  We present results from a search for radio recombination lines in three HI
self-absorbing (HISA) clouds at 750 MHz and 321 MHz with the Robert C. Byrd
Green Bank Telescope (GBT), and in three Galactic Plane positions at 327 MHz
with the Arecibo Telescope. We detect Carbon Recombination Lines (CRRLs) in the
direction of DR4 and DR21, as well as in the galactic plane position
G34.94+0.0. We additionally detect Hydrogen Recombination Lines (HRRLs) in
emission in five of the six sightlines, and a Helium line at 750 MHz towards
DR21. Combining our new data with 150 MHz LOFAR detections of CRRL absorption
towards DR4 and DR21, we estimate the electron densities of the line forming
regions by modeling the line width as a function of frequency. The estimated
densities are in the range 1.4 $\rightarrow$ 6.5 cm$^{-3}$ towards DR4, for
electron temperatures 200 $\rightarrow$ 20 K. A dual line forming region with
densities between 3.5 $\rightarrow$ 24 cm$^{-3}$ and 0.008 $\rightarrow$ 0.3
cm$^{-3}$ could plausibly explain the observed line width as a function of
frequency on the DR21 sightline. The central velocities of the CRRLs compare
well with CO emission and HISA lines in these directions. The cloud densities
estimated from the CO lines are smaller (at least a factor of 5) than those of
the CRRL forming regions. It is likely that the CRRL forming and HI
self-absorbing gas is located in a denser, shocked region either at the
boundary of or within the CO emitting cloud.


  The number of Monotone Triangles with bottom row k1 < k2 < ... < kn is given
by a polynomial alpha(n; k1,...,kn) in n variables. The evaluation of this
polynomial at weakly decreasing sequences k1 >= k2 >= ... >= kn turns out to be
interpretable as signed enumeration of new combinatorial objects called
Decreasing Monotone Triangles. There exist surprising connections between the
two classes of objects -- in particular it is shown that alpha(n; 1,2,...,n) =
alpha(2n; n,n,n-1,n-1,...,1,1). In perfect analogy to the correspondence
between Monotone Triangles and Alternating Sign Matrices, the set of Decreasing
Monotone Triangles with bottom row (n,n,n-1,n-1,...,1,1) is in one-to-one
correspondence with a certain set of ASM-like matrices, which also play an
important role in proving the claimed identity algebraically. Finding a
bijective proof remains an open problem.


  According to Landau's Fermi liquid theory, the main properties of the
quasiparticle excitations of an electron gas are embodied in the effective mass
$m^*$, which determines the energy of a single quasiparticle, and the Landau
interaction function, which indicates how the energy of a quasiparticle is
modified by the presence of other quasiparticles. This simple paradigm
underlies most of our current understanding of the physical and chemical
behavior of metallic systems. The quasiparticle effective mass of the
three-dimensional homogeneous electron gas has been the subject of theoretical
controversy and there is a lack of experimental data. In this work, we deploy
diffusion Monte Carlo (DMC) methods to calculate $m^*$ as a function of density
for paramagnetic and ferromagnetic three-dimensional homogeneous electron
gases. The DMC results indicate that $m^*$ decreases when the density is
reduced, especially in the ferromagnetic case. The DMC quasiparticle energy
bands exclude the possibility of a reduction in the occupied bandwidth relative
to that of the free-electron model at density parameter $r_s=4$, which
corresponds to Na metal.


  We introduce the notion of a hamiltonian 2-form on a Kaehler manifold and
obtain a complete local classification. This notion appears to play a pivotal
role in several aspects of Kaehler geometry. In particular, on any Kaehler
manifold with co-closed Bochner tensor, the (suitably normalized) Ricci form is
hamiltonian, and this leads to an explicit description of these Kaehler
metrics, which we call weakly Bochner-flat.
  Hamiltonian 2-forms draw attention to a general construction of Kaehler
metrics which interpolates between toric geometry and Calabi-like constructions
of metrics on (projective) line bundles. They also arise on
conformally-Einstein Kaehler manifolds. We explore these connections and
ramifications.


  It is stated equicontinuity and normality of families $\frak{F}^{\Phi}$ of
the so--called homeomorphisms with finite distortion on conditions that
$K_{f}(z)$ has finite mean oscillation, singularities of logarithmic type or
integral constraints of the type $\int\Phi\left(K_{f}(z)\right)dx\,dy<\infty$
in a domain $D\subset{\C}.$ It is shown that the found conditions on the
function $\Phi$ are not only sufficient but also necessary for equicontinuity
and normality of such families of mappings.


  Unsupervised hashing is important for indexing huge image or video
collections without having expensive annotations available. Hashing aims to
learn short binary codes for compact storage and efficient semantic retrieval.
We propose an unsupervised deep hashing layer called Bi-half Net that maximizes
entropy of the binary codes. Entropy is maximal when both possible values of
the bit are uniformly (half-half) distributed. To maximize bit entropy, we do
not add a term to the loss function as this is difficult to optimize and tune.
Instead, we design a new parameter-free network layer to explicitly force
continuous image features to approximate the optimal half-half bit
distribution. This layer is shown to minimize a penalized term of the
Wasserstein distance between the learned continuous image features and the
optimal half-half bit distribution. Experimental results on the image datasets
Flickr25k, Nus-wide, Cifar-10, Mscoco, Mnist and the video datasets Ucf-101 and
Hmdb-51 show that our approach leads to compact codes and compares favorably to
the current state-of-the-art.


  Earth's analemma is the lopsided figure eight marked out over a year by the
position of the Sun in the sky observed at the same clock time each day. It
shows how solar time deviates from clock time. The analemma's shape results
from the tilt of Earth's axis of rotation relative to the plane of its orbit
around the Sun and from the elliptical shape of that orbit. This tutorial paper
uses vector analysis of the Earth-Sun geometry and a numerically generated
quantitative description of Earth's motion around the Sun to construct Earth's
analemma. To visualize the geometry and the motion that give rise to the
analemma is challenging, but this construction is a project within the
capability of physics students who have had basic undergraduate mechanics.


  In existing wireless networks, the control programs have been designed
manually and for certain predefined scenarios. This process is complicated and
error-prone, and the resulting control programs are not resilient to disruptive
changes. Data-driven control based on Artificial Intelligence and Machine
Learning (AI/ML) has been envisioned as a key technique to automate the
modeling, optimization and control of complex wireless systems. However,
existing AI/ML techniques rely on sufficient well-labeled data and may suffer
from slow convergence and poor generalizability. In this article, focusing on
digital twin-assisted wireless unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems, we
provide a survey of emerging techniques that can enable fast-converging
data-driven control of wireless systems with enhanced generalization capability
to new environments. These include SLAM-based sensing and network
softwarization for digital twin construction, robust reinforcement learning and
system identification for domain adaptation, and testing facility sharing and
federation. The corresponding research opportunities are also discussed.


  We calculate the electroweak corrections of the order $O({m_t^2\over v^2})$
to the QCD production of $t\bar{t}$ pairs via $q+qbar->t+tbar$ at hadron
colliders and show that these corrections to the total production rate are
small. This correction can be characterized as increasing the cross section
most near the threshold region, where top quark signals are important, while
the corrections become negative at higher $t\bar{t}$ energies where the top
quark is a background for heavy Higgs boson searches or investigations
involving the strongly interacting longitudinal $W$ system. The polarization of
the $t\bar t$ pair is also discussed, including the effect that this has on
proposed techniques for measuring the the top quark mass.


  Past studies suggest that long-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have a
standard energy of E_gamma ~ 10^51 erg in ultra-relativistic ejecta when
corrected for asymmetry ("jets"). However, recently a group of sub-energetic
bursts, including the peculiar GRB 980425 associated with SN 1998bw (E_gamma ~
10^48 erg), has been identified. Here we report radio observations of GRB
030329, the nearest burst to date, which allow us to undertake calorimetry of
the explosion. Our observations require a two-component explosion: a narrow (5
degrees) ultra-relativistic component responsible for the gamma-rays and early
afterglow, and a wide, mildly relativistic component responsible for the radio
and optical afterglow beyond 1.5 days. While the gamma-rays are energetically
minor, the total energy release, dominated by the wide component, is similar to
that of other GRBs. Given the firm link of GRB 030329 with SN 2003dh our result
suggests a common origin for cosmic explosions in which, for reasons not
understood, the energy in the highest velocity ejecta is highly variable


  We consider the numerical evolution of black hole initial data sets,
consisting of single black holes distorted by strong gravitational waves, with
a full 3D, nonlinear evolution code. These data sets mimic the late stages of
coalescing black holes. We compare various aspects of the evolution of
axisymmetric initial data sets, obtained with this 3D code, to results obtained
from a well established axisymmetric code. In both codes we examine and compare
the behavior of metric functions, apparent horizon properties, and waveforms,
and show that these dynamic black holes can be accurately evolved in 3D. In
particular we show that with present computational resources and techniques,
the process of excitation and ringdown of the black hole can be evolved, and
one can now extract accurately the gravitational waves emitted from the 3D
Cartesian metric functions, even when they carry away only a small fraction
($<< 1%$) of the rest mass energy of the system. Waveforms for both the
$\ell=2$ and the much more difficult $\ell=4$ and $\ell=6$ modes are computed
and compared with axisymmetric calculations. In addition to exploring the
physics of distorted black hole data sets, and showing the extent to which the
waves can be accurately extracted, these results also provide important
testbeds for all fully nonlinear numerical codes designed to evolve black hole
spacetimes in 3D, whether they use singularity avoiding slicings, apparent
horizon boundary conditions, or other evolution methods.


  A multi-parameter integrable deformation of the principal chiral model is
presented. The Yang-Baxter and bi-Yang-Baxter sigma-models, the principal
chiral model plus a Wess-Zumino term and the TsT transformation of the
principal chiral model are all recovered when the appropriate deformation
parameters vanish. When the Lie group is SU(2), we show that this
four-parameter integrable deformation of the SU(2) principal chiral model
corresponds to the Lukyanov model.


  Distributions of the largest fragment charge, Zmax, in multifragmentation
reactions around the Fermi energy can be decomposed into a sum of a Gaussian
and a Gumbel distribution, whereas at much higher or lower energies one or the
other distribution is asymptotically dominant. We demonstrate the same generic
behavior for the largest cluster size in critical aggregation models for small
systems, in or out of equilibrium, around the critical point. By analogy with
the time-dependent irreversible aggregation model, we infer that Zmax
distributions are characteristic of the multifragmentation time-scale, which is
largely determined by the onset of radial expansion in this energy range.


  Channel estimation is challenging for hybrid millimeter wave (mmWave)
large-scale antenna arrays which are promising in 5G/B5G applications. The
challenges are associated with angular resolution losses resulting from hybrid
front-ends, beam squinting, and susceptibility to the receiver noises. Based on
tensor signal processing, this paper presents a novel multi-dimensional
approach to channel parameter estimation with large-scale mmWave hybrid uniform
circular cylindrical arrays (UCyAs) which are compact in size and immune to
mutual coupling but known to suffer from infinite-dimensional array responses
and intractability. We design a new resolution-preserving hybrid beamformer and
a low-complexity beam squinting suppression method, and reveal the existence of
shift-invariance relations in the tensor models of received array signals at
the UCyA. Exploiting these relations, we propose a new tensor-based subspace
estimation algorithm to suppress the receiver noises in all dimensions (time,
frequency, and space). The algorithm can accurately estimate the channel
parameters from both coherent and incoherent signals. Corroborated by the
Cram\'{e}r-Rao lower bound (CRLB), simulation results show that the proposed
algorithm is able to achieve substantially higher estimation accuracy than
existing matrix-based techniques, with a comparable computational complexity.


  This paper describes the design, implementation, and user evaluation of an
IoT project focused on monitoring and management of user comfort and energy
usage in office buildings. The objective is to depict an instructive use case
and to illustrate experiences with all major phases of designing and running a
fairly complex IoT system. The design part includes motivation and outline of
the problem statement, the resulting definition of data to be collected, system
implementation, and subsequent changes resulting from the additional insights
that it provided. The user experience part describes quantitative findings as
well as key results of the extensive human factors study with over 70 office
users participating in two major pilots in France and Japan. The original idea
for this project came out from a diverse group of companies exploring
challenges of designing and operating smart buildings with net-positive energy
balance. Members included companies involved in the design and construction of
smart buildings, building-management and automation systems, computer design,
energy systems, and office furniture and space design. One of the early
insights was that maximum energy efficiency in office buildings cannot be
achieved and sustained without the awareness and active participation of
building occupants. The resulting project explored and evaluated several ways
to engage and empower users in ways that benefit them and makes them the
willing and active participants.


  We show that how to generate propagation of spin degree in spin-symmetric
exciton-polariton condensates in a semiconductor microcavity. Due to the
stimulated spin-dependent scattering between hot excitons and condensates,
exciton polaritons form a circular polarized condensate with spontaneous
breaking of the spin rotation symmetry. The spin antiferromagnetic state is
developed evidently from the density and spin flow pumped by localized laser
source. The low energy spin current is identified where the steady state is
characterized by the oscillating spin pattern. Finally, we predict via
simulation how to dynamical generation of phase slip where ring-shape phase
jump shows the behavior of splitting and joining together.


  The eukaryotic cell nucleus harbors the DNA genome that is organized in a
dynamic chromatin network and embedded in a viscous crowded fluid. This
environment directly affects enzymatic reactions and target search processes
that access the DNA sequence information. However, its physical properties as a
reaction medium are poorly understood. Here, we exploit mobility measurements
of differently sized inert green fluorescent tracer proteins to characterize
the viscoelastic properties of the nuclear interior of a living human cell. We
find that it resembles a viscous fluid on small and large scales, but appears
viscoelastic on intermediate scales that change with protein size. Our results
are consistent with simulations of diffusion through polymers and suggest that
chromatin forms a random obstacle network rather than a self-similar structure
with fixed fractal dimension. By calculating how long molecules remember their
previous position in dependence on their size, we evaluate how the nuclear
environment affects search processes of chromatin targets.


  We studied (arxiv: 1001.4679, 1205.1714) properties of spinors in a toy model
in $d=(1+5)$ as a step towards realistic Kaluza-Klein (like) theories in non
compact spaces. ${\cal M}^{(5+1)}$ was assumed to break to an infinite disc
with a zweibein which makes a disc curved on $S^2$ and with a spin connection
field which allows on such a sphere only one massless spinor state. This time
we are taking into account families of spinors interacting with several spin
connection fields, as required for this toy model by the spin-charge-family
theory We are studying possible masslesness of families of spinors: Spinors
regroup into subgroups of an even number of families.


  The low-temperature regime of charge-qubit decoherence due to its Coulomb
interaction with electrons tunneling through Luttinger liquid quantum-point
contact (QPC) is investigated. The study is focused on quantum detector
properties of Luttinger liquid QPC. It is shown, that in low-temperature limit
the respective perturbative decoherence- and acquisition of information
timescales both tend to diverge, thus, shadowing a true picture of
low-temperature quantum detection for such quantum systems. Here I prove two
general mathematical statements (S-theorem and S-lemma) about exact
re-exponentiation of Keldysh-contour ordered T-exponent for arbitrary Luttinger
liquid tunnel Hamiltonian. As the result, decoherence- and acquisition of
information time-scales as well as QPC quantum detector efficiency rate are
calculated exactly and are shown to have a dramatic dependence on repulsive
interaction between electrons in 1D leads of QPC. Discovered abrupt decrease of
QPC quantum detector efficiency $ Q $ with the increase of $ g $ in the close
vicinity of value $ g_{cr}(T) $ represents a fingerprint of
interaction-dependent instability of all the quantum detection procedure for
any Luttinger liquid QPC quantum detector at definite low enough temperatures $
T_{cr}(g) $. The reasons behind these effects are discussed. Also, it is shown
that such the low-temperature detection instability effect is able to explain a
large unclear mismatch between expected and observed decoherence timescales in
two well-known experiments (J.Gorman, D.G.Hasko, D.A.Williams, Phys.Rev.Lett.,
95, 090502 (2005); K.D.Petersson, J.R.Petta, H.Lu, A.C.Gossard, Phys.Rev.Lett.,
105, 246804 (2010);) on charge-qubit quantum dynamics.


  Text-to-motion diffusion models can generate realistic animations from text
prompts, but do not support fine-grained motion editing controls. In this
paper, we present a method for using natural language to iteratively specify
local edits to existing character animations, a task that is common in most
computer animation workflows. Our key idea is to represent a space of motion
edits using a set of kinematic motion editing operators (MEOs) whose effects on
the source motion is well-aligned with user expectations. We provide an
algorithm that leverages pre-existing language models to translate textual
descriptions of motion edits into source code for programs that define and
execute sequences of MEOs on a source animation. We execute MEOs by first
translating them into keyframe constraints, and then use diffusion-based motion
models to generate output motions that respect these constraints. Through a
user study and quantitative evaluation, we demonstrate that our system can
perform motion edits that respect the animator's editing intent, remain
faithful to the original animation (it edits the original animation, but does
not dramatically change it), and yield realistic character animation results.


  We present a new notion of solution for mean field games master equations.
This notion allows us to work with solutions which are merely continuous. We
prove first results of uniqueness and stability for such solutions. It turns
out that this notion is helpful to characterize the value function of mean
field games of optimal stopping or impulse control and this is the topic of the
second half of this paper. The notion of solution we introduce is only useful
in the monotone case. We focus in this paper in the finite state space case.


  We determine the intrinsic, 3-dimensional shape distribution of star-forming
galaxies at 0<z<2.5, as inferred from their observed projected axis ratios. In
the present-day universe star-forming galaxies of all masses 1e9 - 1e11 Msol
are predominantly thin, nearly oblate disks, in line with previous studies. We
now extend this to higher redshifts, and find that among massive galaxies (M* >
1e10 Msol) disks are the most common geometric shape at all z < 2. Lower-mass
galaxies at z>1 possess a broad range of geometric shapes: the fraction of
elongated (prolate) galaxies increases toward higher redshifts and lower
masses. Galaxies with stellar mass 1e9 Msol (1e10 Msol) are a mix of roughly
equal numbers of elongated and disk galaxies at z~1 (z~2). This suggests that
galaxies in this mass range do not yet have disks that are sustained over many
orbital periods, implying that galaxies with present-day stellar mass
comparable to that of the Milky Way typically first formed such sustained
stellar disks at redshift z~1.5-2. Combined with constraints on the evolution
of the star formation rate density and the distribution of star formation over
galaxies with different masses, our findings imply that, averaged over cosmic
time, the majority of stars formed in disks.


  Augmenting the \emph{WFIRST} microlensing campaigns with intensive
observations from a ground-based network of wide-field survey telescopes would
have several major advantages. First, it would enable full two-dimensional
(2-D) vector microlens parallax measurements for a substantial fraction of
low-mass lenses as well as planetary and binary events that show caustic
crossing features. For a significant fraction of the free-floating planet (FFP)
events and all caustic-crossing planetary/binary events, these 2-D parallax
measurements directly lead to complete solutions (mass, distance, transverse
velocity) of the lens object (or lens system). For even more events, the
complementary ground-based observations will yield 1-D parallax measurements.
Together with the 1-D parallaxes from \emph{WFIRST} alone, they can probe the
entire mass range $M\gtrsim M_\oplus$. For luminous lenses, such 1-D parallax
measurements can be promoted to complete solutions (mass, distance, transverse
velocity) by high-resolution imaging. This would provide crucial information
not only about the hosts of planets and other lenses, but also enable a much
more precise Galactic model. Other benefits of such a survey include improved
understanding of binaries (particularly with low mass primaries), and
sensitivity to distant ice-giant and gas-giant companions of \emph{WFIRST}
lenses that cannot be detected by \emph{WFIRST} itself due to its restricted
observing windows. Existing ground-based microlensing surveys can be employed
if \emph{WFIRST} is pointed at lower-extinction fields than is currently
envisaged. This would come at some cost to the event rate. Therefore the
benefits of improved characterization of lenses must be weighed against these
costs.


  We review the occurrence of negative energies in Pais-Uhlenbeck oscillator.
We point out that in the absence of interactions negative energies are not
problematic, neither in the classical nor in the quantized theory. However, in
the presence of interactions that couple positive and negative energy degrees
of freedom the system is unstable, unless the potential is bounded from bellow
and above. We review some approaches in the literature that attempt to avoid
the problem of negative energies in the Pais-Uhlenbeck oscillator.


  Domain wall dynamics in a magnetoelectric antiferromagnet is analyzed, and
its implications for magnetoelectric memory applications are discussed.
Cr$_2$O$_3$ is used in the estimates of the materials parameters. It is found
that the domain wall mobility has a maximum as a function of the electric field
due to the gyrotropic coupling induced by it. In Cr$_2$O$_3$ the maximal
mobility of 0.1 m/(s$\times$Oe) is reached at $E\approx0.06$ V/nm. Fields of
this order may be too weak to overcome the intrinsic depinning field, which is
estimated for B-doped Cr$_2$O$_3$. These major drawbacks for device
implementation can be overcome by applying a small in-plane shear strain, which
blocks the domain wall precession. Domain wall mobility of about 0.7
m/(s$\times$Oe) can then be achieved at $E=0.2$ V/nm. A split-gate scheme is
proposed for the domain-wall controlled bit element; its extension to
multiple-gate linear arrays can offer advantages in memory density,
programmability, and logic functionality.


  The main idea in the original Grover search (Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 325 (1997))
is to single out a target state containing the solution to a search problem by
amplifying the amplitude of the state, following the Oracle's job, i.e., a
black box giving us information about the target state. We design quantum
circuits to accomplish a complete Grover search involving both the Oracle's job
and the amplification of the target state, which are employed to solve
Satisfiability (SAT) problems. We explore how to carry out the quantum circuits
by currently available ion-trap quantum computing technology.


  Interpreting RG flows as dynamical systems in the space of couplings we
produce a variety of constraints, global (topological) as well as local. These
constraints, in turn, rule out some of the proposed RG flows and also predict
new phases and fixed points, surprisingly, even in familiar theories such as
O(N) model, QED-3, or QCD-4.


  Secret sharing was proposed primarily in 1979 to solve the problem of key
distribution. In recent decades, researchers have proposed many improvement
schemes. Among all these schemes, the verifiable multi-secret sharing (VMSS)
schemes are studied sufficiently, which share multiple secrets simultaneously
and perceive malicious dealer as well as participants. By pointing out that the
schemes presented by Dehkordi and Mashhadi in 2008 cannot detect some vicious
behaviors of the dealer, we propose two new VMSS schemes by adding validity
check in the verification phase to overcome this drawback. Our new schemes are
based on XTR public key system, and can realize $GF(p^{6})$ security by
computations in $GF(p^{2})$ without explicit constructions of $GF(p^{6})$,
where $p$ is a prime. Compared with the VMSS schemes using RSA and linear
feedback shift register (LFSR) public key cryptosystems, our schemes can
achieve the same security level with shorter parameters by using trace
function. What's more, our schemes are much simpler to operate than those
schemes based on Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC). In addition, our schemes
are dynamic and threshold changeable, which means that it is efficient to
implement our schemes according to the actual situation when participants,
secrets or the threshold needs to be changed.


  Grids of stellar evolution are required in many fields of
astronomy/astrophysics, such as planet hosting stars, binaries, clusters,
chemically peculiar stars, etc. In this study, a grid of stellar evolution
models with updated ingredients and {recently determined solar abundaces} is
presented. The solar values for the initial abundances of hydrogen, heavy
elements and mixing-length parameter are 0.0172, 0.7024 and 1.98, respectively.
The mass step is small enough (0.01 M$_\odot$) that interpolation for a given
star mass is not required. The range of stellar mass is 0.74 to 10.00
M$_\odot$. We present results in different forms of tables for easy and general
application. The second stellar harmonic, required for analysis of apsidal
motion of eclipsing binaries, is also listed. We also construct rotating models
to determine effect of rotation on stellar structure and derive fitting formula
for luminosity, radius and the second stellar harmonic as a function of
rotational parameter. We also compute and list colours and bolometric
corrections of models required for transformation between theoretical and
observational results. The results are tested for the Sun, the Hyades cluster,
the slowly rotating chemically peculiar Am stars and the eclipsing binaries
with apsidal motion. The theoretical and observational results along isochrones
are in good agreement. The grids are also applicable to rotating stars provided
that equatorial velocity is given.


  The discovery of the charge-density-wave formation in the high-$T_c$ cuprate
superconductors has activated intensive theoretical studies for the pseudogap
states. However, the microscopic origin of the charge-density-wave state has
been unknown so far since the many-body effects beyond the mean-field-level
approximations, called the vertex corrections, are essential. Toward solving
this problem, we employ the recently developed functional renormalization-group
method, by which we can calculate the higher-order vertex corrections in a
systematic and unbiased way with high numerical accuracy. We discover the
critical development of the $p$-orbital-density-wave ($p$-ODW) instability in
the strong-spin-fluctuation region. The obtained $p$-ODW state possesses the
key characteristics of the charge ordering pattern in Bi- and Y-based
superconductors, such as the wave vector parallel to the nearest Cu-Cu
direction, and the $d$-symmetry form factor with the antiphase correlation
between $p_x$ and $p_y$ orbitals in the same unit cell. In addition, from the
observation of the beautiful scaling relation between the spin susceptibility
and the $p$-ODW susceptibility, we conclude that the main driving force of the
density wave is the Aslamazov-Larkin vertex correction that becomes very
singular near the magnetic quantum-critical point.


  Mixed Reality (MR) devices require a world with always-on sensors and
real-time processing applied to their outputs. We have grappled with some of
the ethical concerns presented by this scenario, such as bystander privacy
issues with smartphones and cameras. However, MR technologies demand that we
define and defend privacy in this new paradigm. This paper focuses on the
challenges presented by eye tracking and gaze tracking, techniques that have
commonly been deployed in the HCI community for years but are now being
integrated into MR devices by default.


  To increase situational awareness and support evidence-based policy-making,
we formulated two types of mathematical models for COVID-19 transmission within
a regional population. One is a fitting function that can be calibrated to
reproduce an epidemic curve with two timescales (e.g., fast growth and slow
decay). The other is a compartmental model that accounts for quarantine,
self-isolation, social distancing, a non-exponentially distributed incubation
period, asymptomatic individuals, and mild and severe forms of symptomatic
disease. Using Bayesian inference, we have been calibrating our models daily
for consistency with new reports of confirmed cases from the 15 most populous
metropolitan statistical areas in the United States and quantifying uncertainty
in parameter estimates and predictions of future case reports. This online
learning approach allows for early identification of new trends despite
considerable variability in case reporting. We infer new significant upward
trends for five of the metropolitan areas starting between 19-April-2020 and
12-June-2020.


  A conceptual experimental method for providing a new measurement of the
underlying beta decay spectra from fission products is presented. The goal is
to provide additional information related to the prediction of the antineutrino
emission spectra from fission reactors and assist evaluation of the reactor
neutrino anomaly.


  We present a manifestly covariant quantization procedure based on the de
Donder--Weyl Hamiltonian formulation of classical field theory. This procedure
agrees with conventional canonical quantization only if the parameter space is
$d=1$ dimensional time. In $d>1$ dimensions, covariant canonical quantization
requires a fundamental length scale, and any bosonic field generates a
spinorial wave function, leading to the emergence of spinors as a byproduct of
quantization. We provide a probabilistic interpretation of the wave functions
for the fields, and apply the formalism to a number of simple examples. These
show that covariant canonical quantization produces both the Klein-Gordon and
the Dirac equation, while also predicting the existence of discrete towers of
identically charged fermions with different masses. Covariant canonical
quantization can thus be understood as a `first' or pre-quantization within the
framework of conventional QFT.


  Causal analysis has become an essential component in understanding the
underlying causes of phenomena across various fields. Despite its significance,
the existing literature on causal discovery algorithms is fragmented, with
inconsistent methodologies and a lack of comprehensive evaluations. This study
addresses these gaps by conducting an exhaustive review and empirical
evaluation of causal discovery methods for numerical data, aiming to provide a
clearer and more structured understanding of the field. Our research began with
a comprehensive literature review spanning over a decade, revealing that
existing surveys fall short in covering the vast array of causal discovery
advancements. We meticulously analyzed over 200 scholarly articles to identify
24 distinct algorithms. This extensive analysis led to the development of a
novel taxonomy tailored to the complexities of causal discovery, categorizing
methods into six main types. Addressing the lack of comprehensive evaluations,
our study conducts an extensive empirical assessment of more than 20 causal
discovery algorithms on synthetic and real-world datasets. We categorize
synthetic datasets based on size, linearity, and noise distribution, employing
5 evaluation metrics, and summarized the top-3 algorithm recommendations for
different data scenarios. The recommendations have been validated on 2
real-world datasets. Our results highlight the significant impact of dataset
characteristics on algorithm performance. Moreover, a metadata extraction
strategy was developed to assist users in algorithm selection on unknown
datasets. The accuracy of estimating metadata is higher than 80%. Based on
these insights, we offer professional and practical recommendations to help
users choose the most suitable causal discovery methods for their specific
dataset needs.


  We show that any toric K\"ahler cone with smooth compact cross-section admits
a family of Calabi-Yau cone metrics with conical singularities along its toric
divisors. The family is parametrized by the Reeb cone and the angles are given
explicitly in terms of the Reeb vector field. The result is optimal, in the
sense that any toric Calabi-Yau cone metric with conical singularities along
the toric divisor (and smooth elsewhere) belongs to this family. We also
provide examples and interpret our results in terms of Sasaki-Einstein metrics.


  We present Synergy Aware Forgetting Ensemble (SAFE), a method to adapt large
models on a diverse collection of data while minimizing the expected cost to
remove the influence of training samples from the trained model. This process,
also known as selective forgetting or unlearning, is often conducted by
partitioning a dataset into shards, training fully independent models on each,
then ensembling the resulting models. Increasing the number of shards reduces
the expected cost to forget but at the same time it increases inference cost
and reduces the final accuracy of the model since synergistic information
between samples is lost during the independent model training. Rather than
treating each shard as independent, SAFE introduces the notion of a shard
graph, which allows incorporating limited information from other shards during
training, trading off a modest increase in expected forgetting cost with a
significant increase in accuracy, all while still attaining complete removal of
residual influence after forgetting. SAFE uses a lightweight system of adapters
which can be trained while reusing most of the computations. This allows SAFE
to be trained on shards an order-of-magnitude smaller than current
state-of-the-art methods (thus reducing the forgetting costs) while also
maintaining high accuracy, as we demonstrate empirically on fine-grained
computer vision datasets.


  Platoon-based driving is an idea that vehicles follow each other at a close
distance, in order to increase road throughput and fuel savings. This requires
reliable wireless communications to adjust the speeds of vehicles. Although
there is a dedicated frequency band for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V)
communications, studies have shown that it is too congested to provide reliable
transmission for the platoons. Additional spectrum resources, i.e., secondary
spectrum channels, can be utilized when these are not occupied by other users.
Characteristics of interference in these channels are usually
location-dependent and can be stored in the so-called Radio Environment Maps
(REMs). This paper aims to design REM, in order to support the selection of
secondary spectrum channel for intra-platoon communications. We propose to
assess the channel's quality in terms of outage probability computed, with the
use of estimated interference distributions stored in REM. A frequency
selection algorithm that minimizes the number of channel switches along the
planned platoon route is proposed. Additionally, the REM creation procedure is
shown that reduces the number of database entries using (Density-Based Spatial
Clustering of Applications with Noise) DBSCAN algorithm. The proposals are
tested using real IQ samples captured on a real road. Application of the DBSCAN
clustering to the constructed REM provided 7% reduction in its size.
Utilization of the proposed channel selection algorithm resulted in a 35 times
reduction of channel switches concerning channel assignment performed
independently in every location.


  We investigate probability measures with finite pluricomplex energy. We give
criteria insuring that a given measure has finite energy and test these on
various examples. We show that this notion is a biholomorphic but not a
bimeromorphic invariant.


  Most of the analysis of composite Higgs have focussed on the Minimal
Composite Higgs Model, based on the coset
SO(5)$\times$U(1)$_X$/SO(4)$\times$U(1)$_X$. We consider a model based on the
coset of simple groups SO(7)/SO(6), with SO(4)$\times$U(1)$_X$ embedded into
SO(6). This extension of the minimal model leads to a new complex pNGB that has
hypercharge and is a singlet of SU(2)$_L$, with properties mostly determined by
the pattern of symmetry breaking and a mass of order TeV. Composite electroweak
unification also leads to new bosonic and fermion resonances with exotic
charges, not present in the minimal model. The lightest of these resonances is
stable, and in some cases could provide candidates for dark matter. A new rich
phenomenology is expected at LHC.


  Recent experiments have shown that fullerene and fluorofullerene molecules
can produce interference patterns. These molecules have both rotational and
vibrational degrees of freedom. This leads one to ask whether these internal
motions can play a role in degrading the interference pattern. We study this by
means of a simple model. Our molecule consists of two masses a fixed distance
apart. It scatters from a potential with two or several peaks, thereby
mimicking two or several slit interference. We find that in some parameter
regimes the entanglement between the internal states and the translational
degrees of freedom produced by the potential can decrease the visibility of the
interference pattern. In particular, different internal states correspond to
different outgoing wave vectors, so that if several internal states are
excited, the total interference pattern will be the sum of a number of
patterns, each with a different periodicity. The overall pattern is
consequently smeared out. In the case of two different peaks, the scattering
from the different peaks will excite different internal states so that the path
the molecule takes become entangled with its internal state. This will also
lead to degradation of the interference pattern. How these mechanisms might
lead to the emergence of classical behavior is discussed.


  Autoencoders and their variants are among the most widely used models in
representation learning and generative modeling. However, autoencoder-based
models usually assume that the learned representations are i.i.d. and fail to
capture the correlations between the data samples. To address this issue, we
propose a novel Sparse Gaussian Process Bayesian Autoencoder (SGPBAE) model in
which we impose fully Bayesian sparse Gaussian Process priors on the latent
space of a Bayesian Autoencoder. We perform posterior estimation for this model
via stochastic gradient Hamiltonian Monte Carlo. We evaluate our approach
qualitatively and quantitatively on a wide range of representation learning and
generative modeling tasks and show that our approach consistently outperforms
multiple alternatives relying on Variational Autoencoders.


  The antisymmetry requirement of rishon bound state wave functions suggests a
new rishon quantum number called M spin. From M spin conservation and the
Nussinov-Weingarten-Witten theorem we predict the existence of a stable
pseudoscalar dirishonic meson, called zeta, that is lighter than the lightest
neutrino. Its mass is estimated as m(zeta) = 10^{-9} eV. This particle could
make up the major part of cold dark matter in the Universe.


  The basic parameters determining the flow pattern for a nonviscous,
non-heat-conducting gas in a semidetached binary system without a magnetic
field are identified. Three-dimensional gas-dynamical modeling of the mass
transfer enables investigation of the influence of these parameters on the
structure of gas flows. The parameter on which the flow pattern depends most
strongly is the adiabatic index $\gamma$. The effect of other parameters is
small, and only leads to unimportant quantitative changes in the solutions
obtained. The main properties of flows typical of semidetached binaries without
magnetic fields are summarized.


  We construct a groupoid equivariant Kasparov class for transversely oriented
foliations in all codimensions. In codimension 1 we show that the Chern
character of an associated semifinite spectral triple recovers the
Connes-Moscovici cyclic cocycle for the Godbillon-Vey secondary characteristic
class.


  We test an automatic procedure to measure [Fe/H] and [alpha/Fe] on high
resolution spectra. The test sample is the intersection of the ELODIE library
and a catalogue of 830 stars having well determined abundances.


  In this paper, we give a criterion on the semisimplicity of quantized walled
Brauer algebras $\mathscr B_{r,s}$ and classify its simple modules over an
arbitrary field $\kappa$.


  A red rain phenomenon occurred in Kerala, India starting from 25th July 2001,
in which the rainwater appeared coloured in various localized places that are
spread over a few hundred kilometers in Kerala. Maximum cases were reported
during the first 10 days and isolated cases were found to occur for about 2
months. The striking red colouration of the rainwater was found to be due to
the suspension of microscopic red particles having the appearance of biological
cells. These particles have no similarity with usual desert dust. An estimated
minimum quantity of 50,000 kg of red particles has fallen from the sky through
red rain. An analysis of this strange phenomenon further shows that the
conventional atmospheric transport processes like dust storms etc. cannot
explain this phenomenon. The electron microscopic study of the red particles
shows fine cell structure indicating their biological cell like nature. EDAX
analysis shows that the major elements present in these cell like particles are
carbon and oxygen. Strangely, a test for DNA using Ethidium Bromide dye
fluorescence technique indicates absence of DNA in these cells. In the context
of a suspected link between a meteor airburst event and the red rain, the
possibility for the extraterrestrial origin of these particles from cometary
fragments is discussed.


  Many vendors are offering computing services on subscription basis via
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) model. Users can acquire resources from
different providers and get the best of each of them to run their applications.
However, deploying applications in multi-cloud environments is a complex task.
Therefore, application platforms are needed to help developers to succeed.
Aneka is one such platform that supports developers to program and deploy
distributed applications in multi-cloud environments. It can be used to
provision resources from different cloud providers and can be configured to
request resources dynamically according to the needs of specific applications.
This paper presents extensions incorporated in Aneka to support the deployment
of applications in multi-cloud environments. The first extension shows the
flexibility of Aneka architecture to add cloud providers. Specifically, we
describe the addition of Microsoft Azure IaaS cloud provider. We also discuss
the inclusion of public IPs to communicate resources located in different
networks and the functionality of using PowerShell to automatize installation
of Aneka on remote resources. We demonstrate how an application composed of
independent tasks improves its total execution time when it is deployed in the
multi-cloud environment created by Aneka using resources provisioned from Azure
and EC2.


  Ermakov systems have attracted enormous treatments in recent times
particularly in symmetry analysis. In this paper we consider three classes of
the Ermakov systems by using a simple algebraic reduction process with imposed
conditions on the magnitude of the angular momentum of each system class to
obtain new generalized symmetries. We note that this imposed condition
transforms the Kepler-Ermakov systems to the generalized Ermakov systems.


  The boundary of a topological insulator (TI) hosts an anomaly restricting its
possible phases: e.g. 3D strong and weak TIs maintain surface conductivity at
any disorder if symmetry is preserved on-average, at least when electron
interactions on the surface are weak. However the interplay of strong
interactions and disorder with the boundary anomaly has not yet been
theoretically addressed. Here we study this combination for the edge of a 2D TI
and the surface of a 3D weak TI, showing how it can lead to an "Anomalous Many
Body Localized" (AMBL) phase that preserves the anomaly. We discuss how the
anomalous Kramers parity switching with pi flux arises in the bosonized theory
of the localized helical state. The anomaly can be probed in localized
boundaries by electrostatically sensing nonlinear hopping transport with e/2
shot noise. Our AMBL construction in 3D weak TIs fails for 3D strong TIs,
suggesting that their anomaly restrictions are distinguished by strong
interactions.


  The Time-Of-Propagation (TOP) counter is a ring-imaging Cherenkov detector
designed to identify the charged hadrons in the barrel region of the Belle II
detector. The Belle II experiment collected data delivered by the SuperKEKB
accelerator from March 2019 to June 2022. After the first run period (Run1) a
long shutdown (LS1) was dedicated to implement several accelerator and detector
upgrades. The second collision period (Run2), started in January 2024. The
components of the TOP detector and the performance during the Run1 will be
reported, the detector upgrade during LS1 and future upgrades will be
described.


  In this paper, we extend our previous work [Phys. Rev. D 107, 024024 (2023)]
to the more general cases with a negative cosmological constant, and
investigate the topological numbers for the singly rotating Kerr-AdS black
holes in all dimensions and the four-dimensional Kerr-Newman-AdS black hole as
well as the three-dimensional Ba\~nados-Teitelboim-Zanelli black hole. We find
that the topological numbers of black holes are remarkably influenced by the
cosmological constant. In addition, we also demonstrate that the dimension of
spacetimes has an important effect on the topological number for rotating AdS
black holes. Furthermore, it is interesting to observe that the difference
between the topological number of the AdS black hole and that of its
corresponding asymptotically flat black hole is always unity. This new
observation leads us to conjure that it might be valid also for other black
holes. Of course, this novel conjecture needs to be further verified by
examining the topological numbers of many other black holes and their AdS
counterparts in the future work.


  Let $S(x,t)$ denote the Weyl sum with associated polynomial $xn + tn^2$.
Suppose that $|S(x,t)|$ attains its maximum for given $x$ at $t = t(x)$. We
give upper and lower bounds of the same order of magnitude for the $L^p$ norm
of $S(x,t(x))$.


  We study the genuine part of the Arthur-Selberg trace formula for some
nonlinear covers of connected reductive groups. As a first step towards the
invariant trace formula, we express the geometric side in terms of weighted
orbital integrals. In particular, our results apply to the covers constructed
by Brylinksi and Deligne.


  We study the Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) algorithm in nonparametric
statistics: kernel regression in particular. The directional bias property of
SGD, which is known in the linear regression setting, is generalized to the
kernel regression. More specifically, we prove that SGD with moderate and
annealing step-size converges along the direction of the eigenvector that
corresponds to the largest eigenvalue of the Gram matrix. In addition, the
Gradient Descent (GD) with a moderate or small step-size converges along the
direction that corresponds to the smallest eigenvalue. These facts are referred
to as the directional bias properties; they may interpret how an SGD-computed
estimator has a potentially smaller generalization error than a GD-computed
estimator. The application of our theory is demonstrated by simulation studies
and a case study that is based on the FashionMNIST dataset.


  When addressing spatial biological questions using mathematical models,
symmetries within the system are often exploited to simplify the problem by
reducing its physical dimension. In a reduced-dimension model molecular
movement is restricted to the reduced dimension, changing the nature of
molecular movement. This change in molecular movement can lead to
quantitatively and even qualitatively different results in the full and reduced
systems. Within this manuscript we discuss the condition under which restricted
molecular movement in reduced-dimension models accurately approximates
molecular movement in the full system. For those systems which do not satisfy
the condition, we present a general method for approximating unrestricted
molecular movement in reduced-dimension models. We will derive a mathematically
robust, finite difference method for solving the 2D diffusion equation within a
1D reduced-dimension model. The methods described here can be used to improve
the accuracy of many reduced-dimension models while retaining benefits of
system simplification.


  In the 3+1 framework of the Einstein equations for the case of vanishing
shift vector and arbitrary lapse, we calculate explicitly the four boundary
equations arising from the vanishing of the projection of the Einstein tensor
along the normal to the boundary surface of the initial-boundary value problem.
Such conditions take the form of evolution equations along (as opposed to
across) the boundary for certain components of the extrinsic curvature and for
certain space-derivatives of the intrinsic metric. We argue that, in general,
such boundary conditions do not follow necessarily from the evolution equations
and the initial data, but need to be imposed on the boundary values of the
fundamental variables. Using the Einstein-Christoffel formulation, which is
strongly hyperbolic, we show how three of the boundary equations should be used
to prescribe the values of some incoming characteristic fields. Additionally,
we show that the fourth one imposes conditions on some outgoing fields.


  Interferometric tests of a f/1.2 2.5-m diameter liquid mirror show RMS
surface deviations about wave/20 and Strehl ratios of order 0.6, showing that
it is diffraction limited. The mirror is certainly better than implied by the
data because of aberrations introduced by the auxiliary testing optics. We have
made detailed studies of the scattered light of the mirror. We have studied the
behavior of the mirror under external perturbations. With this article we have
reached an important milestone since we now have a good understanding of liquid
mirrors.


  We derive new bounds for the condition number of kernel matrices, which we
then use to enhance existing non-asymptotic test error bounds for kernel
ridgeless regression (KRR) in the over-parameterized regime for a fixed input
dimension. For kernels with polynomial spectral decay, we recover the bound
from previous work; for exponential decay, our bound is non-trivial and novel.
Our contribution is two-fold: (i) we rigorously prove the phenomena of tempered
overfitting and catastrophic overfitting under the sub-Gaussian design
assumption, closing an existing gap in the literature; (ii) we identify that
the independence of the features plays an important role in guaranteeing
tempered overfitting, raising concerns about approximating KRR generalization
using the Gaussian design assumption in previous literature.


  Fragment-fragment-$\gamma$ coincidences have been measured for $\rm ^{28}Si +
{^{28}Si}$ at an energy corresponding to the population of a conjectured
resonance in $^{56}$Ni. Fragment angular distributions as well as $\gamma$-ray
angular correlations indicate that the spin orientations of the outgoing
fragments are perpendicular to the orbital angular momentum. This differs from
the $\rm ^{24}Mg+{^{24}Mg}$ and the $\rm ^{12}C+{^{12}C}$ resonances, and
suggests two oblate $\rm ^{28}Si$ nuclei interacting in an equator-to-equator
molecular configuration.


  We consider a Stoner ferromagnet in presence of a quasi-one dimensional Fermi
surface in its spin majority band. Assuming a twin $\delta$-function peaked
density of state due to the low dimensionality, we computed the single particle
self-energy. There appears an additional divergence in the self-energy and
hence in the effective mass inside the ferromagnetic phase (besides the
standard logarithmic divergence at the Stoner critical point). Since such an
effect is purely due to density of states, it might correspond to a first order
phase transition making the ferromagnetic phase into two distinct phases. This
result is in qualitative agreement with the recent specific heat capacity
measurement. We also discuss its relevance to the superconducting state in
UGe$_2$.


  Nanomaterial surface states can effectively modify or even dominate their
physical and chemical properties due to large surface-to-volume ratios. Such
surface effects are highly dependent on particle size and ligand coverage, yet
the underlying electronic-level mechanism still remains unknown. Using TiO2
nanosheet as a model system, we reveal the electronic nature of
coverage-dependent nanosurface effects through varying ligand coverage and
probing the modified surface bonding and electronic band structures with
near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure. We discover experimentally that
surface ligands can competitively polarize the 3d orbitals of surface Ti atoms
into chemisorption states, which is cooperative with increased ligand
coverages. Such coverage-dependent cooperative orbital redistribution accounts
for various nanosurface effects on regulating the electronic structure, surface
reactivity, optical property, and chemisorption of nanomaterials.


  In this paper we propose a canonical variational framework for
rate-independent phenomenological geometrically linear gradient plasticity with
plastic spin. The model combines the additive decomposition of the total
distortion into non-symmetric elastic and plastic distortions, with a defect
energy contribution taking account of the Burgers vector through a dependence
only on the dislocation density tensor Curl(p) giving rise to a non-symmetric
nonlocal backstress, and isotropic hardening response only depending on the
accumulated equivalent plastic strain. The model is fully isotropic and
satisfies linearized gauge-invariance conditions, i.e., only true
state-variables appear. The model satisfies also the principle of maximum
dissipation which allows to show existence for the weak formulation. For this
result, a recently introduced Korn's inequality for incompatible tensor fields
is necessary. Uniqueness is shown in the class of strong solutions. For
vanishing energetic length scale, the model reduces to classical
elasto-plasticity with symmetric plastic strain sym(p) and standard isotropic
hardening.


  We present an overview of state of the art lattice quantum chromodynamcis
calculations for heavy-light quantities. Special focus is given to the
calculation of form factors for semi-leptonic decays of $B_{(s)}$ and $D$
mesons, the extraction of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix elements
$|V_{ub}|$ and $|V_{cb}|$ as well as the determination of $R(D^{(*)})$ testing
the universality of lepton flavors in $b\to c$ transitions. In addition we
report on the determination of $b$ and $c$ quark masses as well as on neutral
$B_{(s)}$ meson mixing. Recent results are summarized and new developments
highlighted.


  The flavor composition of astrophysical neutrinos observed at neutrino
telescopes is related to the initial composition at their sources via
oscillation-averaged flavor transitions. If the time evolution of the neutrino
flavor states is unitary, the probability of neutrinos changing flavor is
solely determined by the unitary mixing matrix that relates the neutrino flavor
and propagation eigenstates. In this paper we derive general bounds on the
flavor composition of TeV-PeV astrophysical neutrinos based on unitarity
constraints. These bounds are useful for studying the flavor composition of
high-energy neutrinos, where energy-dependent nonstandard flavor mixing can
dominate over the standard mixing observed in accelerator, reactor, and
atmospheric neutrino oscillations.


  As a promising solution to boost the performance of distance-related
algorithms (e.g., K-means and KNN), FPGA-based acceleration attracts lots of
attention, but also comes with numerous challenges. In this work, we propose
AccD, a compiler-based framework for accelerating distance-related algorithms
on CPU-FPGA platforms. Specifically, AccD provides a Domain-specific Language
to unify distance-related algorithms effectively, and an optimizing compiler to
reconcile the benefits from both the algorithmic optimization on the CPU and
the hardware acceleration on the FPGA. The output of AccD is a high-performance
and power-efficient design that can be easily synthesized and deployed on
mainstream CPU-FPGA platforms. Intensive experiments show that AccD designs
achieve 31.42x speedup and 99.63x better energy efficiency on average over
standard CPU-based implementations.


  The security issues facing quantum key distribution (QKD) are explained,
herein focusing on those issues that are cryptographic and information
theoretic in nature and not those based on physics. The problem of security
criteria is addressed. It is demonstrated that an attacker's success
probabilities are the fundamental criteria of security that any theoretic
security criterion must relate to in order to have operational significance.
The errors committed in the prevalent interpretation of the trace distance
criterion are analyzed. The security proofs of QKD protocols are discussed and
assessed in regard to three main features: their validity, completeness, and
adequacy of the achieved numerical security level. Problems are identified in
all these features. It appears that the QKD security situation is quite
different from the common perception that a QKD-generated key is nearly
perfectly secure. Built into our discussion is a simple but complete
quantitative description of the information theoretic security of classical key
distribution that is also applicable to the quantum situation. In the
appendices, we provide a brief outline of the history of some major QKD
security proofs, a rather unfavorable comparison of current QKD proven security
with that of conventional symmetric key ciphers, and a list of objections and
answers concerning some major points of the paper.


  For a smooth map f of a compact interval I admitting an inducing scheme we
establish a thermodynamical formalism, i.e., describe a class of real-valued
potential functions $\phi$ on I which admit a unique equilibrium measure
$\mu_\phi$. Our results apply to unimodal maps corresponding to a positive
Lebesgue measure set of parameters in a one-parameter transverse family.


  We prove existence and uniqueness of a sequence of differential intertwining
operators for spherical principal series representations, which are realized on
boundaries of anti de Sitter spaces. Algebraically, these operators correspond
to homomorphisms of generalized Verma modules. We relate these families to the
asymptotics of eigenfunctions on anti de Sitter spaces.


  We perform two-dimensional axisymmetric hydrodynamic simulations of matter
mixing in aspherical core-collapse supernova explosions of a 16.3 $M_{\odot}$
star with a compact hydrogen envelope. Observations of SN 1987A have provided
evidence that $^{56}$Ni synthesized by explosive nucleosynthesis is mixed into
fast moving matter ($\gtrsim$ 3,500 km s$^{-1}$) in the exploding star. In
order to clarify the key conditions for reproducing such high velocity of
$^{56}$Ni, we revisit matter mixing in aspherical core-collapse supernova
explosions. Explosions are initiated artificially by injecting thermal and
kinetic energies around the interface between the iron core and the
silicon-rich layer. Perturbations of 5% or 30% amplitude in the radial
velocities are introduced at several points in time. We found that no high
velocity $^{56}$Ni can be obtained if we consider bipolar explosions with
perturbations (5% amplitude) of pre-supernova origins. If large perturbations
(30% amplitude) are introduced or exist due to some unknown mechanism in a
later phase just before the shock wave reaches the hydrogen envelope, $^{56}$Ni
with a velocity of 3,000 km s$^{-1}$ can be obtained. Aspherical explosions
that are asymmetric across the equatorial plane with clumpy structures in the
initial shock waves are investigated. We found that the clump sizes affect the
penetration of $^{56}$Ni. Finally, we report that an aspherical explosion model
that is asymmetric across the equatorial plane with multiple perturbations of
pre-supernova origins can cause the penetration of $^{56}$Ni clumps into fast
moving matter of 3,000 km s$^{-1}$. We show that both aspherical explosion with
clumpy structures and perturbations of pre-supernova origins may be necessary
to reproduce the observed high velocity of $^{56}$Ni. To confirm this, more
robust three-dimensional simulations are required.


  We apply statistical tests, based on the study of thecoefficients in a
wavelet decomposition, to a cosmological signal: the Cosmic Microwave
Background (CMB) anisotropies. The latter represent the superposition of
primary anisotropy imprints of the initial density perturbations and secondary
anisotropies due to photon interactions after recombination. In an inflationary
scenario with Gaussian distributed fluctuations, we study the statistical
signature of the secondary effects. More specifically, we investigate the
dominant effects arising from the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect of galaxy clusters.
Our study predicts the non-Gaussian signature of these secondary anisotropies
and its detectability in the context of the future CMB satellite Planck
Surveyor.


  The unification of X-ray and radio selected BL Lacs has been an outstanding
problem in the blazar research in the past years. Recent investigations have
shown that the gap between the two classes can be filled with intermediate
objects and that apparently all differences can be explained by mutual shifts
of the peak frequencies of the synchrotron and inverse Compton component of the
emission. We study the consequences of this scheme using a new sample of X-ray
selected BL Lac objects comprising 104 objects with z<0.9 and a mean redshift
z=0.34. 77 BL Lacs, of which the redshift could be determined for 64 (83%)
objects, form a complete sample. The new data could not confirm our earlier
result, drawn from a subsample, that the negative evolution vanishes below a
synchrotron peak frequency log (peak-frequency) = 16.5. The complete sample
shows negative evolution at the 2 sigma level (<V_e/V_a> = 0.42 +- 0.04). We
conclude that the observed properties of the HRX BL Lac sample show typical
behaviour for X-ray selected BL Lacs. They support an evolutionary model, in
which flat-spectrum radio quasars (FSRQ) with high energetic jets evolve
towards low frequency peaked (mostly radio-selected) BL Lac objects and later
on to high frequency peaked (mostly X-ray selected) BL Lacs.


  We argue that various kinds of topological insulators (TIs) can be
insightfully characterized by an inspection of the charge centers of the hybrid
Wannier functions, defined as the orbitals obtained by carrying out a Wannier
transform on the Bloch functions in one dimension while leaving them Bloch-like
in the other two. From this procedure, one can obtain the Wannier charge
centers (WCCs) and plot them in the two-dimensional projected Brillouin zone.
We show that these WCC sheets contain the same kind of topological information
as is carried in the surface energy bands, with the crucial advantage that the
topological properties of the bulk can be deduced from bulk calculations alone.
The distinct topological behaviors of these WCC sheets in trivial, Chern, weak,
strong, and crystalline TIs are first illustrated by calculating them for
simple tight-binding models. We then present the results of first-principles
calculations of the WCC sheets in the trivial insulator Sb$_2$Se$_3$, the weak
TI KHgSb, and the strong TI Bi$_2$Se$_3$, confirming the ability of this
approach to distinguish between different topological behaviors in an
advantageous way.


  Efficient coding theory posits that sensory circuits transform natural
signals into neural representations that maximize information transmission
subject to resource constraints. Local interneurons are thought to play an
important role in these transformations, shaping patterns of circuit activity
to facilitate and direct information flow. However, the relationship between
these coordinated, nonlinear, circuit-level transformations and the properties
of interneurons (e.g., connectivity, activation functions, response dynamics)
remains unknown. Here, we propose a normative computational model that
establishes such a relationship. Our model is derived from an optimal transport
objective that conceptualizes the circuit's input-response function as
transforming the inputs to achieve a target response distribution. The circuit,
which is comprised of primary neurons that are recurrently connected to a set
of local interneurons, continuously optimizes this objective by dynamically
adjusting both the synaptic connections between neurons as well as the
interneuron activation functions. In an application motivated by redundancy
reduction theory, we demonstrate that when the inputs are natural image
statistics and the target distribution is a spherical Gaussian, the circuit
learns a nonlinear transformation that significantly reduces statistical
dependencies in neural responses. Overall, our results provide a framework in
which the distribution of circuit responses is systematically and nonlinearly
controlled by adjustment of interneuron connectivity and activation functions.


  Gravitational wave signals from extreme mass ratio inspirals are a key target
for space-based gravitational wave detectors. These systems are typically
modeled as a distributionally-forced Teukolsky equation, where the smaller
black hole is treated as a Dirac delta distribution. Time-domain solvers often
use regularization approaches that approximate the Dirac distribution that
often introduce small length scales and are a source of systematic error,
especially near the smaller black hole. We describe a multi-domain
discontinuous Galerkin method for solving the distributionally-forced Teukolsky
equation that describes scalar fields evolving on a Kerr spacetime. To handle
the Dirac delta, we expand the solution in spherical harmonics and recast the
sourced Teukolsky equation as a first-order, one-dimensional symmetric
hyperbolic system. This allows us to derive the method's numerical flux to
correctly account for the Dirac delta. As a result, our method achieves global
spectral accuracy even at the source's location. To connect the near field to
future null infinity, we use the hyperboloidal layer method, allowing us to
supply outer boundary conditions and providing direct access to the far-field
waveform. We document several numerical experiments where we test our method,
including convergence tests against exact solutions, energy luminosities for
circular orbits, the scheme's superconvergence properties at future null
infinity, and the late-time tail behavior of the scalar field. We also compare
two systems that arise from different choices of the first-order reduction
variables, finding that certain choices are numerically problematic in
practice. The methods developed here may be beneficial when computing
gravitational self-force effects, where the regularization procedure has been
developed for the spherical harmonic modes and high accuracy is needed at the
Dirac delta's location.


  The hyperspherical harmonics (HH) provide a complete basis for the expansion
of atomic wave functions, but even for two particles the number of harmonics
for a given order is not trivial and, as the number of electrons increases,
this degeneracy becomes absolutely prohibitive. We modify the method by
selecting a subset of the basis that, we feel, will yield the physically most
important part of the wave function, and test the idea on simple systems.
  In a previous work (with M. Haftel) of the singlet ground and first excited
states of the helium atom we found that the error in the binding energy of the
ground state was of the order of 1 part in 10,000 and that it decreased for the
first excited state.
  We now have applied our method to the equivalent triplet states. We report on
this work, and our results, and hope to draw attention to the interesting
accuracy that we obtain with the relatively simple wave functions of our
formulation.


  Objective: Breathing pattern variability (BPV), as a universal physiological
feature, encodes rich health information. We aim to show that, a high-quality
automatic sleep stage scoring based on a proper quantification of BPV
extracting from the single airflow signal can be achieved.
  Methods: Topological data analysis (TDA) is applied to characterize BPV from
the intrinsically nonstationary airflow signal, where the extracted features
are used to train an automatic sleep stage scoring model using the XGBoost
learner. The noise and artifacts commonly present in the airflow signal are
recycled to enhance the performance of the trained system. The state-of-the-art
approach is implemented for a comparison.
  Results: When applied to 30 whole night polysomnogram signals with standard
annotations, the leave-one-subject-out cross-validation shows that the proposed
features (overall accuracy 78.8\%$\pm$8.7\% and Cohen's kappa 0.56$\pm 0.15$)
outperforms those considered in the state-of-the-art work (overall accuracy
75.0\%$\pm$9.6\% and Cohen's kappa 0.50$\pm 0.15$) when applied to
automatically score wake, rapid eyeball movement (REM) and non-REM (NREM). The
TDA features are shown to contain complementary information to the traditional
features commonly used in the literature via examining the feature importance.
The respiratory quality index is found to be essential in the trained system.
  Conclusion: The proposed TDA-assisted automatic annotation system can
accurately distinguish wake, REM and NREM from the airflow signal.
  Significance: Since only one single airflow channel is needed and BPV is
universal, the result suggests that the TDA-assisted signal processing has
potential to be applied to other biomedical signals and homecare problems other
than the sleep stage annotation.


  We study stable solutions to fractional semilinear equations $(-\Delta)^s u =
f(u)$ in $\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^n$, for convex nonlinearities $f$, and
under the Dirichlet exterior condition $u=g$ in $\mathbb{R}^n \setminus \Omega$
with general $g$. We establish a uniqueness and a classification result, and we
show that weak (energy) stable solutions can be approximated by a sequence of
bounded (and hence regular) stable solutions to similar problems.
  As an application of our results, we establish the interior regularity of
weak (energy) stable solutions to the problem for the half-Laplacian in
dimensions $1 \leq n \leq 4$.


  This is the first of a series of papers in which we investigate the decay
estimates for dispersive equations with Aharonov-Bohm solenoids in a uniform
magnetic field. In this first starting paper, we prove the local-in-time
dispersive estimates and Strichartz estimates for Schr\"odinger equation with
one Aharonov-Bohm solenoid in a uniform magnetic field. The key ingredient is
the construction of Schr\"odinger propagator, we provide two methods to
construct the propagator. The first one is combined the strategies of
\cite{FFFP1} and \cite{GYZZ22, FZZ22}, and the second one is based on the
Schulman-Sunada formula in sprit of \cite{stov, stov1} in which the heat kernel
has been studied. In future papers, we will continue investigating this quantum
model for wave with one or multiple Aharonov-Bohm solenoids in a uniform
magnetic field.


  Banded spherulitic growth of crystal is observed in some materials with
spherically symmetric growth front and periodic radial variation of
birefringence. This variation of birefringence in quasi two dimensional
geometry produces concentric interference colour bands when viewed through
crossed polarisers. In most materials, the banded spherulites are found to be
formed by radially oriented periodically twisted fibrillar crystallites. Here,
we report the formation of banded spherulites due to the rhythmic growth of
concentric crystallite-rich and crystallite-poor bands for a pure compound
consisting of strongly polar rod like molecules. The compound exhibits
coexistence of untwisted fibrillar crystallites and an amorphous phase in its
most stable solid state. On sufficient supercooling of the sample from its
melting point, the banded spherulites are formed with a periodic variation of
composition of untwisted radially aligned fibrillar crystallites and an
amorphous solid phase. We have developed a time dependent Ginzburg-Landau model
to account for the observed banded spherulitic growth.


  We introduce diagrams and Reidemeister moves for links in FxS^{1}, where F is
an orientable surface. Using these diagrams we compute (in a new way) the
Kauffman Bracket Skein Modules (KBSM) for D^{2}xS^{1} and AxS^{1}, where D^{2}
is a disk and A is an annulus. Moreover, we also find the KBSM for the
F_{0,3}xS^{1}, where F_{0,3} denotes a disk with two holes, and thus show that
the module is free.


  We present a HJM approach to the projection of multiple yield curves
developed to capture the volatility content of historical term structures for
risk management purposes. Since we observe the empirical data at daily
frequency and only for a finite number of time-to-maturity buckets, we propose
a modelling framework which is inherently discrete. In particular, we show how
to approximate the HJM continuous time description of the multi-curve dynamics
by a Vector Autoregressive process of order one. The resulting dynamics lends
itself to a feasible estimation of the model volatility-correlation structure
and market risk-premia. Then, resorting to the Principal Component Analysis we
further simplify the dynamics reducing the number of covariance components.
Applying the constant volatility version of our model on a sample of curves
from the Euro area, we demonstrate its forecasting ability through an
out-of-sample test.


  Athletes routinely undergo fitness evaluations to evaluate their training
progress. Typically, these evaluations require a trained professional who
utilizes specialized equipment like force plates. For the assessment, athletes
perform drop and squat jumps, and key variables are measured, e.g. velocity,
flight time, and time to stabilization, to name a few. However, amateur
athletes may not have access to professionals or equipment that can provide
these assessments. Here, we investigate the feasibility of estimating key
variables using video recordings. We focus on jump velocity as a starting point
because it is highly correlated with other key variables and is important for
determining posture and lower-limb capacity. We find that velocity can be
estimated with a high degree of precision across a range of athletes, with an
average R-value of 0.71 (SD = 0.06).


  This document include my comments on Nathan Bowler's proof that every
stratified formula is equivalent to an acyclic formula. The whole proof of
Nathan's is quoted exactly as it's presented in his messages to me. The
comments are edits of clarifying e-mail messages that I have sent to Thomas
Forster as well as e-mail correspondence with Nathan Bowler. Minor technical
issues are addressed too.


  In this paper we introduce a framework for computing upper bounds yet
accurate WCET for hardware platforms with caches and pipelines. The methodology
we propose consists of 3 steps: 1) given a program to analyse, compute an
equivalent (WCET-wise) abstract program; 2) build a timed game by composing
this abstract program with a network of timed automata modeling the
architecture; and 3) compute the WCET as the optimal time to reach a winning
state in this game. We demonstrate the applicability of our framework on
standard benchmarks for an ARM9 processor with instruction and data caches, and
compute the WCET with UPPAAL-TiGA. We also show that this framework can easily
be extended to take into account dynamic changes in the speed of the processor
during program execution. %


  The magnetic susceptibility and specific heat of the one-dimensional S=1
bilinear-biquadratic Heisenberg model are calculated using the transfer matrix
renormalization group. By comparing the results with the experimental data of
${\rm LiVGe_2O_6}$ measured by Millet et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 83}, 4176
(1999)), we find that the susceptibility data of this material, after
subtracting the impurity contribution, can be quantitatively explained with
this model. The biquadratic exchange interaction in this material is found to
be ferromagnetic, i.e. with a positive coupling constant.


  In this paper we propose a novel algorithm to combine two or more cellular
complexes, providing a minimal fragmentation of the cells of the resulting
complex. We introduce here the idea of arrangement generated by a collection of
cellular complexes, producing a cellular decomposition of the embedding space.
The algorithm that executes this computation is called \emph{Merge} of
complexes. The arrangements of line segments in 2D and polygons in 3D are
special cases, as well as the combination of closed triangulated surfaces or
meshed models. This algorithm has several important applications, including
Boolean and other set operations over large geometric models, the extraction of
solid models of biomedical structures at the cellular scale, the detailed
geometric modeling of buildings, the combination of 3D meshes, and the repair
of graphical models. The algorithm is efficiently implemented using the Linear
Algebraic Representation (LAR) of argument complexes, i.e., on sparse
representation of binary characteristic matrices of $d$-cell bases, well-suited
for implementation in last generation accelerators and GPGPU applications.


  In this paper, we establish an effective edge theory to characterize
non-Hermitian edge-skin modes in higher dimensions. We begin by proposing a
bulk projection criterion to straightforwardly identify the localized edges of
skin modes. Through an exact mapping, we show that the edge-skin mode shares
the same bulk-boundary correspondence and localization characteristics as the
zero-energy edge states in a Hermitian semimetal under open-boundary
conditions, bridging the gap between non-Hermitian edge-skin effect and
Hermitian semimetals. Another key finding is the introduction of ``skewness,''
a term we proposed to describe the characteristic decay direction of skin mode
from the localized edge into the bulk. Remarkably, we demonstrate that skewness
is an intrinsic quantity of the skin mode and can be analytically determined
using the corresponding cylinder-geometry bulk Hamiltonian, without requiring
any boundary details. Furthermore, we reveal that in the edge-skin effect, the
spectrum exhibits anomalous spectral sensitivity to weak local disturbances, a
feature that crucially distinguishes it from the corner-skin effect.


  We survey some basic mathematical structures, which arguably are more
primitive than the structures taught at school. These structures are orders,
with or without composition, and (symmetric) monoidal categories. We list
several `real life' incarnations of each of these. This paper also serves as an
introduction to these structures and their current and potentially future uses
in linguistics, physics and knowledge representation.


  We study the differentiability of Bessel flow $\rho : x \to \rho ^x_t$, where
$(\rho ^x_t)_{t\geq 0}$ is BES $^x(\delta $) process of dimension $\delta >1$
starting from $x$. For $\delta \geq 2$ we prove the existence of bicontinuous
derivatives in P-a.s. sense at $x\geq 0$ and we study the asymptotic behaviour
of the derivatives at $x=0$. For $1< \delta <2$ we prove the existence of a
modification of Bessel flow having derivatives in probability sense at $x\geq
0$. We study the asymptotic behaviour of the derivatives at $t=\tau_0(x)$ where
$\tau_0(x)$ is the first zero of $(\rho ^x_t)_{t\geq 0}$.


  Radio emission of the quiet Sun is considered to be due to thermal
bremsstrahlung emission of the hot solar atmosphere. The properties of the
quiet Sun in the microwave band have been well studied, and they can be well
described by the spectrum of bremsstrahlung emission. In the meter-wave and
decameter-wave bands, properties of the quiet Sun have rarely been studied due
to the instrumental limitations. In this work, we use the LOw Frequency ARray
(LOFAR) telescope to perform high quality interferometric imaging spectroscopy
observations of quiet Sun coronal emission at frequencies below 90~MHz. We
present the brightness temperature spectrum, and size of the Sun in the
frequency range of 20-80~MHz. We report on dark coronal regions with low
brightness temperature that persist with frequency. The brightness temperature
spectrum of the quiet Sun is discussed and compared with the bremsstrahlung
emission of a coronal model and previous quiet Sun observations.


  Zombie States are a recently introduced formalism to describe coupled
coherent Fermionic states which address the Fermionic sign problem in a
computationally tractable manner. Previously it has been shown that Zombie
States with fractional occupations of spin-orbitals obeyed the correct
Fermionic creation and annihilation algebra and presented results for real-time
evolution [Dmitrii V. Shalashilin, J. Chem. Phys. 148, 194109 (2018)]. In this
work we extend and build on this formalism by developing efficient algorithms
for evaluating the Hamiltonian and other operators between Zombie States and
address their normalization. We also show how imaginary time propagation can be
used to find the ground state of a system. We also present a biasing method,
for setting up a basis set of random Zombie States, that allow much smaller
basis sizes to be used while still accurately describing the electronic
structure Hamiltonian and its ground state and describe a technique of wave
function "cleaning" which removes the contributions of configurations with the
wrong number of electrons, improving the accuracy further. We also show how
low-lying excited states can be calculated efficiently using a Gram-Schmidt
orthogonalization procedure.The proposed algorithm of imaginary time
propagation on a biased random grids of Zombie States may present an
alternative to existing Quantum Monte Carlo methods.


  We present our analysis of a set of populations of massive black hole (MBH)
binaries generated in the recent semi-analytic model of galaxy evolution
(SHARK). We focus on studying gravitational wave (GW) emission produced during
MBH mergers in terms of their detectability with current and future detectors,
namely, Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTAs) and Laser Interferometer Space Antenna
(LISA). The key advantage of SHARK is that it provides a way to explore a
number of distinct models of MBH and galaxy evolution processes within a
consistent framework and it was also successfully tested against current
constraints from electromagnetic observations. In our work, we studied 12
models that vary in terms of their MBH seed formation scenarios and we tested
two different MBH growth and feedback models.
  Based on our estimates, we find that LISA will be able to detect several to
several tens of merger events per year for the most and least massive seed
scenarios, respectively. We also show that the strength of this relation
depends on the MBH growth model, where in the most extreme case, we find twice
as many detected events for the same initial seed masses. Finally, we estimated
the amplitude of the GW background at nHz frequencies to be on the order of
$1.4\cdot10^{-16} - 1.1\cdot10^{-15}$. This value depends solely on the time
delay between the merger of galaxies and their MBHs.


  Both uncertainty-assisted and iteration-based methods have achieved great
success in stereo matching. However, existing uncertainty estimation methods
take a single image and the corresponding disparity as input, which imposes
higher demands on the estimation network. In this paper, we propose Cost
volume-based disparity Uncertainty Estimation (UEC). Based on the rich
similarity information in the cost volume coming from the image pairs, the
proposed UEC can achieve competitive performance with low computational cost.
Secondly, we propose two methods of uncertainty-assisted disparity estimation,
Uncertainty-based Disparity Rectification (UDR) and Uncertainty-based Disparity
update Conditioning (UDC). These two methods optimise the disparity update
process of the iterative-based approach without adding extra parameters. In
addition, we propose Disparity Rectification loss that significantly improves
the accuracy of small amount of disparity updates. We present a
high-performance stereo architecture, DR Stereo, which is a combination of the
proposed methods. Experimental results from SceneFlow, KITTI, Middlebury 2014,
and ETH3D show that DR-Stereo achieves very competitive disparity estimation
performance.


  Naming Game is a recently proposed model for describing how a multi-agent
system can converge towards a consensus state in a self-organized way. In this
paper, we investigate this model on the so-called homogeneous small-world
networks and focus on the influence of the triangular topology on the dynamics.
Of all the topological quantities, the clustering coefficient is found to play
a significant role in the dynamics of the Naming Game. On the one hand, it
affects the maximum memory of each agent; on the other hand, it inhibits the
growing of clusters in which agents share a common word, i.e., a larger
clustering coefficient will cause a slower convergence of the system. We also
find a quantitative relationship between clustering coefficient and the maximum
memory.


  We study Reeb dynamics on the three-sphere equipped with a tight contact form
and an anti-contact involution. We prove the existence of a symmetric periodic
orbit and provide necessary and sufficient conditions for it to bound an
invariant disk-like global surface of section. We also study the same questions
under the presence of additional symmetry and obtain similar results in this
case. The proofs make use of pseudoholomorphic curves in symplectizations. As
applications, we study Birkhoff's conjecture on disk-like global surfaces of
section in the planar circular restricted three-body problem and the existence
of symmetric closed Finsler geodesics on the two-sphere. We also present
applications to some classical Hamiltonian systems.


  We describe a quantum limit to measurement of classical spacetimes.
Specifically, we formulate a quantum Cramer-Rao lower bound for estimating the
single parameter in any one-parameter family of spacetime metrics. We employ
the locally covariant formulation of quantum field theory in curved spacetime,
which allows for a manifestly background-independent derivation. The result is
an uncertainty relation that applies to all globally hyperbolic spacetimes.
Among other examples, we apply our method to detection of gravitational waves
using the electromagnetic field as a probe, as in laser-interferometric
gravitational-wave detectors. Other applications are discussed, from
terrestrial gravimetry to cosmology.


  An error was detected in the code used for the analysis of the HD209458b
sodium profile (Vidal-Madjar et al. 2011). Here we present an updated T-P
profile and briefly discuss the consequences.


  We study a previously introduced bi-local gauge invariant reformulation of
two dimensional QCD, called 2d HadronDynamics. The baryon arises as a
topological soliton in HadronDynamics. We derive an interacting parton model
from the soliton model, thus reconciling these two seemingly different points
of view. The valence quark model is obtained as a variational approximation to
HadronDynamics. A succession of better approximations to the soliton picture
are obtained. The next simplest case corresponds to a system of interacting
valence, `sea' and anti-quarks. We also obtain this `embellished' parton model
directly from the valence quark system through a unitary transformation. Using
the solitonic point of view, we estimate the quark and anti-quark distributions
of 2d QCD. Possible applications to Deep Inelastic Structure Functions are
pointed out.


  An infinite buffer batch service vacation queue has been studied where
service rate of the batch is dependent on the size of the batch and vacation
rate is dependent on the queue size at vacation initiation epoch. The arrivals
follow the Markovian arrival process (MAP). For service rule, general bulk
service (GBS) rule is considered. The service time and vacation time both are
considered to be generally distributed. Several joint distributions of interest
are obtained using the bivariate vector generating function method and the
supplementary variable technique (SVT). Numerical results are presented to show
the behavior of the system performance to validate the analytical results.


  It is well known that CS can boost massive random access protocols. Usually,
the protocols operate in some overloaded regime where the sparsity can be
exploited. In this paper, we consider a different approach by taking an
orthogonal FFT base, subdivide its image into appropriate sub-channels and let
each subchannel take only a fraction of the load. To show that this approach
can actually achieve the full capacity we provide i) new concentration
inequalities, and ii) devise a sparsity capture effect, i.e where the
sub-division can be driven such that the activity in each each sub-channel is
sparse by design. We show by simulations that the system is scalable resulting
in a coarsely 30-fold capacity increase.


  A calculation of the pion balance functions in a thermal model is presented.
The total result consists of resonance and non-resonance parts. A satisfactory
agreement with the data on Au+Au collisions at 130 GeV is found.


  We consider classical gauge theory with spontaneous symmetry breaking on a
principal bundle $P\to X$ whose structure group $G$ is reducible to a closed
subgroup $H$, and sections of the quotient bundle $P/H\to X$ are treated as
classical Higgs fields. Its most comprehensive example is metric-affine gauge
theory on the category of natural bundles where gauge fields are general linear
connections on a manifold $X$, classical Higgs fields are arbitrary
pseudo-Riemannian metrics on $X$, and matter fields are spinor fields. In
particular, this is the case of gauge gravitation theory.


  Let $f_{{\bf a},\{bf b}}({\bf z},\bar{\bf z})=z_1^{a_1+b_1}\bar
z_1^{b_1}+...+z_n^{a_n+b_n}\bar z_n^{b_n}$ be a polar weighted homogeneous
mixed polynomial with $a_j>0,b_j\ge 0$, $j=1,..., n$ and let $f_{{\bf a}}({\bf
z})=z_1^{a_1}+...+z_n^{a_n}$ be the associated weighted homogeneous polynomial.
Consider the corresponding link variety $K_{{\bf a},{\bf b}}=f_{{\bf a},{\bf
b}}\inv(0)\cap S^{2n-1}$ and $K_{{\bf a}}=f_{{\bf a}}\inv(0)\cap S^{2n-1}$.
Ruas-Seade-Verjovsky \cite{R-S-V} proved that the Milnor fibrations of $f_{{\bf
a},{\bf b}}$ and $f_{{\bf a}}$ are topologically equivalent and the mixed link
$K_{{\bf a},{\bf b}}$ is homeomorphic to the complex link $K_{{\bf a}}$. We
will prove that they are $C^\infty$ equivalent and two links are diffeomorphic.
We show the same assertion for $ f({\bf z},\bar{\bf z})=z_1^{a_1+b_1}\bar
z_1^{b_1}z_2+...+z_{n-1}^{a_{n-1}+b_{n-1}}\bar
z_{n-1}^{b_{n-1}}z_n+z_n^{a_n+b_n}\bar z_n^{b_n}$ and its associated polynomial
$ g({\bf z})=z_1^{a_1}z_2+...+ z_{n-1}^{a_{n-1}}z_n+z_n^{a_n}$.


  Existing theoretical models of the interfacial thermal conductance, i.e.,
Kapitza conductance, of insulating solid-fluid interfaces only consider bulk
properties, e.g., acoustic mismatch model and diffuse mismatch model. In this
work, we propose a classical lattice dynamical model calculation of the Kapitza
conductance, thereby incorporating interfacial structural details. In our
model, we assume that heat is mostly carried by phonons in the solid, and that
sound waves carry diffusive heat from the interface into the bulk of the
liquid, where both longitudinal and transverse sound waves are considered.
Sound wave dispersion is calculated from the fluid pair distribution function,
evaluated using approximate integral equation theories (i.e., Percus-Yevick,
Hypernetted-chain approximation). The Kapitza conductance of the solid-fluid
interface is obtained from the phonon transmission coefficient at the
interface. We determine the interfacial phonon transmission coefficient by
solving the coupled equations of motion for the interfacial solid and fluid
atoms. As an illustrative example, we derive the Kapitza conductance of solid
argon-fluid neon interface, with pair-wise Lennard-Jones interactions.


  Type Ia supernovae are generally thought to be due to the thermonuclear
explosions of carbon-oxygen white dwarfs with masses near the Chandrasekhar
mass. This scenario, however, has two long-standing problems. First, the
explosions do not naturally produce the correct mix of elements, but have to be
finely tuned to proceed from sub-sonic deflagration to super-sonic detonation.
Second, population models and observations give formation rates of
near-Chandrasekhar white dwarfs that are far too small. Here, we suggest that
type Ia supernovae instead result from mergers of roughly equal-mass
carbon-oxygen white dwarfs, including those that produce sub-Chandrasekhar mass
remnants. Numerical studies of such mergers have shown that the remnants
consist of rapidly rotating cores that contain most of the mass and are hottest
in the center, surrounded by dense, small disks. We argue that the disks
accrete quickly, and that the resulting compressional heating likely leads to
central carbon ignition. This ignition occurs at densities for which pure
detonations lead to events similar to type Ia supernovae. With this merger
scenario, we can understand the type Ia rates, and have plausible reasons for
the observed range in luminosity and for the bias of more luminous supernovae
towards younger populations. We speculate that explosions of white dwarfs
slowly brought to the Chandrasekhar limit---which should also occur---are
responsible for some of the "atypical" type Ia supernovae.


  We show that the apparently periodic Charap-Duff Yang-Mills `instantons' in
time-compactified Euclidean Schwarzschild space are actually time independent.
For these solutions, the Yang-Mills potential is constant along the time
direction (no barrier) and therefore, there is no tunneling. We also
demonstrate that the solutions found to date are three dimensional monopoles
and dyons. We conjecture that there are no time-dependent solutions in the
Euclidean Schwarzschild background.