  Context: Metric type II bursts are the most direct diagnostic of shock waves
in the solar corona.
  Aims: There are two main competing views about the origin of coronal shocks:
that they originate in either blast waves ignited by the pressure pulse of a
flare or piston-driven shocks due to coronal mass ejections (CMEs). We studied
three well-observed type II bursts in an attempt to place tighter constraints
on their origins.
  Methods: The type II bursts were observed by the ARTEMIS radio spectrograph
and imaged by the Nan\c{c}ay Radioheliograph (NRH) at least at two frequencies.
To take advantage of projection effects, we selected events that occurred away
from disk center.
  Results: In all events, both flares and CMEs were observed. In the first
event, the speed of the shock was about 4200 km/s, while the speed of the CME
was about 850 km/s. This discrepancy ruled out the CME as the primary shock
driver. The CME may have played a role in the ignition of another shock that
occurred just after the high speed one. A CME driver was excluded from the
second event as well because the CMEs that appeared in the coronagraph data
were not synchronized with the type II burst. In the third event, the
kinematics of the CME which was determined by combining EUV and white light
data was broadly consistent with the kinematics of the type II burst, and,
therefore, the shock was probably CME-driven.
  Conclusions: Our study demonstrates the diversity of conditions that may lead
to the generation of coronal shocks.


  A hint of a new resonance at a mass of 750\,GeV has been observed in the
diphoton channel of LHC Run 2 at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV. The signal rate is too
large to interpret it as a new Higgs boson in the context of weakly-coupled
renormalizable models. One way is to reduce its total decay rate, which is
possible if the CP-even heavy Higgs boson $H^0$ in the aligned two Higgs
doublet model becomes top-phobic. To ensure sufficient gluon fusion production,
we introduce vector-like quarks (VLQ). The Higgs precision data as well as the
exclusion limits from no excesses in other 8 TeV LHC searches of $Z\gamma$,
$b\bar{b}$, $\tau^+\tau^-$, and $jj$ channels are simultaneously included. In
Type I, top-phobic $H^0$ cannot explain the 750\,GeV diphoton signal and the
Higgs precision data simultaneously since the universal Yukawa couplings of the
up-type and down-type VLQs always make more contribution to $h^0$ than to
$H^0$. In Type II, small Yukawa coupling of the up-type VLQ but sizable Yukawa
coupling for the down-type VLQ is shown to explain the signal while satisfying
other LHC exclusion limits.


  We probe the conformal block structure of a scalar four-point function in
$d\geq2$ conformal field theories by including higher-order derivative terms in
a bulk gravitational action. We consider a heavy-light four-point function as
the boundary correlator at large central charge. Such a four-point function can
be computed, on the gravity side, as a two-point function of the light operator
in a black hole geometry created by the heavy operator. We consider
analytically solving the corresponding scalar field equation in a near-boundary
expansion and find that the multi-stress tensor conformal blocks are
insensitive to the horizon boundary condition. The main result of this paper is
that the lowest-twist operator product expansion (OPE) coefficients of the
multi-stress tensor conformal blocks are universal: they are fixed by the
dimension of the light operators and the ratio between the dimension of the
heavy operator and the central charge $C_T$. Neither supersymmetry nor unitary
is assumed. Higher-twist coefficients, on the other hand, generally are not
protected. A recursion relation allows us to efficiently compute universal
lowest-twist coefficients. The universality result hints at the potential
existence of a higher-dimensional Virasoro-like symmetry near the lightcone.
While we largely focus on the planar black hole limit in this paper, we include
some preliminary analysis of the spherical black hole case in an appendix.


  We consider sequential treatment regimes where each unit is exposed to
combinations of interventions over time. When interventions are described by
qualitative labels, such as ``close schools for a month due to a pandemic'' or
``promote this podcast to this user during this week'', it is unclear which
appropriate structural assumptions allow us to generalize behavioral
predictions to previously unseen combinatorial sequences. Standard black-box
approaches mapping sequences of categorical variables to outputs are
applicable, but they rely on poorly understood assumptions on how reliable
generalization can be obtained, and may underperform under sparse sequences,
temporal variability, and large action spaces. To approach that, we pose an
explicit model for \emph{composition}, that is, how the effect of sequential
interventions can be isolated into modules, clarifying which data conditions
allow for the identification of their combined effect at different units and
time steps. We show the identification properties of our compositional model,
inspired by advances in causal matrix factorization methods but focusing on
predictive models for novel compositions of interventions instead of matrix
completion tasks and causal effect estimation. We compare our approach to
flexible but generic black-box models to illustrate how structure aids
prediction in sparse data conditions.


  We study of possible encounters in past epochs of the open star cluster NGC
1977 with host stars. For this purpose, the age of the cluster was determined
based on our catalog data. Stars with planetary systems were selected from the
NASA Archive. The age of the cluster was determined using the color - absolute
magnitude diagram and the isochron system. By extending the track of the
movement of the cluster and stars in past epochs, 10 Myr. The time of the
maximum approach 32 pc of the host star with planetary system TOI-2796 with the
NGC 1977 are found. The place of approach in the sky is shown, this point can
be considered as the place of appearance of interstellar comets. Thus, the
result of our work is that the we found approach of the host star to the
cluster entailed effects associated with the gravitational influence of the
cluster on the nuclei of comets located in the outer parts of the Oort cloud of
the planetary system. The effect of approach on comets is estimated.


  We give a direct proof of the fact that Lurie's Unstraightening functor
induces an equivalence between the strict $(\infty,2)$-category of indexed
quasi-categories and the strict $(\infty,2)$-category of fibered
quasi-categories over any given quasi-categorical base. We conclude that
Unstraightening preserves simplicial cotensors up to a (strictly) natural
homotopy equivalence, and thus gives rise to an accordingly weakened notion of
cosmological biequivalence between the two underlying $\infty$-cosmoses.


  This paper describes a hand geometry biometric identification system. We have
acquired a database of 22 people, 10 acquisitions per person, using a
conventional document scanner. We propose a feature extraction and classifier.
The experimental results reveal a maximum identification rate equal to 93.64%,
and a minimum value of the detection cost function equal to 2.92% using a multi
layer perceptron classifier.


  In this paper we target the problem of the retrieval of colour patterns over
surfaces. We generalize to surface tessellations the well known Local Binary
Pattern (LBP) descriptor for images. The key concept of the LBP is to code the
variability of the colour values around each pixel. In the case of a surface
tessellation we adopt rings around vertices that are obtained with a
sphere-mesh intersection driven by the edges of the mesh; for this reason, we
name our method edgeLBP. Experimental results are provided to show how this
description performs well for pattern retrieval, also when patterns come from
degraded and corrupted archaeological fragments.


  It is well known that the category of Gray-categories does not admit a
monoidal biclosed structure that models weak higher-dimensional
transformations. In this paper, the first of a series on the topic, we describe
several skew monoidal closed structures on the category of Gray-categories, one
of which captures higher lax transformations, and another which models higher
pseudo-transformations.


  In a recent paper it has been shown that to model a diffusive molecular
communication (MC) channel with multiple fully absorbing (FA) receivers, these
can be interpreted as sources of negative particles from the other receivers'
perspective. The barycenter point is introduced as the best position where to
place the negative sources. The barycenter is obtained from the spatial mean of
the molecules impinging on the surface of each FA receiver. This paper derives
an expression that captures the position of the barycenter in a diffusive MC
channel with multiple FA receivers. In this work, an analytical model inspired
by Newton's law of gravitation is found to describe the barycenter, and the
result is compared with particle-based simulation (PBS) data. Since the
barycenter depends on the distance between the transmitter and receiver and the
observation time, the condition that the barycenter can be assumed to be at the
center of the receiver is discussed. This assumption simplifies further
modeling of any diffusive MC system containing multiple FA receivers. The
resulting position of the barycenter is used in channel models to calculate the
cumulative number of absorbed molecules and it has been verified with PBS data
in a variety of scenarios.


  The Willmore energy for Frenet curves in quaternionic projective space is the
generalization of the Willmore functional for immersions into the 4-sphere.
Critical points of the Willmore energy are called Willmore curves in
quaternionic projective space.
  Using a Baecklund transformation on Willmore curves, we generalize Bryant's
result on Willmore spheres in 3--space: a Willmore sphere in quaternionic
projective space has integer Willmore energy, and is given by complex
holomorphic data.


  Initial boundary value problems for the generalized Benney-Lin equation posed
on bounded intervals and on the right half-line were considered. The existence
and uniqueness of global regular solutions on arbitrary intervals as well as
their exponential decay for small solutions and for a special choice of a
bounded interval have been established.


  In a dialog, there can be multiple valid next utterances at any point. The
present end-to-end neural methods for dialog do not take this into account.
They learn with the assumption that at any time there is only one correct next
utterance. In this work, we focus on this problem in the goal-oriented dialog
setting where there are different paths to reach a goal. We propose a new
method, that uses a combination of supervised learning and reinforcement
learning approaches to address this issue. We also propose a new and more
effective testbed, permuted-bAbI dialog tasks, by introducing multiple valid
next utterances to the original-bAbI dialog tasks, which allows evaluation of
goal-oriented dialog systems in a more realistic setting. We show that there is
a significant drop in performance of existing end-to-end neural methods from
81.5% per-dialog accuracy on original-bAbI dialog tasks to 30.3% on
permuted-bAbI dialog tasks. We also show that our proposed method improves the
performance and achieves 47.3% per-dialog accuracy on permuted-bAbI dialog
tasks.


  The disorder function formalism [Gunaratne et.al., Phys. Rev. E, {\bf 57},
5146 (1998)]^M is used to show that pattern relaxation in an experiment on a
vibrated layer of brass beads^M occurs in three distinct stages. During stage
I, all lengthscales associated with ^M moments of the disorder grow at a single
universal rate, given by $L(t) \sim t^{0.5}$. In stage II, pattern evolution is
non-universal and includes a range of growth indices. Relaxation in the final
stage is characterized by a single, non-universal index. We use analysis of
patterns from the Swift-Hohenberg equation to argue that mechanisms that
underlie the observed pattern evolution are linear spatio-temporal dynamics
(stage I), non-linear saturation (stage II), and stochasticity (stage III)


  Motivated by recent experiments with ultracold magnetic atoms trapped in
optical lattices where the orientation of atomic dipoles can be fully
controlled by external fields, we study the ground state properties of dipolar
bosons trapped in a two-dimensional lattice with density-induced hopping and
where the dipoles are tilted along the $xz$ plane. We present ground state
phase diagrams of the above system at different tilt angles. We find that, as
the dipolar interaction increases, the superfluid phase at half filling factor
is destroyed in favor of either a checkerboard or stripe solid phase for tilt
angle $\theta \lesssim 35.3^{\circ}$ or $\theta \gtrsim 35.3^{\circ}$
respectively. More interesting physics happens at tilt angles $\theta \gtrsim
58^{\circ}$, where we find that, as the dipolar interaction strength increases,
solid phases first appear at filling factor lower than $0.5$. Moreover, unlike
what observed at lower tilt angles, we find that, at half filling, a stripe
supersolid intervenes between the superfluid and stripe solid phase.


  Deep convolutional neural networks achieve remarkable visual recognition
performance, at the cost of high computational complexity. In this paper, we
have a new design of efficient convolutional layers based on three schemes. The
3D convolution operation in a convolutional layer can be considered as
performing spatial convolution in each channel and linear projection across
channels simultaneously. By unravelling them and arranging the spatial
convolution sequentially, the proposed layer is composed of a single
intra-channel convolution, of which the computation is negligible, and a linear
channel projection. A topological subdivisioning is adopted to reduce the
connection between the input channels and output channels. Additionally, we
also introduce a spatial "bottleneck" structure that utilizes a
convolution-projection-deconvolution pipeline to take advantage of the
correlation between adjacent pixels in the input. Our experiments demonstrate
that the proposed layers remarkably outperform the standard convolutional
layers with regard to accuracy/complexity ratio. Our models achieve similar
accuracy to VGG, ResNet-50, ResNet-101 while requiring 42, 4.5, 6.5 times less
computation respectively.


  This study aims to integrate, clean and analysis through automated data
mining techniques. Using data mining (DM) techniques is one of the processes of
transferring raw data from current educational system to meaningful information
that can be used to help the school community to make a right decision to
achieve much better results. This proved DM provides means to assist both
educators and students, and improve the quality of education. The result and
findings in the study show that automated system will give the same result
compare with manual system of integration and analysis and also could be used
by the management to make faster and more efficient decision in order to map or
plan efficient teaching approach for students in the future.


  We review the literature on Information Causality. Since it's for a book, we
don't think an abstract will be needed at all, so we have written this one just
for the sake of the arXiv.


  Searches for a scalar top quark and a scalar bottom quark have been performed
using a data sample of 182 pb-1 at a centre-of-mass energy of 189 GeV collected
with the OPAL detector at LEP. No evidence for a signal was found. The 95%
confidence level lower limit on the scalar top quark mass is 90.3 GeV if the
mixing angle between the supersymmetric partners of the left- and right-handed
states of the top quark is zero. In the worst case, when the scalar top quark
decouples from the Z boson, the lower limit is 87.2 GeV. These limits were
obtained assuming that the scalar top quark decays into a charm quark and the
lightest neutralino, and that the mass difference between the scalar top quark
and the lightest neutralino is larger than 10 GeV. The complementary decay mode
of the scalar top quark decaying into a bottom quark, a charged lepton and a
scalar neutrino has also been studied. From a search for the scalar bottom
quark, a mass limit of 88.6 GeV was obtained if the mass difference between the
scalar bottom quark and the lightest neutralino is larger than 7 GeV. These
limits significantly improve the previous OPAL limits.


  We report low-temperature measurements of dissipation in megahertz-range,
suspended, single-crystal nanomechanical oscillators. At millikelvin
temperatures, both dissipation (inverse quality factor) and shift in the
resonance frequency display reproducible features, similar to those observed in
sound attenuation experiments in disordered glasses and consistent with
measurements in larger micromechanical oscillators fabricated from
single-crystal silicon. Dissipation in our single-crystal nanomechanical
structures is dominated by internal quantum friction due to an estimated number
of roughly 50 two-level systems, which represent both dangling bonds on the
surface and bulk defects.


  Kauffman and Lomonaco explored the idea of understanding quantum entanglement
(the non-local correlation of certain properties of particles) topologically by
viewing unitary entangling operators as braiding operators. In the work of G.
Alagic, M. Jarret, and S. Jordan it is shown that entanglement is a necessary
condition for forming invariants of knots from braid closures via solutions to
the Yang-Baxter Equation. We show that the arguments used by these authors
generalize to essentially the same results for quantum invariant state
summation models of knots. We also given an example of an SU(2) representation
of the three-strand braid group that models the Jones polynomial for closures
of three-strand braids. This invariant is a quantum model for the Jones
polynomial restricted to three strand braids, and it does not involve quantum
entanglement. These relationships between topological braiding and quantum
entanglement can be used as a framework for future work in understanding the
properties of entangling gates in topological quantum computing.The paper ends
with a discussion of the Aravind hypothesis about the direct relationship of
knots and quantum entanglement, and the ER = EPR hypothesis about the
relationship of quantum entanglement with the connectivity of space. We
describe how, given a background space and a quantum tensor network, to
construct a new topological space, that welds the network and the background
space together. This construction embodies the principle that quantum
entanglement and topological connectivity are intimately related.


  Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is a popular nature-inspired meta-heuristic
for solving continuous optimization problems. Although this technique is widely
used, the understanding of the mechanisms that make swarms so successful is
still limited. We present the first substantial experimental investigation of
the influence of the local attractor on the quality of exploration and
exploitation. We compare in detail classical PSO with the social-only variant
where local attractors are ignored. To measure the exploration capabilities, we
determine how frequently both variants return results in the neighborhood of
the global optimum. We measure the quality of exploitation by considering only
function values from runs that reached a search point sufficiently close to the
global optimum and then comparing in how many digits such values still deviate
from the global minimum value. It turns out that the local attractor
significantly improves the exploration, but sometimes reduces the quality of
the exploitation. As a compromise, we propose and evaluate a hybrid PSO which
switches off its local attractors at a certain point in time. The effects
mentioned can also be observed by measuring the potential of the swarm.


  Real-world networks tend to be scale free, having heavy-tailed degree
distributions with more hubs than predicted by classical random graph
generation methods. Preferential attachment and growth are the most commonly
accepted mechanisms leading to these networks and are incorporated in the
Barab\'asi-Albert (BA) model. We provide an alternative model using a randomly
stopped linking process inspired by a generalized Central Limit Theorem (CLT)
for geometric distributions with widely varying parameters. The common
characteristic of both the BA model and our randomly stopped linking model is
the mixture of widely varying geometric distributions, suggesting the critical
characteristic of scale free networks is high variance, not growth or
preferential attachment. The limitation of classical random graph models is low
variance in parameters, while scale free networks are the natural, expected
result of real-world variance.


  The wide spread of location-based social networks brings about a huge volume
of user check-in data, which facilitates the recommendation of points of
interest (POIs). Recent advances on distributed representation shed light on
learning low dimensional dense vectors to alleviate the data sparsity problem.
Current studies on representation learning for POI recommendation embed both
users and POIs in a common latent space, and users' preference is inferred
based on the distance/similarity between a user and a POI. Such an approach is
not in accordance with the semantics of users and POIs as they are inherently
different objects. In this paper, we present a novel spatiotemporal aware (STA)
representation, which models the spatial and temporal information as \emph{a
relationship connecting users and POIs}. Our model generalizes the recent
advances in knowledge graph embedding. The basic idea is that the embedding of
a $<$time, location$>$ pair corresponds to a translation from embeddings of
users to POIs. Since the POI embedding should be close to the user embedding
plus the relationship vector, the recommendation can be performed by selecting
the top-\emph{k} POIs similar to the translated POI, which are all of the same
type of objects. We conduct extensive experiments on two real-world datasets.
The results demonstrate that our STA model achieves the state-of-the-art
performance in terms of high recommendation accuracy, robustness to data
sparsity and effectiveness in handling cold start problem.


  These notes summarize the lectures delivered in the V Mexican School of
Particle Physics, at the University of Guanajuato. We give a survey of the
application of Ashtekar's variables to the quantization of General Relativity
in four dimensions with special emphasis on the application of techniques of
analytic knot theory to the loop representation. We discuss the role that the
Jones Polynomial plays as a generator of nondegenerate quantum states of the
gravitational field.


  Iorgov, Lisovyy, and Teschner established a connection between isomonodromic
deformation of linear differential equations and Liouville conformal field
theory at $c=1$. In this paper we present a $q$ analog of their construction.
We show that the general solution of the $q$-Painlev\'e VI equation is a ratio
of four tau functions, each of which is given by a combinatorial series arising
in the AGT correspondence. We also propose conjectural bilinear equations for
the tau functions.


  Nuclear effective interactions are often modelled by simple analytical
expressions such as the Skyrme zero-range force. This effective interaction
depends on a limited number of parameters that are usually fitted using
experimental data obtained from doubly magic nuclei. It was recently shown that
many Skyrme functionals lead to the appearance of instabilities, in particular
when symmetries are broken, for example unphysical polarization of odd-even or
rotating nuclei. In this article, we show how the formalism of the linear
response in infinite nuclear matter can be used to predict and avoid the
regions of parameters that are responsible for these unphysical instabilities.


  We present a novel approach allowing the study of rare events like fixation
under fluctuating environments, modeled as extrinsic noise, in evolutionary
processes characterized by the dominance of one species. Our treatment consists
of mapping the system onto an auxiliary model, exhibiting metastable species
coexistence, that can be analyzed semiclassically. This approach enables us to
study the interplay between extrinsic and demographic noise on the statistics
of interest. We illustrate our theory by considering the paradigmatic
prisoner's dilemma game whose evolution is described by the probability that
cooperators fixate the population and replace all defectors. We analytically
and numerically demonstrate that extrinsic noise may drastically enhance the
cooperation fixation probability and even change its functional dependence on
the population size. These results, which generalize earlier works in
population genetics, indicate that extrinsic noise may help sustain and promote
a much higher level of cooperation than static settings.


  A hypermap is bipartite if its set of flags can be divided into two parts A
and B so that both A and B are the union of vertices, and consecutive vertices
around an edge or a face are contained in alternate parts. A bipartite hypermap
is bipartite-regular if its set of automorphisms is transitive on A and on B.
  In this paper we see some properties of the constructions of bipartite
hypermaps described algebraically by Breda and Duarte which generalize the
construction induced by the Walsh representation of hypermaps. As an
application we show that all surfaces have bipartite-regular hypermaps.


  Nonperturbative QCD is studied with the dual Ginzburg-Landau theory, where
color confinement is realized through the dual Higgs mechanism by QCD-monopole
condensation. We obtain a general analytic formula for the string tension. A
compact formula is derived for the screened inter-quark potential in the
presence of light dynamical quarks. The QCD phase transition at finite
temperature is studied using the effective potential formalism. The string
tension and the QCD-monopole mass are largely reduced near the critical
temperature, $T_c$. The surface tension is estimated from the effective
potential at $T_c$. We propose also a new scenario of the quark-gluon-plasma
creation through the color-electric flux-tube annihilation. Finally, we discuss
a close relation between instantons and QCD-monopoles.


  In an influential 1964 article, P. Lax studied $2 \times 2$ genuinely
nonlinear strictly hyperbolic PDE systems (in one spatial dimension). Using the
method of Riemann invariants, he showed that a large set of smooth initial data
lead to bounded solutions whose first spatial derivatives blow up in finite
time, a phenomenon known as wave breaking. In the present article, we study the
Cauchy problem for two classes of quasilinear wave equations in two spatial
dimensions that are closely related to the systems studied by Lax. When the
data have one-dimensional symmetry, Lax's methods can be applied to the wave
equations to show that a large set of smooth initial data lead to wave
breaking. Here we study solutions with initial data that are close, as measured
by an appropriate Sobolev norm, to data belonging to a distinguished subset of
Lax's data: the data corresponding to simple plane waves. Our main result is
that under suitable relative smallness assumptions, the Lax-type wave breaking
for simple plane waves is stable. The key point is that we allow the data
perturbations to break the symmetry. Moreover, we give a detailed, constructive
description of the asymptotic behavior of the solution all the way up to the
first singularity, which is a shock driven by the intersection of null
(characteristic) hyperplanes. We also outline how to extend our results to the
compressible irrotational Euler equations. To derive our results, we use
Christodoulou's framework for studying shock formation to treat a new solution
regime in which wave dispersion is not present.


  We report on a new method for the numerical evaluation of loop integrals,
based on the Feynman Tree Theorem. The loop integrals are replaced by
phase-space integration over fictitious extra on-shell particles. This
integration can be performed alongside with the Monte-Carlo integration of
ordinary phase-space, directly leading to NLO event generation.


  We obtain a complete asymptotic expansion for the eigenvalues of the
Dirichlet-to-Neumann maps associated with Schr\"odinger operators on compact
Riemannian surfaces with boundary. For the zero potential, we recover the
well-known spectral asymptotics for the Steklov problem. For nonzero
potentials, we obtain new geometric invariants determined by the spectrum of
what we call the parametric Steklov problem. In particular, for constant
potentials parametric Steklov problem, the total geodesic curvature on each
connected component of the boundary is a spectral invariant. Under the constant
curvature assumption, this allows us to obtain some interior information from
the spectrum of these boundary operators.


  Electronic structure calculations performed on very large supercells have
shown that the local charge excesses in metallic alloys are related through
simple linear relations to the local electrostatic field resulting from
distribution of charges in the whole crystal.
  By including local external fields in the single site Coherent Potential
Approximation theory, we develop a novel theoretical scheme in which the local
charge excesses for random alloys can be obtained as the responses to local
external fields. Our model maintains all the computational advantages of a
single site theory but allows for full charge relaxation at the impurity sites.
Through applications to CuPd and CuZn alloys, we find that, as a general rule,
non linear charge rearrangements occur at the impurity site as a consequence of
the complex phenomena related with the electronic screening of the external
potential. This nothwithstanding, we observe that linear relations hold between
charge excesses and external potentials, in quantitative agreement with the
mentioned supercell calculations, and well beyond the limits of linearity for
any other site property.


  We calculate $\gamma_l(0)$, the damping rate for longitudinal on-shell gluons
with zero momentum in hot QCD using the hard-thermal-loop (htl) scheme. We find
it to be divergent in the infrared, which means that in this scheme
$\gamma_l(0)$ is different from $\gamma_t(0)$, the corresponding damping rate
for transverse gluons which is known to be finite. This result suggests that
the htl scheme is infrared sensitive and thus may need to be improved upon in
this sector. We discuss this issue after we present our calculation.


  Let $A$ be a bounded linear operator defined on a complex Hilbert space and
let $|A|=(A^*A)^{1/2}$ be the positive square root of $A$.
  Among other refinements of the well known numerical radius inequality
$w^2(A)\leq \frac12 \|A^*A+AA^*\|$,
  we show that
  \begin{eqnarray*}
  w^2(A)&\leq&\frac{1}{4} w^2
\left(|A|+i|A^*|\right)+\frac{1}{8}\left\||A|^2+|A^*|^2\right
\|+\frac{1}{4}w\left(|A||A^*|\right)
  &\leq& \frac12 \|A^*A+AA^*\|.
  \end{eqnarray*} Also, we develop inequalities involving numerical radius and
spectral radius for the sum of the product operators, from which we derive the
following inequalities $$ w^p(A) \leq \frac{1}{\sqrt{2} } w(|A|^p+i|A^*|^p
)\leq \|A\|^p$$ for all $p\geq 1.$ Further, we derive new bounds for the zeros
of complex polynomials.


  We determine the mass-ratio, eccentricity and binary inclination angles that
maximize the contribution of the higher-order waveform multipoles $(\ell, \,
|m|)= \{(2,\,2),\, (2,\,1),\, (3,\,3),\, (3,\,2), \, (3,\,1),\, (4,\,4),\,
(4,\,3),\, (4,\,2),\,(4,\,1)\}$ for the gravitational wave detection of
eccentric binary black hole mergers. We carry out this study using numerical
relativity waveforms that describe non-spinning black hole binaries with
mass-ratios $1\leq q \leq 10$, and orbital eccentricities as high as $e_0=0.18$
fifteen cycles before merger. For stellar-mass, asymmetric mass-ratio, binary
black hole mergers, and assuming LIGO's Zero Detuned High Power configuration,
we find that in regions of parameter space where black hole mergers modeled
with $\ell=|m|=2$ waveforms have vanishing signal-to-noise ratios, the
inclusion of $(\ell, \, |m|)$ modes enables the observation of these sources
with signal-to-noise ratios that range between 30\% to 45\% the signal-to-noise
ratio of optimally oriented binary black hole mergers modeled with $\ell=|m|=2$
numerical relativity waveforms. Having determined the parameter space where
$(\ell, \, |m|)$ modes are important for gravitational wave detection, we
construct waveform signals that describe these astrophysically motivate
scenarios, and demonstrate that these topologically complex signals can be
detected and characterized in real LIGO noise with deep learning algorithms.


  Recently, leveraging on the development of end-to-end convolutional neural
networks (CNNs), deep stereo matching networks have achieved remarkable
performance far exceeding traditional approaches. However, state-of-the-art
stereo frameworks still have difficulties at finding correct correspondences in
texture-less regions, detailed structures, small objects and near boundaries,
which could be alleviated by geometric clues such as edge contours and
corresponding constraints. To improve the quality of disparity estimates in
these challenging areas, we propose an effective multi-task learning network,
EdgeStereo, composed of a disparity estimation branch and an edge detection
branch, which enables end-to-end predictions of both disparity map and edge
map. To effectively incorporate edge cues, we propose the edge-aware smoothness
loss and edge feature embedding for inter-task interactions. It is demonstrated
that based on our unified model, edge detection task and stereo matching task
can promote each other. In addition, we design a compact module called residual
pyramid to replace the commonly-used multi-stage cascaded structures or 3-D
convolution based regularization modules in current stereo matching networks.
By the time of the paper submission, EdgeStereo achieves state-of-art
performance on the FlyingThings3D dataset, KITTI 2012 and KITTI 2015 stereo
benchmarks, outperforming other published stereo matching methods by a
noteworthy margin. EdgeStereo also achieves comparable generalization
performance for disparity estimation because of the incorporation of edge cues.


  Chiral magnetism has gained enormous interest in recent years because of the
anticipated wealth of applications in nanoelectronics. The demonstrated
stabilization of chiral magnetic domain walls and skyrmions has been attributed
to the actively investigated Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction. Recently,
however, predictions were made that suggest dipolar interactions can also
stabilize chiral domain walls and skyrmions, but direct experimental evidence
has been lacking. Here we show that dipolar interactions can indeed stabilize
chiral domain walls by directly imaging the magnetic domain walls using
scanning electron microscopy with polarization analysis. We further show that
the competition between the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya and dipolar interactions can
reverse the domain-wall chirality. Finally, we suggest that this competition
can be tailored by a Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida interaction. Our work
therefore reveals that dipolar interactions play a key role in the
stabilization of chiral spin textures. This insight will open up new routes
towards balancing interactions for the stabilization of chiral magnetism.


  First-principles calculations of multi-hadron dynamics are a crucial goal in
lattice QCD. Significant progress has been achieved in developing,
implementing, and applying theoretical tools that connect finite-volume
quantities to their infinite-volume counterparts. Here, I review some recent
theoretical developments and numerical results regarding multi-particle
quantities in a finite volume. These results include $N\pi$ scattering, systems
of two and three mesons at maximal isospin, three-body resonances in a toy
model, and the formulation of effective theories in finite volume for
multi-nucleon systems.


  We consider $N$-soliton solutions of the KP equation,
(-4u_t+u_{xxx}+6uu_x)_x+3u_{yy}=0 . An $N$-soliton solution is a solution
$u(x,y,t)$ which has the same set of $N$ line soliton solutions in both
asymptotics $y\to\infty$ and $y\to -\infty$. The $N$-soliton solutions include
all possible resonant interactions among those line solitons. We then classify
those $N$-soliton solutions by defining a pair of $N$-numbers $({\bf n}^+,{\bf
n}^-)$ with ${\bf n}^{\pm}=(n_1^{\pm},...,n_N^{\pm}),
n_j^{\pm}\in\{1,...,2N\}$, which labels $N$ line solitons in the solution. The
classification is related to the Schubert decomposition of the Grassmann
manifolds Gr$(N,2N)$, where the solution of the KP equation is defined as a
torus orbit. Then the interaction pattern of $N$-soliton solution can be
described by the pair of Young diagrams associated with $({\bf n}^+,{\bf
n}^-)$. We also show that $N$-soliton solutions of the KdV equation obtained by
the constraint $\partial u/\partial y=0$ cannot have resonant interaction.


  A line of a bilingual document page may contain text words in regional
language and numerals in English. For Optical Character Recognition (OCR) of
such a document page, it is necessary to identify different script forms before
running an individual OCR system. In this paper, we have identified a tool of
morphological opening by reconstruction of an image in different directions and
regional descriptors for script identification at word level, based on the
observation that every text has a distinct visual appearance. The proposed
system is developed for three Indian major bilingual documents, Kannada, Telugu
and Devnagari containing English numerals. The nearest neighbour and k-nearest
neighbour algorithms are applied to classify new word images. The proposed
algorithm is tested on 2625 words with various font styles and sizes. The
results obtained are quite encouraging


  We study the shape and texture of finite domains comprising chiral/achiral
molecules carrying a tilt field embedded in a 2-dimensional surface. Using a
combination of simulations and {\it exact} variational calculations, we
determine the equilibrium (mean field) phase diagram in the achiral and chiral
cases. We find a variety of novel shapes and textures including a {\it
spontaneously broken chiral texture} when the molecules are achiral. We show
that chiral tilt-domains nucleating in a region of two-phase coexistence, {\it
repel} each other, thereby preventing coalescence and further growth. Our work
has implications for tilt texture domains in phospholipid monolayers and giant
unilamellar vesicles (GUVs), nucleating domains of Sm-C$^*$ in Sm-A films, and
chiral emulsions in Sm-A films.


  We report a series of experiments on laser pulsed photoacoustic excitationin
turbid polymer samples addressed to evaluate the sound speed in the samples and
the presence of inhomogeneities in the bulk. We describe a system which allows
the direct measurement of the speed of the detected waves by engraving the
surface of the piece under study with a fiduciary pattern of black lines. We
also describe how this pattern helps to enhance the sensitivity for the
detection of an inhomogeneity in the bulk. These two facts are useful for
studies in soft matter systems including, perhaps, biological samples. We have
performed an experimental analysis on Grilon(R) samples in different situations
and we show the limitations of the method.


  We introduce and study the notion of a generalised Hecke orbit in a Shimura
variety. We define a height function on such an orbit and study its properties.
We obtain a lower bounds for the size of Galois orbits of points in a
generalised Hecke orbit in terms of these height, assuming a version of the
Mumford-Tate conjecture. We then use it to prove the generalised
Andr\'e-Pink-Zannier conjecture under this assumption by implementing the
Pila-Zannier strategy.


  Denote the virtual cohomological dimension of SL_n(Z) by t=n(n-1)/2. Let St
denote the Steinberg module of SL_n(Q) tensored with Q. Let Sh_* denote the
sharbly resolution of the Steinberg module St. By Borel-Serre duality, the
one-dimensional Q-vector space H^0(SL_n(Z), Q) is isomorphic to
H_t(SL_n(Z),St). We find an explicit generator of H_t(SL_n(Z),St) in terms of
sharbly cycles and cosharbly cocycles. These methods may extend to other
degrees of cohomology of SL_n(Z).


  In the presence of a nonlocal potential in molecular device systems,
generally the charge conservation cannot be satisfied, and in literatures the
modifications of the conventional definition of current were given to solve
this problem. We demonstrate that, however, the nonconservation is not due to
the invalidation of the conventional definition of current, but originates
respectively from the improper approximations to electron-electron interactions
and the inappropriate definition of current using pseudo wave functions in
pseudopotential implementations. In this work, we propose a nonlocal-potential
formulation of the interactions to fulfill the charge conservation and also
give a discussion about the calculation of current when the pseudopotential is
involved. As an example of application of our formulation, we further present
the calculated results of a double-barrier model.


  We consider the simple random walk on the $N$-dimensional integer lattice
from the perspective of evaluating asymptotically the duration of play in the
multidimensional gambler\apost s ruin problem. We show that, under suitable
rescalings, all $p$-moments of exit-times from balls in the $L$-infinity
metric, and all $p$-moments of partial-maxima values in this metric, possess
associated asymptotic limit expressions, admitting two representations each. We
derive for this purpose multidimensional refinements of the corresponding
two-folded extension of Erd\H os-Kac theorem, which we revisit to this end. We
show in particular a simplifying proof approach, which relies on an application
of the optional stopping theorem, and yields the corresponding first-passage
times asymptotics in parallel. We observe a direct manner of proof of the
relation among the two limit expressions by Brownian motion scaling. We
indicate in a manner intended to be brief and comprehensive other known proof
approaches for the purposes of comparison and completeness.


  We answer a question of Brass about vertex degrees in unit distance graphs of
finitely generated additive subgroups of $\mathbb{R}^2$.


  We study the generation of the baryon asymmetry in a variant of the standard
model, where the Higgs field is stabilized by a dimension-six interaction.
Analyzing the one-loop potential, we find a strong first order electroweak
phase transition for Higgs masses up to at least 170 GeV. Dimension-six
operators induce also new sources of CP violation. We compute the baryon
asymmetry in the WKB approximation. Novel source terms in the transport
equations enhance the generated baryon asymmetry. For a wide range of
parameters the model predicts a baryon asymmetry close to the observed value.


  A new method is presented to manufacture piezoresistive tactile sensors using
fused deposition modelling (FDM)printing technology with two different
filaments made of thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) and polylactic acid-graphene
(PLA-G) composite. The sensor shows very high sensitivity (gauge factor~550)
and excellent recovery to bending-induced strain and can detect a wide range of
pressures. This new technology opens the door for 3D printing soft robotic
parts capable of tactile communications.


  Let $N$ be a nilpotent group normal in a group $G$. Suppose that $G$ acts
transitively upon the points of a finite non-Desarguesian projective plane
$\mathcal{P}$. We prove that, if $\mathcal{P}$ has square order, then $N$ must
act semi-regularly on $\mathcal{P}$.
  In addition we prove that if a finite non-Desarguesian projective plane
$\mathcal{P}$ admits more than one nilpotent group which is regular on the
points of $\mathcal{P}$ then $\mathcal{P}$ has non-square order and the
automorphism group of $\mathcal{P}$ has odd order.


  The topic of comprehensibility of machine-learned theories has recently drawn
increasing attention. Inductive Logic Programming (ILP) uses logic programming
to derive logic theories from small data based on abduction and induction
techniques. Learned theories are represented in the form of rules as
declarative descriptions of obtained knowledge. In earlier work, the authors
provided the first evidence of a measurable increase in human comprehension
based on machine-learned logic rules for simple classification tasks. In a
later study, it was found that the presentation of machine-learned explanations
to humans can produce both beneficial and harmful effects in the context of
game learning. We continue our investigation of comprehensibility by examining
the effects of the ordering of concept presentations on human comprehension. In
this work, we examine the explanatory effects of curriculum order and the
presence of machine-learned explanations for sequential problem-solving. We
show that 1) there exist tasks A and B such that learning A before B has a
better human comprehension with respect to learning B before A and 2) there
exist tasks A and B such that the presence of explanations when learning A
contributes to improved human comprehension when subsequently learning B. We
propose a framework for the effects of sequential teaching on comprehension
based on an existing definition of comprehensibility and provide evidence for
support from data collected in human trials. Empirical results show that
sequential teaching of concepts with increasing complexity a) has a beneficial
effect on human comprehension and b) leads to human re-discovery of
divide-and-conquer problem-solving strategies, and c) studying machine-learned
explanations allows adaptations of human problem-solving strategy with better
performance.


  In this paper, with a set of high-resolution He I 10830 \AA\ filtergrams, we
select an area in a plage, very likely an EUV moss area, as an interface layer
to follow the clues of coronal heating channels down to the photosphere. The
filtergrams are obtained from the 1-meter aperture New Vacuum Solar Telescope
(NVST). We make a distinction between the darker and the brighter regions in
the selected area and name the two regions enhanced absorption patches (EAPs)
and low absorption patches (LAPs). With well-aligned, nearly simultaneous data
from multiple channels of the AIA and the continuum of the HMI on board SDO, we
compare the EUV/UV emissions, emission measure, mean temperature, and continuum
intensity in the two kinds of regions. The following progress is made: 1) The
mean EUV emissions over EAPs are mostly stronger than the corresponding
emissions over LAPs except for the emission at 335 \AA. The UV emissions at
1600 and 1700 \AA\ fail to capture the difference between the two regions. 2)
In the logarithmic temperature range of 5.6-6.2, EAPs have higher EUV emission
measure than LAPs, but they have lower mean coronal temperature. 3) The mean
continuum intensity over EAPs is lower. Based on the above progress, we suggest
that the energy for coronal heating in the moss region can be traced down to
some areas in intergranular lanes with enhanced density of both cool and hot
material. The lower temperature over the EAPs is due to the greater fraction of
cool material over there.


  The significance of light massive neutrinos as hot dark matter is outlined.
The power of neutrino oscillation experiments with respect to detect such
neutrinos in the eV-region is discussed. Present hints for neutrino
oscillations in solar, atmospheric and LSND data are reviewed as well as future
experiments and their potential.


  We investigate the exact solution, perturbation theory and master equation of
open system dynamics based on our serial studies on quantum mechanics in
general quantum systems [An Min Wang, quant-ph/0611216 and quant-ph/0611217].
In a system-environment separated representation, a general and explicit
solution of open system dynamics is obtained, and it is an exact solution since
it includes all order approximations of perturbation. In terms of the cut-off
approximation of perturbation and our improved scheme of perturbation theory,
the improved form of the perturbed solution of open systems absorbing the
partial contributions from the high order even all order approximations is
deduced. Moreover, only under the factorizing initial condition, the exact
master equation including all order approximations is proposed.
Correspondingly, the perturbed master equation and its improved form different
from the existed master equation are given. In special, the Redfield master
equation is derived out without using Born-Markov approximation. The solution
of open system dynamics in the Milburn model is also gained. As examples, Zurek
model of two-state open system and its extension with two transverse fields are
studied.


  This paper explores the application of a new algebraic method of edge
coloring, called complex coloring, to the scheduling problems of input queued
switches. The proposed distributed parallel scheduling algorithm possesses two
important features: optimality and rearrangeability. Optimality ensures that
the algorithm always returns a proper coloring with the minimum number of
required colors, and rearrangeability allows partially re-coloring the existing
connection patterns if the underlying graph only changes slightly. The running
time of the proposed scheduling algorithm is on the order of $O(\log^2 N)$ per
frame, and the amortized time complexity, the time to compute a matching per
timeslot, is only $O(\log N)$. The scheduling algorithm is highly robust in the
face of traffic fluctuations. Since the higher the variable density, the higher
the efficiency of the variable elimination process, complex coloring provides a
natural adaptive solution to non-uniform input traffic patterns. The proposed
scheduling algorithm for packet switching can achieve nearly 100% throughput.


  Using particle system methodologies we study the propagation of financial
distress in a network of firms facing credit risk. We investigate the
phenomenon of a credit crisis and quantify the losses that a bank may suffer in
a large credit portfolio. Applying a large deviation principle we compute the
limiting distributions of the system and determine the time evolution of the
credit quality indicators of the firms, deriving moreover the dynamics of a
global financial health indicator. We finally describe a suitable version of
the "Central Limit Theorem" useful to study large portfolio losses. Simulation
results are provided as well as applications to portfolio loss distribution
analysis.


  In the context of a recent description of Fermions as Kerr-Newman type black
holes with Quantum Mechanical inputs, it is shown how the quark picture can be
recovered. The advantage is that in the process we obtain a rationale for such
features as the puzzling fractional charges of the quarks, their masses,
confinement and handedness in a unified scheme.


  We present new observations of the transiting system TrES-3 obtained from
2009 to 2011 at several observatories. The orbital parameters of the system
were re- determined and a new linear ephemeris was calculated. The best quality
light curve was used for light curve analysis, an other datasets were used to
determine mid-transit times, Tc, and study transit time variation (TTV). For
planet parameter determination we used two independent codes and finally, we
concluded that our parameters are in agreement with previous studies. Based on
our observations, we determined 14 mid-transit times. Together with published
Tc we found that the timing residuals showed no significant deviation from the
linear ephemeris. We concluded that a periodic TTV signal with an amplitude
greater than 1 minute over a 4-year time span seems to be unlikely. Our
analysis of an upper mass limit allows us to exclude an additional Earth-mass
planet close to inner 3:1, 2:1, and 5:3 and outer 3:5, 1:2, and 1:3 mean-motion
resonances. Using the long-term integration and applying the method of maximum
eccentricity, the region from 0.015 au to 0.05 au was found unstable and the
region beyond the 0.05 au was found to have a chaotic behaviour and its
depletion increases with increasing values of the initial eccentricity as well
as inclination.


  The notion of a continuous $G$-action on a topological space readily
generalizes to that of a continuous $D$-action, where $D$ is any small
category. Dror Farjoun and Zabrodsky introduced a generalized notion of orbit,
which is key to understanding spaces with continuous $D$-action. We give an
overview of the theory of orbits and then prove a generalization of
"Elmendorf's Theorem,'' which roughly states that the homotopical data of of a
$D$-space is precisely captured by the homotopical data of its orbits.


  We develop a practical method to analyze the mixing structure of hadrons
consisting of two components of quark-composite and hadronic composite. As an
example we investigate the properties of the axial vector meson a1(1260) and
discuss its mixing properties quantitatively. We also make reference to the
large Nc procedure and its limitation for the classification of such a mixed
state.


  The de facto algorithm for facial landmark estimation involves running a face
detector with a subsequent deformable model fitting on the bounding box. This
encompasses two basic problems: i) the detection and deformable fitting steps
are performed independently, while the detector might not provide best-suited
initialisation for the fitting step, ii) the face appearance varies hugely
across different poses, which makes the deformable face fitting very
challenging and thus distinct models have to be used (\eg, one for profile and
one for frontal faces). In this work, we propose the first, to the best of our
knowledge, joint multi-view convolutional network to handle large pose
variations across faces in-the-wild, and elegantly bridge face detection and
facial landmark localisation tasks. Existing joint face detection and landmark
localisation methods focus only on a very small set of landmarks. By contrast,
our method can detect and align a large number of landmarks for semi-frontal
(68 landmarks) and profile (39 landmarks) faces. We evaluate our model on a
plethora of datasets including standard static image datasets such as IBUG,
300W, COFW, and the latest Menpo Benchmark for both semi-frontal and profile
faces. Significant improvement over state-of-the-art methods on deformable face
tracking is witnessed on 300VW benchmark. We also demonstrate state-of-the-art
results for face detection on FDDB and MALF datasets.


  We investigate the possibility of describing triaxial quadrupole deformations
for nuclei close to the two-neutron drip line by the Hartree-Fock Bogoliubov
method taking into account resonances in the continuum. We use a Skyrme
interaction to describe the Hartee-Fock hamiltonian and a density-dependent
zero-range interaction to evaluate the pairing field. The mean-field equations
are solved in a three-dimensional cubic mesh. We study the stability of the
two-neutron separation energies and of the description of the nuclear surface
as a function of the number of active mean-field orbitals and of the size of
the mesh. The even Ni isotopes are used as a test case and the accuracy as a
function of quadrupole deformation is studied by performing constrained
calculations. A first application to the study of the two-neutron separation
energies in Ni isotopes up to the drip line is presented.


  We study a model of N component symplectic fermions in D spacetime
dimensions. It has an infra-red stable fixed point in 2<D<4 dimensions referred
to as Sp{2N}{D}. Based on the comparison of exponents, we conjecture that the
critical exponents for the 3D Wilson-Fisher fixed point for an O(N) invariant
N-component bosonic field can be computed in the Sp{-2N}{3} theory. The 3D
Ising model corresponds to Sp{-2}{3}. The exponent beta agrees with known
results to 1 part in 1000 and is within current error bars. The nu exponent
agrees to 1% and we suggest this because we only went to 1-loop for this
exponent.


  Local star-forming galaxies show properties that are thought to differ from
galaxies in the early Universe. Among them, the ionizing stellar populations
and the gas geometry make the recipes designed to derive chemical abundances
from nebular emission lines to differ from those calibrated in the Local
Universe. A sample of 1969 Extreme Emission Line Galaxies (EELGs) at a redshift
0 < z < 0.49, selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to be local
analogues of high-redshift galaxies, was used to analyze their most prominent
emission lines and to derive total oxygen abundances and nitrogen-to-oxygen
ratios following the direct method in the ranges 7.7 < 12+log(O/H) < 8.6 and
-1.8 < log(N/O) < -0.8. They allow us to obtain new empirically calibrated
strong-line methods and to evaluate other recipes based on photoionization
models that can be later used for a chemical analysis of actively star-forming
galaxies in very early stages of galaxy evolution. Our new relations are in
agreement with others found for smaller samples of objects at higher redshifts.
When compared with other relations calibrated in the local Universe, they
differ when the employed strong-line ratio depends on the hardness of the
ionizing radiation, such as O32 or Ne3O2, but they do not when the main
dependence is on the ionization parameter, such as S23. In the case of
strong-line ratios depending on [NII] lines, the derivation of O/H becomes very
uncertain due to the very high N/O values derived in this sample, above all in
the low-metallicity regime. Finally, we adapt the bayesian-like code
HII-Chi-mistry for the conditions found in this kind of galaxies and we prove
that it can be used to derive within errors both O/H and N/O, in consistency
with the direct method .


  We propose a probabilistic numerical algorithm to solve Backward Stochastic
Differential Equations (BSDEs) with nonnegative jumps, a class of BSDEs
introduced in [9] for representing fully nonlinear HJB equations. In
particular, this allows us to numerically solve stochastic control problems
with controlled volatility, possibly degenerate. Our backward scheme, based on
least-squares regressions, takes advantage of high-dimensional properties of
Monte-Carlo methods, and also provides a parametric estimate in feedback form
for the optimal control. A partial analysis of the error of the scheme is
provided, as well as numerical tests on the problem of superreplication of
option with uncertain volatilities and/or correlations, including a detailed
comparison with the numerical results from the alternative scheme proposed in
[7].


  We theoretically study a vibrating pair of parallel electrodes bridged by a
(deformed) liquid droplet, which is a recently developed microfluidic device to
harvest vibrational energy. The device can operate with various liquids,
including liquid metals, electrolytes, as well as ionic liquids. We numerically
solve the Young-Laplace equation for all droplet shapes during a vibration
period, from which the time-dependent capacitance follows that serves as input
for an equivalent circuit model. We first investigate two existing energy
harvesters (with a constant and a vanishing bias potential), for which we
explain an open issue related to their optimal electrode separations, which is
as small as possible or as large as possible in the two cases, respectively.
Then we propose a new engine with a time-dependent bias voltage, with which the
harvested work and the power can be increased by orders of magnitude at low
vibration frequencies and by factors 2-5 at high frequencies, where frequencies
are to be compared to the inverse RC-time of the circuit.


  We report on a series of experiments on the dynamics of spontaneous emission
controlled nanolasers. The laser cavity is a photonic crystal slab cavity,
embedding self-assembled quantum dots as gain material. The implementation of
cavity electrodynamics effects increases significantly the large signal
modulation bandwidth, with measured modulation speeds of the order of 10 GHz
while keeping an extinction ratio of 19 dB. A linear transient wavelength shift
is reported, corresponding to a chirp of less than 100 pm for a 35-ps laser
pulse. We observe that the chirp characteristics are independent of the
repetition rate of the laser up to 10 GHz.


  Deuteron two-body photodisintegration is analysed within the framework of the
Quark-Gluon Strings Model. The model describes fairly well the recent
experimental data from TJNAF in the few GeV region. Angular distributions at
different $\gamma$-energies are presented and the effect of a forward-backward
asymmetry is discussed. New results from the QGSM for polarization observables
from 1.5 -- 6 GeV are presented and compared with the available data.


  In this paper, we bring consumer theory to bear in the analysis of Fisher
markets whose buyers have arbitrary continuous, concave, homogeneous (CCH)
utility functions representing locally non-satiated preferences. The main tools
we use are the dual concepts of expenditure minimization and indirect utility
maximization. First, we use expenditure functions to construct a new convex
program whose dual, like the dual of the Eisenberg-Gale program, characterizes
the equilibrium prices of CCH Fisher markets. We then prove that the
subdifferential of the dual of our convex program is equal to the negative
excess demand in the associated market, which makes generalized gradient
descent equivalent to computing equilibrium prices via t\^atonnement. Finally,
we run a series of experiments which suggest that t\^atonnement may converge at
a rate of $O\left(\frac{(1+E)}{t^2}\right)$ in CCH Fisher markets that comprise
buyers with elasticity of demand bounded by $E$. Our novel characterization of
equilibrium prices may provide a path to proving the convergence of
t\^atonnement in Fisher markets beyond those in which buyers utilities exhibit
constant elasticity of substitution.


  Considering a finite Borel measure $ \mu $ on $ \mathbb{R}^d $, a pair of
conjugate exponents $ p, q $, and a compatible semi-inner product on $ L^p(\mu)
$, we introduce $ (p,q) $-Bessel and $ (p,q) $-frame measures as a
generalization of the concepts of Bessel and frame measures. In addition, we
define notions of $ q $-Bessel and $ q$-frame in the semi-inner product space $
L^p(\mu) $. Every finite Borel measure $\nu$ is a $(p,q)$-Bessel measure for a
finite measure $ \mu $. We construct a large number of examples of finite
measures $ \mu $ which admit infinite $ (p,q) $-Bessel measures $ \nu $. We
show that if $ \nu $ is a $ (p,q) $-Bessel/frame measure for $ \mu $, then $
\nu $ is $ \sigma $-finite and it is not unique. In fact, by using convolutions
of probability measures, one can obtain other $ (p,q) $-Bessel/frame measures
for $ \mu $. We present a general way of constructing a $ (p,q) $-Bessel/frame
measure for a given measure.


  We observe a subtle and apparently generally unnoticed difficulty with the
definition of the relative topology on a subset of a topological space, and
with the weak topology defined by a function.


  We develop new techniques to efficiently evaluate heat kernel coefficients
for the Laplacian in the short-time expansion on spheres and hyperboloids with
conical singularities. We then apply these techniques to explicitly compute the
logarithmic contribution to black hole entropy from an N=4 vector multiplet
about a Z(N) orbifold of the near-horizon geometry of quarter--BPS black holes
in N=4 supergravity. We find that this vanishes, matching perfectly with the
prediction from the microstate counting. We also discuss possible
generalisations of our heat kernel results to higher-spin fields over Z(N)
orbifolds of higher-dimensional spheres and hyperboloids.


  The mechanisms governing the star formation rate in spiral galaxies are not
yet clear. The nearby, almost face-on, and interacting galaxy M51 offers an
excellent opportunity to study at high spatial resolutions the local star
formation laws. In this first paper, we investigate the correlation of H2, HI,
and total gas surface densities with the star forming activity, derived from
the radio continuum (RC), along radial averages out to radii of 12kpc.
  We have created a complete map of M51 in 12CO 2-1 at a resolution of 450kpc
using HERA at the IRAM-30m telescope. These data are combined with maps of HI
and the radio-continuum at 20cm wavelength. The latter is used to estimate the
star formation rate (SFR), thus allowing to study the star formation efficiency
and the local Schmidt law. The velocity dispersion from CO is used to study the
critical surface density and the gravitational stability of the disk.
  The critical gas velocity dispersions needed to stabilize the gas against
gravitational collapse in the differentially rotating disk of M51 using the
Toomre criterion, vary with radius between 1.7 and 6.8 km/s. Observed radially
averaged dispersions derived from the CO data vary between 28 km/s in the
center and 8 km/s at radii of 7 to 9 kpc. They exceed the critical dispersions
by factors Q_gas of 1 to 5. We speculate that the gravitational potential of
stars leads to a critically stable disk.


  Mitscherlich's function is a well-known three-parameter non-linear regression
function that quantifies the relation between a stimulus or a time variable and
a response. Optimal designs for this function have been constructed only for
normally distributed responses with homoscedastic variances. In this paper, we
construct D-optimal designs for discrete and continuous responses having their
distribution function in the exponential family. We also demonstrate the
connection with D-optimality for weighted linear regression.


  Large language models (LLMs) are trained on vast amounts of text from the
internet, which contains both factual and misleading information about the
world. While unintuitive from a classic view of LMs, recent work has shown that
the truth value of a statement can be elicited from the model's
representations. This paper presents an explanation for why LMs appear to know
the truth despite not being trained with truth labels. We hypothesize that the
pretraining data is generated by groups of (un)truthful agents whose outputs
share common features, and they form a (un)truthful persona. By training on
this data, LMs can infer and represent the persona in its activation space.
This allows the model to separate truth from falsehoods and controls the
truthfulness of its generation. We show evidence for the persona hypothesis via
two observations: (1) we can probe whether a model's answer will be truthful
before it is generated; (2) finetuning a model on a set of facts improves its
truthfulness on unseen topics. Next, using arithmetics as a synthetic
environment, we show that structures of the pretraining data are crucial for
the model to infer the truthful persona. Overall, our findings suggest that
models can exploit hierarchical structures in the data to learn abstract
concepts like truthfulness.


  We propose Preferential MoE, a novel human-ML mixture-of-experts model that
augments human expertise in decision making with a data-based classifier only
when necessary for predictive performance. Our model exhibits an interpretable
gating function that provides information on when human rules should be
followed or avoided. The gating function is maximized for using human-based
rules, and classification errors are minimized. We propose solving a coupled
multi-objective problem with convex subproblems. We develop approximate
algorithms and study their performance and convergence. Finally, we demonstrate
the utility of Preferential MoE on two clinical applications for the treatment
of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and management of Major Depressive
Disorder (MDD).


  This study is a preliminary exploration of the concept of informativeness
-how much information a sentence gives about a word it contains- and its
potential benefits to building quality word representations from scarce data.
We propose several sentence-level classifiers to predict informativeness, and
we perform a manual annotation on a set of sentences. We conclude that these
two measures correspond to different notions of informativeness. However, our
experiments show that using the classifiers' predictions to train word
embeddings has an impact on embedding quality.


  With the rapid expansion of mobile phone networks in developing countries,
large-scale graph machine learning has gained sudden relevance in the study of
global poverty. Recent applications range from humanitarian response and
poverty estimation to urban planning and epidemic containment. Yet the vast
majority of computational tools and algorithms used in these applications do
not account for the multi-view nature of social networks: people are related in
myriad ways, but most graph learning models treat relations as binary. In this
paper, we develop a graph-based convolutional network for learning on
multi-view networks. We show that this method outperforms state-of-the-art
semi-supervised learning algorithms on three different prediction tasks using
mobile phone datasets from three different developing countries. We also show
that, while designed specifically for use in poverty research, the algorithm
also outperforms existing benchmarks on a broader set of learning tasks on
multi-view networks, including node labelling in citation networks.


  We discuss a dramatic change brought into the pQCD description of hard
processes in a nuclear environment by a large thickness of heavy nuclei. It
breaks the familiar linear $k_{\perp}$-factorization which must be replaced by
a new concept of the nonlinear $k_{\perp}$-factorization introduced in
\cite{Nonlinear}.We demonstrate the salient features of nonlinear
$k_{\perp}$-factorization on several examples from hard dijet production in DIS
off heavy nuclei to single-jet to dijet production in hadron-nucleus collisions
>. We also comment briefly on the non-linear BFKL evolution for gluon density
of nuclei.


  Neutrino emission and their transport of energy to the supernova shock region
are sensitive to the physics of hot and dense nuclear matter, which is a
complex problem due to the strong correlations induced by nuclear forces. We
derive charged-current opacities for electron neutrinos and antineutrinos in
supernova matter using a self-consistent approach based on the Skyrme effective
interaction. We include a mean field energy shift due to nuclear interaction
and corrections due to RPA correlations. A complete treatment of the full
Skyrme interaction, including a spin-orbit term, is given. To test the effect
of RPA corrections, neutrino and antineutrino opacities are computed using
different Skyrme parametrizations consistent with a number of infinite matter
constraints.


  We study the effect of nuclear matter in Upsilon production in dAu collisions
at RHIC and pPb collisions at the LHC. We find that the nuclear modification
factor, R^Upsilon_dAu, measured at RHIC is not satisfactorily reproduced by the
conventional effects used in the literature, namely the modification of the
gluon distribution in bound nucleons and an --effective-- survival probability
for a bound state to escape the nucleus. In particular, we argue that this
probability should be close to 1 as opposed to the J/psi case. We note that, at
backward rapidities, the unexpected suppression of R^Upsilon_dAu observed by
PHENIX hints at the presence of a gluon EMC effect, analogous to the quark EMC
effect -- but likely stronger. Further nuclear matter effects, such as
saturation and fractional energy loss, are discussed, but none of them fit in a
more global picture of quarkonium production. Predictions for Upsilon(nS) for
the forthcoming pPb run at 5 TeV at the LHC are also presented.


  A connected graph of order $n$ admitting a semiregular automorphism of order
$n/k$ is called a $k$-multicirculant. Highly symmetric multicirculants of small
valency have been extensively studied, and several classification results exist
for cubic vertex- and arc-transitive multicirculants. In this paper we study
the broader class of cubic vertex-transitive graphs of order $n$ admitting an
automorphism of order $n/3$ or larger that may not be semiregular. In
particular, we show that any such graph is either a $k$-multicirculant for some
$k \leq 3$, or it belongs to an infinite family of graphs of girth $6$.


  Quarkonium production in proton-nucleus collisions is a powerful tool to
disentangle cold nuclear matter effects. A model based on coherent energy loss
is able to explain the available quarkonium suppression data in a broad range
of rapidities, from fixed-target to collider energies, suggesting cold energy
loss to be the dominant effect in quarkonium suppression in p-A collisions.
This could be further tested in a high-energy fixed-target experiment using a
proton or nucleus beam. The nuclear modification factors of J/$\psi$ and
$\Upsilon$ as a function of rapidity are computed in p-A collisions at
$\sqrt{s}=114.6$ GeV, and in p-Pb and Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s}=72$ GeV.
These center-of-mass energies correspond to the collision on fixed-target
nuclei of 7 TeV protons and 2.76 TeV lead nuclei available at the LHC.


  During the last decade and a half, the new generation spectropolarimeter
Narval at Pic du Midi, France allowed the study of weak magnetic fields in cool
giant stars that are fairly evolved after main sequence. We present a short
summary on the recent knowledge on the magnetic fields and activity in giants
situated in the upper right part of the Hertzsprung-Russel (H-R) diagram and
discuss on the possible mechanisms for magnetic field generation in the
asymptotic giants branch (AGB) and post-AGB stars.


  Be stars are a class of rapidly rotating B stars with circumstellar disks
that cause Balmer and other line emission. There are three possible reasons for
the rapid rotation of Be stars: they may have been born as rapid rotators, spun
up by binary mass transfer, or spun up during the main-sequence (MS) evolution
of B stars. To test the various formation scenarios, we have conducted a
photometric survey of 55 open clusters in the southern sky. Of these, five
clusters are probably not physically associated groups and our results for two
other clusters are not reliable, but we identify 52 definite Be stars and an
additional 129 Be candidates in the remaining clusters. We use our results to
examine the age and evolutionary dependence of the Be phenomenon. We find an
overall increase in the fraction of Be stars with age until 100 Myr, and Be
stars are most common among the brightest, most massive B-type stars above the
zero-age MS (ZAMS). We show that a spin-up phase at the terminal-age MS (TAMS)
cannot produce the observed distribution of Be stars, but up to 73% of the Be
stars detected may have been spun-up by binary mass transfer. Most of the
remaining Be stars were likely rapid rotators at birth.
  Previous studies have suggested that low metallicity and high cluster density
may also favor Be star formation. Our results indicate a possible increase in
the fraction of Be stars with increasing cluster distance from the Galactic
center (in environments of decreasing metallicity). However, the trend is not
significant and could be ruled out due to the intrinsic scatter in our data. We
also find no relationship between the fraction of Be stars and cluster density.


  A graph $G$ is called a replication graph of a graph $H$ if $G$ is obtained
from $H$ by replacing vertices of $H$ by arbitrary cliques of vertices and then
replacing each edge in $H$ by all the edges between corresponding cligues. For
a given graph $H$ the $\rho_R(H)$ is the minimal number of vertices of a
replication graph $G$ of $H$ such that every proper vertex coloring of $G$
contains a rainbow induced subgraph isomorphic to $H$ having exactly one vertex
in each replication clique of $G$. We prove some bounds for $\rho_R$ for some
classes of graphs and compute some exact values. Also some experimental results
obtained by a computer search are presented and conjectures based on them are
formulated.


  Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are increasingly prevalent in education
research, and are often regarded as a gold standard of causal inference. Two
main virtues of randomized experiments are that they (1) do not suffer from
confounding, thereby allowing for an unbiased estimate of an intervention's
causal impact, and (2) allow for design-based inference, meaning that the
physical act of randomization largely justifies the statistical assumptions
made. However, RCT sample sizes are often small, leading to low precision; in
many cases RCT estimates may be too imprecise to guide policy or inform
science. Observational studies, by contrast, have strengths and weaknesses
complementary to those of RCTs. Observational studies typically offer much
larger sample sizes, but may suffer confounding. In many contexts, experimental
and observational data exist side by side, allowing the possibility of
integrating "big observational data" with "small but high-quality experimental
data" to get the best of both. Such approaches hold particular promise in the
field of education, where RCT sample sizes are often small due to cost
constraints, but automatic collection of observational data, such as in
computerized educational technology applications, or in state longitudinal data
systems (SLDS) with administrative data on hundreds of thousand of students,
has made rich, high-dimensional observational data widely available. We outline
an approach that allows one to employ machine learning algorithms to learn from
the observational data, and use the resulting models to improve precision in
randomized experiments. Importantly, there is no requirement that the machine
learning models are "correct" in any sense, and the final experimental results
are guaranteed to be exactly unbiased. Thus, there is no danger of confounding
biases in the observational data leaking into the experiment.


  We give a comprehensive review of concepts and numerical calculations for
SU(2) and SU(3) baryonic systems which are considered as many body systems
composed of three quarks coupled to a polarized Dirac sea by a
Nambu--Jona-Lasinio like interaction. The general formalism as well as the
construction and numerical solution of non-topological mean field solitons are
exhibited. Systems with good spin/flavour/isospin/momentum quantum numbers are
obtained by using the SU(2)/SU(3)-cranking and the pushing approach. The
article contains also recent results for various extensions of the model, e.g.
vector and axialvector couplings or the inclusion of scale invariance.
Furthermore the relationship of this approach to topological models (Skyrme
type) as well as to (valence-)quark-meson models (Gell-Mann--Levi chiral sigma
model) is explained. (to be publ. in Rep.Prog.Phys.)


  We study the contribution of new sets of two-loop Barr-Zee type diagrams to
the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon within the two-Higgs-doublet model
framework. We show that some of these contributions can be quite sizeable for a
large region of the parameter space and can significantly reduce, and in some
cases even explain, the discrepancy between the theoretical prediction and the
experimentally measured value of this observable. Analytical expressions are
given for all the calculations performed in this work.


  A new Bayesian method for the analysis of folded pulsar timing data is
presented that allows for the simultaneous evaluation of evolution in the pulse
profile in either frequency or time, along with the timing model and additional
stochastic processes such as red spin noise, or dispersion measure variations.
We model the pulse profiles using `shapelets' - a complete ortho-normal set of
basis functions that allow us to recreate any physical profile shape. Any
evolution in the profiles can then be described as either an arbitrary number
of independent profiles, or using some functional form. We perform simulations
to compare this approach with established methods for pulsar timing analysis,
and to demonstrate model selection between different evolutionary scenarios
using the Bayesian evidence. %s The simplicity of our method allows for many
possible extensions, such as including models for correlated noise in the pulse
profile, or broadening of the pulse profiles due to scattering. As such, while
it is a marked departure from standard pulsar timing analysis methods, it has
clear applications for both new and current datasets, such as those from the
European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA) and International Pulsar Timing Array
(IPTA).


  Efficient clutter filtering for pulsed radar systems remains an open issue
when employing pulse-to-pulse modulation and irregular pulse interval waveforms
within the coherent processing interval. The range and Doppler domain should be
jointly processed for effective filtering leading to a large computational
overhead. In this paper, the joint domain filtering is performed by
constructing a clutter projection matrix, also known as the projected
non-identical multiple pulse compression (NIMPC) method. The paper extends the
projected NIMPC filter to irregular pulse interval waveforms. Additionally, a
kernel-based regularization will be introduced to tackle the ill-conditioning
of the matrix inverse of the NIMPC method. The regularization is based on a
model of the second-order statistics of the clutter. Moreover, a
computationally efficient algorithm is formulated based on fast Fourier
transforms and the projected conjugate gradient method. Through a Monte Carlo
study it is demonstrated that the proposed kernelized filtering outperforms the
projected NIMPC in clutter filtering.


  In this paper, using Maxwell's equal-area law we study the phase transition
of charged AdS black holes by choosing different independent conjugate
variables. As is well known, the phase transition can be characterized by the
state function of the system, the determination of the phase transition point
has nothing to do with the choice of independent conjugate variables. To
studying the thermodynamic properties of AdS black holes we give the conditions
under which the independent conjugate variables are chosen. When the charge of
the black hole is invariable, according to the conditions we find that the
phase transition is related to the electric potential and the horizon radius of
the charged black hole. Keeping the cosmological constant as a fixed parameter,
the phase transition of a charged AdS black hole is related to the ratio of the
event horizon to cosmological constant of the black hole. This conclusion is of
great importance for us to study the critical phenomenon of black holes and to
improve the self-consistent geometry theory of black hole thermodynamic.


  In this review article, we give overview on the extended chiral quark models.
In particular, how these models are extended to include the higher-order
interactions, quantized fields, logarithmic potential and the effect of these
modifications on hadron properties at hot and dense mediums. In addition, how
we deal with non-normalization of the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model by using
mid-point technique. Therefore, the extended quark models give satisfied
results in comparison with lattice QCD at finite temperature and baryonic
chemical potential. The extra effort is needed to deal with chiral quark models
in the presence of external magnetic field at finite temperature and density.


  We have constructed a lattice Wigner-Weyl code that generalizes the
Buot-Jensen algorithm to the calculation of electron transport in
two-dimensional circular-cylindrically symmetric structures, where the Wigner
function equation is solved self-consistently with the Poisson equation. Almost
all of the numerical simulations to date have dealt with the restriction of the
problem to one dimensional transport. In real devices, electrons are not
confined to a single dimension and the coulombic potential is fully present and
felt in three dimensions. We show the derivation of the 2D equation in
cylindrical coordinates as well as approximations employed in the calculation
of the four-dimensional convolution integral of the Wigner function and the
potential. We work under the assumption that longitudinal transport is more
dominant than radial transport and employ parallel processing techniques. The
total transport is calculated in two steps: (1) transport the particles in the
longitudinal direction in each shell separately, then (2) each shell exchanges
particles with its nearest neighbor. Most of this work is concerned with the
former step: A 1D space and 2D momentum transport problem. Time evolution
simulations based on these method are presented for three different cases. Each
case lead to numerical results consistent with expectations. Discussions of
future improvements are discussed.


  Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA), with its high density and long durability, is a
promising storage medium for long-term archival storage and has attracted much
attention. Several studies have verified the feasibility of using DNA for
archival storage with a small amount of data. However, the achievable storage
capacity of DNA as archival storage has not been comprehensively investigated
yet. Theoretically, the DNA storage density is about 1 exabyte/mm3 (109
GB/mm3). However, according to our investigation, DNA storage tube capacity
based on the current synthesizing and sequencing technologies is only at
hundreds of Gigabytes due to the limitation of multiple bio and technology
constraints. This paper identifies and investigates the critical factors
affecting the single DNA tube capacity for archival storage. Finally, we
suggest several promising directions to overcome the limitations and enhance
DNA storage capacity.


  We point out a potential common origin of the recently observed 750 GeV
diphoton resonance and a Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) candidate.
In a dark QCD sector with an unbroken dark G-parity, the diphoton resonance
could be a dark G-even pion, while the WIMP could be the lightest dark G-odd
pion. Both particles are Standard Model gauge singlets and have the same decay
constant. For the dark pion decay constant of around 500 GeV, both the diphoton
excess at the LHC and the dark matter thermal abundance can be accommodated in
our model. Our model predicts additional dark G-even and dark G-odd color-octet
pions within reach of the 13 TeV LHC runs. For the 5 + 5bar model, compatible
with the Grand Unified Theories, the WIMP mass is predicted to be within (613,
750) GeV.


  The Ziggurat Algorithm is a very fast rejection sampling method for
generating PseudoRandom Numbers (PRNs) from common statistical distributions.
The algorithm divides a distribution into rectangular layers that stack on top
of each other (resembling a Ziggurat), subsuming the desired distribution.
Random values within these rectangular layers are then sampled by rejection.
This implementation splits layers into two types: those constituting the
majority that fall completely under the distribution and can be sampled
extremely fast without a rejection test, and a few additional layers that
encapsulate the fringe of the distribution and require a rejection test. This
method offers speedups of 65% for exponentially- and 82% for
normally-distributed PRNs when compared to the best available C implementations
of these generators. Even greater speedups are obtained when the algorithm is
extended to the Python and MATLAB/OCTAVE programming environments.


  We have developed a scheme for reducing LIGO suspension thermal noise close
to violin-mode resonances. The idea is to monitor directly the
thermally-induced motion of a small portion of (a ``point'' on) each suspension
fiber, thereby recording the random forces driving the test-mass motion close
to each violin-mode frequency. One can then suppress the thermal noise by
optimally subtracting the recorded fiber motions from the measured motion of
the test mass, i.e., from the LIGO output. The proposed method is a
modification of an analogous but more technically difficult scheme by
Braginsky, Levin and Vyatchanin for reducing broad-band suspension thermal
noise. The efficiency of our method is limited by the sensitivity of the sensor
used to monitor the fiber motion. If the sensor has no intrinsic noise (i.e.
has unlimited sensitivity), then our method allows, in principle, a complete
removal of violin spikes from the thermal-noise spectrum. We find that in
LIGO-II interferometers, in order to suppress violin spikes below the
shot-noise level, the intrinsic noise of the sensor must be less than
\~2*10^{-13}cm/sqrt(Hz). This sensitivity is two orders of magnitude greater
than that of currently available sensors.


  The current COVID-19 pandemic highlights the utility of contact tracing, when
combined with case isolation and social distancing, as an important tool for
mitigating the spread of a disease [1]. Contact tracing provides a mechanism of
identifying individuals with a high likelihood of previous exposure to a
contagious disease, allowing additional precautions to be put in place to
prevent continued transmission. Here we consider a cryptographic approach to
contact tracing based on secure two-party computation (2PC). We begin by
considering the problem of comparing a set of location histories held by two
parties to determine whether they have come within some threshold distance
while at the same time maintaining the privacy of the location histories. We
propose a solution to this problem using pre-shared keys, adapted from an
equality testing protocol due to Ishai et al [2]. We discuss how this protocol
can be used to maintain privacy within practical contact tracing scenarios,
including both app-based approaches and approaches which leverage location
history held by telecoms and internet service providers. We examine the
efficiency of this approach and show that existing infrastructure is sufficient
to support anonymised contact tracing at a national level.


  State-of-the-art deep neural network (DNN) pruning techniques, applied
one-shot before training starts, evaluate sparse architectures with the help of
a single criterion -- called pruning score. Pruning weights based on a solitary
score works well for some architectures and pruning rates but may also fail for
other ones. As a common baseline for pruning scores, we introduce the notion of
a generalized synaptic score (GSS). In this work we do not concentrate on a
single pruning criterion, but provide a framework for combining arbitrary GSSs
to create more powerful pruning strategies. These COmbined Pruning Scores
(COPS) are obtained by solving a constrained optimization problem. Optimizing
for more than one score prevents the sparse network to overly specialize on an
individual task, thus COntrols Pruning before training Starts. The
combinatorial optimization problem given by COPS is relaxed on a linear program
(LP). This LP is solved analytically and determines a solution for COPS.
Furthermore, an algorithm to compute it for two scores numerically is proposed
and evaluated. Solving COPS in such a way has lower complexity than the best
general LP solver. In our experiments we compared pruning with COPS against
state-of-the-art methods for different network architectures and image
classification tasks and obtained improved results.


We give a very short proof of the claim in the title.


  Recent experimental work has demonstrated the ability to achieve
reconfigurable photon localization in lossy photonic lattices by continuously
driving them with lasers strategically positioned at specific locations. This
localization results from the perfect, destructive interference of light
emitted from different positions and, because of that, occurs only at very
specific frequencies. Here, we examine this localization regime in the presence
of standard optical Kerr non-linearities, such as those found in polaritonic
lattices, and show that they stabilize driven-dissipative localization across
frequency ranges significantly broader than those observed in the linear
regime. Moreover, we demonstrate that, contrary to intuition, in most
siutations this driven-dissipative localization does not enhance non-linear
effects like optical bistabilities, due to a concurrent reduction in overall
intensities. Nevertheless, we are able to identify certain parameter regions
where non-linear enhancement is achieved, corresponding to situations where
emission from different spots constructively interferes.


  We derive color decompositions of arbitrary tree and one-loop QCD amplitudes
into color ordered objects called primitive amplitudes. Furthermore, we derive
general fermion flip and reversion identities spanning the null space among the
primitive amplitudes and use them to prove that all color ordered tree
amplitudes of massless QCD can be written as linear combinations of color
ordered tree amplitudes of $\mathcal{N}=4$ super Yang-Mills theory.


  Recently, diagrammatic extensions of dynamical mean field theory (DMFT) have
been proposed for including short- and long-range correlations beyond DMFT on
an equal footing. We employ one of these, the dynamical vertex approximation
(D$\Gamma$A), and study the two-dimensional Hubbard model on a square lattice.
We define two transition lines in the phase diagram which correspond,
respectively, to the opening of the gap in the nodal direction and throughout
the Fermi surface. Our self-energy data show that the evolution between the two
regimes occurs in a gradual way (crossover) and also that at low enough
temperatures the whole Fermi surface is always gapped. Furthermore, we present
a comparison of our D$\Gamma$A calculations at a parameter set where data
obtained by other techniques are available.


  Within the framework of exact renormalization group flow equations, a
scale-dependent transformation of the field variables provides for a continuous
translation of UV to IR degrees of freedom. Using the gauged NJL model as an
example, this translation results in a construction of partial bosonization at
all scales. A fixed-point structure arises which makes it possible to
distinguish between fundamental-particle and bound-state behavior of the scalar
fields.


  A general framework for analyzing the recently discovered phase transitions
in the steady state of dissipation-driven open quantum systems is still
missing. In order to fill this gap we extend the so-called fidelity approach to
quantum phase transitions to open systems whose steady state is a Gaussian
Fermionic state. We endow the manifold of correlations matrices of
steady-states with a metric tensor g measuring the distinguishability distance
between solutions corresponding to different set of control parameters. The
phase diagram can be then mapped out in terms of the scaling-behavior of g and
connections with the Liouvillean gap and the model correlation functions
unveiled. We argue that the fidelity approach, thanks to its
differential-geometric and information-theoretic nature, provides novel
insights on dissipative quantum critical phenomena as well as a general and
powerful strategy to explore them.


  The scale and scope of the physics studied at the Auger Observatory offer
significant opportunities for original outreach work. Education, outreach, and
public relations of the Auger collaboration are coordinated in a task of its
own whose goals are to encourage and support a wide range of efforts that link
schools and the public with the Auger scientists and the science of cosmic
rays, particle physics, and associated technologies. This report focuses on the
impact of the collaboration in Mendoza Province, Argentina, as: the Auger
Visitor Center in Malargue that has hosted over 29,000 visitors since 2001, the
Auger Celebration and a collaboration-sponsored science fair held on the
Observatory campus in November 2005, the opening of the James Cronin School in
Malargue in November 2006, public lectures, school visits, and courses for
science teachers. As the collaboration prepares the proposal for the northern
Auger site foreseen to be in southeast Colorado, plans for a comprehensive
outreach program are being developed in parallel, as described here.


  Most past work on social network link fraud detection tries to separate
genuine users from fraudsters, implicitly assuming that there is only one type
of fraudulent behavior. But is this assumption true? And, in either case, what
are the characteristics of such fraudulent behaviors? In this work, we set up
honeypots ("dummy" social network accounts), and buy fake followers (after
careful IRB approval). We report the signs of such behaviors including oddities
in local network connectivity, account attributes, and similarities and
differences across fraud providers. Most valuably, we discover and characterize
several types of fraud behaviors. We discuss how to leverage our insights in
practice by engineering strongly performing entropy-based features and
demonstrating high classification accuracy. Our contributions are (a)
instrumentation: we detail our experimental setup and carefully engineered data
collection process to scrape Twitter data while respecting API rate-limits, (b)
observations on fraud multimodality: we analyze our honeypot fraudster
ecosystem and give surprising insights into the multifaceted behaviors of these
fraudster types, and (c) features: we propose novel features that give strong
(>0.95 precision/recall) discriminative power on ground-truth Twitter data.