  In this talk I will discuss an example of the use of fully nonlinear
parabolic flows to prove geometric results. I will emphasise the fact that
there is a wide variety of geometric parabolic equations to choose from, and to
get the best results it can be very important to choose the best flow. I will
illustrate this in the setting of surfaces in a three-dimensional sphere. There
are quite a few relevant results for surfaces in the sphere satisfying various
kinds of curvature equations, including totally umbillic surfaces, minimal
surfaces and constant mean curvature surfaces, and intrinsically flat surfaces.
Parabolic flows can strengthen such results by allowing classes of surfaces
satisfying curvature inequalities rather than equalities: This was first done
by Huisken, who used mean curvature flow to deform certain classes of surfaces
to totally umbillic surfaces. This motivates the question ``What is the optimal
result of this kind?'' -- that is, what is the weakest pointwise curvature
condition which defines a class of surfaces which retracts to the space of
great spheres? The answer to this question can be guessed in view of the
examples. To prove it requires a surprising choice of evolution equation,
forced by the requirement that the pointwise curvature condition be preserved.
I will conclude by mentioning some other geometric situations in which strong
results can be proved by choosing the best possible evolution equation.


  The partially observable generalized linear model (POGLM) is a powerful tool
for understanding neural connectivity under the assumption of existing hidden
neurons. With spike trains only recorded from visible neurons, existing works
use variational inference to learn POGLM meanwhile presenting the difficulty of
learning this latent variable model. There are two main issues: (1) the sampled
Poisson hidden spike count hinders the use of the pathwise gradient estimator
in VI; and (2) the existing design of the variational model is neither
expressive nor time-efficient, which further affects the performance. For (1),
we propose a new differentiable POGLM, which enables the pathwise gradient
estimator, better than the score function gradient estimator used in existing
works. For (2), we propose the forward-backward message-passing sampling scheme
for the variational model. Comprehensive experiments show that our
differentiable POGLMs with our forward-backward message passing produce a
better performance on one synthetic and two real-world datasets. Furthermore,
our new method yields more interpretable parameters, underscoring its
significance in neuroscience.


  We develop a quasisymmetric analogue of the combinatorial theory of Schubert
polynomials and the associated divided difference operators. Our counterparts
are "forest polynomials", and a new family of linear operators, whose theory of
compositions is governed by forests and the "Thompson monoid". Our approach
extends naturally to $m$-colored quasisymmetric functions.
  We then give several applications of our theory to fundamental quasisymmetric
functions, the study of quasisymmetric coinvariant rings and their associated
harmonics, and positivity results for various expansions. In particular we
resolve a conjecture of Aval-Bergeron-Li regarding quasisymmetric harmonics.


  The use of graph centrality measures applied to biological networks, such as
protein interaction networks, underpins much research into identifying key
players within biological processes. This approach however is restricted to
dyadic interactions and it is well-known that in many instances interactions
are polyadic. In this study we illustrate the merit of using hypergraph
centrality applied to a hypernetwork as an alternative. Specifically, we review
and propose an extension to a recently introduced node and edge nonlinear
hypergraph centrality model which provides mutually dependent node and edge
centralities. A Saccharomyces Cerevisiae protein complex hypernetwork is used
as an example application with nodes representing proteins and hyperedges
representing protein complexes. The resulting rankings of the nodes and edges
are considered to see if they provide insight into the essentiality of the
proteins and complexes. We find that certain variations of the model predict
essentiality more accurately and that the degree-based variation illustrates
that the centrality-lethality rule extends to a hypergraph setting. In
particular, through exploitation of the models flexibility, we identify small
sets of proteins densely populated with essential proteins.


  The weak ferromagnet FeBO$_3$ is well known for being a unique system for
modelling and testing magnetic dynamics primarily due to relatively simple and
localized magnetic structure and its interesting spin wave dynamics. At room
temperature, it has slightly canted iron moments lying in the a-b plane that
result in a strong antiferromagnetic moment and a weak ferromagnetic moment,
which results in pronounced ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic spin modes.
However, some previous studies have shown unusual low-temperature behavior that
suggests a phase transition. By performing low-temperature magnetization
measurements, both in bulk and on the mesoscale, we have observed a low
temperature magnetic texture in this material in which a large c-axis
magnetization occurs. Magnetic fields along the c-axis as high as 1300 Oe were
observed close to the sample surface. This presents evidence for the onset of a
Morin transition or another type of spin-reorientation phase transition wherein
the Fe3+ moments would acquire a c-axis component to their canting below a
critical temperature. The observation of this c-axis magnetization suggests
that there is a different ground state in this material than has been
previously expected and could be due to as yet unexplored intricacies of the
Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction.


  Solar microwave type III pair burst is composed of normal and reverse-sloped
(RS) burst branches with oppositely fast frequency drifts. It is the most
sensitive signature of the primary energy release and electron accelerations in
flares. This work reported 11 microwave type III pair events in 9 flares
observed by radio spectrometers in China and the Czech Republic at frequency of
0.80 - 7.60 GHz during 1994 - 2014. These type III pairs occurred in flare
impulsive and postflare phases with separate frequency in range of 1.08 - 3.42
GHz and frequency gap 10 - 1700 MHz. The frequency drift increases with the
separate frequency (f_{x}), the lifetime of each burst is anti-correlated to
f_{x}, while the frequency gap is independent to f_{x}. In most events, the
normal branches are drifting obviously faster than the RS branches. The type
III pairs occurring in flare impulsive phase have lower separate frequency,
longer lifetime, wider frequency gap, and slower frequency drift than that
occurring in postflare phase. And the latter always has strong circular
polarization. Further analysis indicates that near the flare energy-release
sites the plasma density is about 10^{10} - 10^{11},cm^{-3} and temperature
higher than 10^{7} K . These results provide new constraints to the
acceleration mechanism in solar flares.


  Recent algorithms in machine translation have included a value network to
assist the policy network when deciding which word to output at each step of
the translation. The addition of a value network helps the algorithm perform
better on evaluation metrics like the BLEU score. After training the policy and
value networks in a supervised setting, the policy and value networks can be
jointly improved through common actor-critic methods. The main idea of our
project is to instead leverage Monte-Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) to search for
good output words with guidance from a combined policy and value network
architecture in a similar fashion as AlphaZero. This network serves both as a
local and a global look-ahead reference that uses the result of the search to
improve itself. Experiments using the IWLST14 German to English translation
dataset show that our method outperforms the actor-critic methods used in
recent machine translation papers.


  A vector space partition of $\mathbb{F}_q^v$ is a collection of subspaces
such that every non-zero vector is contained in a unique element. We improve a
lower bound of Heden, in a subcase, on the number of elements of the smallest
occurring dimension in a vector space partition. To this end, we introduce the
notion of $q^r$-divisible sets of $k$-subspaces in $\mathbb{F}_q^v$. By
geometric arguments we obtain non-existence results for these objects, which
then imply the improved result of Heden.


  We demonstrate the fabrication of superconducting SmFeAsO1-xFx (Sm-1111)
wires by using the ex-situ powder-in-tube technique. Sm-1111 powder and a
binder composed of SmF3, samarium arsenide, and iron arsenide were used to
synthesize the superconducting core. Although the F content of Sm-1111 is
reduced in the process of ex-situ fabrication, the binder compensates by
sufficiently supplementing the F content, thereby preventing a decrease in the
superconducting transition temperature and a shrinkage of the superconducting
volume fraction. Thus, in the superconducting Sm-1111 wire with the binder, the
transport critical current density reaches the highest value of ~4 kA/cm2 at
4.2 K.


  This article provides an expository account of the celebrated duality theorem
of Bavard and three its strengthenings. The Bavard duality theorem connects scl
(stable commutator length) and quasimorphisms on a group. Calegari extended the
framework from a group element to a chain on the group, and established the
generalized Bavard duality. Kawasaki, Kimura, Matsushita and Mimura studied the
setting of a pair of a group and its normal subgroup, and obtained the mixed
Bavard duality. The first half of the present article is devoted to an
introduction to these three Bavard dualities. In the latter half, we present a
new strengthening, the generalized mixed Bavard duality, and provide a
self-contained proof of it. This third strengthening recovers all of the Bavard
dualities treated in the first half; thus, we supply complete proofs of these
four Bavard dualities in a unified manner. In addition, we state several
results on the space $\mathrm{W}(G,N)$ of non-extendable quasimorphisms, which
is related to the comparison problem between scl and mixed scl via the mixed
Bavard duality.


  Cerium, in which the 4$f$ valence electrons live at the brink between
localized and itinerant characters, exhibits varying crystal structures and
therefore anomalous physical properties with respect to temperature and
pressure. Understanding its electronic structure and related lattice properties
is one of the central topics in condensed matter theory. In the present work,
we employed the state-of-the-art first-principles many-body approach (i.e., the
density functional theory in combination with the single-site dynamical
mean-field theory) to study its electronic structure thoroughly. The
momentum-resolved spectral functions, total and $4f$ partial density of states,
optical conductivities, self-energy functions, and atomic eigenstate histograms
for cerium's four allotropes under ambient pressure were calculated and
analyzed carefully. The calculated results demonstrate that the 4$f$ electrons
in the $\alpha$, $\beta$, $\gamma$, and $\delta$ phases are all correlated with
heavily remormalized electron masses. In the $\alpha$ phase, the 4$f$ electrons
tend to be itinerant, which cause strong hybridization between the 4$f$ and
$spd$ bands and remarkable 4$f$ valence state fluctuation. While for the other
phases, the 4$f$ electrons are close to be localized. Our calculated results
support the Kondo volume collapse scenario for the cerium $\alpha-\gamma$
transition. Finally, we examined the site dependence of $4f$ electronic
structure in the $\beta$ phase. The calculated results suggest that it doesn't
exhibit a site selective 4$f$ localized state, contrary to previous prediction.


  We further discuss the N=2 superinstantons in SU(2) gauge theory, obtained
from the general self-dual solutions of topological charge n constructed by
Atiyah, Drinfeld, Hitchin and Manin (ADHM). We realize the N=2 supersymmetry
algebra as actions on the superinstanton moduli. This allows us to recast in
concise superfield notation our previously obtained expression for the exact
classical interaction between n ADHM superinstantons mediated by the adjoint
Higgs bosons, and moreover, to incorporate N_F flavors of hypermultiplets. We
perform explicit 1- and 2-instanton checks of the Seiberg-Witten prepotentials
for all N_F and arbitrary hypermultiplet masses. Our results for the low-energy
couplings are all in precise agreement with the predictions of Seiberg and
Witten except for N_F=4, where we find a finite renormalization of the coupling
which is absent in the proposed solution.


  This work reports on the pilot study, performed by INRIM, NPL and PTB, on the
measurement of the g^(2)(0) parameter in the visible spectral range of a test
single-photon source based on a colour centre in diamond. The development of
single-photon sources is of great interest to the metrology community as well
as the burgeoning quantum technologies industry. Measurement of the g^(2)(0)
parameter plays a vital role in characterising and understanding single-photon
emission. This comparison has been conducted by each partner individually using
its own equipment at INRIM laboratories, which were responsible for the
operation of the source


  In this letter we describe electronic measurements of a conjugated polymer of
phenylenevinylene (PPV) with electrode spacings down to 20 nm; all measurements
are made in a gated transistor geometry. With rectangular electrodes we find
that the current is fit by an exponential in the applied electric field for
spacings between 50 nm and 2um. Based on this finding we conclude that the
current is not injection limited, and is concentrated in a very small region;
we also discuss possible transport mechanisms. The calculated mobility appears
exponential in the electric field rather than in the square root of field. We
also show fabricated triangular electrodes with spacings down to 5 nm, and
discuss measurements with spacings down to 20 nm in which a single chain of
polymer may dominate the conductance.


  Beliefs are not facts, but they are factive - they feel like facts. This
property is what can make misinformation dangerous. Being able to deliberately
navigate through a landscape of often conflicting factive statements is
difficult when there is no way to show the relationships between them without
incorporating the information in linear, narrative forms. In this paper, we
present a mechanism to produce maps of belief places, where populations agree
on salient features of fictional environments, and belief spaces, where
subgroups have related but distinct perspectives. Using a model developed using
agent-based simulation, we show that by observing the repeated behaviors of
human participants in the same social context, it is possible to build maps
that show the shared narrative environment overlaid with traces that show
unique, individual or subgroup perspectives. Our contribution is a
proof-of-concept system, based on the affordances of fantasy tabletop
role-playing games, which support multiple groups interacting with the same
dungeon in a controlled, online environment. The techniques used in this
process are mathematically straightforward, and should be generalizable to
auto-generating larger-scale maps of belief spaces from other corpora, such as
discussions on social media.


  A quark action designed for highly anisotropic lattice simulations is
discussed. The mass-dependence of the parameters in the action is studied and
the results are presented. Applications of this action in studies of heavy
quark quantities are described and results are presented from simulations at an
anisotropy of six, for a range of quark masses from strange to bottom.


  In lattice QCD, obtaining properties of heavy-light mesons has been easier
said than done. Focusing on the $B$ meson's decay constant, it is argued that
towards the end of 1997 the last obstacles were removed, at least in the
quenched approximation. These developments, which resulted from a fuller
understanding and implementation of ideas in effective field theory, bode well
for current studies of neutral meson mixing and of semileptonic decays.


  We examine the Newman-Janis algorithm's application to an exact regular
static solution sustained by a minimally coupled scalar field with a
non-standard kinetic term. Although coordinate complexification leads to a
regular Kerr-like black hole, we are facing discrepancies in Einstein's
equations in a fairly small domain, for which the regularizing parameter is
responsible. Outside this most intriguing region, the geometry is nothing but
the standard Kerr spacetime.


  The purpose of this paper is to present a method to compute parameterizations
of invariant tori and bundles in non-autonomous quasi-periodic Hamiltonian
systems. We generalize flow map parameterization methods to the quasi-periodic
setting. To this end, we introduce the notion of fiberwise isotropic tori and
sketch definitions and results on fiberwise symplectic deformations and their
moment maps. These constructs are vital to work in a suitable setting and lead
to the proofs of magic cancellations that guarantee the existence of solutions
of cohomological equations. We apply our algorithms in the Elliptic Restricted
Three Body Problem and compute non-resonant 3-dimensional invariant tori and
their invariant bundles around the L1 point.


  Let h be a real-analytic function in the neighborhood of some compact set K
on the plane. We show that for any complex measure on the Euclidean space of a
finite total variation without singular components with the Fourier--Stieltjes
transform f(y) there exists another measure of a finite total variation with
the Fourier transform g(y) with the property g(y)=h(f(y)) for each y such that
f(y) belongs to K.


  In the first part of the paper we continue the study of solutions to
Schr\"odinger equations with a time singularity in the dispersive relation and
in the periodic setting. In the second we show that if the Schr\"odinger
operator involves a Laplace operator with variable coefficients with a
particular dependence on the space variables, then one can prove Strichartz
estimates at the same regularity as that needed for constant coefficients. Our
work presents a two dimensional analysis, but we expect that with the obvious
adjustments similar results are available in higher dimensions.


  Within this decade gravitational wave detection will open a new observational
window on the Universe. Advanced ground based interferometers covering the kHz
frequency range will be online by 2016, and it is foreseeable the announcement
of a first detection within five years. At the same time, a worldwide effort of
detecting low frequency waves (in the nHz regime) by timing ultra-precise
millisecond pulsars is rapidly growing, possibly leading to a positive
detection within this decade. The mHz regime, bridging these two windows, is
the realm of space based interferometers, which might be launched in the late
20s. I provide here a short overview of the scientific payouts of gravitational
wave astronomy, focusing the discussion on the low frequency regime (pulsar
timing and space based interferometry). A detailed discussion of advanced
ground based interferometer can be found in Patrick Brady's contribution to
this proceedings series.


  We apply a version of the Chas-Sullivan-Cohen-Jones product on the higher
loop homology of a manifold in order to compute the homology of the spaces of
continuous and holomorphic maps of the Riemann sphere into a complex projective
space. This product makes sense on the homology of maps from a co-H space to a
manifold, and comes from a ring spectrum. We also build a holomorphic version
of the product for maps of the Riemann sphere into homogeneous spaces. In the
continuous case we define a related module structure on the homology of maps
from a mapping cone into a manifold, and then describe a spectral sequence that
can compute it. As a consequence we deduce a periodicity and dichotomy theorem
when the source is a compact Riemann surface and the target is a complex
projective space.


  This work deals with the asymptotic behavior of the two as well as three
dimensional convective Brinkman-Forchheimer (CBF) equations in periodic
domains: $$\frac{\partial\boldsymbol{u}}{\partial t}-\mu
\Delta\boldsymbol{u}+(\boldsymbol{u}\cdot\nabla)\boldsymbol{u}+\alpha\boldsymbol{u}+\beta|\boldsymbol{u}|^{r-1}\boldsymbol{u}+\nabla
p=\boldsymbol{f},\ \nabla\cdot\boldsymbol{u}=0,$$ where $r\geq1$. We prove that
the global attractor of the above system is a singleton under small forcing
intensity ($r\geq 1$ for $n=2$ and $r\geq 3$ for $n=3$ with $2\beta\mu\geq 1$
for $r=n=3$). After perturbing the above system with additive or multiplicative
white noise, the random attractor does not have a singleton structure. But we
obtain that the random attractor for 2D stochastic CBF equations with additive
and multiplicative white noise converges towards the deterministic singleton
attractor for $1\leq r\leq 2$ and $1\leq r<\infty$, respectively, when the
coefficient of random perturbation converges to zero (upper and lower
semicontinuity). Interestingly in the case of 3D stochastic CBF equations
perturbed by multiplicative white noise, we are able to establish that the
random attractor converges towards the deterministic singleton attractor for
$3\leq r\leq 5$ ($2\beta\mu\geq 1$ for $r=3$), when the coefficient of random
perturbation converges to zero.


  When a research infrastructure is funded and implemented, new information and
new publications are created. This new information is the measurable output of
discovery process. In this paper, we describe the impact of infrastructure for
physics experiments in terms of publications and citations. In particular, we
consider the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments (ATLAS, CMS, ALICE, LHCb)
and compare them to the Large Electron Positron Collider (LEP) experiments
(ALEPH, DELPHI, L3, OPAL) and the Tevatron experiments (CDF, D0). We provide an
overview of the scientific output of these projects over time and highlight the
role played by remarkable project results in the publication-citation
distribution trends. The methodological and technical contribution of this work
provides a starting point for the development of a theoretical model of modern
scientific knowledge propagation over time.


  We prove that for all positive integers $n$ and $k$, there exists an integer
$N = N(n,k)$ satisfying the following. If $U$ is a set of $k$ direction vectors
in the plane and $\mathcal{J}_U$ is the set of all line segments in direction
$u$ for some $u\in U$, then for every $N$ families $\mathcal{F}_1, \ldots,
\mathcal{F}_N$, each consisting of $n$ mutually disjoint segments in
$\mathcal{J}_U$, there is a set $\{A_1, \ldots, A_n\}$ of $n$ disjoint segments
in $\bigcup_{1\leq i\leq N}\mathcal{F}_i$ and distinct integers $p_1, \ldots,
p_n\in \{1, \ldots, N\}$ satisfying that $A_j\in \mathcal{F}_{p_j}$ for all
$j\in \{1, \ldots, n\}$. We generalize this property for underlying lines on
fixed $k$ directions to $k$ families of simple curves with certain conditions.


  Reinforcement learning combined with deep neural networks has performed
remarkably well in many genres of games recently. It has surpassed human-level
performance in fixed game environments and turn-based two player board games.
However, to the best of our knowledge, current research has yet to produce a
result that has surpassed human-level performance in modern complex fighting
games. This is due to the inherent difficulties with real-time fighting games,
including: vast action spaces, action dependencies, and imperfect information.
We overcame these challenges and made 1v1 battle AI agents for the commercial
game "Blade & Soul". The trained agents competed against five professional
gamers and achieved a win rate of 62%. This paper presents a practical
reinforcement learning method that includes a novel self-play curriculum and
data skipping techniques. Through the curriculum, three different styles of
agents were created by reward shaping and were trained against each other.
Additionally, this paper suggests data skipping techniques that could increase
data efficiency and facilitate explorations in vast spaces. Since our method
can be generally applied to all two-player competitive games with vast action
spaces, we anticipate its application to game development including level
design and automated balancing.


  Comparing the ranking of candidates by different voters is an important topic
in social and information science with a high relevance from the point of view
of practical applications. In general, ties and pairs of incomparable
candidates may occur, thus, the alternative rankings are described by partial
orders. Various distance measures between partial orders have already been
introduced, where zero distance is corresponding to a perfect match between a
pair of partial orders, and larger values signal greater differences. Here we
take a different approach and propose a similarity measure based on adjusted
mutual information. In general, the similarity value of unity is corresponding
to exactly matching partial orders, while a low similarity is associated to a
pair of independent partial orders. The time complexity of the computation of
this similarity measure is $\mathcal{O}(\left|{\mathcal C}\right|^3)$ in the
worst case, and $\mathcal{O}(\left|{\mathcal C}\right|^2\ln \left|{\mathcal
C}\right|)$ in the typical case of partial orders corresponding to trees with
constant branching number, where $\left|{\mathcal C}\right|$ denotes the number
of candidates. An interesting feature of our approach is that the similarity
measure is sensitive to the position of the disagreements in the ranking:
Differences at the highly ranked candidates induce larger similarity drop
compared to disagreements at the bottom candidates.


  This paper concerns the investigation of the stability properties of relative
equilibria which are rigidly rotating vortex configurations sometimes called
vortex crystals, in the N-vortex problem. Such a configurations can be
characterized as critical point of the Hamiltonian function restricted on the
constant angular impulse hypersurface in the phase space (topologically a
pseudo-sphere whose coefficients are the circulation strengths of the
vortices). Relative equilibria are generated by the circle action on the
so-called shape pseudo-sphere (which generalize the standard shape sphere
appearing in the study of the N-body problem). Inspired by the planar
gravitational $N$-body problem, and after a geometrical and dynamical
discussion, we investigate the relation intertwining the stability of relative
equilibria and the inertia indices of the central configurations generating
such equilibria. In the last section we apply our main results to some
symmetric three and four vortices relative equilibria.


  Inconsistency between rigid rotator and bound state models at arbitrary
number of colors, rigid rotator -- soft rotator dilemma and some other problems
of baryon spectroscopy are discussed in the framework of the chiral soliton
approach (CSA). Consequences of the comparison of CSA results with simple quark
models are considered and the $1/N_c$ expansion for the effective strange
antiquark mass is presented, as it follows from the CSA. Strong dependence of
the effective strange antiquark mass on the SU(3) multiplet is required to fit
the CSA predictions. The difference of `good' and `bad' diquark masses, which
is about 100 Mev, is in reasonable agreement with other estimates. Multibaryons
(hypernuclei) with strangeness are described and some states of interest are
predicted within CSA as well.


  We present a model for Desorption Induce by (Multiple) Electronic Transitions
(DIET/DIMET) based on potential energy surfaces calculated with the Delta
Self-Consistent Field extension of Density Functional Theory. We calculate
potential energy surfaces of CO and NO molecules adsorbed on various transition
metal surfaces, and show that classical nuclear dynamics does not suffice for
propagation in the excited state. We present a simple Hamiltonian describing
the system, with parameters obtained from the excited state potential energy
surface, and show that this model can describe desorption dynamics in both the
DIET and DIMET regime, and reproduce the power law behavior observed
experimentally. We observe that the internal stretch degree of freedom in the
molecules is crucial for the energy transfer between the hot electrons and the
molecule when the coupling to the surface is strong.


  Localization of fermions is studied in different gravitational domain wall
models. These are generalizations of the brane-world models considered by
Randall and Sundrum, but which also allow gravitational localization.
Therefore, they might be considered as possible realistic scenarios for
phenomenology.


  Neutrino emission due to the pair breaking and formation processes in the
bulk triplet superfluid in neutron stars is investigated with taking into
account of anomalous weak interactions. We consider the problem in the BCS
approximation discarding Fermi-liquid effects. In this approach we derive
self-consistent equations for anomalous vector and axial-vector vertices of
weak interactions taking into account the $^{3}P_{2}- ^{3}F_{2}$ mixing.
Further we simplify the problem and consider the pure $^{3}P_{2}$ pairing with
$m_{j}=0$, as is adopted in the minimal cooling paradigm. As was expected
because of current conservation we have obtained a large suppression of the
neutrino emissivity in the vector channel. More exactly, the neutrino emission
through the vector channel vanishes in the nonrelativistic limit $V_F=0$. The
axial channel is also found to be moderately suppressed. The total neutrino
emissivity is suppressed by a factor of $1.9\times10^{-1}$ relative to original
estimates using bare weak vertices.


  Photocatalytic water splitting is a promising renewable energy source as an
alternative for limited fossil fuels. The effectiveness of the conversion from
solar energy to hydrogen fuel relies primarily on the material. Previously,
researchers studied different TMDs such as WS$_{2}$, and PdSe$_{2}$. These
materials perform well in certain aspects such as strong adsorption stability
and promising abilities for HER, however, their band gaps are still not ideal.
In this paper, we studied a new TMD material WSe$_{2}$, which is currently used
in heterostructure photocatalysts. To our knowledge, this is the first
assessment of using transition metal doped WSe$_{2}$ as potential
photocatalysts for photocatalytic water splitting. Using first principles
calculations, we evaluated the band gaps and other photocatalytic abilities of
pristine WSe2 as well as Cr, Mo, Ta, and Re doped WSe$_{2}$. Compared to
previously studied TMD materials, three of our newly studied materials
(pristine, Mo doped, and Ta doped WSe$_{2}$)demonstrated more desirable band
gaps, which are closer to being ideal (1.23eV); The band edge positions of our
materials are also closer to the ideal reduction potential of H$^{+}$/H$_{2}$
and the oxidation potential of O$_{2}$/H$_{2}$O. Furthermore, Mo and Ta doped
WSe$_{2}$ monolayers undergo an exothermic process, indicating stable
monolayers. Of the three selected materials, pristine WSe$_{2}$ exhibits the
strongest water adsorption abilities. Our results substantiates pristine, Mo
doped, and Cr doped WSe$_{2}$ as potential photocatalysts for water splitting.


  We discuss the consistency of a recently proposed class of theories described
by an arbitrary function of the Ricci scalar, the trace of the energy-momentum
tensor and the contraction of the Ricci tensor with the energy-momentum tensor.
We briefly discuss the limitations of including the energy-momentum tensor in
the action, as it is a non fundamental quantity, but a quantity that should be
derived from the action. The fact that theories containing non-linear
contractions of the Ricci tensor usually leads to the presence of pathologies
associated with higher-order equations of motion will be shown to constrain the
stability of this class of theories. We provide a general framework and show
that the conformal mode for these theories generally has higher-order equations
of motion and that non-minimal couplings to the matter fields usually lead to
higher-order equations of motion. In order to illustrate such limitations we
explicitly study the cases of a canonical scalar field, a K-essence field and a
massive vector field. Whereas for the scalar field cases it is possible to find
healthy theories, for the vector field case the presence of instabilities is
unavoidable.


  The aim of this article is to provide a scheme for simulating diffusion
processes evolving in one-dimensional discontinuous media. This scheme does not
rely on smoothing the coefficients that appear in the infinitesimal generator
of the diffusion processes, but uses instead an exact description of the
behavior of their trajectories when they reach the points of discontinuity.
This description is supplied with the local comparison of the trajectories of
the diffusion processes with those of a skew Brownian motion.


  Governments have long standing interests in preventing market failures and
enhancing innovation in strategic industries. Public policy regarding domestic
technology is critical to both national security and economic prosperity.
Governments often seek to enhance their global competitiveness by promoting
private sector cooperative activity at the inter-organizational level. Research
on network governance has illuminated the structure of boundary-spanning
collaboration mainly for programs with immediate public or non-profit
objectives. Far less research has examined how governments might accelerate
private sector cooperation to prevent market failures or to enhance innovation.
The theoretical contribution of this research is to suggest that government
programs might catalyze cooperative activity by accelerating the preferential
attachment mechanism inherent in social networks. We analyze the long-term
effects of a government program on the strategic alliance network of 451
organizations in the high-tech semiconductor industry between 1987 and 1999,
using stochastic network analysis methods for longitudinal social networks.


  Research works on the two topics of Semantic Segmentation and SLAM
(Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) have been following separate tracks.
Here, we link them quite tightly by delineating a category label fusion
technique that allows for embedding semantic information into the dense map
created by a volume-based SLAM algorithm such as KinectFusion. Accordingly, our
approach is the first to provide a semantically labeled dense reconstruction of
the environment from a stream of RGB-D images. We validate our proposal using a
publicly available semantically annotated RGB-D dataset and a) employing ground
truth labels, b) corrupting such annotations with synthetic noise, c) deploying
a state of the art semantic segmentation algorithm based on Convolutional
Neural Networks.


  Direct collocation methods are powerful tools to solve trajectory
optimization problems in robotics. While their resulting trajectories tend to
be dynamically accurate, they may also present large kinematic errors in the
case of constrained mechanical systems, i.e., those whose state coordinates are
subject to holonomic or nonholonomic constraints, like loop-closure or
rolling-contact constraints. These constraints confine the robot trajectories
to an implicitly-defined manifold, which complicates the computation of
accurate solutions. Discretization errors inherent to the transcription of the
problem easily make the trajectories drift away from this manifold, which
results in physically inconsistent motions that are difficult to track with a
controller. This paper reviews existing methods to deal with this problem and
proposes new ones to overcome their limitations. Current approaches either
disregard the kinematic constraints (which leads to drift accumulation) or
modify the system dynamics to keep the trajectory close to the manifold (which
adds artificial forces or energy dissipation to the system). The methods we
propose, in contrast, achieve full drift elimination on the discrete
trajectory, or even along the continuous one, without artificial modifications
of the system dynamics. We illustrate and compare the methods using various
examples of different complexity.


  Gravity is understood as a geometrization of spacetime. But spacetime is also
the manifold of the boundary values of the spinless point particle in a
variational approach. Since all known matter, baryons, leptons and gauge bosons
are spinning objects, it means that the manifold, which we call the kinematical
space, where we play the game of the variational formalism of an elementary
particle is greater than spacetime. This manifold for any mechanical system is
a Finsler metric space such that the variational formalism can always be
interpreted as a geodesic problem on this space. This manifold is just the flat
Minkowski space for the free spinless particle. Any interaction modifies its
flat Finsler metric as gravitation does. The same thing happens for the
spinning objects but now the Finsler metric space has more dimensions and its
metric is modified by any interaction, so that to reduce gravity to the
modification only of the spacetime metric is to make a simpler theory, the
gravitational theory of spinless matter. Even the usual assumption that the
modification of the metric only involves dependence of the metric coefficients
on the spacetime variables is also a restriction because in general these
coefficients are dependent on the velocities. In the spirit of unification of
all forces, gravity cannot produce, in principle, a different and simpler
geometrization than any other interaction.


  Despite widespread interest, a detailed understanding of the dynamics of
proton transfer at interfaces is lacking. Here we use ab initio molecular
dynamics to unravel the connection between interfacial water structure and
proton transfer for the widely studied and experimentally well-characterized
water-ZnO$(10\bar{1}0)$ interface. We find that upon going from a single layer
of adsorbed water to a liquid multilayer changes in the structure are
accompanied by a dramatic increase in the proton transfer rate at the surface.
We show how hydrogen bonding and rather specific hydrogen bond fluctuations at
the interface are responsible for the change in the structure and proton
transfer dynamics. The implications of this for the chemical reactivity and for
the modelling of complex wet oxide interfaces in general are also discussed.


  A combined analysis of the electromagnetic pion and kaon form factors in the
neighborhood of J/psi and psi(2S) and of the strong decay amplitude of these
resonances into kaons is presented. In the presence of a large relative phase
between strong and electromagnetic resonance amplitudes the branching ratio, as
measured in electron-positron annihilation, receives an additional contribution
from the interference between resonance and continuum amplitude neglected in
earlier papers. Our study is model independent and does not rely on the SU(3)
symmetry assumptions used in earlier papers. We note that the large relative
phase between strong and electromagnetic amplitudes observed in earlier
analyses is model dependent and relies critically on the specific assumptions
on SU(3) symmetry and breaking.


  In this note, we calculate the one-loop determinant for a massive scalar
(with conformal dimension $\Delta$) in even-dimensional AdS$_{d+1}$ space,
using the quasinormal mode method developed in arXiv:0908.2657 by Denef,
Hartnoll, and Sachdev. Working first in two dimensions on the related Euclidean
hyperbolic plane $H_2$, we find a series of zero modes for negative real values
of $\Delta$ whose presence indicates a series of poles in the one-loop
partition function $Z(\Delta)$ in the $\Delta$ complex plane; these poles
contribute temperature-independent terms to the thermal AdS partition function
computed in arXiv:0908.2657. Our results match those in a series of papers by
Camporesi and Higuchi, as well as Gopakumar et al. in arXiv:1103.3627 and
Banerjee et al. in arXiv:1005.3044. We additionally examine the meaning of
these zero modes, finding that they Wick-rotate to quasinormal modes of the
AdS$_2$ black hole. They are also interpretable as matrix elements of the
discrete series representations of $SO(2,1)$ in the space of smooth functions
on $S^1$. We generalize our results to general even dimensional AdS$_{2n}$,
again finding a series of zero modes which are related to discrete series
representations of $SO(2n,1)$, the motion group of $H_{2n}$.


  Solar hard X-ray flares can expose astronauts on lunar and deep space
extravehicular activities (EVAs) to dangerous acute biological doses. We
combine calculations of radiative transfer through shielding materials with
subsequent transfer through tissue to show that hazardous doses, taken as >=
0.1 Gy, should occur with a probability of about 10% per 100 hours of
accumulated EVA inside current spacesuits. The rapid onset and short duration
of X-ray flares and the lack of viable precursor events require strategies for
quick retreat, in contrast to solar proton events, which usually take hours to
deliver significant fluence and can often be anticipated by flares or other
light-speed precursors. Our results contrast with the view that only particle
radiation poses dangers for human space exploration. Heavy-element shields
provide the most efficient protection from X-ray flares, since X-rays produce
no significant secondary radiation. We calculate doses due to X-ray flares
behind aluminum shields and estimate the required shield masses to accompany
EVA rovers.


  We interpret Minkowski black holes as world-sheet {\it spikes } which are
related by world-sheet { \it duality} to {\it vortices } that correspond to
Euclidean black holes. These world-sheet defects induce defects in the gauge
fields of the corresponding coset Wess-Zumino descriptions of
spherically-symmetric black holes. The low-temperature target space-time foam
is a Minkowski black hole (spike) plasma with confined Euclidean black holes
(vortices). The high-temperature phase is a {\it dense} vortex plasma described
by a topological gauge field theory on the world-sheet, which possesses
enhanced symmetry as in the target space-time singularity at the core of a
black hole. Quantum decay via higher-genus effects induces a back-reaction
which causes a Minkowski black hole to lose mass until it is indistinguishable
from intrinsic fluctuations in the space-time foam.


  We examine the assembly process and the observability of a first galaxy
(M_vir~10^9 solar mass at z~8) with cosmological zoom-in, hydrodynamic
simulations, including the radiative, mechanical, and chemical feedback exerted
by the first generations of stars. To assess the detectability of such dwarf
systems with the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), we construct the
spectral energy distribution for the simulated galaxy in a post-processing
fashion. We find that while the non-ionizing UV continuum emitted by the
simulated galaxy is expected to be below the JWST detection limit, the galaxy
might be detectable using its nebular emission, specifically in the H-alpha
recombination line. This requires that the galaxy experiences an active
starburst with a star formation rate of Mdot_star > 0.1 Msun/yr at z~9. Due to
the bursty nature of star formation in the first galaxies, the time interval
for strong nebular emission is short, less than 2-3 Myr. The probability of
capturing such primordial dwarf galaxies during the observable part of their
duty cycle is thus low, resulting in number densities of order one source in a
single pointing with MIRI onboard the JWST, for very deep exposures.
Gravitational lensing, however, will boost their observability beyond this
conservative baseline. The first sources of light will thus come firmly within
our reach.


  When a magnetosheath jet (localized dynamic pressure enhancements) compresses
ambient magnetosheath at a (relative) speed faster than the local magnetosonic
speed, a bow wave or shock can form ahead of the jet. Such bow waves or shocks
were recently observed to accelerate particles, thus contributing to
magnetosheath heating and particle acceleration in the extended environment of
Earth bow shock. To further understand the characteristics of jet-driven bow
waves, we perform a statistical study to examine which solar wind conditions
favor their formation and whether it is common for them to accelerate
particles. We identified 364 out of 2859 (13%) magnetosheath jets to have a bow
wave or shock ahead of them with Mach number typically larger than 1.1. We show
that large solar wind plasma beta, weak interplanetary magnetic field (IMF)
strength, large solar wind Alfven Mach number, and strong solar wind dynamic
pressure present favorable conditions for their formation. We also show that
magnetosheath jets with bow waves or shocks are more frequently associated with
higher maximum ion and electron energies than those without them, confirming
that it is common for these structures to accelerate particles. In particular,
magnetosheath jets with bow waves have electron energy flux enhanced on average
by a factor of 2 compared to both those without bow waves and the ambient
magnetosheath. Our study implies that magnetosheath jets can contribute to
shock acceleration of particles especially for high Mach number shocks.
Therefore, shock models should be generalized to include magnetosheath jets and
concomitant particle acceleration.


  The North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav)
has recently reported strong statistical evidence for a common-spectrum
red-noise process for all pulsars, as seen in their 12.5-yr analysis for an
isotropic stochastic gravitational-wave background. However, there is currently
very little evidence for quadrupolar spatial correlations across the pulsars in
the array, which is needed to make a confident claim of detection of a
stochastic background. Here we give a frequentist analysis of a very simple
signal+noise model showing that the current lack of evidence for spatial
correlations is consistent with the magnitude of the correlation coefficients
for pairs of Earth-pulsar baselines in the array, and the fact that pulsar
timing arraysbare most-likely operating in the intermediate-signal regime. We
derive analytic expressions that allow one to compare the expected values of
the signal-to-noise ratios for both the common-spectrum and cross-correlation
estimators.


  This paper presents a novel approach in autonomous robot control, named
LLM-BRAIn, that makes possible robot behavior generation, based on operator's
commands. LLM-BRAIn is a transformer-based Large Language Model (LLM)
fine-tuned from Stanford Alpaca 7B model to generate robot behavior tree (BT)
from the text description. We train the LLM-BRAIn on 8,5k instruction-following
demonstrations, generated in the style of self-instruct using
text-davinchi-003. The developed model accurately builds complex robot behavior
while remaining small enough to be run on the robot's onboard microcomputer.
The model gives structural and logical correct BTs and can successfully manage
instructions that were not presented in training set. The experiment did not
reveal any significant subjective differences between BTs generated by
LLM-BRAIn and those created by humans (on average, participants were able to
correctly distinguish between LLM-BRAIn generated BTs and human-created BTs in
only 4.53 out of 10 cases, indicating that their performance was close to
random chance). The proposed approach potentially can be applied to mobile
robotics, drone operation, robot manipulator systems and Industry 4.0.


  The dominance relationship between two members of the family of Sugeno Weber
t-norms is proven by using a quantifer elimination algorithm. Further it is
shown that dominance is a transitive, and therefore also an order relation, on
this family of t-norms.


  Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) are natural waveguides for electrons in graphene.
Nevertheless, unlike micron-sized samples, conductance is nearly suppressed in
these narrow graphene stripes, mainly due to scattering with edge disorder
generated during synthesis or cut. A possible way to circumvent this effect is
to define an internal waveguide that isolates specific modes from the edge
disorder and allows ballistic conductance. There are several proposals for
defining waveguides in graphene; in this manuscript, we consider strain folds
and scalar potentials and numerically evaluate these proposals' performance
against edge and bulk disorder. Using the Green's function approach, we
calculate conductance and the local density of states (LDOS) of zigzag GNRs and
characterize the performance of these different physical waveguiding effects in
both types of disorder. We found a general improvement in the electronic
conductance of GNR due to the presence of the internal waveguiding, with the
emergence of plateaus with quasi-ballistic properties and robustness against
edge disorder. These findings are up to be applied in modern nanotechnology and
being experimentally tested.


  We consider weak convergence of one-step schemes for solving stochastic
differential equations (SDEs) with one-sided Lipschitz conditions. It is known
that the super-linear coefficients may lead to a blowup of moments of solutions
and their numerical solutions. When solutions to SDEs have all finite moments,
weak convergence of numerical schemes has been investigated in [Wang et al
(2023), Weak error analysis for strong approximation schemes of SDEs with
super-linear coefficients, IMA Journal numerical analysis]. Some modified Euler
schemes have been analyzed for weak convergence. In this work, we present a
family of explicit schemes of first and second-order weak convergence based on
classical schemes for SDEs. We explore the effects of limited moments on these
schemes. We provide a systematic but simple way to establish weak convergence
orders for schemes based on approximations/modifications of drift and diffusion
coefficients. We present several numerical examples of these schemes and show
their weak convergence orders.


  Vehicle Re-identification (re-id) over surveillance camera network with
non-overlapping field of view is an exciting and challenging task in
intelligent transportation systems (ITS). Due to its versatile applicability in
metropolitan cities, it gained significant attention. Vehicle re-id matches
targeted vehicle over non-overlapping views in multiple camera network.
However, it becomes more difficult due to inter-class similarity, intra-class
variability, viewpoint changes, and spatio-temporal uncertainty. In order to
draw a detailed picture of vehicle re-id research, this paper gives a
comprehensive description of the various vehicle re-id technologies,
applicability, datasets, and a brief comparison of different methodologies. Our
paper specifically focuses on vision-based vehicle re-id approaches, including
vehicle appearance, license plate, and spatio-temporal characteristics. In
addition, we explore the main challenges as well as a variety of applications
in different domains. Lastly, a detailed comparison of current state-of-the-art
methods performances over VeRi-776 and VehicleID datasets is summarized with
future directions. We aim to facilitate future research by reviewing the work
being done on vehicle re-id till to date.


  Calculations in a (3+1)-dimensional model indicate that Pauli-Villars
regularization can be combined with discrete light-cone quantization (DLCQ) to
solve at least some field theories nonperturbatively. Discrete momentum states
of Pauli-Villars particles are included in the Fock basis to automatically
generate needed counterterms; the resultant increase in basis size is found
acceptable. The Lanczos algorithm is used to extract the lowest massive
eigenstate and eigenvalue of the light-cone Hamiltonian, with basis sizes
ranging up to 10.5 million. Each Fock-sector wave function is computed in this
way, and from these one can obtain values for various quantities, such as
average multiplicities and average momenta of constituents, structure
functions, and a form-factor slope.


  A function from Baire space to the natural numbers is called formally
continuous if it is induced by a morphism between the corresponding formal
spaces. We compare formal continuity to two other notions of continuity on
Baire space working in Bishop constructive mathematics: one is a function
induced by a Brouwer-operation (i.e. inductively defined neighbourhood
function); the other is a function uniformly continuous near every compact
image. We show that formal continuity is equivalent to the former while it is
strictly stronger than the latter.


  It is known that the exchange of information between web applications is done
by means of the SOAP protocol. Securing this protocol is obviously a vital
issue for any computer network. However, when it comes to cloud computing
systems, the sensitivity of this issue rises, as the clients of system, release
their data to the cloud. XML signature is employed to secure SOAP messages.
However, there are also some weak points that have been identified, named as
XML signature wrapping attacks, which have been categorized into four major
groups; Simple Ancestry Context Attack, Optional element context attacks,
Sibling Value Context Attack, Sibling Order Context. In this paper, two
existing methods, for referencing the signed part of SOAP Message, named as ID
referencing and XPath method, are analyzed and examined. In addition, a new
method is proposed and tested, to secure the SOAP message. In the new method,
the XML any signature wrapping attack is prevented by employing the concept of
XML digital signature on the SOAP message. The results of conducted experiments
show that the proposed method is approximately three times faster than the
XPath method and even a little faster than ID.


  Cultural accumulation drives the open-ended and diverse progress in
capabilities spanning human history. It builds an expanding body of knowledge
and skills by combining individual exploration with inter-generational
information transmission. Despite its widespread success among humans, the
capacity for artificial learning agents to accumulate culture remains
under-explored. In particular, approaches to reinforcement learning typically
strive for improvements over only a single lifetime. Generational algorithms
that do exist fail to capture the open-ended, emergent nature of cultural
accumulation, which allows individuals to trade-off innovation and imitation.
Building on the previously demonstrated ability for reinforcement learning
agents to perform social learning, we find that training setups which balance
this with independent learning give rise to cultural accumulation. These
accumulating agents outperform those trained for a single lifetime with the
same cumulative experience. We explore this accumulation by constructing two
models under two distinct notions of a generation: episodic generations, in
which accumulation occurs via in-context learning and train-time generations,
in which accumulation occurs via in-weights learning. In-context and in-weights
cultural accumulation can be interpreted as analogous to knowledge and skill
accumulation, respectively. To the best of our knowledge, this work is the
first to present general models that achieve emergent cultural accumulation in
reinforcement learning, opening up new avenues towards more open-ended learning
systems, as well as presenting new opportunities for modelling human culture.


  Attack Trees are a graphical model of security used to study threat
scenarios. While visually appealing and supported by solid theories and
effective tools, one of their main drawbacks remains the amount of effort
required by security experts to design them from scratch. This work aims to
remedy this by providing a method for the automatic generation of Attack Trees
from attack logs. The main original feature of our approach w.r.t existing ones
is the use of Process Mining algorithms to synthesize Attack Trees, which allow
users to customize the way a set of logs are summarized as an Attack Tree, for
example by discarding statistically irrelevant events. Our approach is
supported by a prototype that, apart from the derivation and translation of the
model, provides the user with an Attack Tree in the RisQFLan format, a tool
used for quantitative risk modeling and analysis with Attack Trees. We
illustrate our approach with the case study of attacks on a communication
protocol, produced by a state-of-the-art protocol analyzer.


  We investigate the surface tension $\sigma$ and the curvature energy $\gamma$
of quark matter drops in the MIT bag model with vector interactions. Finite
size corrections to the density of states are implemented by using the multiple
reflection expansion (MRE) formalism. We find that $\sigma$ and $\gamma$ are
strongly enhanced by new terms arising from vector interactions. With respect
to the noninteracting case they are increased by a large factor, which can be
as high as $\sim 10$ when the vector coupling constant $g$ varies within the
range used in the literature. This behavior may have major consequences for the
hadron-quark mixed phase speculated to exist at neutron star (NS) interiors,
which may be totally suppressed or have its extension substantially reduced.


  Online beat tracking (OBT) has always been a challenging task. Due to the
inaccessibility of future data and the need to make inference in real-time. We
propose Do not Look back! (DLB), a novel approach optimized for efficiency when
performing OBT. DLB feeds the activations of a unidirectional RNN into an
enhanced Monte-Carlo localization model to infer beat positions. Most
preexisting OBT methods either apply some offline approaches to a moving window
containing past data to make predictions about future beat positions or must be
primed with past data at startup to initialize. Meanwhile, our proposed method
only uses activation of the current time frame to infer beat positions. As
such, without waiting at the beginning to receive a chunk, it provides an
immediate beat tracking response, which is critical for many OBT applications.
DLB significantly improves beat tracking accuracy over state-of-the-art OBT
methods, yielding a similar performance to offline methods.


  Linear algebra algorithms are used widely in a variety of domains, e.g
machine learning, numerical physics and video games graphics. For all these
applications, loop-level parallelism is required to achieve high performance.
However, finding the optimal way to schedule the workload between threads is a
non-trivial problem because it depends on the structure of the algorithm being
parallelized and the hardware the executable is run on. In the realm of
Asynchronous Many Task runtime systems, a key aspect of the scheduling problem
is predicting the proper chunk-size, where the chunk-size is defined as the
number of iterations of a for-loop assigned to a thread as one task. In this
paper, we study the applications of supervised learning models to predict the
chunk-size which yields maximum performance on multiple parallel linear algebra
operations using the HPX backend of Blaze's linear algebra library. More
precisely, we generate our training and tests sets by measuring performance of
the application with different chunk-sizes for multiple linear algebra
operations; vector-addition, matrix-vector-multiplication, matrix-matrix
addition and matrix-matrix-multiplication. We compare the use of logistic
regression, neural networks and decision trees with a newly developed decision
tree based model in order to predict the optimal value for chunk-size. Our
results show that classical decision trees and our custom decision tree model
are able to forecast a chunk-size which results in good performance for the
linear algebra operations.


  Understanding the grain boundary deformation dynamics is very crucial to
designing materials with stable microstructures. With this quest, the
deformation behavior of coherent twin boundary under cyclic shear loading has
been studied in {\alpha}-Fe using molecular dynamics simulations to understand
the influence of strain amplitude and temperature. Twin boundary exhibited
shear coupled migration along with cyclic irreversibility character at lower
temperatures and gained almost perfect reversibility at higher temperatures of
around 1500 K. TB exhibited more sliding than migration with an increase in
temperature. The stress associated with the migration of twins was observed to
fluctuate around its average value. This was caused by layer by layer
propagation of twin boundary through the activity of 1/6 <111> = 1/12 <111> +
1/12 <111> type edge partial dislocations on "\{"112"\}" twin plane. Complete
twin reversibility and complex TB migration were noticed in the presence of
multiple parallel twin nanowires. Twin migration was observed at the larger
size nanowires with a proper combination of boundary conditions and strain
rates; otherwise, it was absent. The influence of shear strain amplitude in
offsetting the twin boundary was found to be minimal.


  Organisms must acquire and use environmental information to guide their
behaviors. However, it is unclear whether and how information quantitatively
limits behavioral performance. Here, we relate information to behavioral
performance in Escherichia coli chemotaxis. First, we derive a theoretical
limit for the maximum achievable gradient-climbing speed given a cell's
information acquisition rate. Next, we measure cells' gradient-climbing speeds
and the rate of information acquisition by the chemotaxis pathway. We find that
E. coli make behavioral decisions with much less than the 1 bit required to
determine whether they are swimming up-gradient. However, they use this
information efficiently, performing near the theoretical limit. Thus,
information can limit organisms' performance, and sensory-motor pathways may
have evolved to efficiently use information from the environment.


  We report the discovery of five new transiting hot Jupiter planets discovered
by the HATSouth survey: HATS-31b through HATS-35b. These planets orbit
moderately bright stars with V magnitudes within the range 11.9-14.4mag while
the planets span a range of masses 0.88-1.22MJ, and have somewhat inflated
radii between 1.23-1.64RJ.These planets can be classified as typical hot
Jupiters, with HATS-31b and HATS-35b being moderately inflated gas giant
planets with radii of $1.64 \pm 0.22$ RJ and 1.464+0.069-0.044RJ, respectively,
that can be used to constrain inflation mechanisms. All five systems present a
higher Bayesian evidence for a fixed circular orbit model than for an eccentric
orbit. The orbital periods range from $1.8209993 \pm 0.0000016$ day for
HATS-35b) to $3.377960 \pm 0.000012$ day for HATS-31b. Additionally, HATS-35b
orbits a relatively young F star with an age of $2.13 \pm 0.51$ Gyr. We discuss
the analysis to derive the properties of these systems and compare them in the
context of the sample of well characterized transiting hot Jupiters known to
date.


  In the paper, the martingales and super-martingales relative to a regular set
of measures are systematically studied. The notion of local regular
super-martingale relative to a set of equivalent measures is introduced and the
necessary and sufficient conditions of the local regularity of it in the
discrete case are founded. The regular set of measures play fundamental role
for the description of incomplete markets. In the partial case, the description
of the regular set of measures is presented. The notion of completeness of the
regular set of measures have the important significance for the simplification
of the proof of the optional decomposition for super-martingales. Using this
notion, the important inequalities for some random values are obtained. These
inequalities give the simple proof of the optional decomposition of the
majorized super-martingales. The description of all local regular
super-martingales relative to the regular set of measures is presented. It is
proved that every majorized super-martingale relative to the complete set of
measures is a local regular one. In the case, as evolution of a risk asset is
given by the discrete geometric Brownian motion, the financial market is
incomplete and a new formula for the fair price of super-hedge is founded.


  The purposes and possibilities of future diffractive structure function
measurements at HERA are presented. A review of the current range and accuracy
of the measurement of $F_2^{D(3)}(\beta, x_p, Q^2)$ is presented and an
estimate of the precision of future measurements is given. A feasibility study
is performed on the measurement of the structure functions $F_2^{D(4)}(\beta,
x_p, Q^2, t)$, $F_{2 charm}^{D}$, $R^{D(3)}$, $R^{D(4)}$ and $F_L^{p}$.
Included in this study are estimates of the integrated luminosity required, the
analysis techniques to be employed and values of systematic error that could be
expected.


  A new multiplex-type inelastic neutron scattering spectrometer, HOrizontally
Defocusing Analyzer Concurrent data Acquisition spectrometer (HODACA), was
recently developed and built at the C1-1 cold neutron beam port in JRR-3. The
spectrometer is suitable for dynamics measurements in the energy range of $-1$
meV $\lesssim \hbar \omega \lesssim$ 7 meV, catering to a broad array of
research fields in physics and material science. HODACA combines 24 detectors
and 132 pieces of analyzer crystals and has an estimated measurement efficiency
that is 70 times greater than the existing conventional triple-axis
spectrometer at the C1-1 beam port. The concept, design, specification, and
results of commissioning experiments are described.


  In this exposition we discuss the theory of algebraic extensions of valued
fields. Our approach is mostly through Galois theory. Most of the results are
well-known, but some are new. No previous knowledge on the theory of valuations
is needed.


  Fe$_3$O$_4$ magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) were synthesized by a
co-precipitation method using sodium citrate and oleic acid as modifiers. Phase
composition and microstructure analysis indicate that the sodium citrate and
oleic acid have been successfully grafted onto the surface of Fe$_3$O$_4$ MNPs.
The magnetic behaviors reveal that the modification can decrease the saturation
magnetization of Fe$_3$O$_4$ MNPs due to the surface effect. Fe$_3$O$_4$ MNPs
modified by sodiumcitrate and oleic acid show excellent dispersion capability,
which should be ascribed to the great reduction of high surface energy and
dipolar attraction of the nanoparticles.


  This paper presents a novel relational database architecture aimed to visual
objects classification and retrieval. The framework is based on the
bag-of-features image representation model combined with the Support Vector
Machine classification and is integrated in a Microsoft SQL Server database.


  Sub-arcsecond imaging of the X-ray emission in the type 2 AGN Mrk 78 with
Chandra shows complex structure with spectral variations on scales from
$\sim$200 pc to $\sim$ 2 kpc. Overall the X-ray emission is aligned E-W with
the radio (3.6 cm) and narrow emission line region as mapped in [OIII], with a
marked E-W asymmetry. The Eastern X-ray emission is mostly in a compact knot
coincident with the location where the radio source is deflected, while the
Western X-ray emission forms a loop or shell $\sim$2 kpc from the nucleus with
radius $\sim$0.7 kpc. There is suggestive evidence of shocks in both the
Eastern knot and the Western arc. Both these positions coincide with large
changes in the velocities of the [OIII] outflow. We discuss possible reasons
why the X-ray shocks on the Western side occur $\sim1$ kpc farther out than on
the Eastern side. We estimate that the thermal energy injected by the shocks
into the interstellar medium corresponds to $0.05-0.6$% of the AGN bolometric
luminosity.


  The shell-type supernova remnant HESS J1731$-$347 emits TeV gamma-rays, and
is a key object for the study of the cosmic ray acceleration potential of
supernova remnants. We use 0.5-1 arcminute Mopra CO/CS(1-0) data in conjunction
with HI data to calculate column densities towards the HESS J1731$-$347 region.
We trace gas within at least four Galactic arms, typically tracing total
(atomic+molecular) line-of-sight H column densities of 2-3$\times$10$^{22}$
cm$^{-2}$. Assuming standard X-factor values and that most of the HI/CO
emission seen towards HESS J1731$-$347 is on the near-side of the Galaxy, X-ray
absorption column densities are consistent with HI+CO-derived column densities
foreground to, but not beyond, the Scutum-Crux Galactic arm, suggesting a
kinematic distance of $\sim$3.2 kpc for HESS J1731$-$347. At this kinematic
distance, we also find dense, infrared-dark gas traced by CS(1-0) emission
coincident with the north of HESS J1731$-$347, the nearby HII region
G353.43$-$0.37 and the nearby unidentified gamma-ray source HESS J1729$-$345.
This dense gas lends weight to the idea that HESS J1729$-$345 and HESS
J1731-347 are connected, perhaps via escaping cosmic-rays.


  We investigate structural, magnetic, and electronic properties of SrFeAsF as
a new parent for superconductors using state-of-the-art density-functional
theory method. Calculated results show that striped antiferromagnetic order is
the magnetic ground state in the Fe layer and interlayer magnetic interaction
is tiny. Calculated As and Sr positions are in agreement with experiment. There
are only two uniaxially-dispersed bands near the Fermi level. The valent charge
is mainly in the Fe and F layers, and the magnetic moment is confined to the Fe
atoms. Inter-Fe-spin couplings is due to superexchange through As atoms. These
are useful to understanding the SrFeAsF and should have helpful implications to
doped samples.


  The purpose of this paper is twofold: first we study an eigenvalue problem
for the fractional $p$-sub-Laplacian over the fractional Folland-Stein-Sobolev
spaces on stratified Lie groups. We apply variational methods to investigate
the eigenvalue problems. We conclude the positivity of the first eigenfunction
via the strong minimum principle for the fractional $p$-sub-Laplacian.
Moreover, we deduce that the first eigenvalue is simple and isolated. Secondly,
utilising established properties, we prove the existence of at least two weak
solutions via the Nehari manifold technique to a class of subelliptic singular
problems associated with the fractional $p$-sub-Laplacian on stratified Lie
groups. We also investigate the boundedness of positive weak solutions to the
considered problem via the Moser iteration technique. The results obtained here
are also new even for the case $p=2$ with $\mathbb{G}$ being the Heisenberg
group.


  We analyze the influence of the characteristics of the STM-tip (applied
voltage, tip radius) on the electroluminescence spectra from an STM-tip-induced
quantum dot taking into account the many-body effects. We find that positions
of electroluminescence peaks, attributed to the electron-hole recombination in
the quantum dot, are very sensitive to the shape and size of the confinement
potential as determined by the tip radius and the applied voltage. A critical
value of the tip radius is found, at which the luminescence peak positions as a
function of the tip radius manifest a transition from decreasing behavior for
smaller radii to increasing behavior for larger radii. We find that this
critical value of the tip radius is related to the confinement in the lateral
and normal direction.


  The astrophysical capture process $\alpha+d$ $\rightarrow$ $^6$Li + $\gamma$
is studied in a three-body model.
  The initial state is factorized into the deuteron bound state and the
$\alpha+d$ scattering state. The final nucleus $^6$Li(1+) is described as a
three-body bound state $\alpha+n+p$ in the hyperspherical Lagrange-mesh method.
  The contribution of the E1 transition operator from the initial isosinglet
states to the isotriplet components of the final state is estimated to be
negligible. An estimation of the forbidden E1 transition to the isosinglet
components of the final state is comparable with the corresponding results of
the two-body model.
  However, the contribution of the E2 transition operator is found to be much
smaller than the corresponding estimations of the two-body model.
  The three-body model perfectly matches the new experimental data of the LUNA
collaboration with the spectroscopic factor 2.586 estimated from the
bound-state wave functions of $^6$Li and deuteron.


  In this work, we pave the way to calculate the productions of $\omega$ and
$K^0_{\rm S}$ mesons at large $p_T$ in p+p and A+A collisions at the RHIC and
the LHC. The $\omega$ meson fragmentation functions (FFs) in vacuum at
next-to-leading order (NLO) are obtained by evolving NLO DGLAP evolution
equations with rescaled $\omega$ FFs at initial scale $Q_0^2=1.5$ GeV$^2$ from
a broken SU(3) model, and the $K^0_{\rm S}$ FFs in vacuum are taken from AKK08
parametrization directly. Within the framework of the NLO pQCD improved parton
model, we make good descriptions of the experimental data on $\omega$ and
$K^0_{\rm S}$ in p+p both at the RHIC and the LHC. With the higher-twist
approach to take into account the jet quenching effect by medium modified FFs,
the nuclear modification factors for $\omega$ meson and $K^0_{\rm S}$ meson at
the RHIC and the LHC are presented with different sets of jet transport
coefficient $\hat{q}_0$. Then we make a global extraction of $\hat{q}_0$ at the
RHIC and the LHC by confronting our model calculations with all available data
on 6 identified mesons: $\pi^0$, $\eta$, $\rho^0$, $\phi$, $\omega$, and
$K^0_{\rm S}$. The minimum value of the total $\chi^2/d.o.f$ for productions of
these mesons gives the best value of $\hat{q}_0=0.5\rm GeV^2/fm$ for Au+Au
collisions with $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}=200$ GeV at the RHIC, and $\hat{q}_0=1.2\rm
GeV^2/fm$ for Pb+Pb collisions with $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}=2.76$ TeV at the LHC
respectively, with the QGP spacetime evolution given by an event-by-event
viscous hydrodynamics model IEBE-VISHNU. With these global extracted values of
$\hat{q}_0$, the nuclear modification factors of $\pi^0$, $\eta$, $\rho^0$,
$\phi$, $\omega$, and $K^0_{\rm S}$ in A+A collisions are presented, and
predictions of yield ratios such as $\omega/\pi^0$ and $K^0_{\rm S}/\pi^0$ at
large $p_T$ in heavy-ion collisions at the RHIC and the LHC are provided.


  We study the proximity effect between an s-wave superconductor and the
surface states of a strong topological insulator. The resulting two dimensional
state resembles a spinless p_x+ip_y superconductor, but does not break time
reversal symmetry. This state supports Majorana bound states at vortices. We
show that linear junctions between superconductors mediated by the topological
insulator form a non chiral 1 dimensional wire for Majorana fermions, and that
circuits formed from these junctions provide a method for creating,
manipulating and fusing Majorana bound states.


  Most studies on social influence have focused on direct influence, while
another interesting question can be raised as whether indirect influence exists
between two users who're not directly connected in the network and what affects
such influence. In addition, the theory of \emph{complex contagion} tells us
that more spreaders will enhance the indirect influence between two users. Our
observation of intensity of indirect influence, propagated by $n$ parallel
spreaders and quantified by retweeting probability on Twitter, shows that
complex contagion is validated globally but is violated locally. In other
words, the retweeting probability increases non-monotonically with some local
drops.


  The online estimation of rhythmic information, such as beat positions,
downbeat positions, and meter, is critical for many real-time music
applications. Musical rhythm comprises complex hierarchical relationships
across time, rendering its analysis intrinsically challenging and at times
subjective. Furthermore, systems which attempt to estimate rhythmic information
in real-time must be causal and must produce estimates quickly and efficiently.
In this work, we introduce an online system for joint beat, downbeat, and meter
tracking, which utilizes causal convolutional and recurrent layers, followed by
a pair of sequential Monte Carlo particle filters applied during inference. The
proposed system does not need to be primed with a time signature in order to
perform downbeat tracking, and is instead able to estimate meter and adjust the
predictions over time. Additionally, we propose an information gate strategy to
significantly decrease the computational cost of particle filtering during the
inference step, making the system much faster than previous sampling-based
methods. Experiments on the GTZAN dataset, which is unseen during training,
show that the system outperforms various online beat and downbeat tracking
systems and achieves comparable performance to a baseline offline joint method.


  Traditional detection methods of C-reactive protein (CRP) inflammation
biomarker, in blood are expensive, time-consuming and labor-intensive. Such
existing point-of-care CRP detection devices remain invasive, since they need
blood sampling (finger-pricking or venous puncture). Here, we propose an
electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS)-based sensor for the real-time,
fast, specific, sensitive, and label-free detection of C-reactive protein in
the interstitial fluid (ISF) that can be accessed with minimally invasive
microneedle arrays. The sensor has the potential to be integrated in a wearable
device similar with the continuous glucose monitoring, that will detect CRP in
interstitial fluid in a non-invasive, inexpensive and straightforward manner.
The affinity based assay was tested in both buffer and ISF-like solution. The
limit of detection achieved was 0.7 ug/mL of CRP in buffer, and 0.8 ug/mL of
CRP in ISF-like solution and the sensor shows excellent linearity up to 10
ug/mL. It is worth noting that the proposed sensor operates in low sample
volume (down to 5 uL), and has a response time of 100 seconds.


  The derivation on the differential-valued field $\mathbb{T}_{\log}$ of
logarithmic transseries induces on its value group $\Gamma_{\log}$ a certain
map $\psi$. The structure $\Gamma = (\Gamma_{\log},\psi)$ is a divisible
asymptotic couple. In~\cite{gehret} we began a study of the first-order theory
of $(\Gamma_{\log},\psi)$ where, among other things, we proved that the theory
$T_{\log} = \operatorname{Th}(\Gamma_{\log},\psi)$ has a universal
axiomatization, is model complete and admits elimination of quantifiers (QE) in
a natural first-order language. In that paper we posed the question whether
$T_{\log}$ has NIP (i.e., the Non-Independence Property). In this paper, we
answer that question in the affirmative: $T_{\log}$ does have NIP. Our method
of proof relies on a complete survey of the $1$-types of $T_{\log}$, which, in
the presence of QE, is equivalent to a characterization of all simple
extensions $\Gamma\langle\alpha\rangle$ of $\Gamma$. We also show that
$T_{\log}$ does not have the Steinitz exchange property and we weigh in on the
relationship between models of $T_{\log}$ and the so-called
\emph{precontraction groups} of~\cite{kuhlmann1}.


  Many stochastic time series can be described by a Langevin equation composed
of a deterministic and a stochastic dynamical part. Such a stochastic process
can be reconstructed by means of a recently introduced nonparametric method,
thus increasing the predictability, i.e. knowledge of the macroscopic drift and
the microscopic diffusion functions. If the measurement of a stochastic process
is affected by additional strong measurement noise, the reconstruction process
cannot be applied. Here, we present a method for the reconstruction of
stochastic processes in the presence of strong measurement noise, based on a
suitably parametrized ansatz. At the core of the process is the minimization of
the functional distance between terms containing the conditional moments taken
from measurement data, and the corresponding ansatz functions. It is shown that
a minimization of the distance by means of a simulated annealing procedure
yields better results than a previously used Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm,
which permits a rapid and reliable reconstruction of the stochastic process.


  The quest for efficient sorting is ongoing, and we will explore a graph-based
stable sorting strategy, in particular employing comparison graphs. We use the
topological sort to map the comparison graph to a linear domain, and we can
manipulate our graph such that the resulting topological sort is the sorted
array. By taking advantage of the many relations between Hamiltonian paths and
topological sorts in comparison graphs, we design a Divide-and-Conquer
algorithm that runs in the optimal $O(n \log n)$ time. In the process, we
construct a new merge process for graphs with relevant invariant properties for
our use. Furthermore, this method is more space-efficient than the famous {\sc
MergeSort} since we modify our fixed graph only.


  The short-range modes of the fermionic determinant can be absorbed in the
gauge action using the loop expansion. The coefficients of this expansion and
the zeroes of the polynomial approximating the remainder can be optimized by a
simple, practical method. When the multiboson approach is used, this
optimization results in a faster simulation with fewer auxiliary fields.


  We demonstrate that in two-dimensional noncentrosymmetric s-wave
superconductors under applied magnetic fields for a particular electron
density, topological order emerges, and there exists a zero energy Majorana
fermion mode in a vortex core, which obeys non-Abelian statistics, in analogy
with p_x+ip_y superconductors, the Moore-Read Pfaffian quantum Hall state, and
the gapped non-Abelian spin liquid phase of the Kitaev model.


  Point cloud classification plays an important role in a wide range of
airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) applications, such as topographic
mapping, forest monitoring, power line detection, and road detection. However,
due to the sensor noise, high redundancy, incompleteness, and complexity of
airborne LiDAR systems, point cloud classification is challenging. In this
paper, we proposed a directionally constrained fully convolutional neural
network (D-FCN) that can take the original 3D coordinates and LiDAR intensity
as input; thus, it can directly apply to unstructured 3D point clouds for
semantic labeling. Specifically, we first introduce a novel directionally
constrained point convolution (D-Conv) module to extract locally representative
features of 3D point sets from the projected 2D receptive fields. To make full
use of the orientation information of neighborhood points, the proposed D-Conv
module performs convolution in an orientation-aware manner by using a
directionally constrained nearest neighborhood search. Then, we designed a
multiscale fully convolutional neural network with downsampling and upsampling
blocks to enable multiscale point feature learning. The proposed D-FCN model
can therefore process input point cloud with arbitrary sizes and directly
predict the semantic labels for all the input points in an end-to-end manner.
Without involving additional geometry features as input, the proposed method
has demonstrated superior performance on the International Society for
Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) 3D labeling benchmark dataset. The
results show that our model has achieved a new state-of-the-art level of
performance with an average F1 score of 70.7%, and it has improved the
performance by a large margin on categories with a small number of points (such
as powerline, car, and facade).


  $A$Co$_2$Se$_2$ ($A$=K,Rb,Cs) is a homologue of the iron-based
superconductor, $A$Fe$_2$Se$_2$. From a comprehensive study of RbCo$_2$Se$_2$
via measurements of magnetization, transport, neutron diffraction,
angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, and first-principle calculations, we
identify a ferromagnetic order accompanied by an orbital-dependent
spin-splitting of the electronic dispersions. Furthermore, we identify the
ordered moment to be dominated by a $d_{x^2-y^2}$ flatband near the Fermi
level, which exhibits the largest spin splitting across the ferromagnetic
transition, suggesting an itinerant origin of the ferromagnetism. In the
broader context of the iron-based superconductors, we find this $d_{x^2-y^2}$
flatband to be a common feature in the band structures of both
iron-chalcogenides and iron-pnictides, accessible via heavy electron doping.


  The present parametric study deals with the meso-scale modelling of concrete
subjected to cyclic compression, which exhibits hysteresis loops during
unloading and reloading. Concrete is idealised as a two-dimensional three-phase
composite made of aggregates, mortar and interfacial transition zones (ITZs).
The meso-scale modelling approach relies on the hypothesis that the hysteresis
loops are caused by localised permanent displacements, which result in
nonlinear fracture processes during unloading and reloading. A parametric study
is carried out to investigate how aggregate density and size, amount of
permanent displacements in the ITZ and the mortar, and the ITZ strength
influence the hysteresis loops obtained with the meso-scale modelling approach.


  In this paper we continue the study of symplectically self-polar convex
bodies started in arXiv:2211.14630. We construct symplectically self-polar
convex bodies of the minimal Ekeland-Hofer-Zehnder capacity. This in turn
proves that the lower bound for the Ekeland-Hofer-Zehnder capacity for
centrally symmetric convex bodies obtained in arXiv:1801.00242 cannot be
improved. We also make some numerical experiments and speculations regarding
the minimal volume of symplectically self-polar convex bodies.


  Despite having outstanding electrical properties, graphene is unsuitable for
optical devices because of its zero band gap. Here, we report two-dimensional
excitonic photoluminescence (PL) from graphene grown on Cu(111) surface, which
shows an unexpected remarkably sharp and strong emission near 3.16 eV
(full-width at half-maximum $\leq$ 3meV) and multiple emissions around 3.18 eV.
As temperature increases, these emissions blue-shift, showing the
characteristic negative thermal coefficient of graphene. Observed PLs originate
from significantly suppressed dispersion of excited electrons in graphene
caused by hybridization of graphene $\pi$ and Cu d orbitals of the 1st and 2nd
Cu layers at a shifted saddle point 0.525(M+K) of Brillouin zone. This finding
provides a new pathway to engineering novel optoelectronic graphene devices,
whilst maintaining the outstanding electrical properties of graphene.


  We analyze a possibility of using the two qubit output state from
Buzek-Hillery quantum copying machine (not necessarily universal quantum
cloning machine) as a teleportation channel. We show that there is a range of
values of the machine parameter $\xi$ for which the two qubit output state is
entangled and violates Bell-CHSH inequality and for a different range it
remains entangled but does not violate Bell-CHSH inequality. Further we observe
that for certain values of the machine parameter the two-qubit mixed state can
be used as a teleportation channel. The use of the output state from the
Buzek-Hillery cloning machine as a teleportation channel provides an additional
appeal to the cloning machine and motivation of our present work.


  The decomposition of the space of continuous and translation invariant
valuations into a sum of SO(n) irreducible subspaces is obtained. A
reformulation of this result in terms of a Hadwiger type theorem for continuous
translation invariant and SO(n)-equivariant tensor valuations is also given. As
an application, symmetry properties of rigid motion invariant and homogeneous
bivaluations are established and then used to prove new inequalities of
Brunn-Minkowski type for convex body valued valuations.


  To any connected and simply connected nilpotent Lie group N, one can
associate its group of affine transformations Aff(N). In this paper, we study
simply transitive actions of a given nilpotent Lie group G on another nilpotent
Lie group N, via such affine transformations. We succeed in translating the
existence question of such a simply transitive affine action to a corresponding
question on the Lie algebra level. As an example of the possible use of this
translation, we then consider the case where dim(G)=dim(N) less than 6.
  Finally, we specialize to the case of abelian simply transitive affine
actions on a given connected and simply connected nilpotent Lie group. It turns
out that such a simply transitive abelian affine action on N corresponds to a
particular Lie compatible bilinear product on the Lie algebra of N, which we
call an LR-structure.


  The open source software (OSS) assessment has become important given the
increased adoption of OSS in commercial product development. Researchers
proposed many OSS assessment models. However, little is known about the
industrial relevance of the models. In this study, we proposed an automated
tool based on the OSS assessment attributes identified together with a European
cloud provider company. We analyzed 51 repositories to observe patterns in
maintenance activities over their lifetime (from inception to the latest
release). Based on the analysis, we propose a novel approach for evaluating the
maturity of the OSS project. Finally, we assessed the usefulness of our
automated solution in a pilot study.


  HIV-1 affects tens of millions of people worldwide. Current treatments often
involve a cocktail of antiretroviral drugs, which are effective in reducing the
virus and extending life spans. However, there is currently no FDA-approved
HIV-1 transcription inhibitor. Furthermore, there have only been a few attempts
to model the transcription process in HIV-1. In this work, we extend a novel
three-state model of HIV-1 transcription introduced in DeMarino et al. (2020)
that has been developed and validated against experimental data. After fitting
this model to in vitro data, significant differences in the transcription
process of HIV-1 in T-cells and macrophages have been observed. In particular,
the activation of the HIV-1 promoter in T-cells appears to take place rapidly
as the Tat protein approaches a critical threshold. In contrast, the same
process occurs smoother in macrophages.
  In this work, we carry out systematic mathematical analyses of the model to
complement experimental data fitting and sensitivity analysis performed
earlier. We derive explicit solutions of the model to obtain exact
transcription process decay rates for the original model and then study the
effect of nonlinearity on the system behavior, including the existence and the
local and global stability of the positive equilibrium. We were able to show
the stability of the positive steady state in limiting cases, with the global
stability in the general case remaining an open question.
  By modeling the effect of transcription-inhibiting drug therapy, we provide a
nontrivial condition for it to be effective in reducing viral load. Moreover,
our numerical simulations and analysis point out that the effect of the
transcription-inhibitor can be enhanced by synchronizing with standard
treatments, such as combination antiretroviral therapy, to allow the reduction
of total dosages and toxicity.


  Designing metamaterials with the required band structure, topology and
chirality using nano-fabrication technology revolutionises modern science and
impacts daily life. The approach of this work is, however, different. We take a
periodic sequence, i.e., metacrystal, of the dissipative optical solitons
rotating in a single ring microresonator and demonstrate its properties as of
the electromagnetic metamaterial acting in the radio to terahertz frequency
range. The metacrystal unit cell consists of the bound pair of solitons, and
the distance between them is used as a control parameter. We are reporting the
soliton metacrystal band structure and its topological properties. The latter
is confirmed by the existence of the $\pi$ steps experienced by the crystal
phonons' geometrical (Zak) phase. Furthermore, we found the phononic edge
states in the metacrystals with defects made by removing several solitons.
Optical frequency combs corresponding to the soliton metacrystals reveal the
spectral butterfly pattern serving as a signature of the spatio-temporal
chirality and bearing a resemblance to the butterfly wings illustrating natural
occurrences of chirality.


  The successful operation of dedicated detectors has brought us valuable
information for understanding the central engine and the progenitor of
gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). For instance, the giant X-ray and optical bumps found
in some long-duration GRBs (e.g. GRBs 121027A and 111209A) imply that some
extended central engine activities, such as the late X-ray flares, are likely
due to the fall-back of progenitor envelope materials. Here we systemically
search for long GRBs that consist of a giant X-ray or optical bump from the
Swift GRB sample, and eventually we find 19 new possible candidates. The
fall-back accretion model could well interpret the X-ray and optical bump for
all candidates within a reasonable parameter space. Six candidates showing
simultaneous bump signatures in both X-ray and optical observations, which
could be well fitted at the same time when scaling down the X-ray flux into
optical by one order of magnitude, are consistent with the standard
$F_{\nu}\propto\nu^{1/3}$ synchrotron spectrum. The typical fall-back radius is
distributed around $10^{10}\rm-10^{12}$ cm, which is consistent with the
typical radius of a Wolf-Rayet star. The peak fall-back accretion rate is in
the range of $\sim 10^{-11}-10^{-4}M_{\odot} \ \text{s} ^{-1}$ at time
$\sim10^{2}- 10^{5}~\rm s$, which is relatively easy to fulfill as long as the
progenitor's metallicity is not too high. Combined with the sample we found,
future studies of the mass supply rate for the progenitors with different mass,
metallicity, and angular momentum distribution would help us to better
constrain the progenitor properties of long GRBs.


  In this paper, we present DevFormer, a novel transformer-based architecture
for addressing the complex and computationally demanding problem of hardware
design optimization. Despite the demonstrated efficacy of transformers in
domains including natural language processing and computer vision, their use in
hardware design has been limited by the scarcity of offline data. Our approach
addresses this limitation by introducing strong inductive biases such as
relative positional embeddings and action-permutation symmetricity that
effectively capture the hardware context and enable efficient design
optimization with limited offline data. We apply DevFoemer to the problem of
decoupling capacitor placement and show that it outperforms state-of-the-art
methods in both simulated and real hardware, leading to improved performances
while reducing the number of components by more than $30\%$. Finally, we show
that our approach achieves promising results in other offline contextual
learning-based combinatorial optimization tasks.


  We report the results of a calculation of the K --> pi pi matrix elements
relevant for the $\DIhalf$ rule and $\epe$ in quenched lattice QCD using domain
wall fermions at a fixed lattice spacing $a^{-1} \sim 2$ GeV. Working in the
three-quark effective theory, where only the u, d and s quarks enter and which
is known perturbatively to next-to-leading order, we calculate the lattice K
--> pi and K --> |0> matrix elements of dimension six, four-fermion operators.
Through lowest order chiral perturbation theory these yield K --> pi pi matrix
elements, which we then normalize to continuum values through a
non-perturbative renormalization technique. For the ratio of isospin amplitudes
|A_0|/|A_2| we find a value of $25.3 \pm 1.8$ (statistical error only) compared
to the experimental value of 22.2, with individual isospin amplitudes 10-20%
below the experimental values. For $\epe$, using known central values for
standard model parameters, we calculate $(-4.0 \pm 2.3) \times 10^{-4}$
(statistical error only) compared to the current experimental average of $(17.2
\pm 1.8) \times 10^{-4}$. Because we find a large cancellation between the I =
0 and I = 2 contributions to $\epe$, the result may be very sensitive to the
approximations employed. Among these are the use of: quenched QCD, lowest order
chiral perturbation theory and continuum perturbation theory below 1.3 GeV. We
have also calculated the kaon B parameter, B_K and find $B_{K,\bar{MS}}(2 {\rm
GeV}) = 0.532(11)$. Although currently unable to give a reliable systematic
error, we have control over statistical errors and more simulations will yield
information about the effects of the approximations on this first-principles
determination of these important quantities.


  We consider geometric instances of the Maximum Weighted Matching Problem
(MWMP) and the Maximum Traveling Salesman Problem (MTSP) with up to 3,000,000
vertices. Making use of a geometric duality relationship between MWMP, MTSP,
and the Fermat-Weber-Problem (FWP), we develop a heuristic approach that yields
in near-linear time solutions as well as upper bounds. Using various
computational tools, we get solutions within considerably less than 1% of the
optimum.
  An interesting feature of our approach is that, even though an FWP is hard to
compute in theory and Edmonds' algorithm for maximum weighted matching yields a
polynomial solution for the MWMP, the practical behavior is just the opposite,
and we can solve the FWP with high accuracy in order to find a good heuristic
solution for the MWMP.