used our models to place constraints on white dwarf
dark matter in Galactic halos. We find that previous attempts using inadequate
cooling models were too severe and that direct detection limits allow a halo
that is 11 Gyr old. If the halo is composed solely of helium atmosphere dwarfs,
the lower age limit is only 7.5 Gyr. We also demonstrate the importance of
studying the cooling sequences of white dwarfs in Globular clusters.


  In this article, we attempt to explore the dark sector of the universe i.e.
dark matter and dark energy, where the dark energy components are related to
the modified $f(Q)$ Lagrangian, particularly a power law function $f(Q)= \gamma
\left(\frac{Q}{Q_0}\right)^n$, while the dark matter component is described by
the Extended Bose-Einstein Condensate (EBEC) equation of state for dark matter,
specifically, $p = \alpha \rho + \beta \rho^2$. We find the corresponding
Friedmann-like equations and the continuity equation for both dark components
along with an interacting term, specifically $\mathcal{Q} = 3b^2H \rho$, which
signifies the energy exchange between the dark sector of the universe. Further,
we derive the analytical expression of the Hubble function, and then we find
the best-fit values of free parameters utilizing the Bayesian analysis to
estimate the posterior probability and the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC)
sampling technique corresponding to CC+Pantheon+SH0ES samples. In addition, to
examine the robustness of our MCMC analysis, we perform a statistical
assessment using the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) and Bayesian
Information Criterion (BIC). Further from the evolutionary profile of the
deceleration parameter and the energy density, we obtain a transition from the
decelerated epoch to the accelerated expansion phase, with the present
deceleration parameter value as $q(z=0)=q_0=-0.56^{+0.04}_{-0.03}$ ($68 \%$
confidence limit), that is quite consistent with cosmological observations. In
addition, we find the expected positive behavior of the effective energy
density. Finally, by examining the sound speed parameter, we find that the
assumed theoretical $f(Q)$ model is thermodynamically stable.


  We present the KMOS Galaxy Evolution Survey (KGES), a $K$-band Multi-Object
Spectrograph (KMOS) study of the H$\alpha$ and [NII] emission from 288 $K$
band-selected galaxies at $1.2 \lesssim z \lesssim 1.8$, with stellar masses in
the range $\log_{10}(M_{*}/\rm{M}_{\odot})\approx$9-11.5. In this paper, we
describe the survey design, present the sample, and discuss the key properties
of the KGES galaxies. We combine KGES with appropriately matched samples at
lower redshifts from the KMOS Redshift One Spectroscopic Survey (KROSS) and the
SAMI Galaxy Survey. Accounting for the effects of sample selection, data
quality, and analysis techniques between surveys, we examine the kinematic
characteristics and angular momentum content of star-forming galaxies at
$z\approx1.5$, $\approx1$ and $\approx0$. We find that stellar mass, rather
than redshift, most strongly correlates with the disc fraction amongst
star-forming galaxies at $z \lesssim 1.5$, observing only a modest increase in
the prevalence of discs between $z\approx1.5$ and $z\approx0.04$ at fixed
stellar mass. Furthermore, typical star-forming galaxies follow the same median
relation between specific angular momentum and stellar mass, regardless of
their redshift, with the normalisation of the relation depending more strongly
on how disc-like a galaxy's kinematics are. This suggests that massive
star-forming discs form in a very similar manner across the $\approx$ 10 Gyr
encompassed by our study and that the inferred link between the angular
momentum of galaxies and their haloes does not change significantly across the
stellar mass and redshift ranges probed in this work.


  In the last 70 years, geophysics has established that the Earth's outer core
is an FeNi alloy containing a few percent of light elements, whose nature and
amount remain controversial today. Besides the classical combinations of
silicon and oxygen, hydrogen has been advocated as the only light element that
could account alone for both the density and velocity profiles of the outer
core. Here we show how this question can be addressed from an independant
viewpoint, by exploiting the tomographic information provided by atmospheric
neutrinos, weakly-interacting particles produced in the atmosphere and
constantly traversing the Earth. We evaluate the potential of the upcoming
generation of atmospheric neutrino detectors for such a measurement, showing
that they could efficiently detect the presence of 1 wt% of hydrogen in an FeNi
core in 50 years of concomitant data taking. We then identify the main
requirements for a next-generation detector to perform this measurement in a
few years timescale, with the further capability to efficiently discriminate
between FeNiH and FeNiSi(x)O(y) models in less than 15 years.


  This paper discusses the location of zeros of polynomials in a polynomial
sequence $\{P_n(z)\}$ generated by a three-term recurrence relation of the form
$P_n(z)+ B(z)P_{n-1}(z) +A(z) P_{n-k}(z)=0$ with $k>2$ and the standard initial
conditions $P_{0}(z)=1, P_{-1}(z)=\ldots=P_{-k+1}(z)=0,$ where $A(z)$ and
$B(z)$ are arbitrary coprime real polynomials. We show that there always exist
polynomials in $\{P_n(z)\}$ with non-real zeros.


  Crystal structure prediction (CSP) has made significant progress, but most
methods focus on unconditional generations of inorganic crystal with limited
atoms in the unit cell. This study introduces XtalNet, the first equivariant
deep generative model for end-to-end CSP from Powder X-ray Diffraction (PXRD).
Unlike previous methods that rely solely on composition, XtalNet leverages PXRD
as an additional condition, eliminating ambiguity and enabling the generation
of complex organic structures with up to 400 atoms in the unit cell. XtalNet
comprises two modules: a Contrastive PXRD-Crystal Pretraining (CPCP) module
that aligns PXRD space with crystal structure space, and a Conditional Crystal
Structure Generation (CCSG) module that generates candidate crystal structures
conditioned on PXRD patterns. Evaluation on two MOF datasets (hMOF-100 and
hMOF-400) demonstrates XtalNet's effectiveness. XtalNet achieves a top-10 Match
Rate of 90.2% and 79% for hMOF-100 and hMOF-400 datasets in conditional crystal
structure prediction task, respectively. XtalNet represents a significant
advance in CSP, enabling the prediction of complex structures from PXRD data
without the need for external databases or manual intervention. It has the
potential to revolutionize PXRD analysis. It enables the direct prediction of
crystal structures from experimental measurements, eliminating the need for
manual intervention and external databases. This opens up new possibilities for
automated crystal structure determination and the accelerated discovery of
novel materials.


  The violation of the rotational symmetry constraint of the matrix elements of
the plus component of the vector current, in the Drell-Yan frame, is studied
using an analytical and covariant model of spin-1 composite particle. The
contributions from pair terms or zero modes, if missed cause the violation of
the rotational symmetry. We reanalyze the prescription by Grach and Kondratyuk
to extract form factors which can eliminate theses contributions in particular
models.


  We put forward a formal model of anonymous systems. And we concentrate on the
anonymous failure detectors in our model. In particular, we give three examples
of anonymous failure detectors and show that they can be used to solve the
consensus problem and that they are equivalent to their classic counterparts.
Moreover, we show some relationship among them and provide a simple
classification of anonymous failure detectors.


  We study IIA/B string theory compactified on twisted circles. These models
possess closed string tachyons and reduce to type 0B/A theory in a special
limit. Using methods of gauged linear sigma models and mirror symmetry we
construct a conformal field theory which interpolates between these models and
flat space via an auxiliary Liouville direction. Interpreting motion in the
Liouville direction as renormalization group flow, we argue that the end point
of tachyon condensation in all these models (including 0B/A theory) is
supersymmetric type II theory. We also find a zero-slope limit of these models
which is best described in a T-dual picture as a type II NS-NS fluxbrane. In
this limit tachyon condensation is an interesting and well posed problem in
supergravity. We explicitly determine the tachyon as a fluctuation of
supergravity fields, and perform a rudimentary numerical analysis of the
relevant flows.


  We present an optical design of astronomic spectrograph based on a cascade of
volume-phase holographic gratings. The cascade consists of three gratings. Each
of them provides moderately high spectral resolution in a narrow range of 83
nm. Thus the spectrum image represents three lines covering region 430-680 nm.
Two versions of the scheme are described: a full-scale one with estimated
resolving power of 5300-7900 and a small-sized one intended for creation of a
lab prototype, which provides the resolving power of 1500-3000. Diffraction
efficiency modeling confirms that the system throughput can reach 75 %, while
stray light caused by the gratings crosstalk is negligible. We also propose a
design of image slicer and focal reducer allowing to couple the instrument with
the 6-m telescope. Finally, we present concept of the opto-mechanical design.


  The desire to map neural networks to varying-capacity devices has led to the
development of a wealth of compression techniques, many of which involve
replacing standard convolutional blocks in a large network with cheap
alternative blocks. However, not all blocks are created equally; for a required
compute budget there may exist a potent combination of many different cheap
blocks, though exhaustively searching for such a combination is prohibitively
expensive. In this work, we develop BlockSwap: a fast algorithm for choosing
networks with interleaved block types by passing a single minibatch of training
data through randomly initialised networks and gauging their Fisher potential.
These networks can then be used as students and distilled with the original
large network as a teacher. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the chosen
networks across CIFAR-10 and ImageNet for classification, and COCO for
detection, and provide a comprehensive ablation study of our approach.
BlockSwap quickly explores possible block configurations using a simple
architecture ranking system, yielding highly competitive networks in orders of
magnitude less time than most architecture search techniques (e.g. under 5
minutes on a single GPU for CIFAR-10). Code is available at
https://github.com/BayesWatch/pytorch-blockswap.


  In this paper, we provide tools to study the dynamics of point vortex
dynamics on $\mathbb{CP}^n$ and the flag manifold
$\mathbb{F}_{1,2}(\mathbb{C}^3)$. These are the only K\"ahler twistor spaces
arising from 4-manifolds. We give an explicit expression for Green's function
on $\mathbb{CP}^n$ which enables us to determine the Hamiltonian $H$ and the
equations of motions for the point vortex problem on $\mathbb{CP}^n$. Moreover,
we determine the momentum map $\mu:\mathbb{F}_{1,2}(\mathbb{C}^3)\to
\mathfrak{su}^*(3)$ on the flag manifold.


  The Bradley-Terry-Luce (BTL) model is a benchmark model for pairwise
comparisons between individuals. Despite recent progress on the first-order
asymptotics of several popular procedures, the understanding of uncertainty
quantification in the BTL model remains largely incomplete, especially when the
underlying comparison graph is sparse. In this paper, we fill this gap by
focusing on two estimators that have received much recent attention: the
maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) and the spectral estimator. Using a unified
proof strategy, we derive sharp and uniform non-asymptotic expansions for both
estimators in the sparsest possible regime (up to some poly-logarithmic
factors) of the underlying comparison graph. These expansions allow us to
obtain: (i) finite-dimensional central limit theorems for both estimators; (ii)
construction of confidence intervals for individual ranks; (iii) optimal
constant of $\ell_2$ estimation, which is achieved by the MLE but not by the
spectral estimator. Our proof is based on a self-consistent equation of the
second-order remainder vector and a novel leave-two-out analysis.


  We develop an inflationary model without small parameters on the basis of
multidimensional $f(R)$ gravity with a minimally coupled scalar field. The
model is described by two stages of space expansion. The first one begins at
energy scales about the D-dimensional Planck mass and ends with the de Sitter
metric of our space and the maximally symmetric extra dimensions. In the
following, the quantum fluctuations produce a wide set of inhomogeneous extra
metrics in causally disconnected regions quickly generated in the de Sitter
space. We find a specific extra space metric that leads to the effective
Starobinsky model that fits the observational data.


  High-resolution TEM (HRTEM) is a powerful tool for structure
characterization. However, methylammonium lead iodide (MAPbI3) perovskite is
highly sensitive to electron beams and easily decompose into lead iodide
(PbI2). Universal misidentifications that PbI2 is incorrectly labeled as
perovskite are widely exist in HRTEM characterization, which would negatively
affect the development of perovskite research field. Here misidentifications in
MAPbI3 perovskite calibration are summarized, classified and corrected based on
corresponding electron diffraction (ED) simulations. Corresponding
crystallographic parameters of intrinsic tetragonal MAPbI3 and the confusable
hexagonal PbI2 are also presented clearly. Finally, the method of proper phase
identification and some ways to control the radiation damage in HRTEM are
provided. This work paves the way to avoid misleadings in HRTEM
characterization of perovskite and other electron beam-sensitive materials in
the future.


  Predicting next visit diagnosis using Electronic Health Records (EHR) is an
essential task in healthcare, critical for devising proactive future plans for
both healthcare providers and patients. Nonetheless, many preceding studies
have not sufficiently addressed the heterogeneous and hierarchical
characteristics inherent in EHR data, inevitably leading to sub-optimal
performance. To this end, we propose NECHO, a novel medical code-centric
multimodal contrastive EHR learning framework with hierarchical regularisation.
First, we integrate multifaceted information encompassing medical codes,
demographics, and clinical notes using a tailored network design and a pair of
bimodal contrastive losses, all of which pivot around a medical codes
representation. We also regularise modality-specific encoders using a parental
level information in medical ontology to learn hierarchical structure of EHR
data. A series of experiments on MIMIC-III data demonstrates effectiveness of
our approach.


  A simple approach to obtaining uncertainty-aware neural networks for
regression is to do Bayesian linear regression (BLR) on the representation from
the last hidden layer. Recent work [Riquelme et al., 2018, Azizzadenesheli et
al., 2018] indicates that the method is promising, though it has been limited
to homoscedastic noise. In this paper, we propose a novel variation that
enables the method to flexibly model heteroscedastic noise. The method is
benchmarked against two prominent alternative methods on a set of standard
datasets, and finally evaluated as an uncertainty-aware model in model-based
reinforcement learning. Our experiments indicate that the method is competitive
with standard ensembling, and ensembles of BLR outperforms the methods we
compared to.


  The study evaluates three background subtraction techniques. The techniques
ranges from very basic algorithm to state of the art published techniques
categorized based on speed, memory requirements and accuracy. Such a review can
effectively guide the designer to select the most suitable method for a given
application in a principled way. The algorithms used in the study ranges from
varying levels of accuracy and computational complexity. Few of them can also
deal with real time challenges like rain, snow, hails, swaying branches,
objects overlapping, varying light intensity or slow moving objects.


  Group theory is extremely successful in characterizing the symmetries in
quantum systems, which greatly simplifies and unifies our treatments of quantum
systems. Here we introduce the concept of the symmetry for a quantum Boltzmann
machine and develop a group theory to describe the symmetry. This symmetry
implies not only that all the target states related with the symmetry
transformations are equivalent, but also that for a given target state all the
optimal solutions related with the symmetry transformations that keeps the
target state invariant are equivalent. For the Boltzmann machines built on
qubits, we propose a systematic procedure to construct the group, and develop a
numerical algorithm to verify the completeness of our construction.


  We calculate the time-evolution of a discrete-time fragmentation process in
which clusters of particles break up and reassemble and move stochastically
with size-dependent rates. In the continuous-time limit the process turns into
the totally asymmetric simple exclusion process (only pieces of size 1 break
off a given cluster). We express the exact solution of master equation for the
process in terms of a determinant which can be derived using the Bethe ansatz.
  From this determinant we compute the distribution of the current across an
arbitrary bond which after appropriate scaling is given by the distribution of
the largest eigenvalue of the Gaussian unitary ensemble of random matrices.
This result confirms universality of the scaling form of the current
distribution in the KPZ universality class and suggests that there is a link
between integrable particle systems and random matrix ensembles.


  The scientific system that we use today was devised centuries ago and is
inadequate for our current ICT-based society: the peer review system encourages
conservatism, journal publications are monolithic and slow, data is often not
available to other scientists, and the independent validation of results is
limited. Building on the Innovation Accelerator paper by Helbing and Balietti
(2011) this paper takes the initial global vision and reviews the theoretical
and technological building blocks that can be used for implementing an
innovation (in first place: science) accelerator platform driven by
re-imagining the science system. The envisioned platform would rest on four
pillars: (i) Redesign the incentive scheme to reduce behavior such as
conservatism, herding and hyping; (ii) Advance scientific publications by
breaking up the monolithic paper unit and introducing other building blocks
such as data, tools, experiment workflows, resources; (iii) Use machine
readable semantics for publications, debate structures, provenance etc. in
order to include the computer as a partner in the scientific process, and (iv)
Build an online platform for collaboration, including a network of trust and
reputation among the different types of stakeholders in the scientific system:
scientists, educators, funding agencies, policy makers, students and industrial
innovators among others. Any such improvements to the scientific system must
support the entire scientific process (unlike current tools that chop up the
scientific process into disconnected pieces), must facilitate and encourage
collaboration and interdisciplinarity (again unlike current tools), must
facilitate the inclusion of intelligent computing in the scientific process,
must facilitate not only the core scientific process, but also accommodate
other stakeholders such science policy makers, industrial innovators, and the
general public.


  In this paper we present a combinatorial proof of the Kronecker--Weber
Theorem for global fields of positive characteristic. The main tools are the
use of Witt vectors and their arithmetic developed by H. L. Schmid. The key
result is to obtain, using counting arguments, how many $p$--cyclic extensions
exist of fixed degree and bounded conductor where only one prime ramifies are
there. We then compare this number with the number of subextensions of
cyclotomic function fields of the same type and verify that these two numbers
are the same.


  This work presents a compositional approach for schedulability analysis of
Distributed Integrated Modular Avionics (DIMA) systems that consist of
spatially distributed ARINC-653 modules connected by a unified AFDX network. We
model a DIMA system as a set of stopwatch automata in UPPAAL to verify its
schedulability by model checking. However, direct model checking is infeasible
due to the large state space. Therefore, we introduce the compositional
analysis that checks each partition including its communication environment
individually. Based on a notion of message interfaces, a number of message
sender automata are built to model the environment for a partition. We define a
timed selection simulation relation, which supports the construction of
composite message interfaces. By using assume-guarantee reasoning, we ensure
that each task meets the deadline and that communication constraints are also
fulfilled globally. The approach is applied to the analysis of a concrete DIMA
system.


  This paper compares three different types of ``onset of chaos'' in the
logistic and generalized logistic map: the Feigenbaum attractor at the end of
the period doubling bifurcations; the tangent bifurcation at the border of the
period three window; the transition to chaos in the generalized logistic with
inflection 1/2 ($x_{n+1} = \mu x_{n}^{1/2}$), in which the main bifurcation
cascade, as well as the bifurcations generated by the periodic windows in the
chaotic region, collapse in a single point. The occupation number and the
Tsallis entropy are studied. The different regimes of convergence to the
attractor, starting from two kinds of far-from-equilibrium initial conditions,
are distinguished by the presence or absence of log-log oscillations, by
different power-law scalings and by a gap in the saturation levels. We show
that the escort distribution implicit in the Tsallis entropy may tune the
log-log oscillations or the crossover times.


  Be stars are rapid rotators surrounded by a gaseous disk envelope whose
origin is still under debate. This envelope is responsible for observed
emission lines and large infrared excess. To progress in the understanding of
the physical processes involved in the disk formation, we estimate the disk
parameters for a sample of Be stars and search for correlations between these
parameters and stellar properties. We performed spectro-interferometric
observations of 26 Be stars in the region of the Br$\gamma$ line to study the
kinematical properties of their disks through the Doppler effect. Observations
were performed at the Paranal observatory with the VLTI/AMBER interferometer.
This instrument provides high spectral and high spatial resolutions. We modeled
18 Be stars with emission in the Br$\gamma$ line. The disk kinematic is
described by a quasi-Keplerian rotation law, with the exception of HD28497 that
presents a one-arm density-wave structure. Using a combined sample, we derived
a mean value for the velocity ratio V/Vc=0.75, and found that rotation axes are
probably randomly distributed in the sky. Disk sizes in the line component
model are in the range of 2-13 stellar radii and do not correlate with the
effective temperature or spectral type. However, we found that the maximum size
of a stable disk correlates with the rotation velocity at the inner part of the
disk and the stellar mass. We found that, on average, the Be stars of our
combined sample do not rotate at their critical velocity. However, the
centrifugal force and mass of the star defines an upper limit size for a stable
disk configuration. For a given rotation, high-mass Be stars tend to have more
compact disks than their low-mass counterparts. It would be interesting to
follow up the evolution of the disk size in variable stars to better understand
the formation and dissipation processes of their circumstellar disks.


  Binding precedents (S\'umulas Vinculantes) constitute a juridical instrument
unique to the Brazilian legal system and whose objectives include the
protection of the Federal Supreme Court against repetitive demands. Studies of
the effectiveness of these instruments in decreasing the Court's exposure to
similar cases, however, indicate that they tend to fail in such a direction,
with some of the binding precedents seemingly creating new demands. We
empirically assess the legal impact of five binding precedents, 11, 14, 17, 26
and 37, at the highest court level through their effects on the legal subjects
they address. This analysis is only possible through the comparison of the
Court's ruling about the precedents' themes before they are created, which
means that these decisions should be detected through techniques of Similar
Case Retrieval. The contributions of this article are therefore twofold: on the
mathematical side, we compare the uses of different methods of Natural Language
Processing -- TF-IDF, LSTM, BERT, and regex -- for Similar Case Retrieval,
whereas on the legal side, we contrast the inefficiency of these binding
precedents with a set of hypotheses that may justify their repeated usage. We
observe that the deep learning models performed significantly worse in the
specific Similar Case Retrieval task and that the reasons for binding
precedents to fail in responding to repetitive demand are heterogeneous and
case-dependent, making it impossible to single out a specific cause.


  We analyze the one-loop effects (strong and electroweak) on the
unconventional top quark decay mode $t\rightarrow H^{+} b$ within the MSSM. The
results are presented in the on-shell renormalization scheme with a physically
well motivated definition of $\tan\beta$. The study of this process at the
quantum level is useful to unravel the potential supersymmetric nature of the
charged Higgs emerging from that decay. As compared with the standard mode
$t\rightarrow W^{+} b$, the corrections to $t\rightarrow H^{+} b$ are large,
slowly decoupling and persist at a sizeable level even for all sparticle masses
well above the LEP 200 discovery range. As a matter of fact, the potential size
of the SUSY effects, which amount to corrections of several ten percent, could
counterbalance the standard QCD corrections and even make them to appear with
the ``wrong'' sign. Therefore, if the charged Higgs decay of the top quark is
kinematically allowed -a possibility which is not excluded by the recent
measurements of the branching ratio $BR(t\rightarrow W^{+} b)$ at the Tevatron
- it could be an invaluable laboratory to search for ``virtual'' supersymmetry.
While a first significant test of these effects could possibly be performed at
the upgraded Tevatron, a more precise verification would most likely be carried
out in future experiments at the LHC.


  The sine-Gordon equation has hyperelliptic al function solutions over a
hyperelliptic Jacobian for $y^2 = f(x)$ of arbitrary genus $g$. This article
gives an extension of the sine-Gordon equation to that over subvarieties of the
hyperelliptic Jacobian.
  We also obtain the condition that the sine-Gordon equation in a proper
subvariety of the Jacobian is defined.


  We introduce Michelson Holography (MH), a holographic display technology that
optimizes image quality for emerging holographic near-eye displays. Using two
spatial light modulators, MH is capable of leveraging destructive interference
to optically cancel out undiffracted light corrupting the observed image. We
calibrate this system using emerging camera-in-the-loop holography techniques
and demonstrate state-of-the-art holographic 2D image quality.


  In this paper, we define the concept of Jacobi forms of half-integral weight
using Takase's automorohic factor of weight 1/2 for a two-fold covering group
of the symplectic group on the Siegel upper half plane and find covariant maps
for the Schroedinger-Weil representation. Using these covariant maps, we
construct Jacobi forms of half-integral weight with respect to an arithmetic
subgroup of the Jacobi group.


  Text generation is a highly active area of research in the computational
linguistic community. The evaluation of the generated text is a challenging
task and multiple theories and metrics have been proposed over the years.
Unfortunately, text generation and evaluation are relatively understudied due
to the scarcity of high-quality resources in code-mixed languages where the
words and phrases from multiple languages are mixed in a single utterance of
text and speech. To address this challenge, we present a corpus (HinGE) for a
widely popular code-mixed language Hinglish (code-mixing of Hindi and English
languages). HinGE has Hinglish sentences generated by humans as well as two
rule-based algorithms corresponding to the parallel Hindi-English sentences. In
addition, we demonstrate the inefficacy of widely-used evaluation metrics on
the code-mixed data. The HinGE dataset will facilitate the progress of natural
language generation research in code-mixed languages.


  We consider the vortex matter in a three-dimensional two-component
superconductor with individually conserved condensates with different bare
phase stiffnesses in a finite magnetic field, such as the projected
superconducting state of liquid metallic hydrogen. The ground state is an
Abrikosov lattice of {\it composite}, i.e. co-centered, vortices in both order
parameters. We investigate quantitatively two novel phase transitions when
temperature is increased at fixed magnetic field. {\it i)} A ``vortex
sub-lattice melting" phase transition where vortices in the field with lowest
phase stiffness ("light vortices") loose co-centricity with the vortices with
large phase stiffness ("heavy vortices"), thus entering a liquid state.
Remarkably, the structure factor of the light vortex sub-lattice vanishes {\it
continuously}. This novel transition, which has no counterpart in one-component
superconductors, is shown to be in the \xy universality class. Across this
transition, the lattice of heavy vortices {\it remains intact}.


  We introduce a stochastic model which describes diffusions of tweets on the
Twitter network. By dividing the followers into generations, we describe the
dynamics of the tweet diffusion as a random multiplicative process. We confirm
our model by directly observing the statistics of the multiplicative factors in
the Twitter data.


  In string theory, nilpotence of the BRS operator $\d$ for the string
functional relates the Chern-Simons term in the gauge-invariant antisymmetric
tensor field strength to the central term in the Kac-Moody algebra. We
generalize these ideas to p-branes with odd p and find that the Kac-Moody
algebra for the string becomes the Mickelsson-Faddeev algebra for the p-brane.


  A $SU(3)_Q \times SU(3)_u \times SU(3)_d$ invariant scalar potential breaking
spontaneously the quark flavour symmetry can explain the standard model flavour
puzzle. The approximate alignment in flavour space of the vacuum expectation
values of the up and down `Yukawa fields' results as a dynamical effect. The
observed quark mixing angles, the weak CP violating phase, and hierarchical
quark masses can be all reproduced at the cost of introducing additional
(auxiliary) scalar multiplets, but without the need of introducing hierarchical
parameters.


  The Trump phenomenon is argued to depart from current populist rise in
Europe. According to a model of opinion dynamics from sociophysics the
machinery of Trump's amazing success obeys well-defined counter-intuitive
rules. Therefore, his success was in principle predictable from the start. The
model uses local majority rule arguments and obeys a threshold dynamics. The
associated tipping points are found to depend on the leading collective
beliefs, cognitive biases and prejudices of the social group which undertakes
the public debate. And here comes the sesame of the Trump campaign, which
develops along two successive steps. During a first moment, Trump's statement
produces a majority of voters against him. But at the same time, according to
the model the shocking character of the statement modifies the prejudice
balance. In case the prejudice is present even being frozen among voters, the
tipping point is lowered at Trump's benefit. Nevertheless, although the tipping
point has been lowered by the activation of frozen prejudices it is
instrumental to preserve enough support from openly prejudiced people to be
above the threshold. Then, as infuriated voters launch intense debate,
occurrence of ties will drive progressively hostile people to shift their
voting intention without needing to endorse the statement which has infuriated
them. The on going debate does drive towards a majority for Trump. The possible
Trump victory at November Presidential election is discussed. In particular,
the model shows that to eventually win the Presidential election, Trump must
not modify his past shocking attitude but to appeal to a different spectrum of
frozen prejudices, which are common to both Democrats and Republicans.


  We present the largest sample to-date of intermediate-resolution blue-to-red
optical spectra of B-type supergiants in M31 and undertake the first survey of
diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) in this galaxy. Spectral classifications,
radial velocities and interstellar reddenings are presented for 34 stars in
three regions of M31. Radial velocities and equivalent widths are given for the
5780 and 6283 DIBs towards 11 stars. Equivalent widths are also presented for
the following DIBs detected in three sightlines in M31: 4428, 5705, 5780, 5797,
6203, 6269, 6283, 6379, 6613, 6660, and 6993. All of these M31 DIB carriers
reside in clouds at radial velocities matching those of interstellar Na I
and/or H I. The relationships between DIB equivalent widths and reddening
(E(B-V)) are consistent with those observed in the local ISM of the Milky Way.
Many of the observed sightlines show DIB strengths (per unit reddening) which
lie at the upper end of the range of Galactic values. DIB strengths per unit
reddening are found (with 68% confidence), to correlate with the interstellar
UV radiation field strength. The strongest DIBs are observed where the
interstellar UV flux is lowest. The mean Spitzer 8/24 micron emission ratio in
our three fields is slightly lower than that measured in the Milky Way, but we
identify no correlation between this ratio and the DIB strengths in M31.
Interstellar oxygen abundances derived from the spectra of three M31 H II
regions in one of the fields indicate that the average metallicity of the ISM
in that region is 12 + log[O/H] = 8.54 +- 0.18, which is approximately equal to
the value in the solar neighbourhood.


  In heterogeneous cellular scenarios with macrocells, femtocells or picocells
users may suffer from significant co-channel cross-tier interference. To manage
this interference 3GPP introduced almost blank subframe (ABSF), a subframe in
which the interferer tier is not allowed to transmit data. Vulnerable users
thus get a chance to be scheduled in ABSFs with reduced cross-tier
interference. We analyze downlink scenarios using stochastic geometry and
formulate a condition for the required number of ABSFs based on base station
placement statistics and user throughput requirement. The result is a
semi-analytical formula that serves as a good initial estimate and offers an
easy way to analyze impact of network parameters. We show that while in
macro/femto scenario the residue ABSF interference can be well managed, in
macro/pico scenario it affects the number of required ABSFs strongly. The
effect of ABSFs is subsequently demonstrated via user throughput simulations.
Especially in the macro/pico scenario, we find that using ABSFs is advantageous
for the system since victim users no longer suffer from poor performance for
the price of relatively small drop in higher throughput percentiles.


  We calculate generating functions for the Poincare polynomials of moduli
spaces of pointed curves of genus zero and of Configuration Spaces of Fulton
and MacPherson. We also prove that contributions of multiple coverings of
curves in a Calabi-Yau threefold calculated via Kontsevich's compactification
coincide with the prediction of Candelas et al., and Aspinwall and Morrison.


  The Bloch point is a point singularity in the magnetisation configuration,
where the magnetisation vanishes. It can exist as an equilibrium configuration
and plays an important role in many magnetisation reversal processes. In the
present work, we focus on manipulating Bloch points in a system that can host
stable Bloch points - a two-layer FeGe nanostrip with opposite chirality of the
two layers. We drive Bloch points using spin-transfer torques and find that
Bloch points can move collectively without any Hall effect and report that
Bloch points are repelled from the sample boundaries and each other. We study
pinning of Bloch points at wedge-shaped constrictions (notches) in the
nanostrip and demonstrate that arrays of Bloch points can be moved past a
series of notches in a controlled manner by applying consecutive current pulses
of different strength. Finally, we simulate a T-shaped geometry and demonstrate
that a Bloch point can be moved along different paths by applying current
between suitable strip ends.


  In a recent paper (Hajdukovic 2020a) quantum vacuum was considered as a
source of gravity and, the simplest phenomenon, the gravitational polarization
of the quantum vacuum by an immersed point-like body, was studied. In the
present paper, we have derived the effective gravitational charge density of
the quantum vacuum, caused by two point-like bodies. Among others, the obtained
result proves that quantum vacuum can have regions with a negative effective
gravitational charge density. Hence, quantum vacuum, the "ocean" in which all
matter of the Universe is immersed, acts as a complex fluid with a very
variable gravitational charge density that might include both positive and
negative densities; a crucial prediction that can be tested within the Solar
System. In general case of N>2 point-like bodies, immersed in the quantum
vacuum, the analytical solutions are not possible, and the use of numerical
methods is inevitable. The key point is that an appropriate numerical method,
for the calculation of the effective gravitational charge of the quantum vacuum
induced by N immersed bodies, might be crucial in description of galaxies,
without the involvement of dark matter or a modification of gravity. The
development of such a valuable numerical method, is not possible, without a
previous (and in this study achieved) understanding of the impact of a two-body
system.


  Andreev bound states (ABS) at the surface of superconductors are expected for
any pair potential showing a sign change in different k-directions with their
spectral weight depending on the relative orientation of the surface and the
pair potential. We report on the observation of ABS in HTS employing tunneling
spectroscopy on bicrystal grain boundary Josephson junctions (GBJs). The
tunneling spectra were studied as a function of temperature and applied
magnetic field. The tunneling spectra of GBJ formed by YBCO, BSCCO, and LSCO
show a pronounced zero bias conductance peak that can be interpreted in terms
of Andreev bound states at zero energy that are expected at the surface of HTS
having a d-wave symmetry of the order parameter. In contrast, for the most
likely s-wave HTS NCCO no zero bias conductance peak was observed. Applying a
magnetic field results in a shift of spectral weight from zero to finite
energy. This shift is found to depend nonlinearly on the applied magnetic
field. Further consequences of the Andreev bound states are discussed and
experimental evidence for anomalous Meissner currents is presented.


  The enhanced oil recovery technique of low-salinity (LS) water flooding is a
topic of substantial interest in the petroleum industry. Studies have shown
that LS brine injection can increase oil production relative to conventional
high-salinity (HS) brine injection, but contradictory results have also been
reported and an understanding of the underlying mechanisms remains elusive. We
have recently developed a steady-state pore network model to simulate oil
recovery by LS brine injection in uniformly wetted pore structures (Watson et
al., Transp. Porous Med. 118, 201-223, 2017). We extend this approach here to
investigate the low-salinity effect (LSE) in heterogeneously wetted media. We
couple a model of capillary force-driven fluid displacement to a novel tracer
algorithm and track the salinity front in the pore network as oil and HS brine
are displaced by injected LS brine. The wettability of the pore structure is
modified in regions where water salinity falls below a critical threshold, and
simulations show that this can have significant consequences for oil recovery.
For networks that contain spanning clusters of both water-wet and oil-wet (OW)
pores prior to flooding, our results demonstrate that the OW pores contain the
only viable source of incremental oil recovery by LS brine injection. Moreover,
we show that a LS-induced increase in microscopic sweep efficiency in the OW
pore fraction is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition to guarantee
additional oil production. Simulations suggest that the fraction of OW pores in
the network, the average network connectivity and the initial HS brine
saturation are key factors that can determine the extent of any improvement in
oil recovery in heterogeneously wetted networks following LS brine injection.
This study highlights that the mechanisms of the LSE can be markedly different
in uniformly wetted and non-uniformly wetted porous media.


  We report on finding variations in amplitude of the two main oscillation
frequencies found in the Be star Achernar, over a period of 5 years. They were
uncovered by analysing photometric data of the star from the SMEI instrument.
The two frequencies observed, 0.775 c/d and 0.725 c/d, were analysed in detail
and their amplitudes were found to increase and decrease significantly over the
5-year period, with the amplitude of the 0.725 c/d frequency changing by up to
a factor of eight. The nature of this event has yet to be properly understood,
but the possibility of it being due to the effects of a stellar outburst or a
stellar cycle are discussed.


  The LSPE is a balloon-borne mission aimed at measuring the polarization of
the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) at large angular scales, and in
particular to constrain the curl component of CMB polarization (B-modes)
produced by tensor perturbations generated during cosmic inflation, in the very
early universe. Its primary target is to improve the limit on the ratio of
tensor to scalar perturbations amplitudes down to r = 0.03, at 99.7%
confidence. A second target is to produce wide maps of foreground polarization
generated in our Galaxy by synchrotron emission and interstellar dust emission.
These will be important to map Galactic magnetic fields and to study the
properties of ionized gas and of diffuse interstellar dust in our Galaxy. The
mission is optimized for large angular scales, with coarse angular resolution
(around 1.5 degrees FWHM), and wide sky coverage (25% of the sky). The payload
will fly in a circumpolar long duration balloon mission during the polar night.
Using the Earth as a giant solar shield, the instrument will spin in azimuth,
observing a large fraction of the northern sky. The payload will host two
instruments. An array of coherent polarimeters using cryogenic HEMT amplifiers
will survey the sky at 43 and 90 GHz. An array of bolometric polarimeters,
using large throughput multi-mode bolometers and rotating Half Wave Plates
(HWP), will survey the same sky region in three bands at 95, 145 and 245 GHz.
The wide frequency coverage will allow optimal control of the polarized
foregrounds, with comparable angular resolution at all frequencies.


  We present the analysis of X-ray spectral varability made on a sample of 7
Seyfert 1 bright galaxies, using XMM-Newton data. From the "XMM-Newton Science
Archive" we selected those bright Seyfert 1 showing one or more prominent
flares in their 2-10 keV light curves. For each of them we extracted spectra in
3 different time intervals: before, during and after the flare. We fitted them
with a simple power law and then shifted a narrow emission and absorption line
template across the 2.5-10 keV data, in order to investigate the presence of
line-like features with a confidence level greater than 99%. Some highly
significant features were detected in 3 out of 7 sources studied. In
particular, the 3 sources, namely PG 1211+143, NGC 4051 and NGC 3783, showed
the presence of a variable emission feature in the 4.5-5.8 keV band,
characterized by an increase of its intensity after the flare peak. Because of
the observed variability pattern, this feature seems to be ascribable to a
reverbered redshifted relativistic component of the Fe K line.


  We present recent next-to-leading order (NLO) results in perturbative QCD
obtained using the BlackHat software library. We discuss the use of n-tuples to
separate the lengthy matrix-element computations from the analysis process. The
use of n-tuples allows many analyses to be carried out on the same phase-space
samples, and also allows experimenters to conduct their own analyses using the
original NLO computation.


  The Canadian Cluster Comparison Project is a comprehensive multi-wavelength
survey targeting 50 massive X-ray selected clusters of galaxies to examine
baryonic tracers of cluster mass and to probe the cluster-to-cluster variation
in the thermal properties of the hot intracluster medium. In this paper we
present the weak lensing masses, based on the analysis of deep wide-field
imaging data obtained using the Canada-France-Hawaii-Telescope. The final
sample includes two additional clusters that were located in the field-of-view.
We take these masses as our reference for the comparison of cluster properties
at other wavelengths. In this paper we limit the comparison to published
measurements of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect. We find that this signal
correlates well with the projected lensing mass, with an intrinsic scatter of
12\pm5% at ~r_2500, demonstrating it is an excellent proxy for cluster mass.


  In order to find a better physical model to describe the large-scale
cloud-water transformation and rainfall, we consider a moist atmosphere model
consisting of the primitive equations with only horizontal viscosity in the
dynamic equation and a set of humidity equations describing water vapor, rain
water and cloud condensates. To overcome difficulties caused by the absence of
vertical viscosity in the dynamic equation, we get the local existence of $v$
in $H^{1}$ space by combining the viscous elimination method and the $z-$weak
solution method and using the generalized Bihari-Lasalle inequality. And then,
we get the global existence of $v$ under higher regularity assumption of
initial data. In turn, the existence of quasi-strong and strong solutions to
the whole system is obtained. By introducing two new unknown quantities
appropriately and utilizing the monotone operator theory to overcome
difficulties caused by the Heaviside function in the source terms, we get the
uniqueness of solutions.


  Defect lines in conformal field theory can be perturbed by chiral defect
fields. If the unperturbed defects satisfy su(2)-type fusion rules, the
operators associated to the perturbed defects are shown to obey functional
relations known from the study of integrable models as T-systems. The procedure
is illustrated for Virasoro minimal models and for Liouville theory.


  Accurate, timely and selective detection of moving obstacles is crucial for
reliable collision avoidance in autonomous robots. The area- and
energy-inefficiency of CMOS-based spiking neurons for obstacle detection can be
addressed through the reconfigurable, tunable and low-power operation
capabilities of emerging two-dimensional (2D) materials-based devices. We
present an ultra-low power spiking neuron built using an electrostatically
tuned dual-gate transistor with an ultra-thin and generic 2D material channel.
The 2D subthreshold transistor (2D-ST) is carefully designed to operate under
low-current subthreshold regime. Carrier transport has been modelled via
over-the-barrier thermionic and Fowler-Nordheim contact barrier tunnelling
currents over a wide range of gate and drain biases. Simulation of a neuron
circuit designed using the 2D-ST with 45 nm CMOS technology components shows
high energy efficiency of ~3.5 pJ/spike and biomimetic class-I as well as
oscillatory spiking. It also demonstrates complex neuronal behaviors such as
spike-frequency adaptation and post-inhibitory rebound that are crucial for
dynamic visual systems. Lobula giant movement detector (LGMD) is a
collision-detecting biological neuron found in locusts. Our neuron circuit can
generate LGMD-like spiking behavior and detect obstacles at an energy cost of
<100 pJ. Further, it can be reconfigured to distinguish between looming and
receding objects with high selectivity.


  Empirical evidence suggests that neural networks with ReLU activations
generalize better with over-parameterization. However, there is currently no
theoretical analysis that explains this observation. In this work, we provide
theoretical and empirical evidence that, in certain cases, overparameterized
convolutional networks generalize better than small networks because of an
interplay between weight clustering and feature exploration at initialization.
We demonstrate this theoretically for a 3-layer convolutional neural network
with max-pooling, in a novel setting which extends the XOR problem. We show
that this interplay implies that with overparamterization, gradient descent
converges to global minima with better generalization performance compared to
global minima of small networks. Empirically, we demonstrate these phenomena
for a 3-layer convolutional neural network in the MNIST task.


  A flux formulation of Double Field Theory on group manifold is derived and
applied to study generalized Scherk-Schwarz compactifications, which give rise
to a bosonic subsector of half-maximal, electrically gauged supergravities. In
contrast to the flux formulation of original DFT, the covariant fluxes split
into a fluctuation and a background part. The latter is connected to a
$2D$-dimensional, pseudo Riemannian manifold, which is isomorphic to a Lie
group embedded into O($D,D$). All fields and parameters of generalized
diffeomorphisms are supported on this manifold, whose metric is spanned by the
background vielbein $E_A{}^I \in$ GL($2D$). This vielbein takes the role of the
twist in conventional generalized Scherk-Schwarz compactifications. By doing
so, it solves the long standing problem of constructing an appropriate twist
for each solution of the embedding tensor. Using the geometric structure,
absent in original DFT, $E_A{}^I$ is identified with the left invariant
Maurer-Cartan form on the group manifold, in the same way as it is done in
geometric Scherk-Schwarz reductions. We show in detail how the Maurer-Cartan
form for semisimple and solvable Lie groups is constructed starting from the
Lie algebra. For all compact embeddings in O($3,3$), we calculate $E_A{}^I$.


  We discuss a model comprised of a chain of three Kerr-like nonlinear
oscillators pumped by two modes of external coherent field. We show that the
system can be treated as nonlinear quantum scissors and behave as a three-qubit
model. For such situation, different types of tripartite entangled states can
be generated, even when damping effects are present in the system. Some amount
of such entanglement can survive even in a long-time limit. The flow of
bipartite entanglement between subsystems of the model and relations among
first-order correlations, second-order correlations, and the entanglement are
discussed.


  We discuss an exact relation between the two-particle scattering amplitude
and the Bethe-Salpeter (BS) wave function inside the interaction range in
quantum field theory. In the relation the reduced BS wave function defined by
the BS wave function plays an essential role. Through the relation the on-shell
and half off-shell amplitudes can be calculated. We also show that the solution
of Schr\"odinger equation with the effective potential determined from the BS
wave function gives a correct on-shell scattering amplitude only at the
momentum where the effective potential is determined. Furthermore we discuss a
derivative expansion of the reduced BS wave function and a condition to obtain
results independent of the interpolating operators in the time-dependent HALQCD
method.


  In the development of quantum technologies, a reliable means for
characterizing quantum devices is crucial. However, the conventional approach
based on, e.g., quantum state tomography or process tomography relies on
assumptions often not necessarily justifiable in a realistic experimental
setting. While the device-independent approach to this problem bypasses the
shortcomings above by making only minimal, justifiable assumptions, most of the
theoretical proposals to date only work in the idealized setting where i.i.d.
trials are assumed. Here, we provide a versatile solution for rigorous
device-independent certification that does not rely on the i.i.d. assumption.
Specifically, we describe how the prediction-based-ratio (PBR) protocol and
martingale-based protocol developed for hypothesis testing can be applied in
the present context to achieve a device-independent certification of desirable
properties with confidence interval. To illustrate the versatility of these
methods, we demonstrate how we can use them to certify, with finite data, the
underlying negativity, Hilbert space dimension, entanglement depth, and
fidelity to some target pure state. In particular, we give examples showing how
the amount of certifiable negativity and fidelity scales with the number of
trials, and how many experimental trials one needs to certify a qutrit state
space, or the presence of genuine tripartite entanglement. Overall, we have
found that the PBR protocol and the martingale-based protocol often offer
similar performance, even though the former does have to presuppose any
witness. In contrast, our findings also show that the performance of the
martingale-based protocol may be severely affected by one's choice of the
witness. Intriguingly, a witness useful for self-testing does not necessarily
give the optimal confidence-gain rate for certifying the fidelity to the
corresponding target state.


  The effect of solar rotation on the proton-alpha differential flow speed,
$v_{\alpha p}$, and consequently on the angular momentum transport in the solar
wind, is explored. It is found that the force introduced by the azimuthal
components plays an important role in the force balance in interplanetary
space, bringing the radial flow speeds of the species considered closer to each
other. For the fast solar wind, the model cannot account for the decrease of
$v_{\alpha p}$ observed by Helios between 0.3 and 1 AU. However, it can
reproduce the profile of $v_{\alpha p}$ measured by Ulysses beyond 2 AU, if the
right value for $v_{\alpha p}$ is imposed at that distance. In the slow solar
wind, the effect of solar rotation is more pronounced if one starts with the
value measured by Helios at 0.3 AU. In this case, solar rotation introduces a
relative change of 10-16% in the radial flow speed of the alpha particles
between 1 and 4 AU. The model calculations also show that, although alpha
particles consume only a small fraction of the energy and linear momentum
fluxes of protons, they cannot be neglected when considering the proton angular
momentum flux ${\cal L}_p$. In most examples, it is found that ${\cal L}_p$ is
determined by $v_{\alpha p}$ for both the fast and the slow wind. In the slow
solar wind, it is also found that the proton and alpha angular momentum fluxes
${\cal L}_p$ and ${\cal L}_\alpha$ can be several times larger in magnitude
than the flux carried by the magnetic stresses ${\cal L}_M$. While the sum of
the angular momentum fluxes ${\cal L}_P={\cal L}_p+{\cal L}_\alpha$ of both
species is found to be smaller than the magnetic stress ${\cal L}_M$, for the
fast and slow wind alike, this result is at variance with the Helios
measurements.


  This volume contains the proceedings of the 17th International Workshop on
Expressiveness in Concurrency (EXPRESS'10), which took place on 30th August
2010 in Paris, co-located with CONCUR'10. The EXPRESS workshop series aim at
bringing together researchers who are interested in the expressiveness and
comparison of formal models that broadly relate to concurrency. In particular,
this also includes emergent fields such as logic and interaction,
game-theoretic models, and service-oriented computing.


  The recent experiment on superconducting quantum interference device provides
new opportunity to clarify the fundamental interpretation of quantum mechanics.
After analyzing this and relevant experiments, we claim the point of view that
the quantum state in abstract sense contains no information and the wave
function is the probability amplitude of fictitious measurement corresponding
to the real one which is prepared to be done by the observer. Talking about the
quantum state or wave function too materialized in ordinary language would
often cause misunderstanding. So basically, the Schr\"odinger's cat paradox is
over.


  Researchers developed chromosome capture methods such as Hi-C to better
understand DNA's 3D folding in nuclei. The Hi-C method captures contact
frequencies between DNA segment pairs across the genome. When analyzing Hi-C
data sets, it is common to group these pairs using standard bioinformatics
methods (e.g., PCA). Other approaches handle Hi-C data as weighted networks,
where connected node represent DNA segments in 3D proximity. In this
representation, one can leverage community detection techniques developed in
complex network theory to group nodes into mesoscale communities containing
similar connection patterns. While there are several successful attempts to
analyze Hi-C data in this way, it is common to report and study the most
typical community structure. But in reality, there are often several valid
candidates. Therefore, depending on algorithm design, different community
detection methods focusing on slightly different connectivity features may have
differing views on the ideal node groupings. In fact, even the same community
detection method may yield different results if using a stochastic algorithm.
This ambiguity is fundamental to community detection and shared by most complex
networks whenever interactions span all scales in the network. This is known as
community inconsistency. This paper explores this inconsistency of 3D
communities in Hi-C data for all human chromosomes. We base our analysis on two
inconsistency metrics, one local and one global, and quantify the network
scales where the community separation is most variable. For example, we find
that TADs are less reliable than A/B compartments and that nodes with highly
variable node-community memberships are associated with open chromatin.
Overall, our study provides a helpful framework for data-driven researchers and
increases awareness of some inherent challenges when clustering Hi-C data into
3D communities.


  We confirm the claim of Ref. [D.R. Phillips, C. Schat, Phys. Rev. C88 (2013)
3, 034002] that 20 operators are sufficient to represent the most general local
isospin-invariant three-nucleon force and derive explicit relations between the
two sets of operators suggested in Refs. [D.R. Phillips, C. Schat, Phys. Rev.
C88 (2013) 3, 034002] and [H. Krebs, A.M. Gasparyan, E. Epelbaum, Phys.Rev. C87
(2013) 5, 054007]. We use the set of 20 operators to discuss the chiral
expansion of the long- and intermediate-range parts of the three-nucleon force
up to next-to-next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order in the standard formulation
without explicit Delta(1232) degrees of freedom. We also address implications
of the large-N_c expansion in QCD for the size of the various three-nucleon
force contributions.


  This expository note illustrates toric perturbation and biased pairing theory
to show that Artinian reductions of face rings of $2$-spheres that do not
satisfy the Lefschetz property can be cut along a flat equator. This
complements classical work of Bricard and Connelly, and exhibits a fundamental
symmetry in non-rigid triangulations of spheres.


  Arrangement of interacting particles on a sphere is historically a well known
problem, however, ordering of particles with anisotropic interaction, such as
the dipole-dipole interaction, has remained unexplored. We solve the
orientational ordering of point dipoles on a sphere with fixed positional order
with numerical minimization of interaction energy and analyze stable
configurations depending on their symmetry and degree of ordering. We find that
a macrovortex is a generic ground state, with various discrete rotational
symmetries for different system sizes, while higher energy metastable states
are similar, but less ordered. We observe orientational phase transitions and
hysteresis in response to changing external field both for the fixed sphere
orientation with respect the field, as well as for a freely-rotating sphere.
For the case of a freely rotating sphere, we also observe changes of the
symmetry axis with increasing field strength.


  The effect of proportional electroluminescence (EL) is used to record the
primary ionization signal (S2) in the gas phase of two-phase argon detectors
for dark matter particle (WIMP) searches and low-energy neutrino experiments.
Our previous studies of EL time properties revealed the presence of two unusual
slow components in S2 signal of two-phase argon detector, with time constants
of about 4-5 $\mu$s and 50 $\mu$s. The puzzle of slow components is that their
time constants and contributions to the overall signal increase with electric
field (starting from a certain threshold), which cannot be explained by any of
the known mechanisms of photon and electron emission in two-phase media. There
are indications that these slow components result from delayed electrons,
temporarily trapped during their drift in the EL gap on metastable negative
argon ions of yet unknown nature. In this work, this hypothesis is confirmed by
studying the time properties of electroluminescence in a Thick Gas Electron
Multiplier (THGEM) coupled to the EL gap of two-phase argon detector. In
particular, an unusual slow component in EL signal, similar to that observed in
the EL gap, was observed in THGEM itself. In addition, with the help of THGEM
operated in electron multiplication mode, the slow component was observed
directly in the charge signal, confirming the effect of trapped electrons in S2
signal. These results will help to unravel the puzzle of slow components in
two-phase argon detectors and thus to understand the background in low-mass
WIMP searches.