  The light elements up to 7Li were produced by the Standard Big Bang
nucleosynthesis (SBBN) in the early universe assuming standard conditions. All
observed primordial abundances of these light elements match very well the
predicted ones by this SBBN except for 7Li which seems to be overproduced. It
is rather challenging to resolve this discrepancy owing to the diverse
possibilities affecting the abundance of lithium. In the present work we focus
on non-standard possible solutions such as variation of chemical potential and
the neutrino temperatures. In addition, the effect of dark matter is also
analysed. We find that including these non-standard assumptions helps to reduce
the abundance of lithium as predicted by SBBN. We suggest that this could be a
possible step toward resolving the lithium problem.


  Quantum sensors have attracted broad interest in the quest towards
sub-micronscale NMR spectroscopy. Such sensors predominantly operate at low
magnetic fields. Instead, however, for high resolution spectroscopy, the
high-field regime is naturally advantageous because it allows high absolute
chemical shift discrimination. Here we propose and demonstrate a high-field
spin magnetometer constructed from an ensemble of hyperpolarized ${}^{13}C$
nuclear spins in diamond. The ${}^{13}C$ nuclei are initialized via Nitrogen
Vacancy (NV) centers and protected along a transverse Bloch sphere axis for
minute-long periods. When exposed to a time-varying (AC) magnetic field, they
undergo secondary precessions that carry an imprint of its frequency and
amplitude. The method harnesses long rotating frame ${}^{13}C$ sensor lifetimes
$T_2^{\prime}{>}$20s, and their ability to be continuously interrogated. For
quantum sensing at 7T and a single crystal sample, we demonstrate spectral
resolution better than 100 mHz (corresponding to a frequency precision
${<}$1ppm) and single-shot sensitivity better than 70pT. We discuss the
advantages of nuclear spin magnetometers over conventional NV center sensors,
including deployability in randomly-oriented diamond particles and in optically
scattering media. Since our technique employs densely-packed ${}^{13}C$ nuclei
as sensors, it demonstrates a new approach for magnetometry in the
"coupled-sensor" limit. This work points to interesting opportunities for
microscale NMR chemical sensors constructed from hyperpolarized nanodiamonds
and suggests applications of dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) in quantum
sensing.


  We present a study of Bianchi class A tilted cosmological models admitting a
proper homothetic vector field together with the restrictions, both at the
geometrical and dynamical level, imposed by the existence of the simply
transitive similarity group. The general solution of the symmetry equations and
the form of the homothetic vector field are given in terms of a set of
arbitrary integration constants. We apply the geometrical results for tilted
perfect fluids sources and give the general Bianchi II self-similar solution
and the form of the similarity vector field. In addition we show that
self-similar perfect fluid Bianchi VII$_0$ models and irrotational Bianchi
VI$_0$ models do not exist.


  We compute non-perturbative gluon spectral functions at finite temperature in
quenched QCD with the maximum entropy method. We also provide a closed loop
equation for the spectral function of the energy-momentum tensor in terms of
the gluon spectral function. This setup is then used for computing the shear
viscosity over entropy ratio $\eta/s$ in a temperature range from about $0.4\,
T_c$ to $4.5\, T_c$. The ratio $\eta /s$ has a minimum at about $1.25\, T_c$
with the value of about 0.115. We also discuss extensions of the present
results to QCD.


  Gamma-ray burst (GRB) observations at very high energies (VHE, E > 100 GeV)
can impose tight constraints on some GRB emission models. Many GRB afterglow
models predict a VHE component similar to that seen in blazars and plerions, in
which the GRB spectral energy distribution has a double-peaked shape extending
into the VHE regime. VHE emission coincident with delayed X-ray flare emission
has also been predicted. GRB follow-up observations have had high priority in
the observing program at the Whipple 10m Gamma-ray Telescope and GRBs will
continue to be high priority targets as the next generation observatory,
VERITAS, comes on-line. Upper limits on the VHE emission, at late times (>~4
hours), from seven GRBs observed with the Whipple Telescope are reported here.


  In this note, the tertiary particle yield from secondary targets of different
materials placed at the 'filter' position of the H2 beam line of SPS North Area
are presented. The production is studied for secondary beams of different
momenta in the range of 50-250 GeV/c. More specifically, we studied six
different targets: two copper cylinders with a radius of 40 mm and lengths of
100 and 300 mm, one solid tungsten cylinder with a radius of 40 mm and a length
of 150 mm and three polyethylene cylinders with radius of 40 mm and lengths of
550, 700 and 1000 mm. Eight different momenta of the secondary beam (50, 60,
70, 100, 120, 150, 200 and 250 GeV/c) as well as two different physics lists
(QGSP_BIC and FTFP_BERT) have been extensively studied. The purpose of this
study is (a) to optimize (using the appropriate filter target) the particle
production from the secondary targets as demanded by the experiments (b)
investigate the proton production (with respect to the pion production) in the
produced tertiary beams, a fact interesting for cross-section measuring
experiments (e.g. NA61), (c) provide an expected beam-composition database for
each target and energy that will act as a reference for the test-beam users of
the North Area and (d) demonstrate the differences between the different
GEANT-4 physics lists. Moreover this work constitutes a starting point for a
more detailed benchmark of the different available Monte-Carlo models and codes
in this momentum range.


  In this paper we initiate a new approach to studying approximations by
rational points to points on smooth submanifolds of $\mathbb{R}^n$. Our main
result is a convergence Khintchine type theorem for arbitrary nondegenerate
submanifolds of $\mathbb{R}^n$, which resolves a longstanding problem in the
theory of Diophantine approximation. Furthermore, we refine this result using
Hausdorff $s$-measures and consequently obtain the exact value of the Hausdorff
dimension of $\tau$-well approximable points lying on any nondegenerate
submanifold for a range of Diophantine exponents $\tau$ close to $1/n$. Our
approach uses geometric and dynamical ideas together with a new technique of
`generic and special parts'. In particular, we establish sharp upper bounds for
the number of rational points of bounded height lying near the generic part of
a non-degenerate manifold. In turn, we give an explicit exponentially small
bound for the measure of the special part of the manifold. The latter uses a
result of Bernik, Kleinbock and Margulis.


  We show that every limit point of a Zariski dense discrete subgroup $\Gamma$
of the isometry group of a symmetric space of noncompact type is conical if and
only if $\Gamma$ is convex cocompact.


  The field of deep-learning-based ECG analysis has been largely dominated by
convolutional architectures. This work explores the prospects of applying the
recently introduced structured state space models (SSMs) as a particularly
promising approach due to its ability to capture long-term dependencies in time
series. We demonstrate that this approach leads to significant improvements
over the current state-of-the-art for ECG classification, which we trace back
to individual pathologies. Furthermore, the model's ability to capture
long-term dependencies allows to shed light on long-standing questions in the
literature such as the optimal sampling rate or window size to train
classification models. Interestingly, we find no evidence for using data
sampled at 500Hz as opposed to 100Hz and no advantages from extending the
model's input size beyond 3s. Based on this very promising first assessment,
SSMs could develop into a new modeling paradigm for ECG analysis.


  We present the first experimental investigation of modulational instability
in a layered Kerr medium. The particularly interesting and appealing feature of
our configuration, consisting of alternating glass-air layers, is the
piecewise-constant nature of the material properties, which allows a
theoretical linear stability analysis leading to a Kronig-Penney equation whose
forbidden bands correspond to the modulationally unstable regimes. We find very
good {\it quantitative} agreement between theoretical, numerical, and
experimental diagnostics of the modulational instability. Because of the
periodicity in the evolution variable arising from the layered medium, there
are multiple instability regions rather than just one as in the uniform medium.


  The allure of emerging AI technologies is undoubtedly thrilling. However, the
promise that AI technologies will benefit all of humanity is empty so long as
we lack a nuanced understanding of what humanity is supposed to be in the face
of widening global inequality and pressing existential threats. Going forward,
it is crucial to invest in rigorous and collaborative AI safety and ethics
research. We also need to develop standards in a sustainable and equitable way
that differentiate between merely speculative and well-researched questions.
Only the latter enable us to co-construct and deploy the values that are
necessary for creating beneficial AI. Failure to do so could result in a future
in which our AI technological advancements outstrip our ability to navigate
their ethical and social implications. This path we do not want to go down.


  We develop a model of globular cluster (GC) formation within the cosmological
hierarchy of structure formation. The model is rooted in the `two-phase'
scenario of galaxy formation developed in Paper-I, where the fast accretion of
dark matter halos at high redshift leads to the formation of self-gravitating,
turbulent gas clouds that subsequently fragment into dynamically hot systems of
dense sub-clouds with masses $\sim 10^6$-$10^7 M_\odot$. Here we elaborate on
the formation, evolution, and fate of these sub-clouds, and show that some of
the sub-clouds can be compactified via two distinctive channels into a
'supernova-free' regime to form two distinct populations of GCs. The model is
simple, characterized by a small number of free parameters underpinned by
physical considerations, and can be efficiently implemented into cosmological
N-body simulations to generate a coherent sample of halos, galaxies, and GCs.
Our model can reproduce a range of observations on GCs, including the mass
function, the size-mass relation, the frequency per unit host galaxy/halo mass,
the bimodal metallicity distribution, and the spatial profile. Predictions for
GCs are made for both the local Universe and for redshift up to $z \approx 10$,
and can be tested by upcoming observations.


  We demonstrate that a measurement of the impact parameter in one-prong tau
decay can be useful for the determination of the Higgs boson parity in the H/A
--> tau tau; tau --> rho nu decay chain. We have estimated that for a detection
set-up such as TESLA, use of the information from the tau impact parameter can
improve the significance of the measurement of the parity of the Standard Model
120 GeV Higgs boson to 4.5 sigma, and in general by factor of about 1.5 with
respect to the method where this information is not used.
  We also show that the variation in the assumption on the precision of the
measurement of the impact parameter and/or pi's momenta does not affect the
sensitivity of the method. This is because the method remains limited by the
type of twofold ambiguity in reconstructing the tau momentum.


  We develop the formalism that incorporates quantum anomalies in the effective
field theory of non-dissipative fluids. We consider the effect of adding a
Wess-Zumino-like term to the low-energy effective action to account for
anomalies. In this paper we restrict to two spacetime dimensions. We find
modifications to the constitutive relations for the current and the
stress-energy tensor, and, more interestingly, half a new propagating mode
(one-and-a-halfth sound): a left- or right-moving wave with propagation speed
that goes to zero with the anomaly coefficient. Unlike for the chiral magnetic
wave in four dimensions, this mode propagates even in the absence of external
fields. We check our results against a more standard, purely hydrodynamical
derivation. Unitarity of the effective field theory suggests an upper bound on
the anomaly coefficient in hydrodynamics.


  We present near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy for 37 BzK-color-selected
star-forming galaxies with MOIRCS on Subaru. The sample is drawn from the
Ks-band selected catalog of the MOIRCS Deep Survey (MODS) in the GOODS-N
region. About half of our samples are selected from the MIPS 24um-source
catalog. Ha emission lines are detected from 23 galaxies, of which the median
redshift is 2.12. We derived the star formation rates (SFRs) from
extinction-corrected Ha luminosities. The extinction correction is estimated
from the SED fitting of multi-band photometric data covering UV to NIR
wavelengths. The Balmer decrement of the stacked emission lines shows that the
amount of extinction for the ionized gas is larger than that for the stellar
continuum. From a comparison of the extinction corrected Ha luminosity and
other SFR indicators we found that the relation between the dust properties of
stellar continuum and ionized gas is different depending on the intrinsic SFR.
The comparison between the Ha SFR and stellar mass estimated from SED fitting
shows no correlation between them. Some galaxies with stellar mass smaller than
~10^10 Msun show SFRs higher than ~100 Msun/yr. The specific SFRs (SSFRs) of
these galaxies are remarkably high. The average stellar-population age of these
high-SSFR galaxies is younger than 100 Myr, which is consistent with the
implied high SSFR. The large SFR implies the possibility that the high SSFR
galaxies significantly contribute to the cosmic SFR density of the universe at
z~2. The total SFR density estimated from the Ha emission line galaxies is
0.089-0.136 Msun/yr/Mpc^3, which is consistent with the total SFR densities in
the literature. The metallicity of the high-SSFR galaxies is larger than that
expected from the mass-metallicity relation of UV-selected galaxies at z~2 by
Erb et al. (2006a). [Abridged]


  This paper focuses on the study of a practical management problem faced by a
healthcare {\it emergency department} (ED) located in the north of Italy. The
objective of our study was to propose organisational changes in the selected
ED, which admits approximately 7000 patients per month, aiming at improving key
performance indicators related to patient satisfaction, such as the waiting
time. Our study is based on a design thinking process that adopts a {\it
discrete event simulation} (DES) model as the main tool for proposing changes.
We used the DES model to propose and evaluate the impact of different improving
scenarios. The model is based on historical data, on the observation of the
current ED situation, and information obtained from the ED staff. The results
obtained by the DES model have been compared with those related to the existing
ED setting, and then validated by the ED managers. Based on the results we
obtained, one of the tested scenarios was selected by the ED for
implementation.


  In recent years, large language models have been responsible for great
advances in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). ChatGPT in particular,
an AI chatbot developed and recently released by OpenAI, has taken the field to
the next level. The conversational model is able not only to process human-like
text, but also to translate natural language into code. However, the safety of
programs generated by ChatGPT should not be overlooked. In this paper, we
perform an experiment to address this issue. Specifically, we ask ChatGPT to
generate a number of program and evaluate the security of the resulting source
code. We further investigate whether ChatGPT can be prodded to improve the
security by appropriate prompts, and discuss the ethical aspects of using AI to
generate code. Results suggest that ChatGPT is aware of potential
vulnerabilities, but nonetheless often generates source code that are not
robust to certain attacks.


  We study existence, uniqueness, and optimal regularity of solutions to
transmission problems for harmonic functions with $C^{1,\alpha}$ interfaces.
For this, we develop a novel geometric stability argument based on the mean
value property.


  We analyze nonnegative solutions of the nonlinear elliptic problem $\Delta
u=\frac{\lambda f(x)}{u^2}+P$, where $\lambda>0$ and $P\geq0$, on a bounded
domain $\Omega$ of $\mathbb{R}^N$ ($N\geq 1$) with a Dirichlet boundary
condition. This equation models an electrostatic--elastic membrane system with
an external pressure $P\geq 0$, where $\lambda >0$ denotes the applied voltage.
First, we completely address the existence and nonexistence of positive
solutions. The classification of all possible singularities at $|x|=0$ for
nonnegative solutions $u(x)$ satisfying $u(0)=0$ is then analyzed for the
special case where $\Omega=B_1(0)\subset \mathbb{R}^2$ and $f(x)=|x|^{\alpha}$
with $\alpha \geq0$. In particular, we show that for some $\alpha,$ $u(x)$
admits only the "isotropic" singularity at $|x|=0$, and otherwise $u(x)$ may
admit the "anisotropic" singularity at $|x|=0$. When $u(x)$ admits the
"isotropic" singularity at $|x|=0$, the refined singularity of $u(x)$ at
$|x|=0$ is further investigated, depending on whether $P>0$, by applying
Fourier analysis.


  Multichannel frequency estimation with incomplete data and miscellaneous
noises arises in array signal processing, modal analysis, wireless
communications, and so on. In this paper, we consider maximum-likelihood(-like)
optimization methods for frequency estimation in which proper objective
functions are adopted subject to observed data patterns and noise types. We
propose a universal signal-domain approach to solve the optimization problems
by embedding the noiseless multichannel signal of interest into a series of
low-rank positive-semidefinite block matrices of Hankel and Toeplitz
submatrices and formulating the original parameter-domain optimization problems
as equivalent structured matrix recovery problems. The alternating direction
method of multipliers (ADMM) is applied to solve the resulting matrix recovery
problems in which both subproblems of ADMM are solved in (nearly) closed form.
The proposed approach is termed as structured matrix embedding and recovery
(StruMER). Extensive numerical simulations are provided to demonstrate that
StruMER has improved threshold performances in various challenging scenarios,
e.g., limited data, low signal-to-noise ratio, impulsive noise, and closely
spaced frequencies, as compared with state-of-the-art methods.


  Tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) are considered as a valuable
prognostic markers in both triple-negative and human epidermal growth factor
receptor 2 (HER2) positive breast cancer. In this study, we introduce an
innovative deep learning pipeline based on the Efficient-UNet architecture to
predict the TILs score for breast cancer whole-slide images (WSIs). We first
segment tumour and stromal regions in order to compute a tumour bulk mask. We
then detect TILs within the tumour-associated stroma, generating a TILs score
by closely mirroring the pathologist's workflow. Our method exhibits
state-of-the-art performance in segmenting tumour/stroma areas and TILs
detection, as demonstrated by internal cross-validation on the TiGER Challenge
training dataset and evaluation on the final leaderboards. Additionally, our
TILs score proves competitive in predicting survival outcomes within the same
challenge, underscoring the clinical relevance and potential of our automated
TILs scoring pipeline as a breast cancer prognostic tool.


  We introduce a new RL problem where the agent is required to generalize to a
previously-unseen environment characterized by a subtask graph which describes
a set of subtasks and their dependencies. Unlike existing hierarchical
multitask RL approaches that explicitly describe what the agent should do at a
high level, our problem only describes properties of subtasks and relationships
among them, which requires the agent to perform complex reasoning to find the
optimal subtask to execute. To solve this problem, we propose a neural subtask
graph solver (NSGS) which encodes the subtask graph using a recursive neural
network embedding. To overcome the difficulty of training, we propose a novel
non-parametric gradient-based policy, graph reward propagation, to pre-train
our NSGS agent and further finetune it through actor-critic method. The
experimental results on two 2D visual domains show that our agent can perform
complex reasoning to find a near-optimal way of executing the subtask graph and
generalize well to the unseen subtask graphs. In addition, we compare our agent
with a Monte-Carlo tree search (MCTS) method showing that our method is much
more efficient than MCTS, and the performance of NSGS can be further improved
by combining it with MCTS.


  We define a family of star products and involutions associated with
$\kappa$-Minkowski space. Applying corresponding quantization maps we show that
these star products restricted to a certain space of Schwartz functions have
isomorphic Banach algebra completions. For two particular star products it is
demonstrated that they can be extended to a class of polynomially bounded
smooth functions allowing a realization of the full Hopf algebra structure on
$\kappa$-Minkowski space. Furthermore, we give an explicit realization of the
action of the $\kappa$-Poincar\'e algebra as an involutive Hopf algebra on this
representation of $\kappa$-Minkowski space and initiate a study of its
properties.


  In this dissertation, we concentrate on the challenging research issue of
developing a spline-based modeling framework, which converts the conventional
data (e.g., surface meshes) to tensor-product trivariate splines. This
methodology can represent both boundary/volumetric geometry and real volumetric
physical attributes in a compact and continuous fashion. The regular
tensor-product structure enables our new developed methods to be embedded into
the industry standard seamlessly. These properties make our techniques highly
preferable in many physically-based applications including mechanical analysis,
shape deformation and editing, virtual surgery training, etc.


  We consider the problem of parameterizing Newman-type models of Li-ion
batteries focusing on quantifying the inherent uncertainty of this process and
its dependence on the discharge rate. In order to rule out genuine experimental
error and instead isolate the intrinsic uncertainty of model fitting, we
concentrate on an idealized setting where "synthetic" measurements in the form
of voltage curves are manufactured using the full, and most accurate, Newman
model with parameter values considered "true", whereas parameterization is
performed using simplified versions of the model, namely, the single-particle
model and its recently proposed corrected version. By framing the problem in
this way, we are able to eliminate aspects which affect uncertainty, but are
hard to quantity such as, e.g., experimental errors. The parameterization is
performed by formulating an inverse problem which is solved using a
state-of-the-art Bayesian approach in which the parameters to be inferred are
represented in terms of suitable probability distributions; this allows us to
assess the uncertainty of their reconstruction. The key finding is that while
at slow discharge rates the voltage curves can be reconstructed quite
accurately, this can be achieved with some parameter varying by 300\% or more,
thus providing evidence for very high uncertainty of the parameter inference
process. As the discharge rate increases, the reconstruction uncertainty is
reduced but at the same time the fits to the voltage curves becomes less
accurate. These observations highlight the ill-posedness of the inverse problem
of parameter reconstruction in models of Li-ion battery operation.In practice,
using simplified model appears to be a viable and useful strategy provided that
the assumptions facilitating the model simplification are truly valid for the
battery operating regimes in which the data was collected.


  In recent years the amount of secure information being stored on mobile
devices has grown exponentially. However, current security schemas for mobile
devices such as physiological biometrics and passwords are not secure enough to
protect this information. Behavioral biometrics have been heavily researched as
a possible solution to this security deficiency for mobile devices. This study
aims to contribute to this innovative research by evaluating the performance of
a multimodal behavioral biometric based user authentication scheme using touch
dynamics and phone movement. This study uses a fusion of two popular publicly
available datasets the Hand Movement Orientation and Grasp dataset and the
BioIdent dataset. This study evaluates our model performance using three common
machine learning algorithms which are Random Forest Support Vector Machine and
K-Nearest Neighbor reaching accuracy rates as high as 82% with each algorithm
performing respectively for all success metrics reported.


  If $M$ is an $R$-module, we study the submodules $K\leq M$ with the property
that $K$ is invariant with respect to all monomorphisms $K\rightarrow M$. Such
submodules are called \textsl{strictly invariant}. For the case of $%
\mathbb{Z}$-modules (i.e. Abelian groups) we prove that in many situations
these submodules are invariant with respect to all homomorphisms $%
K\rightarrow M$, submodules which were called \textsl{strongly invariant}.


  We consider equitorsion second type almost geodesic mappings of a
non-symmetric affine connection space in this article. Using different
computational methods, we obtained some invariants of these mappings. Last
generalized Thomas projective parameter and Weyl projective tensor as
invariants of a second type almost geodesic mapping of a non-symmetric affine
connection space are further generalized here.


  In this paper, for evolutionary Faddeev model corresponding to maps from the
Minkowski space $\mathbb{R}^{1+n}$ to the unit sphere $\mathbb{S}^2$, we show
the global nonlinear stability of geodesic solutions, which are a kind of
nontrivial and large solutions.


  We study Le Potier's strange duality conjecture on $\mathbb{P}^2$. We show
the conjecture is true for the pair ($W(2,0,2),~M(d,0)$) with $d>0$, where
$W(2,0,2)$ is the moduli space of semistable sheaves of rank 2, zero first
Chern class and second Chern class 2, and $M(d,0)$ is the moduli space of
1-dimensional semistable sheaves of first Chern class $dH$ and Euler
characteristic 0.


  In this paper, we find all possible asymptotic behaviours of the solutions of
the second Painlev\'e equation $y''=2y^3+xy +\alpha$ as the parameter
$\alpha\to\infty$ in the local region $x\ll\alpha^{2/3}$. We prove that these
are asymptotic behaviours by finding explicit error bounds. Moreover, we show
that they are connected and complete in the sense that they correspond to all
possible values of initial data given at a point in the local region.


  Development of fundamental physics relies on the constancy of various
fundamental quantities such as the fine structure constant. Detecting or
constraining the possible time variations of these fundamental physical
quantities is an important step toward a complete understanding of basic
physics. Here we present the results from a detailed many-multiplet analysis
performed using high signal-to-noise ratio, high spectral resolution
observations of 23 Mg II systems detected toward 18 QSOs in the redshift range
0.4<z<2.3 obtained using UVES at the VLT. We validate our procedure and define
the selection criteria that will avoid possible systematics using detail
analysis of simulated data set. We show our Voigt profile fitting code recovers
the variation in \alpha very accurately when we use single component systems
and multiple component systems that are not heavily blended. Spurious
detections are frequently seen when we use heavily blended systems or the
systems with very weak lines. Thus we avoided heavily blended systems and the
systems with Fe II column density < 2x10^12 cm^-2 in the analysis. All steps
involved in the analysis are presented in detail. The weighted mean value of
the variation in \alpha obtained from our analysis over the redshift range
0.4<z<2.3 is {\Delta\alpha/\alpha} = (-0.06+/-0.06)x10^-5. The median redshift
of our sample is 1.55 the 3\sigma upper limit on the time variation of $\alpha$
is -2.5x10^-16 yr^-1< (\Delta\alpha/\alpha\Delta t) <+1.2x10^-16 yr^-1. To our
knowledge this is the strongest constraint from quasar absorption line studies
till date.


  We present results of a programme of multi-epoch, intra-night optical
monitoring of a sample of non-blazar type AGN, which includes seven radio-quiet
QSOs (RQQs) and an equal number of radio-loud, lobe-dominated quasars (LDQs),
covering a redshift range from about 0.2 to 2.0. These two sets of optically
bright and intrinsically luminous QSOs are well matched in the redshift-optical
luminosity ($z - M_B$) plane. Our CCD monitoring covered a total of 61 nights
with an average of 6.1 hours of densely sampled monitoring of just a single QSO
per night, thereby achieving a typical detection threshold of $\sim 1$%
variation over the night. Unambiguous detection of intra-night
variability(INOV) amplitudes in the range 1$-$3% on day-like or shorter time
scales were thus made for both RQQs and LDQs. Based on these clear detections
of INOV, we estimate duty cycles of 17% and 9% for RQQs and LDQs, respectively;
inclusion of the two cases of probable variations of LDQs would raise the duty
cycle to 15% for LDQs. The similarity in the duty cycle and amplitude of INOV
for the RQQs and LDQs suggests, firstly, that the radio loudness alone does not
guarantee an enhanced INOV in QSOs and,secondly, that as in LDQs, relativistic
jets may also be present in RQQs. We argue that, as compared to BL Lacs, the
conspicuously milder, rarer and possibly slower INOV of RQQs and LDQs, can in
fact be readily understood in terms of their having optical synchrotron jets
which are modestly misaligned from us,but are otherwise intrinsically as
relativistic and active as the jets in BL Lacs.


  The PHENIX experiment measured Bose-Einstein quantum-statistical correlations
of charged kaons in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\text{NN}}}$ = 200 GeV. The
correlation functions are parametrized assuming that the source emitting the
particles has a L\'evy shape, characterized by the L\'evy exponent $\alpha$ and
the L\'evy scale $R$. By introducing the intercept parameter $\lambda$, we
account for the core-halo fraction. The parameters are investigated as a
function of transverse mass. The comparison of the parameters measured for
kaon-kaon with those measured from pion-pion correlation may clarify the
connection of L\'evy parameters to physical processes.


  The scalar glueball is observed in a coupled-channel analysis of the $S$-wave
amplitude from BESIII data on radiative $J/\psi$ decays and further data. Ten
scalar isoscalar resonances were required to fit the data. Five of them were
interpreted as mainly-singlet, five as mainly-octet resonances in SU(3). The
yield of resonances showed a striking peak with properties expected from a
scalar glueball. The $D$ wave amplitude in the BESIII data on radiative
$J/\psi$ decays reveales a high-mass structure which can be described by a
single Breit-Wigner or by the sum of three $\phi\phi$ resonances interpreted as
tensor glueballs a long time ago. The structure - and further tensor resonances
observed in radiative $J/\psi$ decays - are tentatively interpreted as tensor
glueball. In $J/\psi$ decays into $\gamma\pi^0\pi^0\eta'$ several resonances
are reported. The possibility is discussed that the pseudoscalar glueball might
be hidden in these data.


  We study the conductance of disordered wires with unitary symmetry focusing
on the case in which $m$ perfectly conducting channels are present due to the
channel-number imbalance between two-propagating directions. Using the exact
solution of the Dorokhov-Mello-Pereyra-Kumar (DMPK) equation for transmission
eigenvalues, we obtain the average and second moment of the conductance in the
long-wire regime. For comparison, we employ the three-edge Chalker-Coddington
model as the simplest example of channel-number-imbalanced systems with $m =
1$, and obtain the average and second moment of the conductance by using a
supersymmetry approach. We show that the result for the Chalker-Coddington
model is identical to that obtained from the DMPK equation.


  We investigate particle laws of motion derived from nonstandard kinetic
actions of a special form. We are guided by a phenomenological scheme--the
modified dynamics (MOND)--that imputes the mass discrepancy observed in
galactic systems to a departure from Newtonian dynamics below a certain
acceleration scale a0. In the limit a0 goes to 0 the theory goes to Newtonian
dynamics. In the opposite limit the action becomes proportional to 1/a0.
Galilei-invariant such theories must be strongly non-local; this is a blessing,
as such theories need not suffer from the illnesses that are endemic to
higher-derivative theories. We discuss the possibility that such a modified law
of motion is an effective theory resulting from the elimination of degrees of
freedom pertaining to the universe at large (the near equality a0=cH0 being a
trace of that connection). A virial relation for bounded trajectories is
derived. Exact solutions are obtained for circular orbits, which pertain to
rotation curves of disk galaxies. We also explore, in passing, theories that
depart from the conventional
  Newtonian dynamics for very low frequencies. The present formulation
contrasts, on important accounts, with earlier, modified-gravity formulations.


  The purpose of this paper is to investigate if a country quality of
governance moderates the effect of natural disasters on startup activity within
that country. We test our hypotheses using a panel of 95 countries from 2006 to
2016. Our findings suggest that natural disasters discourage startup activity
in countries that have low quality governance but encourage startup activity in
countries that have high quality governance. Moreover, our estimates reveal
that natural disasters effects on startup activity persist for the short term
(1-3 years) but not the long term. Our findings provide new insights into how
natural disasters affect entrepreneurship activity and highlight the importance
of country governance during these events.


  Speech recognition is largely taking advantage of deep learning, showing that
substantial benefits can be obtained by modern Recurrent Neural Networks
(RNNs). The most popular RNNs are Long Short-Term Memory (LSTMs), which
typically reach state-of-the-art performance in many tasks thanks to their
ability to learn long-term dependencies and robustness to vanishing gradients.
Nevertheless, LSTMs have a rather complex design with three multiplicative
gates, that might impair their efficient implementation. An attempt to simplify
LSTMs has recently led to Gated Recurrent Units (GRUs), which are based on just
two multiplicative gates.
  This paper builds on these efforts by further revising GRUs and proposing a
simplified architecture potentially more suitable for speech recognition. The
contribution of this work is two-fold. First, we suggest to remove the reset
gate in the GRU design, resulting in a more efficient single-gate architecture.
Second, we propose to replace tanh with ReLU activations in the state update
equations. Results show that, in our implementation, the revised architecture
reduces the per-epoch training time with more than 30% and consistently
improves recognition performance across different tasks, input features, and
noisy conditions when compared to a standard GRU.


  The expert system for time series analysis of irregularly spaced signals is
reviewed. It consists of a number of complementary algorithms and programs,
which may be effective for different types of variability. Obviously, for a
pure sine signal, all the methods should produce the same results. However, for
irregularly spaced signals with a complicated structure, e.g. a sum of
different components, different methods may produce significantly different
results.
  The basic approach is based on classical method of the least squares
(1994OAP.....7...49A). However, contrary to common "step-by-step" methods of
removal important components (e.g. mean, trend ("detrending"), sine wave
("prewhitening"), where covariations between different components are ignored,
i.e. erroneously assumed to be zero, we use complete mathematical models.
  Some of the methods are illustrated on the observations of the semi-regular
pulsating variable RY UMa. The star shows a drastic cyclic change of
semi-amplitude of pulsations between 0.01 to 0.37mag, which is interpreted as a
bias between the waves with close periods and a beat period of 4000d (11yr).
The dominating period has changed from 307.35(8)d before 1993 to 285.26(6)d
after 1993. The initial epoch of the maximum brightness for the recent interval
is 2454008.8(5). It is suggested that the apparent period switch is due to
variability of amplitudes of these two waves and an occasional swap of the
dominating wave.


  Considerable progress has been achieved recently in the observation of string
breaking within non-Abelian Higgs models, by use of multi-channel methods
allowing for broken string states. Similarly, in pure gauge theory this
approach has been shown to reveal string breaking for color charges in the
adjoint represaentation. For QCD with dynmical fermions, one needs substantial
progress in noise reduction, however, to render such techniques viable.


  We prove in this paper that the Hilbert geometry associated with an open
convex polygonal set is Lipschitz equivalent to Euclidean plane.


  Time-of-flight inelastic neutron scattering measurements on Sr2IrO4 single
crystals were performed to access the spin Hamiltonian in this canonical
Jeff=1/2 spin-orbital Mott insulator. The momentum of magnetic scattering at
all inelastic energies that were measured is revealed to be $L$-independent,
indicative of idealized two-dimensional in-plane correlations. By probing the
in-plane energy and momentum dependence up to ~80 meV we model the magnetic
excitations and define a spin-gap of 0.6(1) meV. Collectively the results
indicate that despite the strong spin-orbit entangled isospins an isotropic
two-dimensional S=1/2 Heisenberg model Hamiltonian accurately describes the
magnetic interactions, pointing to a robust analogy with unconventional
superconducting cuprates.


  Consider an odd-sized jury, which determines a majority verdict between two
equiprobable states of Nature. If each juror independently receives a binary
signal identifying the correct state with identical probability $p$, then the
probability of a correct verdict tends to one as the jury size tends to
infinity (Condorcet, 1785). Recently, the first two authors developed a model
where jurors sequentially receive signals from an interval according to a
distribution, which depends on the state of Nature and on the juror's
"ability", and vote sequentially. This paper shows that to mimic Condorcet's
binary signal, such a distribution must satisfy a functional equation related
to tail-balance, that is, to the ratio $\alpha(t)$ of the probability that a
mean-zero random variable satisfies $X >t$ given that $|X|>t$. In particular,
we show that under natural symmetry assumptions the tail-balances $\alpha(t)$
uniquely determine the distribution.


  Theoretical physics is used for a toy model of molecular biology to assess
conditions that lead to the edge of chaos (EOC) in a network of biomolecules.
Results can enhance our ability to understand complex diseases and their
treatment or cure.


  We demonstrate how virtual scattering of laser photons inside a cavity via
two-photon processes can induce controllable long-range electron interactions
in two-dimensional materials. We show that laser light that is
red(blue)-detuned from the cavity yields attractive(repulsive) interactions,
whose strength is proportional to the laser intensity. Furthermore, we find
that the interactions are not screened effectively except at very low
frequencies. For realistic cavity parameters, laser-induced heating of the
electrons by inelastic photon scattering is suppressed and coherent electron
interactions dominate. When the interactions are attractive, they cause an
instability in the Cooper channel at a temperature proportional to the square
root of the driving intensity. Our results provide a novel route for
engineering electron interactions in a wide range of two-dimensional materials
including AB-stacked bilayer graphene and the conducting interface between
LaAlO3 and SrTiO3.


  A search for dark mesons originating from strongly-coupled, SU(2) dark flavor
symmetry conserving models and decaying gaugephobically to pure Standard Model
final states containing top and bottom quarks is presented. The search targets
fully hadronic final states and final states with exactly one electron or muon.
The analyzed dataset corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 140 $fb^{-1}$
of proton-proton collisions collected at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV with the ATLAS
detector at the Large Hadron Collider. No significant excess over the Standard
Model background expectation is observed and the results are used to set the
first direct constraints on this type of model. The two-dimensional signal
space of dark pion masses $m_{\pi_D}$ and dark rho-meson masses $m_{\rho_D}$ is
scanned. For $m_{\pi_D}/m_{\rho_D}=0.45$, dark pions with masses
$m_{\pi_D}<943$ GeV are excluded, while for $m_{\pi_D}/m_{\rho_D}=0.45$ masses
of $m_{\pi_D}<738$ GeV are excluded.


  In this work we revisit the problem of contributions of excited holographic
states to the entanglement entropy in two-dimensional conformal field theories.
Using the results of replica trick method we find three expressions for these
contributions. First, we express the contribution of the excited states in
terms of Aharonov invariants. It is shown that beside the Schwarzian, the
one-point functions of descendants of energy-momentum also contribute. Given
Schwarz-Christoffel map, the contributions to any order can be easily computed.
The second expression relates the entanglement entropy of excited states to
Faber polynomials and Grunsky coefficients. Based on the relation of Grunsky
coefficiens to tau-funcion of dispersionless Toda hierarchy, we find the third
expression for contributions of excited holographic states to the entanglement
entropy.


  The upcoming generation of cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments face
a major challenge in detecting the weak cosmic B-mode signature predicted as a
product of primordial gravitational waves. To achieve the required sensitivity
these experiments must have impressive control of systematic effects and
detailed understanding of the foreground emission that will influence the
signal. In this paper, we present templates of the intensity and polarisation
of emission from one of the main Galactic foregrounds, interstellar dust. These
are produced using a model which includes a 3D description of the Galactic
magnetic field, examining both large and small scales. We also include in the
model the details of the dust density, grain alignment and the intrinsic
polarisation of the emission from an individual grain. We present here Stokes
parameter template maps at 150GHz and provide an on-line repository
(http://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/c.contaldi/fgpol) for these and additional
maps at frequencies that will be targeted by upcoming experiments such as EBEX,
Spider and SPTpol.


  In this paper we prove that for a certain class of initial data, smooth
solutions of the hydrostatic Euler equations blow up in finite time.


  We present a new scale-free geometric modelling environment designed by the
author of the paper. It allows one to consistently treat geometric objects of
arbitrary size and offers extensive analytic and computational support for
visualization of both real and artificial sceneries.


  We consider the nonlinear half laplacian heat equation $$
  u_t+(-\Delta)^{\frac{1}{2}} u-|u|^{p-1}u=0,\quad \mathbb{R}^n\times (0, T).
  $$ We prove that all blows-up are type I, provided that $n \leq 4$ and $
1<p<p_{*} (n)$ where $ p_{*} (n)$ is an explicit exponent which is below
$\frac{n+1}{n-1}$, the critical Sobolev exponent. Central to our proof is a
Giga-Kohn type monotonicity formula for half laplacian and a Liouville type
theorem for self-similar nonlinear heat equation. This is the first instance of
a monotonicity formula at the level of the nonlocal equation, without invoking
the extension to the half-space.


  While various parameterizations of vertical turbulent fluxes at different
levels of complexity have been proposed, each has its own limitations. For
example, simple first-order closure schemes such as the K-Profile
Parameterization (KPP) lack energetic constraints; two-equation models like
$k-\epsilon$ directly solve an equation for the turbulent kinetic energy but do
not account for non-local fluxes, and high-order closures that include the
non-local transport terms are computationally expensive. To address these, here
we extend the Assumed-Distribution Higher-Order Closure (ADC) framework
originally proposed for the atmospheric boundary layer and apply it to the
ocean surface boundary layer (OSBL). By assuming a probability distribution
function relationship between the vertical velocity and tracers, all
second-order and higher-order moments are exactly constructed and turbulence
closure is achieved in the ADC scheme. In addition, the ADC parameterization
scheme has full energetic constraints. We have tested the ADC scheme against a
combination of large eddy simulation (LES), KPP, and $k-\epsilon$ for surface
buoyancy-driven convective mixing and found that the ADC scheme is robust with
different vertical resolutions and compares well to the LES results.


  This paper presents a new algorithm named spherical vector-based particle
swarm optimization (SPSO) to deal with the problem of path planning for
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in complicated environments subjected to
multiple threats. A cost function is first formulated to convert the path
planning into an optimization problem that incorporates requirements and
constraints for the feasible and safe operation of the UAV. SPSO is then used
to find the optimal path that minimizes the cost function by efficiently
searching the configuration space of the UAV via the correspondence between the
particle position and the speed, turn angle and climb/dive angle of the UAV. To
evaluate the performance of SPSO, eight benchmarking scenarios have been
generated from real digital elevation model maps. The results show that the
proposed SPSO outperforms not only other particle swarm optimization (PSO)
variants including the classic PSO, phase angle-encoded PSO and quantum-behave
PSO but also other state-of-the-art metaheuristic optimization algorithms
including the genetic algorithm (GA), artificial bee colony (ABC), and
differential evolution (DE) in most scenarios. In addition, experiments have
been conducted to demonstrate the validity of the generated paths for real UAV
operations. Source code of the algorithm can be found at
https://github.com/duongpm/SPSO.


  A new class of patterns for multiplex networks is studied, which consists in
a collection of different homogeneous states each referred to a distinct layer.
The associated stability diagram exhibits a tricritical point, as a function of
the inter-layer diffusion coefficients. The coarse-grained patterns made of
alternating homogenous layers, are dynamically selected via non homogeneous
perturbations superposed to the underlying, globally homogeneous, fixed point
and by properly modulating the coupling strength between layers. Furthermore,
layer-homogenous fixed points can turn unstable following a mechanism \`a la
Turing, instigated by the intra-layer diffusion. This novel class of solutions
enriches the spectrum of dynamical phenomena as displayed within the variegated
realm of multiplex science.


  The main objective of this article is to study the exponential sums
associated to Fourier coefficients of modular forms supported at numbers having
a fixed set of prime factors. This is achieved by establishing an improvement
on Shparlinski's bound for exponential sums attached to certain recurrence
sequences over finite fields.


  Background. 3-D Secure 2.0 (3DS 2.0) is an identity federation protocol
authenticating the payment initiator for credit card transactions on the Web.
Aim. We aim to quantify the impact of factors used by 3DS 2.0 in its
fraud-detection decision making process. Method. We ran credit card
transactions with two Web sites systematically manipulating the nominal IVs
\textsf{machine\_data}, \textsf{value}, \textsf{region}, and \textsf{website}.
We measured whether the user was \textsf{challenged} with an authentication,
whether the transaction was \textsf{declined}, and whether the card was
\textsf{blocked} as nominal DVs. Results. While \textsf{website} and
\textsf{card} largely did not show a significant impact on any outcome,
\textsf{machine\_data}, \textsf{value} and \textsf{region} did. A change in
\textsf{machine\_data}, \textsf{region} or \textsf{value} made it 5-7 times as
likely to be challenged with password authentication. However, even in a
foreign region with another factor being changed, the overall likelihood of
being challenged only reached $60\%$. When in the card's home region, a
transaction will be rarely declined ($< 5\%$ in control, $40\%$ with one factor
changed). However, in a region foreign to the card the system will more likely
decline transactions anyway (about $60\%$) and any change in
\textsf{machine\_data} or \textsf{value} will lead to a near-certain declined
transaction. The \textsf{region} was the only significant predictor for a card
being blocked ($\mathsf{OR}=3$). Conclusions. We found that the decisions to
challenge the user with a password authentication, to decline a transaction and
to block a card are governed by different weightings. 3DS 2.0 is most likely to
decline transactions, especially in a foreign region. It is less likely to
challenge users with password authentication, even if \textsf{machine\_data} or
\textsf{value} are changed.


  The Salecker-Wigner-Peres (SWP) clock is often used to determine the duration
a quantum particle is supposed to spend is a specified region of space $\Om$.
By construction, the result is a real positive number, and the method seems to
avoid the difficulty of introducing complex time parameters, which arises in
the Feynman paths approach. However, it tells little about about the particle's
motion. We investigate this matter further, and show that the SWP clock, like
any other Larmor clock, correlates the rotation of its angular momentum with
the durations, $\tau$, which the Feynman paths spend in $\Om$, thereby
destroying interference between different durations. An inaccurate weakly
coupled clock leaves the interference almost intact, and the need to resolve
the resulting "which way?" problem is one of the main difficulties at the
centre of the "tunnelling time" controversy. In the absence of a probability
distribution for the values of $\tau$, the SWP results are expressed in terms
of moduli of the "complex times", given by the weighted sums of the
corresponding probability amplitudes. It is shown that over-interpretation of
these results, by treating the SWP times as physical time intervals, leads to
paradoxes and should be avoided. We also analyse various settings of the SWP
clock, different calibration procedures, and the relation between the SWP
results and the quantum dwell time. The cases of stationary tunnelling and
tunnel ionisation are considered in some detail. Although our detailed analysis
addresses only one particular definition of the duration of a tunnelling
process, it also points towards the impossibility of uniting various time
parameters, which may occur in quantum theory, within the concept of a single
"tunnelling time".


  We report on searches of the globular cluster Terzan 5 for low luminosity and
accelerated radio pulsars using the 64-m Parkes radio telescope. One new
millisecond pulsar, designated PSR J1748-2446C, was discovered, having a period
of 8.44ms. Timing measurements using the 76-m Lovell radio telescope at Jodrell
Bank show that it is a solitary pulsar and lies close to the core of the
cluster. We also present the results of timing measurements which show that the
longer-period pulsar PSR J1748-2444 (formerly known as PSR B1744-24B) lies 10
arcmin from the core of the cluster and is unlikely to be associated with the
cluster. We conclude that there are further pulsars to be detected in the
cluster.


  The recent evidence for neutrino oscillations stimulate us to discuss again
the problem of fermion masses and mixings in gauge theories. In the standard
model, several forms for quark mass matrices are equivalent. They become
ansatze within most extensions of the standard model, where also relations
between quark and lepton sectors may hold. In a seesaw framework, these
relations can constrain the scale of heavy neutrino mass, which is often
related to the scale of intermediate or unification gauge symmetry. As a
consequence, two main scenarios arise. Hierarchies of masses and mixings may be
explained by broken horizontal symmetries.


  We present a new class of "dielectric" N=1 supersymmetric solutions of IIB
supergravity. This class contains not just the ten-dimensional lift of the
Leigh-Strassler renormalization group flow, but also the Coulomb branch
deformation of this flow in which the branes are allowed to spread in a
radially symmetric manner, preserving the SU(2) global symmetry. We use the
"algebraic Killing spinor" technique, illustrating how it can be adapted to N=1
supersymmetric flows.


  Ricci flow is a natural gradient flow of the Einstein-Hilbert action. Here we
consider the analog for the Einstein-Maxwell action, which gives Ricci flow
with a stress tensor contribution coupled to a Yang-Mills flow for the Maxwell
field. We argue that this flow is well-posed for static spacetimes with pure
electric or magnetic potentialsand show it preserves both non-extremal and
extremal black hole horizons. In the latter case we find the flow of the near
horizon geometry decouples from that of the exterior. The Schwarzschild black
hole is an unstable fixed point of Ricci flow for static spacetimes. Here we
consider flows of the Reissner-Nordstr\"om (RN) fixed point. The magnetic RN
solution becomes a stable fixed point of the flow for sufficient charge.
However we find that the electric RN black hole is always unstable. Numerically
solving the flow starting with a spherically symmetric perturbation of a
non-extremal RN solution, we find similar behaviour in the electric case to the
Ricci flows of perturbed Schwarzschild, namely the horizon shrinks to a
singularity in finite time or expands forever. In the magnetic case, a
perturbed unstable RN solution has a similar expanding behaviour, but a
perturbation that decreases the horizon size flows to a stable black hole
solution rather than a singularity. For extremal RN we solve the near horizon
flow for spherical symmetry exactly, and see in the electric case two unstable
directions which flow to singularities in finite flow time. However, even
turning these off, and fixing the near horizon geometry to be that of RN, we
numerically show that the flows appear to become singular in the vicinity of
its horizon.


  Study of the tilt angles of solar bipolar magnetic regions is important
because the tilt angles have an important role in the solar dynamo. We analysed
the data on tilt angles of sunspot groups measured at the Mt. Wilson
Observatory (MWOB) during the period 1917-1986 and Kodaikanal Observatory (KOB)
during the period 1906-1986. We binned the daily tilt-angle data during each of
the Solar Cycles 15-21 into different 5-deg. latitude intervals and calculated
the mean value of the tilt angles in each latitude interval and the
corresponding standard error. We fitted these binned data to Joy's Law
(increase of the tilt angle with latitude), i.e. the linear relationship
between tilt angle and latitude of an active region. The linear-least-square
fit calculations were done by taking into account the uncertainties in both the
abscissa (latitude) and ordinate (mean tilt angle). The calculations were
carried out by using both the tilt-angle and area weighted tilt-angle data in
the whole sphere, northern hemisphere, and southern hemisphere during the whole
period and during each individual solar cycle. We find a significant difference
(absolute north--south asymmetry) between the slopes of Joy's Law recovered
from northern and southern hemispheres' whole period MWOB data of area-weighted
tilt angles. Only the slope obtained from the southern hemisphere's MWOB data
of a solar cycle is found to be reasonably well anti-correlated to the
amplitude of the solar cycle. In the case of area weighted tilt-angle data, a
good correlation is found between the absolute north--south asymmetry in the
slope of a solar cycle and the amplitude of the solar cycle. The corresponding
best-fit linear equations are found to be statistically significant.


  When searching for a new resonance somewhere in a possible mass range, the
significance of observing a local excess of events must take into account the
probability of observing such an excess anywhere in the range. This is the so
called "look elsewhere effect". The effect can be quantified in terms of a
trial factor, which is the ratio between the probability of observing the
excess at some fixed mass point, to the probability of observing it anywhere in
the range. We propose a simple and fast procedure for estimating the trial
factor, based on earlier results by Davies. We show that asymptotically, the
trial factor grows linearly with the (fixed mass) significance.


  In this note we give an overview of rigidity properties and Loewy lengths of
tilting modules in the BGG category O associated to a reductive Lie algebra.
These results are well-known by several specialists, but seem difficult to find
in the existing literature.


  This article represents quantitative numerical analysis to find the
sensitivity for the mass ordering and octant of atmospheric mixing angle
$\theta_{23}$ within 3$\sigma$ range of oscillation parameters, in the context
of three long base line (LBL) accelerator experiments viz. UNO, DUNE and
NO$\nu$A.
  We notice that on the basis of quantitative sensitivity pertaining to the
event rate, it is possible to investigate the mass ordering within all
experiments. Conclusively, like NO$\nu$A and DUNE experiments, UNO experiment
stands as better alternative for investigating mass ordering, especially when
we need to cross check the results at higher beam energies and base line
lengths.
  We observe that discrete solutions viz. {\it wrong octant-right
$\delta_{CP}$, wrong octant-wrong $\delta_{CP}$} and {\it right octant-wrong
$\delta_{CP}$} and continuous solutions arising due to submergence of discrete
solutions with true solution are possible up to 3$\sigma$ level. It is UNO
experiment that alone have the potential to remove these discrete solutions,
while both NO$\nu$A and DUNE experiments have very poor tendency to remove
these discrete solutions especially near the maximal mixing. We find that these
discrete solutions can be resolved up to 3$\sigma$ level by the combined
NO$\nu$A+DUNE+UNO data set, at all multiple degenerate solutions in the true
parameter space considered under the study. Though replacing half the neutrino
run with antineutrino run introduces qualitative advantage because of their
different dependences on $\delta_{CP}$, but due to lower cross section and
reduction in the statistics, addition of antineutrino data make the precision
worse. Thus considering experimental data only in the neutrino mode, enhances
$\delta_{CP}$ and $\theta_{23}$ precision significantly.


  In this paper, we propose to boost low-resource cross-lingual document
retrieval performance with deep bilingual query-document representations. We
match queries and documents in both source and target languages with four
components, each of which is implemented as a term interaction-based deep
neural network with cross-lingual word embeddings as input. By including query
likelihood scores as extra features, our model effectively learns to rerank the
retrieved documents by using a small number of relevance labels for
low-resource language pairs. Due to the shared cross-lingual word embedding
space, the model can also be directly applied to another language pair without
any training label. Experimental results on the MATERIAL dataset show that our
model outperforms the competitive translation-based baselines on
English-Swahili, English-Tagalog, and English-Somali cross-lingual information
retrieval tasks.


  This paper presents a literature survey and a comparative study of Bug
Algorithms, with the goal of investigating their potential for robotic
navigation. At first sight, these methods seem to provide an efficient
navigation paradigm, ideal for implementations on tiny robots with limited
resources. Closer inspection, however, shows that many of these Bug Algorithms
assume perfect global position estimate of the robot which in GPS-denied
environments implies considerable expenses of computation and memory -- relying
on accurate Simultaneous Localization And Mapping (SLAM) or Visual Odometry
(VO) methods. We compare a selection of Bug Algorithms in a simulated robot and
environment where they endure different types noise and failure-cases of their
on-board sensors. From the simulation results, we conclude that the implemented
Bug Algorithms' performances are sensitive to many types of sensor-noise, which
was most noticeable for odometry-drift. This raises the question if Bug
Algorithms are suitable for real-world, on-board, robotic navigation as is.
Variations that use multiple sensors to keep track of their progress towards
the goal, were more adept in completing their task in the presence of
sensor-failures. This shows that Bug Algorithms must spread their risk, by
relying on the readings of multiple sensors, to be suitable for real-world
deployment.


  We present a new limit on the cosmological constant based on the absence of
correlations between the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and the distribution
of distant radio sources. In the cosmological constant-cold dark matter models
currently favored, such correlations should have been produced via the
integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect, assuming that radio sources trace the local
(z=1) matter density. We find no evidence of correlations between the COBE 53Hz
microwave map and the NVSS 1.4 GHz radio survey. The implied 95% CL limit on
the cosmological constant is Lambda < 0.74, in marginal agreement with the
values suggested by recent measurements of the CMB anisotropy and type-IA
supernovae observations, 0.6 < Lambda < 0.7. If the cosmological model does lie
in this range, then the integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect should be detectable with
upcoming CMB maps and radio surveys.


  Dynamics near and far away from thermal equilibrium is studied within the
framework of Langevin equations. A stochasticity-dissipation relation is
proposed to emphasize the equal importance of the stochastic and deterministic
forces in describing the system's evolution and destination. It is a
generalization of the fluctuation-dissipation theorem. Close to a stationary
state an explicit construction of the potential energy is given through a
gauged singular decomposition. Possible directions to extend the present study
into generic situations are pointed out.


  This review is devoted to the application of graphite and graphite composites
in science and technology. Structure and electrical properties, as so
technological aspects of producing of high-strength artificial graphite and
dynamics of its destruction are considered. These type of graphite are
traditionally used in the nuclear industry. Author was focused on the
properties of graphite composites based on carbon isotope 13C. Generally, the
review relies on the original results and concentrates on actual problems of
application and testing of graphite materials in modern nuclear physics and
science and its technology applications. Translated by author from chapters 5
of the Russian monograph by Zhmurikov E.I., Bubnenkov I.A., Pokrovsky A.S. et
al. Graphite in Science and Nuclear Technique eprint arXiv:1307.1869, 07/2013
(BC 2013arXiv1307.1869Z


  We consider a causal effect that is confounded by an unobserved variable, but
with observed proxy variables of the confounder. We show that, with at least
two independent proxy variables satisfying a certain rank condition, the causal
effect is nonparametrically identified, even if the measurement error
mechanism, i.e., the conditional distribution of the proxies given the con-
founder, may not be identified. Our result generalizes the identification
strategy of Kuroki & Pearl (2014) that rests on identification of the
measurement error mechanism. When only one proxy for the confounder is
available, or the required rank condition is not met, we develop a strategy to
test the null hypothesis of no causal effect.


  You and I are highly unlikely to exist in a civilization that has produced
only 70 billion people, yet we find ourselves in just such a civilization. Our
circumstance, which seems difficult to explain, is easily accounted for if (1)
many other civilizations exist and if (2) nearly all of these civilizations
(including our own) die out sooner than usually thought, i.e., before trillions
of people are produced. Because the combination of (1) and (2) make our
situation likely and alternatives do not, we should drastically increase our
belief that (1) and (2) are true. These results follow immediately when
considering a many worlds version of the "Doomsday Argument" and are immune to
the main criticism of the original Doomsday Argument.


  Historical processes manifest remarkable diversity. Nevertheless, scholars
have long attempted to identify patterns and categorize historical actors and
influences with some success. A stochastic process framework provides a
structured approach for the analysis of large historical datasets that allows
for detection of sometimes surprising patterns, identification of relevant
causal actors both endogenous and exogenous to the process, and comparison
between different historical cases. The combination of data, analytical tools
and the organizing theoretical framework of stochastic processes complements
traditional narrative approaches in history and archaeology.


  The blood flow model maintains the steady state solutions, in which the flux
gradients are non-zero but exactly balanced by the source term. In this paper,
we design high order finite difference weighted non-oscillatory (WENO) schemes
to this model with such well-balanced property and at the same time keeping
genuine high order accuracy. Rigorous theoretical analysis as well as extensive
numerical results all indicate that the resulting schemes verify high order
accuracy, maintain the well-balanced property, and keep good resolution for
smooth and discontinuous solutions.


  Kagome magnet TbMn$_6$Sn$_6$ is a new type of topological material that is
known to support exotic quantum magnetic states. Experimental work has
identified that TbMn$_6$Sn$_6$ hosts Dirac electronic states that could lead to
topological and Chern quantum phases, but the optical response of the Dirac
fermions of TbMn$_6$Sn$_6$ and its properties remain to be explored. Here, we
perform optical spectroscopy measurement combined with first-principles
calculations on single-crystal sample of TbMn$_6$Sn$_6$ to investigate the
associated exotic phenomena. TbMn$_6$Sn$_6$ exhibits frequency-independent
optical conductivity spectra in a broad range from 1800 to 3000 cm$^{-1}$
(220-370 meV) in experiments. The theoretical band structures and optical
conductivity spectra are calculated with several shifted Fermi energy to
compare with the experiment. The theoretical spectra with 0.56 eV shift for
Fermi energy are well consistent with our experimental results. Besides, the
massive quasi-two-dimensional (quasi-2D) Dirac bands, which have linear band
dispersion in $k_x$-$k_y$ plane and no band dispersion along the $k_z$
direction, exist close to the shifted Fermi energy. According to tight-binding
model analysis, the quasi-2D Dirac bands give rise to a flat optical
conductivity, while its value is smaller than, about one tenth of, that from
the calculations and experiments. It indicates that the other trivial bands
also contribute to the flat optical conductivity.


  We consider the Fr\"ohlich model of the Polaron whose path integral
formulation leads to the transformed path measure
  $$
  \widehat{\mathbb P}_{\alpha,T}(\mathrm d\omega)= Z_{\alpha,T}^{-1}\,\,
\exp\bigg\{\frac{\alpha}{2}\int_{-T}^T\int_{-T}^T\frac{e^{-|t-s|}}{|\omega(t)-\omega(s)|}
\, d s \, d t\bigg\}\,\mathbb P(\mathrm d\omega)
  $$
  with respect to $\mathbb P$ which governs the law of the increments of the
three dimensional Brownian motion on a finite interval $[-T,T]$, and $
Z_{\alpha,T}$ is the partition function or the normalizing constant and
$\alpha>0$ is a constant. The Polaron measure reflects a self attractive
interaction. According to a conjecture of Pekar that was proved in [DV83]
  $$
  g_0=\lim_{\alpha
\to\infty}\frac{1}{\alpha^2}\bigg[\lim_{T\to\infty}\frac{\log
Z_{\alpha,T}}{2T}\bigg]
  $$
  exists and has a variational formula. In this article we show that for any
$\alpha>0$, the infinite-volume limit $\widehat{\mathbb
P}_{\alpha}=\lim_{T\to\infty}\widehat{\mathbb P}_{\alpha,T}$ exists which is
also identified explicitly. As a corollary, we deduce the central limit theorem
(for any $\alpha>0$ and as $T\to\infty$) for the distribution of
$\frac{\omega(T)-\omega(-T)}{\sqrt{2T}}$ both under the finite-volume Polaron
measure $\widehat{\mathbb P}_{\alpha,T}$ and its infinite-volume counterpart
$\widehat{\mathbb P}_\alpha$, and obtain an expression for the limiting
variance.


  In the talk the leading four-loop contribution to the beta-function of the
strong coupling in the SM is discussed. Some details of calculation techniques
are provided. Special attention is paid to the ambiguity due to utilized
$\gamma_5$ treatment and a particular prescription with anticommuting
$\gamma_5$ is advocated. As a by-product of our computation the four-loop
beta-function in QCD with "gluino" is also obtained.


  Quark spin effects in hadronization have been recently included in the PYTHIA
8 event generator for the simulation of the deep inelastic scattering (DIS)
process off a polarized nucleon target via the external StringSpinner package.
The spin effects can be simulated for the production of pseudoscalar mesons
using the string+${}^3P_0$ model of polarized quark fragmentation and
parametrizations of the transversity PDFs. We present here a major development
of StringSpinner which includes the production of vector mesons in the
polarized PYTHIA 8 string fragmentation as well as their polarized decays. The
package is validated and used to simulate the transverse-spin asymmetries in
semi-inclusive DIS (SIDIS). The simulation results on the Collins and dihadron
asymmetries for the final state mesons are compared with the asymmetries
measured in SIDIS off transversely polarized protons. Also shown are the
predictions for the Collins asymmetries for $\rho$ mesons produced in SIDIS off
transversely polarized protons.


  We investigate Euclidean wormholes in Einstein gravity with a massless scalar
field in de Sitter space. Euclidean wormholes are possible due to the analytic
continuation of the time as well as complexification of fields, where we need
to impose the classicality after the Wick-rotation to the Lorentzian
signatures. For some parameters, wormholes are preferred than Hawking-Moss
instantons, and hence wormholes can be more fundamental than Hawking-Moss type
instantons. Euclidean wormholes can be interpreted in three ways: (1) classical
big bounce, (2) either tunneling from a small to a large universe or a creation
of a collapsing and an expanding universe from nothing, and (3) either a
transition from a contracting to a bouncing phase or a creation of two
expanding universes from nothing. These various interpretations shed some light
on challenges of singularities. In addition, these will help to understand
tensions between various kinds of quantum gravity theories.


  In our previous articles, we have presented a class of endomorphisms of the
Cuntz algebras which are defined by polynomials of canonical generators and
their conjugates. We showed the classification of some case under unitary
equivalence by help of branching laws of permutative representations. In this
article, we construct an automaton which is called the Mealy machine associated
with the endomorphism in order to compute its branching law. We show that the
branching law is obtained as outputs from the machine for the input of
information of a given representation.


  Making use of experimental and theoretical considerations, in this Letter we
deduce a criterion to determine the critical velocity for which a drop
impacting a smooth dry surface either spreads over the substrate or
disintegrates into smaller droplets. The derived equation, which expresses the
splash threshold velocity as a function of the material properties of the two
fluids involved, the drop radius and the mean free path of the molecules
composing the surrounding gaseous atmosphere, has been thoroughly validated
experimentally at normal atmospheric conditions using eight different liquids,
with viscosities ranging from $3\times 10^{-4}$ to $10^{-2}$ Pa$\cdot$s and
interfacial tension coefficients which vary between $17$ and $72$
mN$\cdot$m$^{-1}$.


  For $k \geq 1$, in a graph $G=(V,E)$, a set of vertices $D$ is a distance
$k$-dominating set of $G$, if any vertex in $V\setminus D$ is at distance at
most $k$ from some vertex in $D$. The minimum cardinality of a distance
$k$-dominating set of $G$ is the distance $k$-domination number, denoted by
$\gamma_k(G)$. An ordered set of vertices $W=\{w_1,w_2,\ldots,w_r\}$ is a
resolving set of $G$, if for any two distinct vertices $x$ and $y$ in
$V\setminus W$, there exists $1\leq i\leq r$, such that $d_G(x,w_i)\neq
d_G(y,w_i)$. The minimum cardinality of a resolving set of $G$ is the metric
dimension of the graph $G$, denoted by $dim(G)$. In this paper, we introduce
the distance $k$-resolving dominating set, which is a subset of $V$ that is
both a distance $k$-dominating set and a resolving set of $G$. The minimum
cardinality of a distance $k$-resolving dominating set of $G$ is called the
distance $k$-resolving domination number and is denoted by $\gamma^r_k(G)$. We
give several bounds for $\gamma^r_k(G)$ some in terms of the metric dimension
$dim(G)$ and the distance $k$-domination number $\gamma_k(G)$. We determine
$\gamma^r_k(G)$ when $G$ is a path or a cycle. Afterwards, we characterize the
connected graphs of order $n$ having $\gamma^r_k(G)$ equal to $1$, $n-2$, and
$n-1$, for $k\geq 2$. Then, we construct graphs realizing all the possible
triples $(dim(G),\gamma_k(G),\gamma^r_k (G))$, for all $k\geq 2$. Later, we
determine the maximum order of a graph $G$ having distance $k$-resolving
domination number $\gamma^r_k(G)=\gamma^r_k\geq 1$, we provide graphs achieving
this maximum order for any positive integers $k$ and $\gamma^r_k$. Finally, we
establish Nordhaus-Gaddum bounds for $\gamma^r_k(G)$, for $k\geq 2$.


  Reading and understanding the stories in the news is increasingly difficult.
Reporting on stories evolves rapidly, politicized news venues offer different
perspectives (and sometimes different facts), and misinformation is rampant.
However, existing solutions merely aggregate an overwhelming amount of
information from heterogenous sources, such as different news outlets, social
media, and news bias rating agencies. We present NEWSSENSE, a novel sensemaking
tool and reading interface designed to collect and integrate information from
multiple news articles on a central topic, using a form of reference-free fact
verification. NEWSSENSE augments a central, grounding article of the user's
choice by linking it to related articles from different sources, providing
inline highlights on how specific claims in the chosen article are either
supported or contradicted by information from other articles. Using NEWSSENSE,
users can seamlessly digest and cross-check multiple information sources
without disturbing their natural reading flow. Our pilot study shows that
NEWSSENSE has the potential to help users identify key information, verify the
credibility of news articles, and explore different perspectives.


  We study the cosmology of a quadratic metric-compatible torsionful gravity
theory in the presence of a perfect hyperfluid. The gravitational action is an
extension of the Einstein-Cartan theory given by the usual Einstein-Hilbert
contribution plus all the admitted quadratic parity even torsion scalars and
the matter action also exhibits a dependence on the connection. The equations
of motion are obtained by regarding the metric and the metric-compatible
torsionful connection as independent variables. We then consider a
Friedmann-Lema\^itre-Robertson-Walker background, analyze the conservation
laws, and derive the torsion modified Friedmann equations for our theory.
Remarkably, we are able to provide exact analytic solutions for the torsionful
cosmology.


  We present adaptive measurement techniques tailored for variational quantum
algorithms on near-term small and noisy devices. In particular, we generalise
earlier "learning to measure" strategies in two ways. First, by considering a
class of adaptive positive operator valued measures (POVMs) that can be
simulated with simple projective measurements without ancillary qubits, we
decrease the amount of required qubits and two-qubit gates. Second, by
introducing a method based on Quantum Detector Tomography to mitigate the
effect of noise, we are able to optimise the POVMs as well as to infer
expectation values reliably in the currently available noisy quantum devices.
Our numerical simulations clearly indicate that the presented strategies can
significantly reduce the number of needed shots to achieve chemical accuracy in
variational quantum eigensolvers, thus helping to solve one of the bottlenecks
of near-term quantum computing.


  A non-dispersing wave packet has been attracting much interest from various
scientific and technological viewpoints. However, most quantum systems are
accompanied by anharmonicity, so that retardation of quantum wave-packet
dispersion is limited to very few examples only under specific conditions and
targets. Here we demonstrate a conceptually new and universal method to retard
or advance the dispersion of a quantum wave packet through 'programmable time
shift' induced by a strong non-resonant femtosecond laser pulse. A numerical
simulation has verified that a train of such retardation pulses stops
wave-packet dispersion.


  Synthesising the spatial and temporal dynamics of the human body skeleton
remains a challenging task, not only in terms of the quality of the generated
shapes, but also of their diversity, particularly to synthesise realistic body
movements of a specific action (action conditioning). In this paper, we propose
Kinetic-GAN, a novel architecture that leverages the benefits of Generative
Adversarial Networks and Graph Convolutional Networks to synthesise the
kinetics of the human body. The proposed adversarial architecture can condition
up to 120 different actions over local and global body movements while
improving sample quality and diversity through latent space disentanglement and
stochastic variations. Our experiments were carried out in three well-known
datasets, where Kinetic-GAN notably surpasses the state-of-the-art methods in
terms of distribution quality metrics while having the ability to synthesise
more than one order of magnitude regarding the number of different actions. Our
code and models are publicly available at
https://github.com/DegardinBruno/Kinetic-GAN.


  Ensuring the accuracy of responses provided by large language models (LLMs)
is crucial, particularly in clinical settings where incorrect information may
directly impact patient health. To address this challenge, we construct K-QA, a
dataset containing 1,212 patient questions originating from real-world
conversations held on K Health (an AI-driven clinical platform). We employ a
panel of in-house physicians to answer and manually decompose a subset of K-QA
into self-contained statements. Additionally, we formulate two NLI-based
evaluation metrics approximating recall and precision: (1) comprehensiveness,
measuring the percentage of essential clinical information in the generated
answer and (2) hallucination rate, measuring the number of statements from the
physician-curated response contradicted by the LLM answer. Finally, we use K-QA
along with these metrics to evaluate several state-of-the-art models, as well
as the effect of in-context learning and medically-oriented augmented retrieval
schemes developed by the authors. Our findings indicate that in-context
learning improves the comprehensiveness of the models, and augmented retrieval
is effective in reducing hallucinations. We make K-QA available to to the
community to spur research into medically accurate NLP applications.


  We tackle the problem of planning in nondeterministic domains, by presenting
a new approach to conformant planning. Conformant planning is the problem of
finding a sequence of actions that is guaranteed to achieve the goal despite
the nondeterminism of the domain. Our approach is based on the representation
of the planning domain as a finite state automaton. We use Symbolic Model
Checking techniques, in particular Binary Decision Diagrams, to compactly
represent and efficiently search the automaton. In this paper we make the
following contributions. First, we present a general planning algorithm for
conformant planning, which applies to fully nondeterministic domains, with
uncertainty in the initial condition and in action effects. The algorithm is
based on a breadth-first, backward search, and returns conformant plans of
minimal length, if a solution to the planning problem exists, otherwise it
terminates concluding that the problem admits no conformant solution. Second,
we provide a symbolic representation of the search space based on Binary
Decision Diagrams (BDDs), which is the basis for search techniques derived from
symbolic model checking. The symbolic representation makes it possible to
analyze potentially large sets of states and transitions in a single
computation step, thus providing for an efficient implementation. Third, we
present CMBP (Conformant Model Based Planner), an efficient implementation of
the data structures and algorithm described above, directly based on BDD
manipulations, which allows for a compact representation of the search layers
and an efficient implementation of the search steps. Finally, we present an
experimental comparison of our approach with the state-of-the-art conformant
planners CGP, QBFPLAN and GPT. Our analysis includes all the planning problems
from the distribution packages of these systems, plus other problems defined to
stress a number of specific factors. Our approach appears to be the most
effective: CMBP is strictly more expressive than QBFPLAN and CGP and, in all
the problems where a comparison is possible, CMBP outperforms its competitors,
sometimes by orders of magnitude.


  We present the first direct spectroscopic measurement of the stellar velocity
dispersion function (VDF) for massive quiescent and star-forming galaxies at
$0.6 < z \leq 1.0$. For this analysis we use individual measurements of stellar
velocity dispersion from high-S/N spectra from the public Large Early Galaxy
Astrophysics Census (LEGA-C) survey. We report a remarkable stability of the
VDF for both quiescent and star-forming galaxies within this redshift range,
though we note the presence of weak evolution in the number densities of
star-forming galaxies. We compare both VDFs with previous direct and inferred
measurements at local and intermediate redshifts, with the caveat that previous
measurements of the VDF for star-forming galaxies are poorly constrained at all
epochs. We emphasize that this work is the first to directly push to
low-stellar velocity dispersion ($\sigma_\star > 100$ km s$^{-1}$) and extend
to star-forming galaxies. We are largely consistent with the high-sigma tail
measured from BOSS, and we find that the VDF remains constant from the median
redshift of LEGA-C, $z\sim0.8$, to the present day.


  Residual strain plays a critical role in determining the crystalline quality
of nitride epitaxial layers and in modifying their band structure; this often
leads to several interesting physical phenomena. It is found, for example, that
compressive strain in AlxGa1-xN layers grown on AlyGa1-yN (x<y) templates
results in an anti-crossing of the valence bands at considerably much higher Al
composition than expected. This happens even in the presence of large and
negative crystal field splitting energy for AlxGa1-xN layers. A judicious
magnitude of the compressive strain can support vertical light emission (out of
the c-plane) from AlxGa1-xN quantum wells up to x\approx 0.80, which is
desirable for the development of deep ultraviolet light-emitting diodes
designed to operate below 250nm with transverse electric polarization
characteristics.


  "Wisdom of crowds" refers to the phenomenon that the average opinion of a
group of individuals on a given question can be very close to the true answer.
It requires a large group diversity of opinions, but the collective error, the
difference between the average opinion and the true value, has to be small. We
consider a stochastic opinion dynamics where individuals can change their
opinion based on the opinions of others (social influence $\alpha$), but to
some degree also stick to their initial opinion (individual conviction
$\beta$). We then derive analytic expressions for the dynamics of the
collective error and the group diversity. We analyze their long-term behavior
to determine the impact of the two parameters $(\alpha,\beta)$ and the initial
opinion distribution on the wisdom of crowds. This allows us to quantify the
ambiguous role of social influence: only if the initial collective error is
large, it helps to improve the wisdom of crowds, but in most cases it
deteriorates the outcome. In these cases, individual conviction still improves
the wisdom of crowds because it mitigates the impact of social influence.


  Problems for evaluation and impact of published scientific works and their
authors are discussed. The role of citations in this process is pointed out.
Different bibliometric indicators are reviewed in this connection and ways for
generation of new bibliometric indices are given. The influence of different
circumstances, like self-citations, number of authors, time dependence and
publication types, on the evaluation and impact of scientific papers are
considered. The repercussion of works citations and their content is
investigated in this respect. Attention is paid also on implicit citations
which are not covered by the modern bibliometrics but often are reflected in
the peer reviews. Some aspects of the Web analogues of citations and new
possibilities of the Internet resources in evaluating authors achievements are
presented.


  This paper introduces a spatially continuous force-based model for simulating
pedestrian dynamics. The main intention of this work is the quantitative
description of pedestrian movement through bottlenecks and in corridors.
Measurements of flow and density at bottlenecks will be presented and compared
with empirical data. Furthermore the fundamental diagram for the movement in a
corridor is reproduced. The results of the proposed model show a good agreement
with empirical data.


  We study viscosity solutions to complex hessian equations. In the local case,
we consider $\Omega$ a bounded domain in $\mathbb{C}^n,$ $\beta$ the standard
K\"{a}hler form in $\mathcal{C}^n$ and $1\leq m\leq n.$ Under some suitable
conditions on $F, g$, we prove that the equation $(dd^c
\varphi)^m\wedge\beta^{n-m}=F(x,\varphi)\beta^n,\ \f=g$ on $\pO$ admits a
unique viscosity solution modulo the existence of subsolution and
supersolution. If moreover, the datum are H\"{o}lder continuous then so is the
solution. In the global case, let $(X,\omega)$ be a compact hermitian
homogeneous manifold where $\omega$ is an invariant hermitian metric (not
necessarily K\"{a}hler). We prove that the equation
$(\omega+dd^c\varphi)^m\wedge\omega^{n-m}=F(x,\varphi)\omega^n$ has a unique
viscosity solution under some natural conditions on $F.$


  Full-dimensional (FD) channel state information at transmitter (CSIT) has
always been a major limitation of the spectral efficiency of cellular
multi-input multi-output (MIMO) networks. This letter proposes an
FD-directional spatial channel estimation algorithm for frequency division
duplex massive FD-MIMO systems. The proposed algorithm uses the statistical
spatial correlation between the uplink (UL) and downlink (DL) channels of each
user equipment. It spatially decomposes the UL channel into azimuthal and
elevation dimensions to estimate the array principal receive responses. An FD
spatial rotation matrix is constructed to estimate the corresponding transmit
responses of the DL channel, in terms of the frequency band gap between the UL
and DL channels. The proposed algorithm shows significantly promising
performance, approaching the ideal perfect-CSIT case without UL feedback
overhead.


  A sample of spectroscopic binaries and a sample of single planetary systems,
both having main-sequence solar-type primary components, are selected in order
to compare their eccentricities. The positions of the objects in the
(P.(1-e^2)^(3/2), e) plane is used to determine parts in the
period-eccentricity diagram that are not affected by tidal circularization. The
original eccentricities of binaries and planets are derived and compared. They
seem to be weakly or not at all correlated with period in both samples, but two
major differences are found :(1) The tidal circularization of planetary orbits
is almost complete for periods shorter than 5 days, but it is not visible when
P.(1-e^2)^{3/2} is longer than this limit. This suggests that the
circularization occurs rapidly after the end of the migration process and is
probably simultaneous with the end of the formation of the planet. By contrast,
we confirm that the circularization of the binary orbits is a process still
progressing a long time after the formation of the systems.(2) Beyond the
circularization limit, the eccentricities of the orbits of the planets are
significantly smaller than those of binary orbits, and this discrepancy cannot
be due to a selection effect. Moreover, the eccentricities of binaries with
small mass ratios are quite similar to those of all binaries with q<0.8. This
suggests that the low eccentricities of exoplanet orbits are not a consequence
of low-mass secondaries in a universal process.
  These remarks are in favor of the idea that binaries and exoplanets are two
different classes of object from the point of view of their formation.


  We reformulate stochastic thermodynamics in terms of noise realizations for
Langevin systems in contact with multiple reservoirs and investigated the
structure of the second laws of thermodynamics. We derive a hierarchy of
fluctuation theorems when one degree of freedom of the system is affected by
multiple reservoirs simultaneously, that is, when noise mixing occurs. These
theorems and the associated second laws of thermodynamics put stricter bounds
on the thermodynamics of Langevin systems. We apply our results to a stochastic
machine in noise-mixing environments and demonstrate that our new bounds play a
crucial role in determining the potential function and performance of the
machine.


  Dynamical spectral estimation is a well-established numerical approach for
estimating eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of the Markov transition operator
from trajectory data. Although the approach has been widely applied in
biomolecular simulations, its error properties remain poorly understood. Here
we analyze the error of a dynamical spectral estimation method called "the
variational approach to conformational dynamics" (VAC). We bound the
approximation error and estimation error for VAC estimates. Our analysis
establishes VAC's convergence properties and suggests new strategies for tuning
VAC to improve accuracy.


  Using an old example of Nagata, we construct a Noetherian ring of prime
characteristic p, whose Frobenius morphism is locally finite, but not finite.


  In 2011, Haemers asked the following question: If $S$ is the Seidel matrix of
a graph of order $n$ and $S$ is singular, does there exist an eigenvector of
$S$ corresponding to $0$ which has only $\pm 1$ elements?
  In this paper, we construct infinite families of graphs which give a negative
answer to this question. One of our constructions implies that for every
natural number $N$, there exists a graph whose Seidel matrix $S$ is singular
such that for any integer vector in the nullspace of $S$, the absolute value of
any entry in this vector is more than $N$. We also derive some characteristics
of vectors in the nullspace of Seidel matrices, which lead to some necessary
conditions for the singularity of Seidel matrices. Finally, we obtain some
properties of the graphs which affirm the above question.


  Using the Ricci and scalar curvatures of the configuration manifold of
gravitational N-body systems, we study the exponential instability in their
trajectories. It is found that the exponentiation time-scale for isotropic
Plummer spheres varies very little with particle number if the softening is
small. Large softening on the other hand has a marked effect and, if large
enough, can cause the curvatures to become positive. This last result confirms
the previous observations for self gravitating sheets and suggests that the
qualitative behaviour of large-N and continuum systems may be different, and
that their equivalence is only obtained in the limit of infinite $N$ and finite
softening. It is also found that the presence of a large fraction of the
kinetic energy in rotational motion increases the exponentiation time-scales
significantly --- an effect that should be expected given the regular nature of
nearly circular motion. In the light of the results of this and of previous
studies, it is suggested that the exponential instability may arise from low
order resonances between the period of the variation of the gravitational field
due to distant encounters and the orbital period of a test particle. For
periods long compared to the exponentiation time but short compared to the
diffusion time-scales of the action variables, the standard picture of
collisionless dynamics may be valid in an averaged sense. Instead it is
suggested that, at least for systems with well defined final states, the
relaxation time should scale as $\sim N^{1/2}$.


  Though great effort has been put into the study of path planning on urban
roads and highways, few works have studied the driving strategy and trajectory
planning in low-speed driving scenarios, e.g., driving on a university campus
or driving through a housing or industrial estate. The study of planning in
these scenarios is crucial as these environments often cover the first or the
last one kilometer of a daily travel or logistic system. Additionally, it is
essential to treat these scenarios differently as, in most cases, the driving
environment is narrow, dynamic, and rich with obstacles, which also causes the
planning in such environments to continue to be a challenging task. This paper
proposes a hierarchical planning approach that separates the path planning and
the temporal planning. A path that satisfies the kinematic constraints is
generated through a modified bidirectional rapidly exploring random tree
(bi-RRT) approach. Following that, the timestamp of each node of the path is
optimized through sequential quadratic programming (SQP) with the feasible
searching bounds defined by safe intervals (SIs). Simulations and real tests in
different driving scenarios prove the effectiveness of this method.


  Malliavin Calculus is about Sobolev-type regularity of functionals on Wiener
space, the main example being the Ito map obtained by solving stochastic
differential equations. Rough path analysis is about strong regularity of
solution to (possibly stochastic) differential equations. We combine arguments
of both theories and discuss existence of a density for solutions to stochastic
differential equations driven by a general class of non-degenerate Gaussian
processes, including processes with sample path regularity worse than Brownian
motion.


  We construct an associative ring which is a deformation of the quantum
cohomology ring of the projective plane. Just as the quantum cohomology encodes
the incidence characteristic numbers of rational plane curves, the contact
cohomology encodes the tangency characteristic numbers.


  We investigate from a statistical perspective the arithmetic properties of
the dynamics of polynomials of fixed degree and defined over the field of
rational numbers. To start with, ordering their affine conjugacy classes by
height, we show that their average number of rational preperiodic points is
equal to zero, thereby proving a strong average version of the uniform
boundedness conjecture of Morton and Silverman. Next, inspired by the analogy
with the successive minima of a lattice we define the dynamical successive
minima of a polynomial. Noting that these quantities are invariant under the
action by conjugacy of the affine group we study their average behaviour using
the aforementioned ordering by height. In particular, we prove an optimal
statistical version of the dynamical Lang conjecture on the canonical height of
rational non-preperiodic points.